posted
I would like to state that even though my situation is similar to JaimeBenlevy, I agree with Die Tante. Belief follows in if you persuade yourself without fail to do the right deeds, belief will start settling in.
Happened to me half a year before my Bar-Mitzvah. (Ahem, I was said to have been a very good reader, God bless my great teacher, so if any of you in the States know of an - AHEM - sorry, an opening - let me know. )
Posts: 2978 | Registered: Oct 2004
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I think most people would classify me as Agnostic but personally I don't believe that everyone can fit into a niche like that. I have my own set of beliefs uniquely shaped by my experiences and how I was raised.
That doesn't stop me from seeing the beauty in some religions... though it does stop me from being able to get seriously involved in them.
Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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33 Raised Roman Catholic - I still go to Ash Wednesday every year - I consider it the "Sinner's Mass". Otherwise, I don't go to church anymore. Spent most of my life in Catholic School, attended Catholic college. I will ALWAYS be Catholic on some level, even if I refer to myself now as a "recovering Catholic". I've actually found Wicca to be quite interesting, but I think that my "religion" as it were is a jumble of the ideas and guildelines that FEEL right. I think we are all born with a "Moral Compass" (with a few notable exceptions) and even from a young age we know "Right" from "Wrong". I go by this more than anything else, becuase it transcends religion and isn't exclusionary. I absolutely REFUSE to believe that someone who lives their life right and well, does well by their famliy friends and community and always tries their hardest to to what is good and true would NOT receive some kind of eternal reward- heaven, reincarnation, whatever. I flat out will not accept that good people go to hell just becuase they don't believe the same thing I do in exactly the same manner. I know too many hypocrites inside the church, and in favor with the church, to believe that.
Sorry - didn't mean to rant!!
Posts: 262 | Registered: Jun 2004
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quote:United Methodist hoping for a move toward even MORE liberal thinking within that denomination
Whooohooo! Go our team!
On a different note, I loved what Tante said about action leading to belief. My southern Baptist grammy told my aunt when she was a teenager that you don't wait till you feel like praying to pray. You just pray.
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
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I was born and raised Catholic, my family was never really very devout in the way that we only went to mass on special occasions but most of my family was strong on religion. I started to question my faith in the religion when my father wanted us to attend church with him regularly, it was then that I started to notice that the more I attended mass the less I believed in it. I started to feel like a robot, only attending mass because that's what you're "suppossed to do". I started to look around me every mass after that and I saw more people like me, staring at the floor, looking bored and annoyed... Didn't exactly look like they wanted to be there and I could understand why.
From then on I slowly started to question what I was taught to be absolute truth. Experiences from my early childhood and teenage years provided the push required for me to question the possibility of God actually being there. I want God to exist but I just can't convince myself that he does. A lot of my current beliefs conflict with each other at the moment because I am still slowly questioning what I was taught. For example, every single bone on my body wants to believe that there's a Heaven out there, I'd want my mother to be in no other place than that and I see her as being there, always watching over me... But, that would mean there has to be a god out there who created heaven, which goes against one of my core beliefs. So I end up believing in Heaven but not in God... It's a rather strange mix and I have many other examples but somehow it still feels right to me at the moment.
Sorry for the long post, I just didn't want to leave that unanswered Posts: 459 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
22/ I guess you could call me agnostic. I think that IF god is out there, he's got a whole universe to take care of, and doesn't care about us on this one tiny planet.
posted
I'm trying to figure out what Alt means by "Roman Catholic Apostolic". I see several non-Roman Catholic religions when I search Google that contain the words Catholic and Apostolic. It looks like those groups don't believe in the Pope, or they have their own pope. I don't see the three words used together, though. Are you Roman Catholic, Alt? Or are you something else? Can you show me an online link for it?
Posts: 1014 | Registered: Jul 2005
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posted
When I was on my LDS mission in Italy, I would not infrequently hear (and you've got to imagine this in your head with the exaggerated trilled "r"s and elongated consonants of a passionate Italian), "Io sono Cattolico...Apostolico...Romano!"
Posts: 1068 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
The Apostle's creed goes "I believe in one holy Catholic and Apostolic church", which, the way Sister Emily taught me, refers to the Catholic Church headed by the Pope in Rome. However, I've heard rumors that other people say these sames words, with a small "c" using catholic to mean universal.
I went on a team-up yesterday with the sister missionaries and spoke to a man who is Pentecostal. He was very interested in the speaking in tongues, specifically, and wanted to know what we thought about that. I read to him verse 7 from the Articles of Faith and bore my testimony about the gift of the Holy Spirit. He wanted to know why things would have changed since then. He made an appiontment for us to go back. He was very impressed by the missionaries, I think. The Elders had visited him before, too.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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posted
I have no idea why I posted that here. Probably because I'm still half asleep and rambling?
But I'd be interested to hear the breakdown so far, too, if anyone's still keeping tally, by age and by religion, both separately and combined.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
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quote: However, I've heard rumors that other people say these sames words, with a small "c" using catholic to mean universal.
In the United Methodist hymnal the Apostle's Creed does refer to the "catholic" church but not the "catholic and apostolic" church. And yes, it's small c catholic (there's even an asterisk and footnote so people don't get confused ).
quote:Man, from the pie chart, it looks like not only do people become Republicans as they age, they also become Christian/other!
What a strange conclusion considering that Bob Scopatz, Tatiana and I are possibley the three oldest people here and are all decidedly non-republican.
Posts: 12591 | Registered: Jan 2000
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Here's the thread were the results from all this polling are. I still have the excel file somewhere on my work computer with everyone's age, if anyone's really curious.
Posts: 5462 | Registered: Apr 2005
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quote:Originally posted by JaimeBenlevy: 15/ born Jewish (not sure whether I believe in the existence of G-d or not, though)
Belief is not necessary or required. All that is necessary is to do the right thing, and to behave as if there is a G'd. I went through the same thing at your age, and with practicing the mitzvos, belief sort of takes care of itself.
I would disagree with that. I thing questioning and seeking (while still practicing, preferably) are essential as well.
There are many wonderful books that can help. And these days, a multitude of online sources, like Aish.com and torah.org. [Smile]
This is Jaime, from the first post that was quoted here. I think I missed those posts back then so I'll respond to them now.
First of all, I don't believe in a God anymore. I won't go into much detail here, but I just think that a God is something people made up so we can feel like we're important in the universe and that there is a Higher Plan for each of us. Like how people used to think that the universe revolved around Earth (I hope that didn't offend anyone, it's just my opinion).
That said, I still believe in religion. I think religion is great and is important since it makes people happy and causes them to be better people. A very close friend of mine is a very observant Jew and is probably the nicest person I've ever met. My father is also pretty observant. But I still do my best to follow the person-to-person laws of Judaism, because regardless of whether there is a God or not, those are very important. I just don't follow the laws that are for God, like keeping kosher, praying every day, etc.
I don't really know why I'm posting this in a thread about ages Posts: 2054 | Registered: Nov 2005
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And not from Utah. Grew up near Detroit, attended a Lutheran elementary school for a while. When I was in the Army, I joined the LDS Church. It's been 12 years now.
Posts: 24 | Registered: Feb 2006
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