Seriously.

What religion are you, what called you to it, how long have you been practicing, etc.

This goes for all of you, religious and non-religious. I'd like a better understanding of where everyone is coming from.

WARNING: This thread is NOT for debate, it's just to learn. Anyone who bashes/questions the validity of/judges ANYONE ELSE'S beliefs is getting the 20 point spammer infraction. That's a permanent ban. I'm dead serious. Don't test me, don't do it even as a joke. I'm not giving warnings, I'm going straight to permaban. Take this thread 100% seriously. This is an opportunity for you all to learn about each other, where they've been, and where they're going. Maybe, just maybe it can be a tool to help ease the eFighting in here.

well, kevin, why don't you begin, since you started the thread?

Nah, I want to read and absorb first. You go ahead. Your story should actually be very interesting.

lol

my "path" is pretty darn simple: sinful man headed for destruction, only by Grace is anyone saved from the wrath of God

No, no, no. I want details.

In the meantime, I'll start typing mine up, it's long.

Baptised as a child, went to church on occasion when I was younger. Abandoned God when prayers for members of my familys health went unanswered. My father was dying from kidney failure at 50 when he didnt drink more than a beer a week after mowing the grass and I worked with a 50 year old guy that shot heroin from the time he was 19 that was healthy as he could be. Decided if there was a God he wouldnt allow such things to happen. Also the whole evolution thing had me in question from the get go.

History:

My first trip to church was actually with my Grandparents when I was about 9 or 10. My brother Chris and I were up in Washington (state, not DC... everyone always asks) visiting for a few weeks like we did every summer, and my Grandma and Grandpa decided to take us. They never had before, but apparently, this weekend was special, because the minister was leaving. The church was Presbyterian, I remember that much.

Of course, I didn't really pay much attention to the actual "church" part of things. I didn't really understand why we were there, or what the point was. Afterwards, they had the goodbye party for the minister, and there was cake. Show me a 9 year old that doesn't like cake, right?

So, when we got back to California, my brother told my parents he wanted to find a church to check out. They asked me how I felt, and remembering the cake (no, I wasn't a chunky kid, but to this day, I like my cake) I said, "Sure, let's go!" There as a church about 3 miles up the road that was shaped like a giant pyramid. We went and checked it out, and it was very laid back. We started going pretty regularly, to the point where my parents actually took over the Junior and Senior High sunday school, referred to as "The Youth Group" by the church.

My parents didn't really get into religion. They used the youth group more as a tool to help the kids cope with teen-age life, more as a support group than anything else. One young man, Dan, complained that it wasn't religious enough for his taste, but everyone else agreed it was great.

I became very, very good friends with one of the minister's sons, and would regularly spend the night at their house. Riess, the minister, was also a professor of Religion at the local university, and knew more about religion than anyone I have ever met. And not just Christianity, but Catholocism, Islam, etc. You name it, it seemed he knew about it. Probably part of having a doctorate, right?

I ended up going through "Confirmation" around 13 or 14 years old, where you had to read/study the Bible, do a bunch of community service stuff, etc. I liked the church for being around other kids in a similar background, but the actual religious aspect just never rang true to me. I read every word of the Bible, and I just had this underlying feeling that none of it was right for me. I've always been an "all or nothing" kind of person, and things always had to be black or white: Either it was right for me, or it wasn't. There was no "wait and see", or "it takes time", it was there or it was not.

My brother and I lost interest in the church, and my parents had handed off the Youth Group to another guy because of their work schedules. This guy was a total douchebag, and basically tried to use the church to perform his musical act to try to get signed to a record label... Very shady. The church then hired an associate Minister, a total hippie straight out of a time capsule from the 60s. Her name was Anne, and I doubt she shaved her legs or armpits. Bizarre woman.

The church ended up having a trip to Berlin in June of 1989. I was taking German in High School, so my parents decided to send me to practice my language skills. The cool part of the trip was going to East Berlin while it was still truly communist East Berlin. The wall fell soon after. I don't really remember the point of the trip, like 15 kids from SoCal would do anything in Germany for "Peace and Freedom", which was what the hippie AM had printed on our T-shirts. "Freiden und Gerechtighiet!" Riiiight. Basically, we used the trip to try to sleep with every girl in Germany. Hello, what did they think teenagers would do? We hung out with "host families", and I remember the kid I stayed with spoke English, Latin, German and French... Fluently. And he was 16, just like me. European schools kick ass.

After I came back from Germany, I was busy with a bunch of other things: Swim team, volleyball, girls, driving, etc. My parents had zero desire to go to church every Sunday, my brother was off to college, and I didn't care either way, so I stopped going. We turned into "C & E Christians", which meant we showed up for the midnight service at Christmas, and on Easter.

I was basically non-religious from 17 years old until about 30. I was stationed in Groton, CT with my new wife, and we lived in this 300 year old house. Wait, let me correct that: Haunted house. We would hear strange things, smell strange smells, and our dog, a yellow lab puppy named Chaos, would sometimes watch things go by that weren't there. Lots of things happened that were beyong fucking bizarre, and honestly, I never would have believed ANY of them if I hadn't experienced it myself. We also started having a problem with house centipedes, and that sent my (now ex-)wife over the edge. We ended up going to Navy Housing to find a way to break our lease and get the hell out of there, and the woman from housing referred us to this home inspection business. I called the owners, a couple named Joe and Ingrid, and asked for advice on how to get out. I had only told them about the centipedes, and didn't mention the haunting stuff.

Imagine my surprise when it turned out Joe and Ingrid had been the previous residents of our exact apartment. So, I mentioned to Ingrid, "Did anything, I don't know, unusual happen to you guys when you were there?" She said, straight up, "You mean, like haunting stuff? Like, I put my glasses down in the living room, leave the room, and find them in the bedroom?" Yeah, that kind of stuff. It was nice to see we weren't fucking crazy.

We ended up finding some "psychic" lady to come by and look at the apartment. We invited Joe and Ingrid to join us. She was a bit quacky, but we figured what the hell. We gave her NO information before we came in. She walked through the apartment and basically gave us a rundown on everything we experienced. It was uncanny. She looked at Joe and Ingrid and said, "Oh, you two are the previous tenants", and gave them a rundown on everything they had experienced, too. I still think she was a bit quacky, but my curiousity was piqued.

I ended up splitting up with my wife a few months later, reconciling briefly, then splitting up for good. During this time, I decided to look into Wicca, witchcraft, etc more deeply. I read up everything I could find, trusting my instincts on what books would be good, which were new age garbage. Everything I read about Wicca was a turn-off: It was too touchy-feely, too nice, trying to wrap everything up in a neat little box with a bow on it. I realized then that my problem with the church was along the same line: It tried to fit everyone into a neat little box, and lost the individualism that should be there between you and your Creator. Add to the fact that most of the religious people I had run into, regardless of system of belief or denomination, were some of the biggest fucking hypocrites I'd ever seen, and I realized I needed to find what spoke to me. I found an excellent teacher in Massachusetts who I still call on whenever I need help or guidance: We've worked on finding things and stripping them down to their essence. A lot of witchcraft is contrived or too formalized... I feel a lot like Bruce Lee in "Dragon" where he talks about stripping martial arts back down to the simple combat, not the stylized nonsense it had become. I find things that work for me, and refine them to the point where they flow with who I am, where I'm from, and where I'm going. And, as time progresses, I'm sure I will refine them more and more.

My turn I guess:

When I was a kid I believed in God, mostly by default. Never went to church, except once when I slept over at a friends house and they went. When I was a kid, I was having a really hard time with school, home etc and I decided that if there was a God then why would he let so much crap fall on a kid that hasn’t done anything wrong? I was without a religion for most of my life until about 4 years ago. I was heading to china for a new type of martial arts and I was told that the guy that was gonna teach us used a lot of Taoist sayings. I got a few books on the subject so that I’d have some idea of what he was saying, knowing Chinese-English translations are a bit hazy. I liked what I read and it really caught my interest with how they handled things. Quite the opposite of the traditional black and white, good and bad thing. It is hard to find a good book on the subject though, they mostly fall into the eastern-psycho babble bullshit category. You know the kind, "Ki breathing to cleanse the soul” type shit.

can i list the things i believe in??
i don't follow paths as such

can i list the things i believe in??
i don't follow paths as such

The things you believe in are your path. Go for it.

Crap this is going to be a long story.

Where am I going to find time to write this?

At least it was informative reading your stories. :)

I _HAVE_ been writing it up.

Passively, since two weeks ago.

It keeps getting too long. I need to find out what details I can omit so that people can finish reading it :P

ok i don't know how to write this and well hmmm i'll just pinpoint the things that i believe in
- Karma with out a doubt what goes around comes around
-paganisim/wicca
-i do believe in a lot of so called myths
- the Dream Time (it is part of the Aboriginal culture in australia
- the possibility of many gods
- i believe in the supernatural (i have had to many direct experiences not to believe it) that doesn't mean i believe in the likes John Edwards
- i am also a huge believer in Astrology
there is a bit more, but i am really not sure how to articulate it, i believe in alot of different things yet i don't have a set path

What? Only part 2 is posted so far. I have a long way to go.

where is part 2?

Where is yours? We asked for more details, remember?

no more personal details from me...not on this forum at least

Awww, comon.

i am a couple religions and no religions. let's rambling!

i was raised as a full nothing. my mom is a-religious and believes we'll be fine after death as long as we don't do bad deeds. my dad was mostly a-religious till he got older and became a buddhist. during my formative years there was no mention of religion at all. the first time i can remember realizing that people could actually die was when i was 6 or 7, and the issue of national geographic came in where they unearthed roman pompei for the first time. it had a picture of a kid's skeleton on the cover. that's the first time i gave thought to 'what happens after.'

*buddhism*

my dad is zen buddhist so i've incorporated some of their doctrinal beliefs about suffering, although i feel those are more like life philosophies rather than actual spiritual beliefs. i do not really give much credit to becoming a buddha by breaking the cycle of life and death and giving up earthly desires. nor do i believe that boddhisatvas that hold on to the one earthly attachment of helping people and thus restrain themselves from enlightment. i also reject the more fanciful buddhist sects and their ideas of different levels of the world and levels of enlightenment.

i am pretty sure that when you pray to a big golden statute of buddha, nobody's listening. that makes sense, even under a buddhist religious worldview, because buddha has renounced all desires / ties to the world, including the desire to help people break the cycle of life and death.


*western prophecy*

i call it western prophecy because i don't know if i can quantify myself as either christian or jewish. i believe that prophecy exists and that israel and the jews have been the focal point of alot of um... historical shit. i became interested in judaism/christianity mainly because i'm fairly obsessed with the romans. while in college i got interested in the destruction of the second temple under titus, and as a result i took a jewish study class in college and was exposed to alot of stuff like apocrypha, josephus and the general history of both judaism/christianity.

i think history in general is fairly ridiculous and if you watch closely, you see many recurring patterns. naturally i still love rome in particular. only when i was 20+ or so did i realize the value of those history classes i slept through in high school. i think it's telling that so much of world history is focused on the middle east, that the middle east is oil rich, that the jews indeed were gathered back to israel as foretold, almost 2000 years after the roman exile, and that israel is always in trouble and always stomping the shit out of its enemies. and i've met alot of jewish people over the years. i definitely believe they're the chosen people. i am also pretty damn sure there is a god, and there's a pretty good chance god is the abrahamic god.

the beliefs i waver on are that jesus is the literal son of god on earth, and that the old testament is the literal history of earth. i don't discount evolution and speciation, or the big bang. and i've since come to discount the 'relativism' of modern religion. i.e. "you'll be find as long as you find god for yourself. each person can have his own god. etc."


*practice*

i've read the bible. i've read apocryphal works. i've read bits of josephus, but his stuff is too dry even for me. i keep a bible by my bedside in case i ever feel something weird is in the air. my girlfriend and i both believe in ghosts and we've both been slightly harassed by them before. from what i recall christians don't believe in ghosts and assign such hauntings to be demonic in nature. that is a little unnerving to me. girlfriend is fairly atheist and has some folklorish beliefs about dipping your head in a river, forgetting everything and being reincarnated. i think that's a holdover from ancient greece, but whatever.

i have attended fellowship a few times but it's not my cup of tea. i have never gone to church, never been baptised, never had communion, etc. i think catholicism as a whole is a false religion, but i find certain aspects of it fascinating mainly because of its descent from the roman empire. i say 'wassup' to god now and then. and i pray when i feel like i'm in need, although that's usually a bad time to do it. for what it's worth i feel like my prayers at least have gotten results.

yes the possibility of it being demonic in nature certainly crossed my mind before.

suffice to say that whichever it is, or was (since it hasn't happened in quite a while), it is never welcome. on the upside it happened enough that i actually lost my fear of it. whenever it happened i would get very angry, curse it out and tell it to leave, sometimes interjecting prayer and what not. that's when it stopped.

well? :)

where is part 2?

no more personal details from me...not on this forum at least


I find it fascinating that you badger other people for their stories, but when asked to share yours, you balk instantly. I thought that following God was supposed to be about leading by example and sharing to show others God's grace in action?!?!?