(Non)Religious background

[TheCakeIsAlive]

Having had to turn my mind to statistics again recently, seeing there are a few "where are you from"-threads and reading some religious debate, I found myself wondering what the religious backgrounds of the members of this forum are.

I am aware that religious might not be the best world to describe all the options (I'm thinking of atheism/agnosticism in particular), and I have only used a limited number of options (the ones I thought most likely to be relevant). While a simplicitation, I felt it was a workable one just to get an idea of the diversity of worldviews in our little community.

I'm not intending for this to become a heated debate and any kind of "my worldview is better than yours" will not be accepted, but feel free of course to exchange ideas! One of the things I like so much about this place is that it is so diverse and that people of all kinds of cultural backgrounds can meet and exchange ideas.

[Joal 555]

I was brought up in an orthodox/practicing Jewish family.

I'm mainly non-practicing now, but I still follow a very limited number of Jewish practices out of respect for my parents. I therefore voted "Judaism" in both categories.

[tma]

I was brought up pretty traditional Protestant Christian.

I am now *far* from what one would typify as "traditional" Christian in certain worldviews. However, my faith tradition, (which I still very much participate in) happens to be Christianity.

[retrofan191]

I was lucky enough to not have been brought up in a certain religion. I was always told I could make my own choice in what beliefs made most sense to me.

[MyOwnPrivateSFC]

I think this is a really interesting topic, but I also think the poll needs to have ticky-boxes instead of select-ones. In my case, I was brought up not-too-observant Jewish by my dad and maternal grandparents, and culturally-Jewish-but-militantly-atheist by my mother...and that's the easy one! What I am now is a whole lot more complex.

[ImTHATweird]

This is a great topic! I love different cultures and religions. I was raised protestant, (although I'm still a kid ) but it was a very open and excepting church. The pastor was gay, and a damn good pastor he is! I believe in God, but a loving, caring God who excepts all, and who's only rule is Torrence and forgiving and I don't really take the Bible literally nor do I believe in the devil. So, I voted Christianity, but I'm not sure if this counts as "traditional"

[Garnet]

My mom's side of the family was veeery loosely Christian, and my dad's had a few pastors in it. Church or religion was never a part of my upbringing, though. Every once in a great while my mom would bring it up, but it was so far from a fixture or element in my life that I'd usually end up giving her the crazy eye.

Not that they discouraged it, either. We just really didn't talk about or acknowledge it at all. I think not having any beliefs instilled in me as a kid may have contributed to my atheism or agnosticism as an adult. The bulk of my experience with Christianity has by far been of the hateful, extremist, or "preachy" nature (obviously I am NOT condemning the religion itself or anyone that practices it, just that I haven't had any good experiences or changes of heart that would make me question my decision).

[tma]

The bulk of my experience with Christianity has by far been of the hateful, extremist, or "preachy" nature (obviously I am NOT condemning the religion itself or anyone that practices it, just that I haven't had any good experiences or changes of heart that would make me question my decision)

I can totally understand that. Sometimes I *really*, *really* want another label for either myself or others that follow my faith tradition that *aren't* that way. I think that since we tend to be a lot quieter in a way (like not being pushy and "in your face" ) that it is tough to see that. Especially in some areas. Anyone who is like that (regardless of their faith tradition or non-tradition) is just .... GRRRR... not a nice person. Maybe their faith/ belief system is so weak that they feel like *any* questions to it are cause to lash out (??) Anyway... I'm sorry that people have been like that to you.

[Sawyer]

My parents grew up Catholic and raised me accordingly (my dad is more majorly Catholic than my mom). I went to Catholicism classes on Wednesday nights (got communion, confirmation, etc.) but we only went to Catholic mass on big holidays -- the rest of the year, we went to one of those high tech high spirit Protestant churches.

These days I'm mostly non-religious but I have a certain fondness for Buddhism, for slightly personal reasons that I'd be more than happy to talk about but am uncomfortable posting here in fear of being discovered by someone I know.

[VoOs]

I'm an atheist, raised in a non-religious family in one of the most secularized countries in the world. While they did identify as Christians, neither of my grandparents were very religious, and apparently my grand-grandfather on my mother's side wasn't either, which was unusual for his generation.

(Interesting topic, TheCake. )

[AdrianMarx]

My parents are Catholic and I went to a Catholic primary school and I'm at a Catholic high school right now. I used to be forced to church every single week but I think they must have finally realised that I was never going to enjoy it and now I only go on occasion. I'd still consider myself a Catholic, I think, but there was a long time when I was utterly terrified to admit to my religion online because I'd seen so many people mocking and tearing down everything to do with Christianity because of the stance they think we take on same sex marriage.

Honestly, I'm not sure what I'd say my current religion is. I'm not a practising Catholic, anyway.

[smooshi]

Both of my parents are culturally Catholics, but nor my mother nor father have ever been particularly religious or went to church. Since I come from a country where 86% of the inhabitants are Catholic, I got really involved in the service and got all the sacraments.

Now, where I live, church is more or less ruled by right-winged political parties. One of the Penance guides they gave us in my church actually included voting for lefties on their list of sins. Priests and religion teachers often talk harshly of everyone who doesn't fit into their picture of society- homosexuals, feminists, socialists and lefties, to name a few. Last year, there was the referendum with the question being: "Do you agree that a matrimony is an union of one man and one woman?"

This made things way more worse- there have even been cases of priests refusing to marry couples in case they don't vote against marriage equality. Constant pressure to vote and homophobic remarks were included as well, of course.

Since I identify as queer and consider myself an open-minded person, this made me skeptical, and after questioning lots of things I decided not attend masses or religion classes any more. I still believe in a higher power and pray, but I'm trying not to get involved in any religious groups. And I'm happy that way.

[Marshmallow Peep]

I was raised in a very Catholic family. Heck, one of my aunts is a nun. I found that really reading the bible and paying attention in church turned me off from religion. Junior year of highschool or so when I really, really did not believe what I was being told by my parents about the topic of religion. I looked into Buddhism and a little bit of Judaism for about a year before then, but right now I feel a lot happier not having any religious affiliation whatsoever.

[murphy dee]

I was raised atheist/agnostic. My dad is a staunch atheist and my mom is agnostic though she was raised Lutheran I believe. They always let me indulge in whatever religious stuff I wanted to, though, like they were supportive of the times I went to church with my school friends or that summer I spent in vacation bible school with a neighbor friend. I'm still atheist/agnostic (I can never decide haha), but I definitely have a love and appreciation for the religions of the world and I love to study them and learn about them.

[SpookyScarySkeleton]

Meh in my view I'm an atheist.

I wasn't really raised in a certain relegion or any.

Never went to church or prayed.. or anything. Never read a book for a certain relegion and what not

(Errr I dont know how to spell some words)

[bloom]

I was raised first as Catholic, and then much to my father's utter and eternal disgust, switched to a more non-denominational Christian church when I was around eleven.

I was agnostic around the ages of 13/14/15, but by the time I was 16 I was more or less solidified in my atheism. I've tried very hard to dabble in paganism here and there, because I'm very fond of ritual in general and I love a lot of the ideas attached to it, but I can't force myself to believe. I think I just lack the bump of religion on my brain or something.

[Garnet]

I was raised first as Catholic, and then much to my father's utter and eternal disgust, switched to a more non-denominational Christian church when I was around eleven.

I was agnostic around the ages of 13/14/15, but by the time I was 16 I was more or less solidified in my atheism. I've tried very hard to dabble in paganism here and there, because I'm very fond of ritual in general and I love a lot of the ideas attached to it, but I can't force myself to believe. I think I just lack the bump of religion on my brain or something.

Oh, yes! I dabbled in first Wicca and then a more general form of Paganism, too, around the same age. If I had to pick any religion, it would probably be the closest. I liked the belief system and, as you said, the ritual, but I felt like I wasn't taking it "seriously" enough to really call myself a believer.

[March Hare]

I was raised a Modern Humanist Oecumenic, and now I am... something. I honestly can't really explain it without going TL;DR on you all. There is a Divinity somewhere, but it's unpinpointable, and the human mind comes into it somewhere (since, let's face it, religion and divinity are exclusively human concepts).

[tenderwarrior]

I grew up in a loosely based Christian home for a little while. All of my family used to go to a Christian church on Sundays (which served donuts at the end and that was my favorite part!) and I remember going to Sunday school when I was little, but my family has never been very religious. My sister and I were baptized and we celebrated the major Christian holidays but that was it.

My father was raised Catholic and my mother was raised Protestant, but now it seems that my father is atheist while my mother is spiritual. I went to one of those big mega churches for a bit but I never really enjoyed it. It seemed too "in your face" and trying too hard to be modern and hip. If I did go to another Christian church, I would definitely pick one a little more close-knit and more about the teachings of Jesus rather than being flashy and cool. But now, I think I'm more agnostic and leaning towards that there is something out there. I'm also interested in Judaism, too. Of course I'll really have to do my research before choosing a religion for myself.

[melonbun]

I was raised and still am a practising Roman Catholic. I go to church with my family every Sunday and for holiday masses. I've also been volunteering at my parish as an usher for almost 8 years now. However, some of my personal beliefs/views don't exactly align with all of the teachings of the church and there are still a few things that I don't really understand the reasoning behind.

[•.*°•☆. Q .☆•°*.•]

I was raised Jewish, and now my religion is mostly science and nature? Like i find physics and biology really awe-inspiring and sacred, and i feel a deep spiritual connection with nature. And I believe in energy, in both a scientific and also spiritual sense.

[kendisima]

I adore religions and religious discussion, very cool topic

I was raised very Christian. My dad taught us lessons every Sunday. We never ended up finding a church we liked, so my dad bought books and tapes and taught us using them. I was a very religious child.

Around seventeen or eighteen, I began doing research on religion and discovered my own feelings on religion were nothing like my parents'. So although I appreciated the lessons taught with my Christian upbringing, I found that those weren't my beliefs. I call myself a Deist-- which isn't a religion, but a belief that God created the universe and then left and isn't watching us (as opposed to a Theist, which is what many religions believe [that God created the universe and has been closely watching and changing our lives daily]). I am strictly non-religious now... even though I practice Theraveda Buddhism with my boyfriend, who is a Theraveda Buddhist (we celebrate Buddhist holidays, and he meditates daily [i... attempt to meditate, haha]).

Religions are super interesting, super cool that everyone has such a different background

[cally]

I wasn't raised as anything. We celebrated Christmas and Easter, but that was for the presents and the chocolate. I honestly thought (until 6th grade) that Easter was the holiday for the bunnies. I never went to church or anything like that and I felt really left out when I was in elementary school because everyone I knew either went to Hebrew school or CCD and I sat at home and ate cookies. It was really awkward for me so I started doing my own research at a young age, reading everything I could get a hold of. My BFF is Jewish so I decided I should be too. I pretty much believed this was my life choice up until I was about 19-20 or so, minus the small part of my life where I thought I should be a Hare Krishna (I was really into the Beatles and George Harrison, I don't even know).

Anyways, I even went as so far to visit a rabbi and discuss this with him, and was even going to convert. I had books and a Star of David and everything and was even the VP of my uni's Hillel for a year.

And then I sort of became disenfranchised with religion and everything. I don't know really what happened. None of my close friends were religious while I was an undergrad, and I was starting to get involved in other things and the people in Hillel were really cliquey and rude and I just felt I was being made fun of (I was).

Anyways. . . then time passed and I started dating someone very seriously (this was 14 years ago). He was very adamant that I renounce my past association with wanting to be Jewish. He was very upset by all of it. At that time I was starting to question religion and was starting to do research into Christianity (my sister at 16 had become Catholic and I was slightly intrigued). My boyfriend/fiancé was thrilled about this and started to take me to Church. I found an RCIA program, and since I had already done so much reading I was allowed into the program even though it was already a quarter of the way over. That Easter, I became a Catholic; 13 years ago. I was pretty into it, I did a lot of volunteering, and I went to Mass every week.

(I did end up breaking it up (finally) with the fiancé which was a smart decision- he was a Nazi and I mean that in the most literal sense.)

When I moved to a different city I found a great parish and made friends and joined an adult group where we would meet on Wed night and discuss the Sunday readings and go on retreats and things.

After a while I got kind of lazy about it and stopped going for no real reason; I just had other things going on in my life. I had been teaching at a Catholic school and found that a lot of people there (teachers) were really judgemental and harsh and did not treat me with kindness. I had a really hard time with that, because they were not practising what they preached.

Then 3 years ago my mum died, and I really haven't been to church since; I was/am angry still about it and I just don't really know where religion fits into my life right now, if at all. I have a lot of issues with the church and some of their policies but I did before I became Catholic, so I don't really know right now.

[Jorm]

My sister and I were both baptized as Christians, but really only to appease our grandparents. (I personally am slightly annoyed by this, though I can see why they did it.) And my dad tried to some extent to educate us on Christianity and the bible, but it didn't go very well and he gave up pretty quickly. I'm not entirely sure why he bothered in the first place since he's not at all religious himself, though I'm not sure whether he considers himself more of an atheist or an agnostic. I guess he thought it was culturally important for us to have some understanding of Christianity or something. We did go to church on Christmas and Easter, but again, more to please our grandparents than anything else. Over all it was a very secular, humanist, and science based upbringing. Both of my parents worked initially in marine science, so there was a lot more science around the house than religion. My extended family is pretty much all Christian though, most of them actively go to church on Sundays, a few less actively practicing but still essentially Christian, believing in the Judeo-Christian god and all that. So Christianity was definitely around me as a kid, and there's definitely an extent to which I would say I was raised Christian, or at least, with knowledge of the Christian mythologies, but very much from a skeptical, "You need to make your own decisions about what to believe in" view point.

Growing up I went through a lot of experimenting with different belief systems. Christianity never really appealed to me (although I do find a certain appeal in the ritualism of Catholicism), or any of the Abrahamic religions, really. I think I hit pretty much all the other bases though. For a long time I had a real desire to believe in something and I tried really hard to find something that worked for me. I think a lot of that had to do with an intense feeling of powerlessness in my life, a lack of personal control over things leading to me to yearn for something more powerful to appeal to or turn to for protection/sympathy/consolation. Paganism is probably the closest I ever came to really buying into a spiritual path, but ultimately I had to admit I was kidding myself, I wanted to believe, but when it came right down to it, I really didn't. I'm just fundamentally too much of a skeptic, too much of a scientist in my way of thinking and seeing the world, to ever really be a believer in anything that cannot be tested and consistently verifiable. What I eventually realized was that I'm interested in belief in a philosophical sense, not a religious sense.

Now I would class myself as a humanist. I tend not to label myself as either atheist or agnostic because, essentially, I really don't care whether there is or is not any sort of "higher power" in the universe. I don't see any evidence of one, and frankly I'm more reassured and comforted in a lack of divinity (See Epicurus' argument against God/the problem of evil for why I don't find the idea of God reassuring), but it's none of my business what anyone else believes as far as the existence or non-existence of God. I don't particularly care what anyone believes about the nature of the universe, or the human soul, or what happens when you die, none of that really effects me. What I have a problem with is religion dictating the way people should live their lives.

[Mash]

I was... sorta raised Christian, I think. I have distinct memories of going to church a few times... but other than that our family didn't practice any real religion... so I guess it's sort of half-half. I just ticked other.

As I got older, the topic just sort of lost it's interest to me. I don't hold a belief in any god, though I wouldn't go so far to say that none exist, because I simply don't know that for sure. I just lack belief. This classifies me as a 'soft' atheist, though a lot of people would argue that I'm agnostic.

This may be a topic of debate, but I've always felt that agnostics are those who believe that we can't know if god exists or not. An Atheist, on the other hand, is simply someone who simply lacks a belief in one. In that regard, agnostics can consider themselves to also be atheists by definition, but agnosticism is simply a more specific way of describing their views on the matter.