NationStates Jolt Archive

So far it seems that discussion about religious matters here falls into one of two categories. Either those of a non-religious persuasion post something that amounts to, 'Religious people are idiots because only idiots believe in a god', or religious folks post something like, 'Those who don't believe as I do are all going to HELL! Oh, and you're stupid as well'. And of course this provokes both sides to start swapping insults and facts.

Given that faith (or belief) is not provable, I'd like to ask, where and how did you come to your faith, or belief? Was it a calling? You were raised in it? You chose?

For atheists and agnostics, how did you come to your non-belief (sorry, it's a clumsy descriptive)? What thoughts led you to that? Was it an event? Just happened?

Anything and any story is welcome, from a hard day's thinking, to a profound event, to a 4:20 moment.

I would ask for one favor though, I am not attempting to convert, convince, or otherwise, anyone to my own thoughts. So please respect everyone's experiences and not judge the worth or intelligence of their views.

Besides, there are plenty of other threads in which to do so in the NationStates forum. :)

well i was raised without any faith & i have seen no logical reason to 'take up' or adopt a faith so far in my life

I wasn't bought up under and religion, and after having been offered the choice by several different people wanting to 'save' me, I had a think about it and realised that I'm agnostic (I didn't know that was a thing when I was younger, so I just assumed I was athiest. *shrug*)

I was raised attending Assembly of God churches. Real holy roller places with people passing out and speaking in tongues. When I was 16 I stopped going but I maintained a personal faith in God.
I rejected the worship of Jesus that most Protestants practice now and instead see him as merely the means to reach God. I never pray to Christ, I pray to God if I pray, which happens really rarely because I don't expect anykind a help from the old man. I ain't in it for help, it just seems a good way to live.

i was raised devoutly catholic, and worked extremely hard at believing, until i finally snapped under the strain of trying to adhere to beliefs that are clearly baseless or selfcontradictory or seem designed to make life worse rather than better, and just stopped believing in it all.

it was a real weight off my mind and allowed me to finally own up to myself what i really believe in.

well i was raised without any faith & i have seen no logical reason to 'take up' or adopt a faith so far in my life

Ditto.

Perhaps it's because I take a practical view on life, believing in science and logical algebraic reasoning as opposed to creationism.

It fell off the back of a truck...

...nah, I was raised a Catholic, but I'm not strongly religious. I have my own moral values.

I was raised attending Assembly of God churches. Real holy roller places with people passing out and speaking in tongues. When I was 16 I stopped going but I maintained a personal faith in God.
I rejected the worship of Jesus that most Protestants practice now and instead see him as merely the means to reach God. I never pray to Christ, I pray to God if I pray, which happens really rarely because I don't expect anykind a help from the old man. I ain't in it for help, it just seems a good way to live.

[hijack] what is speaking in tongues all about? I've seen it mentioned a few times but it always seemed like the preacher had caused the person to have some kind of fit.

I was never pushed into any faith, but my parents do kinda belive.
I picking up from them, do belive in god, an ineffiable god, as well as re-incarnation and lessons that we (our eternal part) need to learn. I think that personality persists and even when we are without bodies we can still affect/effect/communicate with the living.
I guess the nearest recognised faith is spiritualism, but I not down with all of it.

First I was Catholic like my grandparents, but when I felt that all my prayers have gone unanswered for years and I asked myself why God doesn't help me with my life, I became more and more of an atheist over the years. I was quite depressive in these times and didn't see any meaning in life (which I sometimes wanted to end, but I always feared the pain too much to do it).

16 months ago my life got a lot better when I realized and experienced that happiness is possible under all circumstances. Since then, I developed some kind of pantheistic spirituality. Now I believe that everything *is* inherently good, and if it doesn't seem to be, it's just a matter of misinterpretation. I cannot tell you a single event that lead me to this belief, it was a long process that's still going on, and I the more I look for it, the more I see that God [whoever/whatever he/that is] arranges everything as it is perfect.

I'm not sure that what I believe in is true, but I thought about it and came to the conclusion that there're three possibilities:

1.) It's true, in that case everything is fine.

2.) There is no God. In that case life has no objective meaning, and nothing matters. Not even truth has any value then, and it doesn't matter if my belief is an illusion. If I'm right as a nihilist, I haven't won anything, but if I'm wrong as a nihilist and God exists, I have a problem.

3.) There is a God, but He is different that what I think Him to be like. In that case, I might be punished for my heresy or burn in hell or whatever, but I can't change it anyway. There are too many different ways to God that claim to be the right one. If God doesn't give me a real possibility to know His will, He cannot expect me to obey Him. In that case I'm lost anyway, and it doesn't matter what I believe in.

Conclusion:
I have no reason not to believe in what I feel is right.

religion isn't nessicary belief in something. i think it's the code that one lives their life by. i try to be a thervada buddhist because i agree with it's right's and wrong's and how people should act, but i don't agree with how they think things are reincarnated and the other stuff to it. i also have my own set of codes based on what is actually right, not what is right based on opinion. they're not really mine, i took them from a few people who made a list of everything they could think of that was actually true(such as how everything is equal because everything is made from the same things to begin with, and all will eventually end), but i call it mine cause i apply that list of things to my life.

My faith honors the love of TNA.

Everything in life revolves around getting a little A and playing with lots of T's.

My dad is atheist, my mum is a non-church going Christian. I wasn't baptised, apparently so I could make up my own mind without having a faith forced upon me without my say so.
I went to a C of E primary school (all state primary schools in England are C of E) and my uncle, a Jehovah's witness, gave me a book of illustrated Bible stories, which I really liked.
I believed in a God the same way that other kids believed in Father Christmas - why would the adults lie about something like that?
As I got older I thought about it some more, and I met people of other faiths and realised that religion is very subjective, and the more I considered the concept of God the more ludicrous it seemed to me.
I became interested in political theories in my mid teens, and when I read "Religion is the opiate of the masses..." I thought "bingo!"

i was raised in a christian familly, and i always thought of myself as a christian, until march 19, 2005. i was at youth conference, in calgary, and having a blast worshiping in the very front row, dead center seat, when they lead vocalist/guitarist asked for those who wanted to ask Christ into there lives to come forward, so that someone might pray for them and help them take that step. immediately, i thought to myself, "i'm glad i done that already, i couldn't bear the emberasment" right away it's almost as if God slapped me in the face, He said "u think ur a Christian? tell me. do u look like a christian? do u talk like a christian? do u act like a christian? do u LIVE like a christian?" and i realised the answer to all the questions was no. i felt guilty almost right away, but then God's spirit filled me, and i realised how much He loves me, and how much i need Him, and so i went up and asked Christ into my life for a second time....since then i've stumbled, quite frequently actually, but i'm so much happier, and nothing seems able to go wrong.

I discovered my "faith" (more of a composite of beliefs) while traveling in Greece. I had gone to see a shrine of Pan, and there was a kind of primal power that I felt around and in it. It was animal, yet intelligent and in no way malevolent. It felt so primal that I became convinced there was something unexplicable there. I read about Pan and other nature deities and came to the conclusion that their belief systems worked a lot better and were more invigorating than other religions. And from there it has evolved on its own in to a working system for me. Sounds crazy I guess, but it's true for me.

I did not grow up with any religion or church going.
Then I was 19 years old and had a child out of wedlock and no hope for my future and no place to live.
I got invited to go to church, I went and a "light bulb" went off! :D
I heard just what I needed to hear.
I gave my life to Jesus, and He took care of everything.
I got a job, a place to live, a car... everything just fell into my lap.
I was Born-Again about 2-3 years later.
And since then... things have been rough and tough, but Jesus has never left my side.

My beliefs? They stemed from the knowledge and life experience I have received from my life so far. My parents never encouraged nor discouraged religion. I was raised with a clean slate with which to found out for myself what I beleaved to be true. My grandparents on both sides were christians. My grandparents on my mom's side had the most influence of the two sides on religion. My first real experience from religion is when when I was five. I was staying up at my grandparents when my grandpa was telling me bible stories. This lead to him telling me about the rapture and the apocolypse. In my opinion, the rapture isn't a good thing to tell a five year old child. While we were there I noticed them giving the blessing, and getting dressed up sunday morning. Not understanding I always questioned why they did this.
I don't remember the answer I had received from the question, but I guess it didn't satisty. Growing up I had on and off contacts with religion. Mostly it was from friends and kids around the neighborhood. Religion was never a issue as all we did was play and go to school. Back then we could never fully understand such a issue. I can remember when some friends of the family took me to thier church. Durring the service I was taken to be saved. I went through the confessing of sins and was told I would feel something different. For the remnence of the service I was fidgety, just waiting for the sermon to end so I could go home. I never experienced any different feelings as they said I would. I never returned to church due to lack of interest. Then I was getting to be old enough to begin to seriously question the ways of the world. Then, we moved to the city where my grandparents lived. While moving, I spent one week with my grandparents. This left a bitter taste of christianity in my mouth as the entire week they attempted to convert me with threats of hell. This was furthered by a trip to see the friends who had first taken me to church with them when thier mother attacked me when she had seen my CD collection I had accumulated at this time. Now, At that time I was a large Metallica fan. This was frusterating as now I was called a heathen for listening to the "devil's" music. While I was in highschool I further questioned my surroundings, observing how people treated others, how moral ideas were being tossed around. I also noticed rituals of different religions, not just christianity, but muslim as well. I still questioned why they had thier different coustoms. I began to get futher into philosophy. Reading books on various religions and thoughts. Compairing them to what I had observed. I then found science was the most logical to base a belief system on as it can be proven. I then began to answer some of lifes questions. Such as why are we here, why do we exist. The answers I came up with satisfied me. At the same time I developed a moral code based on ideals I had while in school. Looking back I am amazed how much had held up in the real world. However, some ideas were simply naive. Leaving highscool was a good test to see how my moral system and ideas would hold up in the real world. The core ideas have held up to scrutiny and others have been refined from further questioning. A few months ago my girlfriend had sugested to go to www.religioustolerence.org as it had alot of interesting material on many different religions. I then found out, much to my chagrin, that alot of what came up with from years of questioning and observing turned out to be very close to secular humanism. So, I hope that answers your question.

Given that faith (or belief) is not provable, I'd like to ask, where and how did you come to your faith, or belief? Was it a calling? You were raised in it? You chose?

For myself, I was raised as a Christian, but I did quite a bit of questioning back about 8 to 10 years ago. The conclusion that I reached is that Christianity makes the most sense out of anything that I have come across yet. This is still the case, even though I am now a philosophy major at a secular university.

So far it seems that discussion about religious matters here falls into one of two categories. Either those of a non-religious persuasion post something that amounts to, 'Religious people are idiots because only idiots believe in a god', or religious folks post something like, 'Those who don't believe as I do are all going to HELL! Oh, and you're stupid as well'. And of course this provokes both sides to start swapping insults and facts.

Those are extreme cases from both thoughts and positions. Not all Atheists say religious people are idiots. Not all Religious people say unbelievers are going to hell. My Religion doesn't; you can't get there ignorant. You have to actually know fully God's plan and than reject after that the Holy Ghost and truth. Look at Judah he examplifies this. He knew exactly every because Jesus told him and yet he still sold Jesus out. Oh and if Judah didn't do it eventually Jesus would have been crucified, God always has a contingency plan. It just wouldhave too longer.


Given that faith (or belief) is not provable, I'd like to ask, where and how did you come to your faith, or belief? Was it a calling? You were raised in it? You chose?

I would ask for one favor though, I am not attempting to convert, convince, or otherwise, anyone to my own thoughts. So please respect everyone's experiences and not judge the worth or intelligence of their views.

Besides, there are plenty of other threads in which to do so in the NationStates forum. :)

Faith is provable just not always to others.
I got my faith's principle from birth. I was born with a Moral compass that leads me to do good. My parents taught us right from wrong a little, but not much.

The Church however does teach things like that, but happily it all fits my moral compass.
I was raised in the church.
When one reaches age 8, you have the age of accountability and can than on be baptized and be a member of the church.
At this point you may gain thje Preisthood, just the Aaronic, your class is a deacon. You help pass the sacrament.
Next is Teacher, you can teach a class.
And after that you may be a Preist and recive Melchezdiak Preisthood. This is the power and Preisthood held by Jesus.

I did choose the church, but I was fully converted till the one day I was in distress and asked the Lord for his comfort. The feeling was Euphoric. You just don't want to move from that spot. But anyway, that is mostly it.

What most people don't know is that being Muslim is actually a mutation caused by the bite of a certain kind of beetle (Islamicus Africani). The venum replaces a chemical in the brain that gives a human super speed, the ability to read minds, and a smug sense of self-worth. In some cases, the ability to comand the loyalty of sea creatures shows up, but that's in less than 10%.

Well, currently I believe in the existence of a God (which is mostly a gut feeling than anything else). Any other beliefs I see as unnecessary, since you should be able to do generally good in your life without a religious doctrine to guide you.

How I came to this is that for quite a while I was raised Catholic, which was my dad's religion when he was growing up. We weren't devout Catholics in any sense though, and when I learned about an odd belief my parents simply explained to me that it was an old point that nobody practices anymore. Naturally, I began to pay little attention to the little details of Christianity, and only accepted beliefs if I could rationalize them. Then my parents got divorced, and my mom re-married a new ager (technically Christian also, but with so many beliefs similar to new age religions that he could easily be considered to be either way). I looked at each of the little beliefs of the two religions, and started to realise that they had so many things about them that were unnecessary. Why do I need to make that little cross sign and recite poems? Why should I put crystals in strategic locations in my room? So I just decided to drop it, and the only belief that I kept but couldn't logically prove was the belief in a God, since I have such a strong gut feeling that there is one.

For atheists and agnostics, how did you come to your non-belief (sorry, it's a clumsy descriptive)? What thoughts led you to that? Was it an event? Just happened?


I was born into a very religious family (At least according to my parents that is...). My parents were episcopal (dad) and methodist (mom) and they brought me to church every Sunday. It was something that I didn't question because the adults said it and they wouldn't lie.

However, my family moved, and my pareents were unable to find a church that they could agree with localy (being relatively liberal I suppose.) so we stopped attending. Around age eight I became very insomniac and would spend hours gazing at the ceiling. During that time one of the themes that haunted me was a discovery that all kids make: I was going to die eventually. I comforted myself by telling myself that tehre wsa life after death. Around the same time I discovered that the Easter Bunny wasn't real (I was slow...) and it struck me that I couldn't trust in God any more than I could the Easter Bunny. I was horrified, and for a time I was depressive and unable to deal with the world at large. Around age twelve I had completely supressed my horror by driving it from my mind as best I could. A friend suggested Phillip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy and I did a bit of research about Pullman. When I read that he was atheist I went to the dictionary and looked up this strange word I had never seen before. When I was confronted by the idea that one could not beleive in God (something I hadn't known.) I was shocked, and almost immediately rejected the idea. My family went on a trip and we attended a Catholic Church in Jacksonville, and I was struck by the vanity of the entire idea of organized worship. So, as I turned 13, I decided to really think on the matter, and I decided that the only religious beleif I could lend any credence too was atheism. I have not seen anything that sways me in the least since.

I was raised as a Presbyterian (vanilla Protestant). But, it made me agnostic. Almost an atheist.

Then I had the odd feeling that I was missing something. And I converted to Judaism.

Did that for a few years, and although it was good, I was still missing something. A gap, so to speak.

And I went to a Pentacostal service, was filled with the Holy Spirit, and never looked back.

No, I'm not holier than thou, and I've done plenty of bad things in my life. But I have hope - which I've never really had before in my life.

Took me a long time to get here, but I'm here.

Was raised as a christian, rejected it when my life went to shit. I believed in God, but I hated him. Wasn't about to turn satanist though... I just hated the lot.

One day I was faced with what was to me was an agonising problem, mean and irrelevant as it might be to others. I prayed because I had no other option.

Sufficing to say, it worked. That day I found a quiet space and swore myself to God, flesh, blood and soul as whatever he needed me for.

A friend of a friend was web surfing at 3 in the morning. Found it, sent it to my friend, who then sent it to me. This was followed by three months of thinking, testing and cross-refencing. Then it was decided.

I was raised as a christian...kind of, my parents claim to be christians but we never went to church or anything, then one day I said to myself, "wow...this god stuff is a load of crap" and since then I've been an atheist, yay!

I was a Christian, my father was Baptist and my mother was Methodist. Then when I was around 12 or so became an Agnostic, then an atheist from there. Then Jesus came to me and said, " Megh."

Well, it's a long story.

Are you familiar with "good touching" and "bad touching"?

What most people don't know is that being Muslim is actually a mutation caused by the bite of a certain kind of beetle (Islamicus Africani). The venum replaces a chemical in the brain that gives a human super speed, the ability to read minds, and a smug sense of self-worth. In some cases, the ability to comand the loyalty of sea creatures shows up, but that's in less than 10%.

Sweet!

Is Alanis Morrisette Allah as well as God?

'Cuz I may want to become a believer and I need to know these things.

i was raised devoutly catholic, and worked extremely hard at believing, until i finally snapped under the strain of trying to adhere to beliefs that are clearly baseless or selfcontradictory or seem designed to make life worse rather than better, and just stopped believing in it all.

it was a real weight off my mind and allowed me to finally own up to myself what i really believe in.
Funny. I've had the opposite experience. My faith has helped me not snap under any strain.

I was raised Catholic, by fairly non-devout parents. However, when I read the Bible, and listened to the priest, it just made sense to me. A clear, monolithic, cool (as in temperature), and solid truth that seems to logically explain everything. It was like an answer to all my questions, and still is.

What most people don't know is that being Muslim is actually a mutation caused by the bite of a certain kind of beetle (Islamicus Africani). The venum replaces a chemical in the brain that gives a human super speed, the ability to read minds, and a smug sense of self-worth. In some cases, the ability to comand the loyalty of sea creatures shows up, but that's in less than 10%.


I knew an eel always stung muhammad ali's boxing opponents just before the fight.

I KNEW IT.

I was raised catholic and still have regard for catholic culture and traditions.

Over time however, as i got older, i lost any faith i had in the existance of god/jesus and have since taken to basing everything temporal upon reason, rational thought &c.

At a relatively young age I read books about buddhism and eastern philosophy, and though i dont officially believe in any sort of spirituality, i have nagging, unreasonable quasi-beliefs about some things.

At times i come into the orbit of belief in buddhist enlightenment and the virtue of non-existance. Death of the self, unity with the whole &c.

More and more I find these ideas mirrored in physics and whatnot, but i will admit it may just be selective reasoning and those sorts of things.

I was raised in the Church, but I can't say any of it meant anything much to me while I was there. It just seemed a silly waste of time and I never felt any connection with the numinous; at all. Plus, a lot of the people in that church were self serving mother-fuckers, who acted all bizzare just after communion. (Seriously, for the non-christians, go to a church sometime and check out the faces just after people get the wafer and wine).

To me, there were far better things I could do with my sunday morning. (Like masturbating.)

Still, even though I wasn't completely convinced, at that time I went along with it, just to be polite and not upset people who clearly had deeply held beliefs.

Later on, I learnt that 90% of the friction in the world today revolves around one person's interpretation of what the great sky-pixie said as compared to another person's. (Just look at these boards, for example). It was at that point, I realized that either: If an involved loving god(s) cared, they would intervene when so many people officially spoke in their name and caused trouble - yes that's all of you, every religion; or, that god(s) were completely disintersted in the affairs of mortal man. In either case, disbelief in them would carry no penalty, and given that there was no actual evidence for the existence of any god(s) whatsoever, atheism is the only rational viewpoint.

So I decided that I was an atheist.

I also decided that most religion is a pain in the arse to the rest of us who don't believe.