Your Birth Religion

[MissAlice]

I wouldn't say I was brought up in an atheist household even though my dad was one in the closet. As for my mother....I don't know how to explain her strange beliefs (spiritualist?). But my grandparents looked after us for the majority of our childhood. They took us to church and grandma would preach to us about the bible and why Jesus died for our sins..etc etc. So....I'm not exactly sure what I was born. Secular I guess.

 

[Kathryn]

Me thinks you are bluffing?

Are you serious though, is that why?

No bluff - on my poll "Christian" is in italics.

 

[Gharib]

No bluff - on my poll "Christian" is in italics.

Oh, OK I never knew that. :cover:

 

[Kathryn]

Oh, OK I never knew that. :cover:

Me either, till now!

 

[Father Heathen]

Christian, Church of The Nazarene.

 

[Twig pentagram]

I was raised in Bethel Temple Baptist Church.

 

[Bob L]

I was born and raised in a French-Canadian Roman Catholic family. All my life I felt very uncomfortable with the Catholic Church, its authoritarianism, its stifling rules, it's emphasis on sin and guilt. After years and years of going back and forth between going to Mass and staying away I did a critical self-examination of my beliefs, and after much research and thinking I came to the conclusion that there was no evidence for the existence of God, and by extension all that Catholicism preached, and so I became an atheist. And I've never been happier or freer since.

 

[xkatz]

I was brought up in Judaism- I really don't know what to believe anymore TBH :/

 

[MissDiscerner]

Another ex-Catholic here! Now I'm a non-denominational seeker.

 

[Karl Streicher]

I honestly never had one and I am thankful to both of my parents for that

 

[InChrist]

I was raised in the United Pentecostal Church myself, but I have mixed feelings about it. I won't lie and say I never liked it because I did have some good times with the other kids.

Part of me though always doubted it and that increased in my teen years. I also didn't like not being given a choice.

I left because I had become too liberal, too skeptical and because I wanted to explore other things.

I now entirely doubt most of what I was raised to believe- tongues, etc. I was always skeptical of hell.

I was raised in the Catholic religion and left because I saw hypocrisy and I was rebellious and I really wasn't too interested in religion at that point in my life. Later, I looked into Eastern religions and philosophies for awhile, but then met some Mormons and converted to Mormonism. I left Mormonism because I came to see certain teachings and practices as very strange and trivial. I didn't think it was right the way men in authority would claim to personally hear from God concerning things that others should do. I found the atmosphere inside the Mormon temple to fill me with foreboding sense of the presence of evil. After this, I spiritually wandered through various new age, occult, metaphysical, and positive thinking ideas and beliefs. At one point, I almost joined another group which I now consider a pseudo-christian cult, but was hesitant. I wondered if I should go back to the Catholic Church, I just wasn't sure where the real truth was or what God wanted so I asked and kept asking God. Jesus Christ answered and I was saved and became a new creation in Christ.

I have very good friends who also spent years in the United Pentecostal Church and left and are now trusting in Christ alone.

 

[Penumbra]

When I was born, I was raised in some liberal nominally-Catholic-but-not-really inclusive loving vague monotheism type of belief.

 

[InformedIgnorance]

My 'birth religion' was Agnostic Atheism (naturally); I was raised a Catholic in a religious family; then flirted with Atheism, then Agnosticism, before I found my current theological approach (as opposed to theological position or spirituality or religion)

 

[s2a]

What religious background do you come from?

It might be fair to say that my parents were disinterested in religion… for themselves or for myself as a child.

Were you raised something other then you are now?

To be fair, I was neither exposed nor compelled to attend any religious indoctrinations as a child until I was left with my grandparents for a summer or two…if it matters, my grandparents were practicing Methodists...

Why did you leave it?

I was a kid, and had no informed consent to offer in where I was led to compulsory attend on sunday mornings. Suffice to say I resisted, but was ordered to comply

One never really leaves a “club” one never voluntarily joins, I would offer as answer tho...

If you've remained in it, why? If you ever left it and then returned to it, why?

Let’s just say that there came a time I finally accepted that Santa wasn’t real….I think I was 7 or 8 at the time…

Feel free to share if you like. I've known some of you on here awhile, and others I'm just meeting, but it'd be interesting to see where you come from.

I'll be sharing too

Welcome aboard.

 

[Katzpur]

Raised Roman Catholic in Italian-American family. Converted to Eastern Orthodox when I was 23. Always had Hindu leanings from the time I was a teenager. Fell away from Christianity almost 20 years ago. Became agnostic/deist. Hinduism resurfaced and I started fully embracing it maybe two years ago.

That's an interesting spiritual path. Could you explain what it was that drew you to Hinduism?

 

[Stella Polaris]

I voted Agnostic/Atheist. Mostly agnostic because though there was some spirituality, it was rather vague and not a focal point. I was taught spirituality via Eckankar. My father was the one that got into it. I just remember reading an Eckankar book about a rabbit who had big feet and wanted to fit in with the other rabbits (while skiing!) and realized he had to accept himself for who he was. And there were some workbook things, but I don't remember details from it. We never went to any groups or anything, just home stuff. I do remember the HU mantra and God being talked about as light and sound. And mentions of astral travel. My parents weren't really big followers of it, so I only got vague bits and pieces.

I declared myself atheist when I was 11. Since then, my parents have as well. Only unlike them, I have gone back to believing. I am a theist. To go into what occurred from the age of 11 till now would take too long. I'll just say, I am very interested and curious about all faiths and have spent time (some longer than others) learning about them. It wasn't until years later that I found ex-Eckankar websites online and mentions of cult support groups. I never experienced anything cult-like when I was little so it was sort of weird support groups for it! I have my opinion of Eckankar now that I've learned about the many faiths it seemed to cull it's beliefs and practices from. I'll refrain from going into that here though. I also discovered Sant Mat in my research over the years. I recognized tons from there -- Light and Sound of God and tons more. I've left Eckankar in the past and moved on, it only took up a small portion of my life and don't really give it much thought.

My religion at the moment...I don't have one. I am very drawn to (always have been) to Hinduism and a few others. I'm just going with the flow at the moment.

 

[Madhuri]

Gaudiya Vaishnavism (strand of Hinduism fyi)

 

[hola!]

i was born into a muslim family and raised as a muslim, but recently i've decided that this religion business just isn't for me. it was fun for a while, but now its time to move on. i left the religion without bitterness. i appreciate each and every way of life and see them all as meaningful and beautiful: islam, christianity, judaism, buddhism, name it. but when i thought through the natures of religion as a whole... meh, i'm just not convinced. so i called it quits.

so now i'm agnostic until further notice

 

[in_lakech]

I was raised in a Pentecostal Christian fundamentalist household. I know my parents meant no harm by indoctrinating me into this belief, but I came to discover through research and self-evaluation that this doctrine was not for me.

There are just too many similarities with christianity and egyptian mythology. Many stories in the christian bible were just redesigned from egyptian myths. I could not take the bible as the absolute truth. Also, I don't agree with the idea of sin, devils, hell, heaven, etc. I am atheistic to the idea of a personal god, but agnostic to the claim of a god in general.

Right now, I practice a secular form of Buddhism and tie in some ideas from Hinduism (I love to chant and the hindu deity Ganesh) and Stoicism.

I still enjoy christian music. Although I don't agree with alot of the lyrics to christian songs, I think the music and singers are beautiful.

 

[Falvlun]

What religious background do you come from? Were you raised something other then you are now? Why did you leave it?

If you've remained in it, why? If you ever left it and then returned to it, why?

Feel free to share if you like. I've known some of you on here awhile, and others I'm just meeting, but it'd be interesting to see where you come from.

I'll be sharing too

I was raised basic protestant Christian (Lutheran, Southern Baptist, "Bible-believing" at different turns.) I was really hard-core into it.

But I always asked questions. I didn't just believe God and Christianity; I wanted to understand it. Some questions weren't answered or the answers weren't very satisfactory, but I always ended up deciding that they didn't really matter, they didn't effect the core of my belief.

...until freshman year of college, when I thought up a new question, an issue that I ended up calling the "fundamental problem". Essentially, it was this awareness that Christianity was unfair: everyone did not have an equal chance at salvation. This rocked me, and my faith, to the core. I was unable to reconcile my sense of morality with this, and I realized I was no longer a Christian.

Over the course of the following year, I also ended up losing my faith in the existence of a God. That was much, much more difficult.

I am currently an agnostic atheist, and pretty comfy about it. I don't foresee that changing much in the future, but then again, I couldn't have predicted leaving Christianity either.