What Religion do you Follow?

What religion do you follow?

  • Christian (Catholic)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Christian (Protestant)

    Votes: 5 12.5%
  • Buddhist

    Votes: 2 5.0%
  • Hindu

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Wiccan

    Votes: 2 5.0%
  • Atheist

    Votes: 9 22.5%
  • Agnostic

    Votes: 8 20.0%
  • Jewish

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Islamic

    Votes: 1 2.5%
  • Sikh

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Something else, which I will define in a comment!

    Votes: 13 32.5%

  • Total voters
    40
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Sorry if I sounded a bit sensitive, didn't mean to come across as that I was just confused. My many apologies.
 
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I pressed atheist; however, I'm probably closest to agnostic as I'm not sure what I believe. I have a hard time there is a some "big, bad, powerful" force out there, but I do know there is a comfort believing there is a higher power. What it is or how it works, I haven't figured it out.
 
. . . I believe in God, Jesus and the Holy Ghost. I believe in loving everyone no matter what they believe and accepting them as they are. Basically being like Jesus.

I couldn't agree more. Christ was all about loving your neighbor, of showing love to everyone no matter who they were. Nearly all his teachings came back to that in some way or another, and his death was the ultimate example.
I do my best to live my life following that, though I fail repeatedly.

. . . I had a time a few years back where I thought to myself "do I follow this because I believe it, or did I just accept it because my parents passed it on to me?" After some consideration and reflection, I settled on the former and that was that . . .

I had a similar patch in my life my senior year of high school. I was getting ready to go off on my own and it hit me. Do I believe what I believe because it's what my parents taught to me and say I should believe? or do I really truly believe it? :)
 
Hrm...

I want to say Agnostic with Buddhist tendencies, but me and religion have never really agreed on the same thing so... I guess I'll try to explain?

I was raised in a household that believed in Buddha, alongside Confucius teachings. However, what's taught in school textbooks about Buddha has never aligned with what my family practiced at home or told me. I've never been told the story of a prince running away and then becoming a monk who traveled around the world preaching about his discoveries about life, who then became Buddha. The summary of Buddha in textbooks never mentioned the other gods that my family also worships, like the Goddess of Mercy, or the Three Wise Men. That same summary mentioned Nirvana, which again, my family has never told me about nor do they practice meditation. But my family believes in an Afterlife, and give offerings to their ancestors. We even have an altar in my living room where we light incense on a daily basis and go to the temple during Chinese New Year.

But since what my family practiced at home didn't line up with the textbooks, I was reluctant to say I'm Buddhist. It was until later in life when I realized that Asian religions tend to blend parts of other Asian religions and be fine with it. I've grown up with Buddhist, Confucius, and Taoist influences. I don't believe in Buddha or Nirvana or the afterlife, but I respect Buddha's teachings and I will continue giving offerings to my ancestors and tend to their graves once my family passes.
 
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I spent a long, long time in my life researching and wishing I were Wiccan, because I have always had a secret yearning to be a witch (for real). But it never really worked for me and that has always frustrated me. I just can't accept Divine Forces boiled down to a Masculine and a Feminine that portrays All Archetypes. If I'm going to be a polytheist, I'm going to be a hard polytheist. And I know there are forces beyond our comprehension that push us. I just haven't figured out what I call them yet.

I grew up with an animist neighbor, which had its influence on my beliefs now. I absolutely believe in the spirit of all things, as well as Spirits: the fey creatures that live in the garden, the dryads in the trees and the nymphs in the waters, the wind whispering wisdom in one's ear. I haven't cobbled together enough belief for a religion, yet, but I'm working on something. Something under that "pagan" umbrella, I guess.
 
*Shakes a fist at some peeps!* Stay on topic!

My parents started off Christian and then turned Jehovah's Witnesses. (And now nonpracticing even though my mom still claims she is.) The minute I was "old enough to choose" like... I was 11 or 12 I told my mom I didn't want to be involved with it and didn't agree with the rules. After that I spent some time snooping around and researching other religions, but nothing ever really felt "right" for me. I voted the "something else" cause I dun feel like I am an atheist or agnostic. >> I don't believe in God, gods, or any sentient divine being that created the universe. But I DO believe there are higher powers that make the universe tick. I believe in things like destiny, fate, karma. Even the potential for reincarnation and the endless cycle of death/rebirth. I just lean towards these things being all sciencey rather than godly.
 
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My father was raised Jehova's Witness and my mother some form of christian, but both had broken away from their respective religions, and made great effort to allow me to find religion on my own and make my own decisions concerning it. As such, the subject of religion didn't enter into my life until much later, and was so foreign that I almost instantly rejected the idea of it.

My beliefs have changed a bit since then, as I believe that there must be something out there. There's a lot we don't understand about where we came from and how everything started. There's theories that have some compelling evidence, but the truth is we just don't know. Something out there started everything. I just don't think that anyone in the past and currently living knows what. That's not meant to attack anyone and their beliefs, or tell them that what they believe is wrong. We simply don't know.
 
Christian (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints)
Can I get an LDS high five? :D

I selected atheist for this, but I was raised LDS and baptized and everything. I stopped going to church when I was 12 or so (almost 15 years ago? Gosh.) But really, I dig the Mormon Church on many levels. They've really got the right idea about a lot of things, so far as how to treat other people, family values, and so on. I actually very recently started going back to church, but I really only go to sacrament -- I'm not a big fan of the Bible per se, so Sunday school and all that would be kind of wasted on me. Is that weird? If I had to pick a religion for some reason, I'd go with that.

I also kinda like Lutheranism; Martin Luther was sort of a boss.

Most religions fascinate me and I like to explore them, but ultimately I just don't feel that there's some kind of gap or empty space I need to fill with faith, at least that kind of faith. And it's perfectly cool if other people feel the other way. We just put our faith in different things.

You pray so badly for heaven,
knowing any day might be the day that you die
but maybe life on earth could be heaven.
Doesn't just the thought of it make it worth the try?

- Bo Burnham, "From God's Perspective"
 
I'm not the biggest fan of Dawkins (dude's kinda 'babby's first atheist writer') but I always quite liked his scale for explaining mah views. So I guess you can chalk me up as an agnostic atheist (which is to say I think there's no such thing as a god, but you can't be certain with these matters).

If you'd asked me this a couple years ago I would have been one of those "FUCK YEAH ATHEISM" dudes; but write a goddamn dissertation on religious history, meet several fellow "FUCK YEAH ATHEISTS" whose heads you want to cave in with a brick and get tutored by a Methodist professor who is the most awesome guy ever, and your perspective tends to shift a bit.

Simply put, atheism is just an assertion of a lack of belief. Fuck all that shite about it making you a better person by default: there are atheists who are colossal knob-jockeys and religious folks who are great folks proving that point everyday.

HAIL SATAN.
 
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I was raised by Christian parents, or I guess Christian-leaning parents. We didn't really go to church but they certainly believed in God. I was never baptized though, despite going to a Christian school for preschool and kindergarten. One of my best friends is Catholic, and occasionally I would attend mass with her when we were growing up (seemed like a logical step since mass would then lead to lunch which would then lead to us going over to someone's house to hang out).

I learned a lot of Catholic teaching this way, and in some regards I consider myself pseudo-Catholic. Still never been baptized. I am familiar with a lot of the Catholic renditions of prayers, and in the rare instances where I do pray, I use the Catholic versions because they feel more natural to me.

That said, I am a very logical person by nature. I believe in science because it has proven results that we can observe and verify with our senses. So in some ways religion makes me skeptical because I am believing in some entity which cannot be defined and cannot be proven.

I wrestle with this dichotomy a lot. I want to believe that there is a benevolent, all-powerful entity that controls the fate of the universe, but at the same time my logical brain believes it cannot possibly exist. Especially given all the terrible things that happen to people on a day-to-day basis which are never repaid in good. Especially given all the natural disasters that occur on this planet that kill thousands of people each year and leave even more without water, without food, without shelter - natural disasters that occur on Earth, which was supposed to be MADE to house us by an all-knowing, all-powerful and supremely benevolent god. In the face of all these things, it's hard for me to believe that such an entity exists.

So if I had to identify myself, as odd a phrase as it might seem, I'd say I am Catholic-Agnostic. Because in many regards I do believe. In many other regards, I wish I believed.
 
I DEMAND A PASTAFARIAN BUTTON.


Lol, jk. I am a Pastafarian priest, though. Paid my dues and got my fancy-ass certificate as a reverend in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and all that shit. Scientifically speaking, I'm an atheist who identifies with the Pastafarian faith for political reasons. But whenever it becomes a matter of faith I 100% believe that, in a night of drunken stupor, His Noodliness created Mountains, Some Trees, and a Midget. He then came back while sober and fixed everything up a few thousand years ago, meaning I'm a young Earth creationist who believes that His Noodly Appendage touches all scientific instruments making them receive false readings, because He has a strange sense of humor.

It's like 1984. Doublethink. I, at once, hold two viewpoints both conflicting and irreconcilable. This does not trouble me at all.
 
I chose other and here is why; I believe in Myself.

I 'practice' paths, tao te ching (martial arts and meditation), buddhism (lamaist), shamanism (northern native american tribes animal spirits), and druidism (nature worship minus the crazy sacrificial rituals).

I decided to combine these "ways" of living because they each suited my need for change, that while anything could happen to me or what I love, answers I need are always within myself. Nature will provide for me beyond humanity. These Philosophies and practices taught me how to believe in myself.

In Fijoli's world it boils down to a choice between love and fear. I just chose love...


So if I had to call my religion something, I would just call it
"unconditional compassion"
 
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I have my own personal religion. Not as fancy an answer as Frijoli there, but it'll do.
 
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Technically I am a Muslim. But I barely practice the religion at all and I am not remotely religious so I guess I'm just blah.
 
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I clicked Atheist, but I'm really more "Humanist." I think humanity has advanced beyond the "need" for a higher power, and find some belief and comfort in the idea of seeing us improve ourselves.
 
Apatheticist.

I dont know if there is a higher power/s and i dont care, i'll follow what i think is right regardless of how it all ends, if there is/are a god/s then they should understand, if not, well shit happens!
 
Im a Seventh-day Adventist.. haha I dont think anyone has ever heard of this one but, anywhosies.

Since I was raised in the SDA family, I had to do all the religious things, which include;
  • Going to church on Saturday
  • Keeping the Sabbath that started from Friday sunset to Saturday night sunset
  • Be different in may different ways (i.e try bringing up God in converse etc..)
  • And don't marry anyone outside the religion. :/
I always wanted to rebel but, I dunno. Thinking about changing as I get older but I mean, its hard.. :3
 
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Im a Seventh-day Adventist.. haha I dont think anyone has ever heard of this one but, anywhosies.

Since I was raised in the SDA family, I had to do all the religious things, which include;
  • Going to church on Saturday
  • Keeping the Sabbath that started from Friday sunset to Saturday night sunset
  • Be different in may different ways (i.e try bringing up God in converse etc..)
  • And don't marry anyone outside the religion. :/
I always wanted to rebel but, I dunno. Thinking about changing as I get older but I mean, its hard.. :3

My unsolicited advice is not to rebel for rebellion's sake, but to make sure you are fully confident and comfortable in your beliefs. ^^ You don't want to spend your life wondering if you're in the faith because it's really the thing that feels right to you, or if you're just blindly doing what your parents did.
 
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