I'm sure we all have an interesting story. When I have time, I'll add mine.

I started as a Baptist and was forced to go to Bible School for three years in a row. After that and all of the torture that ensewed from my being over weight and the bullets not going off after pulling the trigger I realized that if there was a god then he must be torturing me. I have been told that he has something planned for me but with this body i doubt that plan has anything to do with the near future. So i then switched to being an Aethiest and then got interested in Wicca when my brother converted. Then later i got into Satanism and stuck with that for a while. Then switched to necromancy untill i was found out and forced to switch to something else. That was when i got into a little bit of voodoo which ended up like the Necromancy and now im just a Wandering Aethiest studying the religions that Christianity and others like it would call evil and the spawn of satan. As for the inner workings of my mind those just came from a mix of other belief systems that sounded the closest to what might be the truth.
This message was last edited by the player at 19:53, Mon 16 Aug 2004.

I started out as a Roman Catholic. From between grades 6-7, I was very into it. I believed I was a good little Christian girl.

I started not caring so much when I realised some of the things Christians did. Good CHristians. They burned "witches" they murdered thousands in crusades...is this what I was doomed to be?

I fell away from it.

In my search through the furry fandom and teh gothic subculture, I realised that I was something quite different. I wasn't just a simple human girl of the roman catholic faith.

The next stage in my religious life is cloudy. I did a lot of searching. I finally landed on what I call myself today, a believer of many things but I only follow a few.

Antoher reason I didn't want to be a raoman catholic, or any chrstian, anymore was that (I believe) God hates me for what and not who I am. That is to say, he believes I should be condemmed due to my bisexuality.

Those who are Christian I often find have zero tolerance for other religions. My family is very intolerant of anyone not like them. I do not want to be doomed to live and grow up just like them.


So I settled upon views that bring out who I am and allow me to be me.

*Just filled his description yesterday, woot*

Well let's see.

I was born and raised Roman Catholic, and I was a faithful, if inquisitive kid.  I grew up believing in evolution, geology, astronomy and archeology because I let books and the BBS world raise me.

I never once encountered the Creationist view.  The idea that people even believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible was foreign to me.

So when I finally met a girl who was a Creationist in 11th grade (16 years old), I was awestruck.  There wasn't much I could say.  I held my ground and refuted what I knew, which was no small part - I found out that they were talking about the things I said four years after the fact.

In order to convert me, from Catholicism and my evilutionist beliefs, they invited me to their Bible studies, on their field trips, and so on.  What struck me though, during these trips and my discussions, was their hypocrisy.

Claiming not to be interested in sex (and some of them clearly had... repression issues).
Blaming Satan for twisting the words of the Bible then freely twisting mine.
Lying, and when called on it, admitting it.

One publication which refuted other religions, when it came to Buddhism, used the exact same text to say why Buddhism was wrong that was used to support Christianity against another religion (I think it was Islam).

One of the people in the group tried to do something...  rather terrible to my sister, eventually recanting and claiming his 'faith' in Christianity was all a show.

Of the 50-some people in that youth group, only one, one girl was honest to both herself and others.

----

I did a lot of thinking, for over a year.  Eventually I came to the conclusion that I should take a step aside from Christianity and try to read the Bible as someone foreign to the faith would.

I would either re-affirm my faith, or lose it, but I could not live a lie and claim to be a Christian when I could not on my own accept it.

So I did...  And I came to my conclusion.

The hardest decision I ever made was to tell my mother about leaving.  Most people who learned made a token effort at best to try to bring me back, if that.  My sister was furious, but she eventually left Christianity as well, for many of the same reasons I did.

For the next year I really was rather awash, how I came to believe what I believe now is another story.

Some interesting and heart-felt stories here.

Myself, I was raised in a traditional conservative Baptist church.  When I was little (and unsaved) I hated having to be forced to sit in a pew being bored to death by preaching and singing century old hymns.  Eventually though my big sister desided to accept Jesus as her saviour and got Baptised.  I wanted to as well but my father wouldn't let me (I always wanted to be like my sisters, I even talked my mom to get me a cabbage patch doll when I was little, I promptly covered him with tattoos.)  which I was greatful for because I didn't really understand the gospel and just wanted to be like my big sister.

Eventually though my parents went though a very nasty devorce in which mother stole us all and fled the state and got a nasty lawyer to make my father seem really bad.  So I spent most of my childhood very bitter and was one of the most selfish annoying little kids out there.

When I was 12, there was a big storm and lots and lots of snow.  I had started walking home but trudging through the snow I was wondering if I was going to die out in the cold it was really only a couple miles but the reality of my mortality weighed heavy on me.  I had been in church more or less my whole life and had heard the message of redemption and God's gift of giving his beloved Jesus as a sacrafice to pay for the whole worlds' sin.  Sunday school teachers had us memorize some of the more fundamental salvation verses (John 3:16, romans 3:23 , romans 6:23, and romans 10:9-10, and 13) come to mind.  Eyes watered I knew that if I was to die right then and there I was going to Hell forever and it was something that I didn't want.  I looked to the heavens and spoke into the white flakes of snow comming down upon my face that if what he says in these verses are true then I'm going to take his word for it, that I believe it and want it for myself.

I count that as my moment of spirtual birth but I eventually backslid as no one around me went to church or even considered spirtual manners.  And besides, 12 year olds generally are not the most mature people.  As I got into my teenage years I became increasingly bitter and cruel espically to my mother, many many times I brought her to tears with my bitter accusations when she confronted me with my own problems.  There was some truth to it, when she got devorced, she just abandoned us into anti-depressants and other things but still, no excuse is good enough justify cruelty for cruelty's sake espically against family.  I would always feel conficted when I was with my father and at church again but being out of that culture.  Well people just can't be solo christians, it's only a matter of time before they blow it.  My sophmore year I got really heavily involved in drugs sometimes there were months at a time where I was never sober.

I guess I can say back then my god was my friends.  I looked to them and put all my hopes and dreams in them adults were somehow against us all and our generation had to be free of them and not be tainted by them hense my loyality to them.  But when I was tripping and got mugged by homeless kids that little house of cards came crashing down, no teenagers can do bad things too.

Feeling empty, I desided that it was time for a change. I told my mom that I wanted to move in with my dad because he had really been denied of fathering his children and because I needed a new start.  I went to camp and when they were 'selling' their bible college, I was pissed.  I thought it a bunch of propaganda and dishonest to do such things.  I got into a couple yelling matches with the administration.

Two years later I ended up going to that very bible college.

After discovering that there is more to christianity then the meteocraty that 80% of christians settle for, I went back to oregon to become one of the adult leaders in the club to make up for some of damage I did in the years I did there.  I've been doing that for 4 years now, though I work in the electronics field I am convinced that ministry for the christian is not optional.

I Was raised in a family that took the protestant reformation a step to far. My Family beleived that no one and nothing was needed to guide your path or your relationship with God. Needles to say I did not have very much faith to begin with, and then I was exposed to a congregation (Denomination left intentionaly out as not to offend the Good people of that denomination) that was full of Bigots, backstabbers, weekend christians and politicos. That turned me off from Christianity, seeing all these very unchristian behaviors by people claiming to be the pinacle of christian behavior. This was age eight.

At that point in my life I had to start taking care of myself at home because of various and sundry reasons. Being a genius and knowing it at an early age, I decided to take up the study of Comparative religions as a hobby. I Read everything I could get my hands on and took every opportunity to learn anything that could be used to disprove or debunk the Bible. Over my pre-teen and teen years I did a little dabbling in the Dark arts and Blood magic, and soon got tired of of the wannabe demonolgists who couldn't find a Diabolico if one was standing infront of them, or Dark arts practitioners that new too much and was willing to kill people for power they might or might not receive. About age 14 I was stricken with a neurological cronic pain condition that was misdiagnossed as S.L.E. To help deal with the pain I turned to Taoism and Zen control of my body. It Did a lot for my physical being but I could never find Harmony with my Mind, Body And Spirit at the same Time, and was left pretty much in the Gnostic category since I started to see an order in Nature that I couldn't debunk mathmatically as a scientist.

This Brought me to a particularly interesting Individual who brought me into the  pagan fold as a Gaian. I received a bit of tutalage from a High priestess and learned a number of things that were very usefull to me over the years, and what I could do as a practicer of the way of the Goddess and the God. For eleven years I was a practicing Pagan and helped bring a number of "Children of the Godess" out of the Broom closet as it were, and either taught them the path or helped them determine their own as best as I could. But despite my abilities and to spite my status in certain circles I never felt TRULY fullfilled.

I have to point out that at this point in my life I had survived over THIRTY near fatal situations including Gunshots, stabwounds, a Fever of 105.6 (Due to a n alergic reaction to an innoc.) three automobile accidents (two of them One year apart on christmas eve, both times I sustained major head trama) A rather interesting Stint in teh Airforce that I can't discuss here and six electical shocks of which the highest voltage was 440 volts at 12 amps on three live wires and three grounds on an Industrial size fence. I had also been through a divorce and one bankruptcy at that point and was Heavily involved in a disfunctional relationship with a woman who bore me a daughter (My Second Child, #1 is with my ex-wife). Well I bought my daughter "The Prince of Egypt" naively not knowing it was the story of Moses. I watched the Movie, and I can tell you the exact moment when I quit trying to ignore God and started to listen to what the Holy spirit had to say...(Through Heavens Eyes btw) and something about THAT song at THAT moment is what I needed to hear. Later I watched the Veggitales with my daughter and as silly as it sounds, that is when I started thinking solidly about the faith. I considered Judaism and Catholocism initially but neither seemed to be right....(The Relationship ended and the Woman took my Daughter and left the state, denying me my paternal rights,) Eventually I resettled in Little Rock AR and found a church home through friends. I took the plunge (figuratively) and became a Christian, and although I went to a Lutheran Church, I always considered myself a christian that happened to go to a Lutheran congregation. I gave everything over to the Lord and relenquished any control that I thought I had over my life to him.

After that my life Changed. I met my Wife to be at an SCA event, and things
just seemed to fly by both Good and Bad. I lost my Job, became Disabled, and filed for bankruptcy a second time, I also Got Married, found out I qualifide for student and vocational grants that I didn't think were possible, and went back to collage. That brings me to now an Age 31, Married, returning Student at a Church of Christ private collage.

Why do I believe in what I believe?
I suppose that we are a sum of our experiences. And we learn from those experiences. For myself, I'll start off by saying my entire family, immediate, uncles, aunts, grandmother, grandfather, etc are athiests. I was raised by a very caring mother and father, and they made mistakes too. But they did the best they could. they did the things they did because they wanted the best for me. They didn't want me to make the same mistakes, or make any mistakes. My dad was a perfectionist, and so am I now as an adult. As a child it meant I had to live up to a standard few could live up to. I couldn't live up to it, no one could. But a perfectionist doesn't allow for mistakes. Odd that i would turn that way myself, but I guess you learn to accept some things until you see it in yourself. My parants were good, but there are always struggles in life. Regardless if your parants are christian, athiest, whatever. That is part of life, and no one is perfect. If your parents try to set rules, it's because they care. I've learned as an adult that is just another process we learn and grow from. (I put that in as a reminder for those who had christian parents and felt they were stifled, that no one is immune from a life of struggles)

Really, my life was good though. Strict, but good. When I was 8, a baptist church came in the neighborhood inviting us to sunday school, where there would be the usual assortment of stories, games, treats and rewards. I found it good overall. Nothing was very in depth. Stories were taken from the bible, and made short and simple, pictures added, you know the sort of thing. I remember some about hell, and how scary those could be. It was a baptist church, and every so often my parents would come to the sunday service. But they really didn't believe in god, or read the bible. Around 10, one of the few services my parents attended, the pastor had a serman about rock and roll being the devils music, (or so they told me), and they didn't let me go to church anymore. I enjoyed it over all, but my parents really didn't approve of church.

After that, I was on my own. Nothing special, no real influences form any religion. (other than athiesm, and evolution) so as a kid, I grew up believing evolution was real, and how the church were manipulators of the world. You know the usual witch burnings, how they edited the bible, and how the church just wants your money. I had one friend who was christian, but I made fun of him everytime he said something about God, so eventually he stopped talking about God, although stayed my friend. I rather enjoyed knocking religion as a teen, and started me on the path to looking for other issues that the bible or religion has wrong. Back then there was no internet, (or at least not available to me), so all my research was done the old fashioned way of going to the library, and reading up on it. I found plenty of information to make christianity look bad. There were boooks that were indeed changed to interpret the bible. There was witch burnings. but in my search, I also found I was wrong on many things. The bible wasn't changed, just the books to interpret them were. So I learned how the bible itself is unchanged, and as complete as is possible, (which is very complete.) That started me questioning what else I was wrong about if I was wrong about that.

It started me questioning about God. Searching for religions, I considered Jehovah Witness, Catholic, Latter Day Saints, and found them lacking. However it was brief that I went to services, or actually had sit down discussions with the groups in question. Still not good enough I researched other religions, muslim, new age, and mysticism, and judiasm. Nothing. I knew why they weren't right, but I had no answer as to what was right.

I continue on, I still had no answers, and pretty much let that quetion slide, as I was switching careers, and pretty decided that religion had no impact on me. For all intents, I suppose that was agnostic. I felt there was more, but no one could answer it.

Really, for all of my life, I had it pretty easy. I am a relaxed easy going guy, not bothered when people try and get in my face. I don't get anger, I just let it roll of my back.

When I was 25 I met this really amazing woman that had me thinking of her a lot. I was visting for a tournament, for the weekend, and although I got her phone number, we both put the wrong foot forward, got our messages crossed, and both thought the other was not really interested. So we never even called each other. But fortunately, tournaments in the area happened 5 to 8 times a year for a weekend each tournament. We had talked at the first tournament and knew the other was coming to the next one, and when I got there, I was told she didn't come. I was so disappointed, that I realized I really thought pretty highly of her after all. But my friend who told me she wasn't going to be there was wrong, and she did show up. We were hanging out all weekend. After that, for the next two years, we really hung out together at every tournament. People actually got out of their seat when I came by if they they were sitting beside her, so I could have that spot.

Now you're asking how did this turn from religion to a dating story, but this heads back to the start of my post about being a sum of our experiences. My wife was a christian. She wasn't a the best example of a christian, she didn't read the bible regularly, she didn't pray regularly, but she was a strong believer. She knew that Jesus died for her on the cross, and trusted in God.

Getting to know her, we still weren't boyfriend girlfriend, even though we hung out for a weekend every month or two. During our second summer, (the 2nd year of tournaments), she came to visit some friends  in my city, and we had talked about that, and I asked if we could get together. She said yes, and we had a lot of fun, but at the end of the night, I went to kiss her goodbye, and she backed off before I could get close. (DENIED, later she told me she thought I was going to, but wasn't ready for that) Long distance and all. I kind of wrote her off over that. I figured, I'm not going to dream about this woman and not even go on a date. I'm writing her off. Yea, well, I decided it couldn't happen, but I still thought about her. No phone calls, nothing. Until one day before a tournament, I get a call call from her out of the blue, (it had been 3 months) and she asks if I was coming to the next tournament(one week away), and we were chit chatting. We start chatting, and I tell her I'll think about it. I wasn't even entered in the tournament, and with a week, there was no way I could even get in that tournament. But all the feelings come back. I decide to go and help our team, and just sit on the sidelines. I hung out with her so much, and I really enjoyed going. But we left with just a hug, and she told me anytime I wanted to come back for a visit I was welcome to. She was being polite, I was forward, and told her, "ok, next month then". she laughed, and said ok.

On the ride back to my city, I was going over in my head how much I was nuts for her, and we had never even been on an official date. The next day I wrote her a letter and sent it to her telling her how much I wanted to go further, and wanted to start a long distance relationship with her. Although we are from different cities, and couldn't readily go back and forth to see each other, we called each other every day. I was on a long distance phone plan that allowed unlimited call time for 20 dollars a month. The phone company sent me a bill saying how that plan saved me 700 dollars in long distance calls that month. I called her every single day,  the shortest call was 1 hour, and that was twice. The longest 6 hours, several times. Phone calls avereaged 3 to 4 hours a day for the next 6 months. I missed only 3 days of calling her. Until we were married. I know it seems fast, and we wanted to wait longer originally, but when we couldn't wait to be married, we kept bumping the date up month by month.

Now why I bring that up, is because my wife was devoted to God, but was still new to faith. I had no interest in God anymore, until my wife told me her interest, and how it would be a central role with God in her life. I accepted her, and therefore God would play a role, despite me thinking her brainwashed. I went to a service with her, because I was curious, and I was hooked. the service was so strong and powerful. I felt I could feel God, something being than me, who was personal.

But still, that was only the beginning. I was not christian. I did not accept Christ, but that was a step to knowing God was real. I went back again with her to that church a month later, and the service was unreal. Everyone must have felt God there. You could feel like you reach out and touch God. The group of people there in the church seemed to be bathed in light. I saw many people dancing in the pews, and aisles, I was dancing.

Asking for a church in my city that was similar to that one, I found a great church, and it is the one I'm in now. I started off with thinking I was a christian now, and soon learned I still had issues to face. I figured all would be well, and my worries gone. Little did I know, I was simply naive about what christian meant. It took 3 more years, before I could truly feel I was christian. For me, I didn't start reading my bible regularly until a couple years ago. That was when things started taking off in my spiritual life.
I started reading about what a christian means, and what they do, and what the battle is truly about. I learned our abttle is not flesh and blood, it's not about surviving this world, but rather standing up, working for God, with God on our side.

Ephesians 6:10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.

That's one thing I have had dealt with for a while, and I suppose will always have to. People think this life is it. The real battle is spiritual, and there are demons fighting to influence me, and you. They do not care about you, they just hate God so much they want to take you away from Him. They fooled me for years. I was not possessed. But they try and influence.

Now back to me and my wife. Like I said, my wife was still new to christianity, and a strong believer, but not well read, or sure of everything God wanted from her. That's where I came in. Remember that perfectionist background I grew up with? I took up the slack, and dove in. God used my wife to lead me to Him, and God used me to delve deeper, and bring things to the fore front for my wife. God used each of us, to make the other stronger. Much stronger.

But more so, I learned about tithing. I had always struggled with money. Never having enough.I tithed a pity amount. but then I read about 10% or whatever we can afford and still profit. As a leap of faith my family gave what God gave to us, back to him. And that's when we got out of debt. I still can't explain that. We gave 4 times the amount we usually did, and was broke before, and with giving more, our debt shrank, and our savings grew. We didn't plan that as a test of faith, but in the end, we realized God wouldn't let us down as long as we trust in him.

With each step of faith, Which I have learned is not done, I find more and more that helps us grow in faith. Praise to God for showing the way through the sacrifice of Jesus. Without Him, I would be lost still. I don't know what God has planned for me, but I'm still alive, so I know there's still more to do. Praise God.

So, I should probably expound upon this here.

The endgame for my being a Christian involved my involvement in an Evangelical Youth Group, and another girl who hung on its fringes - though still a very devout Christian.  I'll call her K.

Two other girls are important to this story.  One I lived across the street from, and knew for ten years at the time of me leaving.  Her name is J.  She had a very good friend in the youth group whose name was G.  There were two guys in this group I will mention - A and C.  There is one more girl, H - but she is notable for something I will mention later.  All in all this group had about fifty kids, along with a handful of adult ministers.

I joined with this group because, honestly, I was desperate for friends and it seemed like they would provide a much-needed outlet for me.  In retrospect I was an arrogant, and rather ignorant, bastard, though I was told I had greatly improved from my earlier years, but that is little excuse.

Anyway, after about a year with this group I went on a camping trip with them.  It was during that trip I saw the full scope of their lies and interests - especially C's.  There was only one person there - H, who was truly compassionate.  To give an allegory, she was the candle, everyone else held up a mirror to her light.  Looks the same, but you can tell the real flame by its warmth.

The pain of this revelation litterally brought me to the ground.  I can't really explain it - an emptiness that was so bitingly clear that, I realized I could not even truly count J or G as a friend.

I developed a crush of sorts on J for a time, complaining about what felt like a hollow soul.  She claimed that only God could fill it.  The reality of it was that there was another guy in the group she was interested in.  I saw this, and I got the impression from later discussions with her that she knew I did too...

After that incident I began slowly distancing myself from that group, and hanging out / talking more with K over the course of the next seven months or so.  A part of this involved getting what I needed to fill said hole - friends.

A part of this was a slow realization that God might be a hollow thing.

I did, though, have one major, twelve-hour discussion on J's doorstep, with C and G present as well (and someone else, but he left six hours into it...).  I honestly only remember bits and pieces of it - the most amusing thing being my mom staying up for the discussion despite me being 1: Across the street and 2: Leaving for college in three months.

It's important to note that a lot of people, J and G included, considered me (maybe even still do, I don't know) one of the most intelligent people they ever met.  If not the most.  I drew looks of shock and disbelief when I admitted I did not know something - but anyway.

During this discussion C's lying, hypocrasy, and twisting came out time and time again.  He would lie, or make a twist, and get called on it.  He backtracked immediately as if it were a revalation, and so on.  Much of the discussion focused on Creationism and Catholicism, and their varying degrees, as well as non-Christians and their role in the Universe.

The discussion concluded and we went our seperate ways, I spent about a month going over my faith.  It's hard to explain what my exact conclusion was.  A great deal of it had to do with the volume and frequency of their lies.  Not just to others, but to themselves as well.  I ought to point out that J and others - including my sister - admitted this when I mentioned it.

If they could be so willfully blind, what about those who wrote, and passed on, the Bible?

After a lot of talking - mostly with K, I decided to read the Bible again, taking a step aside of Christianity and free of any preconceptions.  I would approach the Bible as if I were someone looking for religion, not looking for reinforcement.  The latter could well be reinforcing a lie, and I did not want that.  K, naturally, was all for me reading the Bible.

The phrase that turned me was Lot offering his daughters to be raped in order to protect two guests - Genesis 19:8.  Not that the act happenned, of course, but that Lot could be considered rightious when willing to offer up two of his own children for the sanctity of two guests he just met.

A second verse was more stunning - in Numbers.

Num 31:28  And you shall levy a tribute to Jehovah from the men of war who went out to the battle: one body out of five hundred, of men, and of the herd, and of the asses, and of the flock, you shall take from their half, and you shall give to Eleazar the priest as the heave offering of Jehovah.
  And from the sons of Israel's half, you shall take one portion out of fifty, of man, and of the herd, and of the asses, and of the flock, of all the livestock, and you shall give them to the Levites keeping the charge of the tabernacle of Jehovah.
 And Moses and Eleazar the priest did as Jehovah had commanded Moses.
 And the prey, the rest of the spoil which the people of the army plundered, was six hundred and seventy five thousand sheep, and seventy two thousand oxen,
 sixty one thousand of the asses;

and of human beings, of the women who had not known a man by lying with a male, the persons were thirty two thousand.

 And the half, the portion of those who went out to the war, the number of the flock was three hundred and thirty seven thousand, five hundred.
 And the tribute to Jehovah of the sheep was six hundred and seventy five,
 and the oxen, thirty six thousand; and their tribute to Jehovah, seventy two;
 and the asses thirty thousand, five hundred; and their tribute to Jehovah, sixty one;

and the human beings sixteen thousand; and their tribute to Jehovah, thirty two persons.

 And Moses gave the tribute, the heave offering of Jehovah, to Eleazar the priest, as Jehovah had commanded Moses.

----

Above and beyond dividing up virgin women by who got to rape them - just like the sheep, asses and cattle were divided - thirty two were 'offered' to Yehovah?

No doubt it really means that the priests just had their way with them instead - but the number is suspiciously low for that.  It was a heave offering - as in, these girls were lifted to the alter.  Since the congregation got quite a share too, there's nothing that states that this was not an actual burnt offering.

Before I came across this passage, I was still willing to be taken back into the fold.  After I read this, I could not accept the Christian god as God.

It would be two weeks before I told my mother, though a few others learned beforehand.  Noone really argued with me about it until I came back from college, oddly.

Bump. I'd encourage anyone who would like to share some background of yourself.

It may help to understand where someone is coming from, and certainly make persepctive come into affect when talking with someone.

Ever forget that the people you argue with are real people with families, dreams, passions, etc.

My story is far from as interesting as the rest of yours, almost to the point where I'm embarassed to post it in the same thread.

I was born Christian in name only, my family on either side is Christian, my mom is agnostic, and I've never learned my dad's beliefs. That last part characterizes how they raised me in so many ways. They've taught me to think for myself, never tried to impress their ideas upon me. If I'm nothing else, I'm an individualist. For most of my early years I went to a Quaker school where I remained agnostic; Quakers do not believe in imposing their beliefs upon others, even in their schools. Entering high school I had become an atheist, more specifically a materialist, by way of cynicism. I decided that all religions were wrong as they tried to scare people into following them with threats of hell and promises of paradise. Discouraged with religion, I decided to become amaterialist, believe in what's in front of me, what's really there. That worked well for me until about 7 months ago when I began practicing Kendo. Now, I was always a weak kid(although much less so now), but when I took my sword into my hand, focused, and swung it I noticed something: I was exerting a strength that plain and simple, didn't exist in my physical body. While searching for an explanation I found Buddhism. Buddhism has three things that appealed to me: First, it makes no threats of hell, nothing that manipulative; second, it expresses mostly values that I already agreed with, so much of it fit what I already believed I was more than willing to take a small hop of faith and accept the rest; lastly, and perhaps most importantly, it has no God and no church/temple, no supernatural being nor religious organization you have to please. Theravada Buddhism (the form I follow) is between you and yourself, truely individual.

Glad to have you here.  When I was reading, I was closing my eyes at parts (well, not literally), since it sounds as though you really were lost, but now you're finding yourself, which is terrific!  Buddhism is a great path, one I've begun flirting with myself.

A few side notes, many Buddhists DO believe in hell.  The Tibetian book of the dead talks about how the soul descends through the different cakras, trying and possibly failing to grasp each.  Should he fail at the wrong point, or get caught up too much in the vice side of a trait, he may spend time in hell before reincarnation.  Also, there are buddhist temples.  I'm visiting one in... two hours for their new years celebration (I love DC!).  But I suppose no Theravada temples.

I'm not trying to correct you, I'm just very proud of what I've been reading, and I'd highly encourage anyone else to at least study Buddhism.  It has excellent values, and, as far as I've seen so far, fully compatible with most other religions, including Christianity, since it doesn't involve actually worshipping Buddha.

Well, I'm a computer shaman...  No, I tease.  I only say that when I'm doing tech support.

Parents are both born and raised Catholic, so, of course, I was too.  Since I moved around pretty regularly (every 4 years), the church became a stabilizing force in my life.  It served the need of shared culture, since the church in Venezuela has the same beliefs and the same support as the one in the US.  I didn't have much trouble accepting stuff as a kid, because kids are innately stupid and naive (not that it's hard to accept Catholicism, mind you.)

I've spent two years in a Catholic high school, two years in a VERY liberal international high school, four and a half in a fairly liberal, 30,000 person university.  My father is now a deacon in the church (although not the kind that gives good answers to ethical questions) and I was an alter boy (no jokes, please).

I never really had a point of sharp rejection of the Church, it's always a spiral.  I question my faith, find answers, come back better.  In a lot of ways, I think I'm moving past the concrete truths and trying to find the deeper, more abstract ones.  Yes, Jesus was a guy who did neat things and died, so what?  What does that mean for me?  That sort of thing.  How did he find Truth and what was it?  Why did he have such a band of dingleberries following him?

I'm married to a 'Christian' (I say Christian because she hates the idea of denominations), who converted herself and led her family.  She has seen a lot more pagan influences then I have (although I've heard Catholicism called the Paganism of Christianity, which I think is neat).  She's a liberal (to my conservative) non-denominational Christian with an appreciation for paganism (to my Catholic), artist (to my computer science) and beautiful (to my... oh never mind.)

I have a little boy.  He currently follows the Big Toe, which he prays to by biting it.  He is baptised Catholic.

We're both very curious spiritually.  Heck, we're visiting a Buddhist temple in... an hour and a half!  For Year of the Cock celebration.

I do a LOT of reading, and the nature of my posts usually follows.  I just finished two books by Joseph Campbell (EXCELLENT author), but I'm moving on to some cheap fiction for a while.  I'll warn people before I get to Nietzsche.  I don't get nice when I read his stuff.  I'm also a programmer, so I consider myself very logical (or at least capable of being very logical).  My wife is studying art and psychology, the latter of which I try to bring in when I know what I'm talking about.

My religious interests include Catholicism, neo-paganism, paganism, the early church, gnosticism, buddhism, taoism and zen.  Hinduism is lingering around in the back.  I didn't have a lot of appreciation for it until I read this last book.

Born and raised in reform Judaism.  I went to Hebrew school every week, I went to synagogue once every couple months.  How much I actually believed in any of this varied a lot, and I don't even know what caused it to change most of the time.  The most important thing that came of it though was that I was strongly encouraged to learn things and have an open mind.  From the little that I've seen, Judaism seems to be the only mainstream religion that actually supports this (minor tangent - I went to an interfaith discussion a couple months ago and everyone who was there to represent a non-mainstream religion had been born Jewish).

The cycle seems to have come to a stop during my late teen years.  After 10th grade I spent a month in Israel with a youth group, had a lot of fun, and came back feeling very, very Jewish.  It didn't last too long, but I find the contrast amusing.  In any case, by the time the school year started, I had already gone back to being minimally to not at all religious.  Sometime in 11th grade, I started looking more into Satanism (I'd been vaguely familiar with it for some time, but had never really done much reading before).  I really liked a lot of the core beliefs, particularly that you are essentially your own god and that it is up to you to determine your fate, and that your time on earth should be spent enjoying this life, not living in fear of the next.  I wound up joining an online Satanist group which a friend of mine introduced me to, but I eventually lost interest when I saw that it was more about people stoking their egos and trying to act scary than about actually trying to have a good life.

Between whenever this was (exact timing is blurry) and the beginning of college, there were a couple more important things that happened.  One was my ancient/medieval history class, which I've mentioned in at least one other thread.  I learned, among other things, about how religion was established as a tool for social control, and how early Judaism and early Christianity borrowed heavily from other cultures around them to look more appealing to potential converts (for example, the great flood of Genesis was taken from the Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh, and many symbols of Christian holidays were basically just pagan symbols with Jesus' stamp of approval added in somewhere).  The other important thing that happened around this time was my introduction to the delightfully delusional world of Jack Chick.  I realize that this man does not in any way represent the majority of Christians or the true principles of Christianity, but between this and learning about the crimes of the Church during the Middle Ages, it still contributed rather nicely to my beliefs about the fear/love spectrum.

About that...  Has anyone here seen Donnie Darko?  There's a scene where this really terrible, idiotic teacher is lecturing to the class about how all human behavior can be placed on a spectrum between fear and love.  To the extreme that she took it, it's a stupid idea, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to work out pretty well when kept at a reasonable level, at least as far as interpresonal behavior.  And I thought that it applied quite well to religion.  In every theistic belief that I've encountered, you have one of two reasons to comply with their version of God and its teachings - love of God (directly or through others), or fear of God (very often directly, and especially in the form of afterlife).  These two are not mutually exclusive - all mainstream religions claim that they are about peace and love, but they all also have an afterlife of some sort, and the threat of a bad afterlife can be a powerful motivator whether you want it to or not (this is a bit less of an issue in Judaism, where Gehena is always temporary, but God's wrath is still plenty evident in the Old Testament).  And I don't know about the rest of you, but I came to the conclusion a long time ago that any relationship with any divine being should be 100% about love; as soon as coercion enters into it, you can no longer claim sincere belief.

So what it all boils down to is that pretty much since I've been in college, I've been agnostic about the whole god question.  I don't believe that any man-made religion can be completely correct, because it's got human filters on it.  I don't know if there are any divine beings in the universe, and I don't think there is any way to know short of obvious manifestation.  If God does exist though, and did in fact create this world, I think we can reasonably conclude that this deity is a neutral one and we are simply its entertainment.

Well, let's see, where do I begin?

I grew up in a Southern Baptist family -- my dad had grown up in a rural community with only one church, and my mom... ya know, I just realized, I don't know what her beliefs were before she met my dad? Anyway, from the time I was born until I was two, we went to one church, and then changed to another, this one in my dad's hometown (which was only about a 20 minute drive from where we lived).

I always thought I was a good Christian daughter growing up -- I was best friends with a boy from the second church, and my mom and dad always thought that we would grow up together and marry one day. I was excited when I finally asked the pastor to baptize me, although I remember clearly that I did it for the wrong reasons. (I wanted to be a big girl and take bread and grape juice -- I always knew it was grape juice -- when Communion was handed around.) From then on, my dad (a Deacon in the church) let me help him bake the bread and pour the grape juice into the little plastic cups for Communion.

If you couldn't tell from this, I was a daddy's girl when I was a kid... before... well...

When I was nine, my dad was hospitalized until such time that they could get him a new heart. (He and his twin brother had been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy -- enlarged heart -- from birth, so we knew it would happen eventually.) When he was in the regular part of the hospital, I was allowed to see him as often as my mom was willing to drive to Louisville (we lived in Elizabethtown, a 45min-hour drive). But then they moved him to Intensive Care at Jewish Hospital, and the nurses would never let me go back to see him, even though I'd been told that there was a good chance he wouldn't get to come back out. (The b-tards wouldn't even let me say goodbye to the man most important in my life... I still don't think I've forgiven them for that.) Anyway, it was late summer, and my mom decided to stay in Louisville. I had to go live with my aunt so that I could start back to school in a couple of weeks. (My aunt is the one who was married to my dad's twin, and my dad's twin had died of the same condition two or three years before.) Her daughters -- my cousins -- and I had never been close, and you would think things would have changed for the better through this situation.

Yeah right.

The oldest sister, four years my senior, was the only one of the three who was nice to me, but she was slightly distant. The middle sister, whose room I shared during my stay and who was two years older, pretended to be nice to me when her mom was around, but one night, I remember distinctly that she said to me, "You know you're going to be staying here until your dad dies, right?" That's just a sample of the attitude I got from that end. The youngest daughter, my age, had more important things to worry about, like friends at school, than a grieving cousin.

And they called themselves Christian. They attended the same church that my parents and I had attended since I was two.

Sure enough, my dad died that September, and I took a few days off from school for his funeral and personal time. When I went back to school, all of the kids acted like I had some sort of contagious disease, and that didn't help my grief much. (I need to mention here that before my dad's death, I had been one of the more popular girls in school, and I had thought that I had a lot of friends. I was open, concerned for others, and helpful, which I think is what endeared to a lot of people.) One kid called me "gravedigger". The teacher of that class was the only one who seemed to be a friend to me, and she did her best to keep some of the crueler kids from me, even going so far as to help me get transferred to another class, where I could get a fresh start with kids who hadn't known me too well before my dad died. And it worked.

A few months after my dad died, my mom and I switched churches again. (We hadn't gone since he died.) I had reservations about going back to church -- after all, if God didn't love me enough to help the doctors find my dad a new heart, or even love me enough to shelter me from the mean kids at school, then what should I do for Him? (Remember, this is the thought process of a now-ten-year-old.) I guess that's where I lost my faith, now that I look back.

Regardless, I tried to keep my mom happy by going to church with her, even though none of the kids at the church we were attending would have anything to do with me. However, to my credit, I did get into the church's broadcasting program when I was thirteen, helping them tape the services and then rebroadcast them on the local access channel. It was one of the funnest things I did, and made me realize what I wanted to do with my life.

High school came, finally. And over the last year or so I had managed to make a small circle of friends at my middle school. We all ended up at the same high school. (Yay!) However, as we grew up, I started having to act as a go-between between two of them, and eventually lost both of their friendships, except as general acquaintances. I got involved with a new bunch of friends in high school, though, including the "band nerd" crowd (another great decision in my life!). High school was also my first exposure to religions other than Christianity. (Don't get me wrong, I'd known about them... but I'd never known anyone of another religion.) Two or three of my good friends were Wiccans, and they were persecuted in the school. (One of them had a bad asthma attack right after the final bell one time, and people wouldn't call an ambulance or anything because they thought he was faking -- I mean, what else do "gays" -- which he was -- and "witches" do except lie and trick? At least I think that was the prevalent mindset.)

Eventually I started reading up on Wicca and Paganism (the only two alternate religions I even considered at the time) and realized that a lot of stuff they said matched my thoughts, especially the part about a pantheon of gods as opposed to monotheism. By this time I was the only one who wanted to go to church, and even that was only to help out with the TV program. My mom went to church once a month, if that, and I usually had to drag her there even then. So anyway, my mom found out what I was doing soon after I started reading up on the subject, and she went off. "We're a good Christian family! This is Devil worship! I will not let you believe that shit! What would your father think?" (Her key phrase whenever I did something that was against her.) We went back and forth for quite a while, never having a civil conversation about my evolving beliefs, and I even accused her of not being a Christian once or twice. That shut her up.

...For a while.

I still had to hide my beliefs from my mom, and do even now, even though I've moved out and live in the other end of Kentucky (Bowling Green). On top of being Celtic Wicca, I've researched several alternate religions, including Shinto (which I think is a really clean-cut, better version of Christianity), Buddhism (my fiance's beliefs -- and if anyone ever tells you that a Wiccan and a Buddhist can't get along, tell 'em to talk to me! ^_^), and several more -- those two were just the ones that made the most impact on my beliefs. I call myself Celtic Wiccan, because I believe in the Green Man and the Goddess, but I also believe that there is a spirit in everything (one of Shinto's key tenets), and I also believe in a world after this one. I mean, if so many religions see it, or center themselves around it, then how could it not be true?

A little background about my parents: my father grew up in rural nebraska, and was raised christian (i don’t know what denomination.)  He, over the course of his life, has examined just about the entire spectrum of religions.  He was living in something akin to a monastery as a disciple of yoghanda immediately before he met my mother.  My mom was not raised in a religious home.  When she met my father, she was living in what i recently found out was a full-blown, straight-from-the-news spaceship cult (called Sunburst, apparently it isn’t completely unkown).  The leader said that he had and did talk to aliens, that he had had visions of jesus, and he got caught embezzling money and molesting young girls.  like i said, ‘twas a classic spaceship cult.  When they got married, my parents moved to salt lake city (and we've moved since), and still have good feelings for the most part about Sunburst.  They separated (effictively divorced, that just took a while) on the first day of first grade.  I live with my mother, and we have constant fights.  I have kept a good relationship with my father my entire life, and he has been a huge influence on me.

as a kid, I was quite unpopular, very nerdy, and I was picked on quite a bit.  When I was growing up, my family went to a church called Living Enrichment Center (this one is truly famous in some circles, it had a weekly congregation of about 8000) that was “new thought christianity”, a blend of everything, focusing on christianity; it was through and through new age stuff.  I have nothing but good feelings for the church, though I do not now agree with what they taught (on a side note, the church recently went bankrupt in the midst of a scandal involving money embezzling on the part of the pastor’s husband.)  There was a fantastic teen group there, and it was in this group that I developed my now ponderous self-confidence.  This is also where I found out what true, compassionate love was.

After a while, i outgrew L.E.C., and moved on.  I made a lot of christian friends, and I have gotten much of my view of christianity from them.  I think I’m still in the stage of my life where I am just trying to get a rise out of people; i do not deny that my greatest pleasure is to tenaciously defend polarizing positions.  I’ve spent a lot of mental resources doing my best to refute christianity, but the more i’ve learned about it, the more i’ve noticed the feel of truth about it.

My father, for much of pre-teen years, was the devotee of an indian (that’s asian indian, not native american) called sai baba (some very interesting stuff, worth googling).  We went to Sai retreats at least once or twice a year, and at the time said that I was a devotee.  After a while, i grew past that, but it has left the stamp of eastern religion on me.  He has constantly changed and added to what he believes.  some things stuck, some didn’t.

My mother is a what i call a pseudo-buddhist.  We have statues of buddha and pictures of the dalai llama around the house.  She does yoga. She has trouble defining what she believes, but it is an amalgation of christianity and eastern religions.

I have had some pretty interesting experiences.  I’ve seen ash, honey, and water manifest out of thin air onto paintings, robes, and pictures (all this is related to sai baba).  I’ve seen UFO’s.  I’ve had experiences that were almost every day events that have just made certain things click inside of me.  These experiences have convinced me without a doubt that god exists and loves me, that I love everyone in the world, and that there is a higher and lower side to me; the higher is where love, compassion, and connection come from, while the lower is basic, reptilian.  It is where violence, coldness, and the part of me that is a predator arises.

I’ve spent considerable time talking to mormon missionaries, christian ministers, and my pagan friends.  Paganism has little appeal to me, i see no reason to revere nature over any other part of the world.  Satanism has no appeal.  It embraces a side of humanity that I think we’re meant to rise above.

I’m striving for something to believe in, but every system i find has something that i reject.
This message was last edited by the player at 09:25, Sun 17 Apr 2005.

Wow, haven't seen this in a while...  Here's a bump for people who asked for it.  I think it may be worthy of some updating.

*whew* Been two years since my post up there.  Makes me kind of embarrassed, but I guess my answer hasn't changed THAT much.

The church was always a stabilizing factor in my young life, which of course, made it very valuable.  At times it offered inspiration and emotional support (I can still remember dealing with my 'youthful depression' stage one night when the radio played 'Amazing Grace'.  I've never heard Amazing Grace on a radio since, excepting worship stations, which is definitely not what I was listening.  Little miracles, huh?)  I was exposed to enough circumstantial evidence to believe in Christianity.

Later in life I began to really study a lot more, reading everything I could get my hands on.  I love Joseph Campbell and Jung, who both have a lot to say on the value of myths.  I've read the Book of Mormon and The Church of Satan (a book on the history and growth of Satanism).  I've read a lot about the Wiccan religions and studied Buddhism fairly intently.  I'm currently learning more about Gnosticism.  There are a couple of conclusions I've come to...

Firstly, I believe *something* is out there.  If I weren't raised Catholic, I'd probably be agnostic.  We can go into why I believe something is out there later, if people are really interested.

I believe having a belief in the spiritual is important for good health.  Jung has restated this many times.  Freud was right that religion can be a crutch, but without crutches, we'd have a lot more people with broken legs crawling from the bedroom to the bathroom.  Sometimes we need crutches, and religion provides a lot more than just support in our times of emotional need.  Again, this is a complex issue that we can go into later, if people want, but I'm fairly comfortable that religion confers certain benefits to my personal health and wellbeing.

Once we've established that, Catholicism is the easy answer for me because my whole family is Catholic, so to do otherwise would be swimming upstream.  However, there are a lot of reasons I'm personally proud to be Catholic.  Catholicism has a very long history.  It does have a few black marks (although if you study them more carefully, you'll see that most of them are very, very seriously exaggerated.  The inquisition, for instance, was far more political than religious, and Galileo got in trouble because he directly insulted the pope and refused to provide sufficient evidence for his new theory.)  On the flip side, it has a lot of things to be proud of, serving as the sole source of political stability and the primary form of scientific progress with the fall of the Roman empire, producing some of the most exciting heroes of Western history and so on.  Catholicism has a LOT of history to draw on.

I'll also say that Catholicism is one of the more logical denominations out there.  There really isn't a reason why a person can't be a Catholic and a good scientist, for instance, and all moral decrees have clearly written logical support (even if you disagree with the reasoning, it is still logical.)  I do have my disagreements with the Catholic faith, but we're learning to live together.

So there you go.  I guess I'm more philosophical than religious, but the more I study, the more comfortable I feel with my faith and with my specific church, and even if I see that the Church went wrong somewhere, I can accept that.  I've been doing a lot of studying of the 700 and 800's as of late, and there's no question, some very high ranking church officials did some very bad things, some perhaps justifiable, some certainly not.  But I don't expect my church to be politically perfect.  It's a human institution and mistakes will be made.  But in the mean time, it's certainly enriching my life, and it simply makes sense to me to keep up the faith.
This message was last edited by the GM at 19:42, Thu 17 May 2007.