What is your birth religion and current religious status?

[Annamariah]

I'm a Christian and I'm a Finn. I'm not a Lutheran, though, but a member of Evangelic Free Church of Finland.

[brainstrain]

Born non-denominational Christian (in case you dont know, and i've encountered a suprising number of people that don't, that means we go only by the bible and its teachings. nothing extra, or, according to our beliefs, uninspired). I am currently undecided, though i am adamant that my religion of birth is misguided in many areas.

One of which would be comdemning bisexuals such as myself. Meaning that my relationship with my parents and immediate family (extended family's religions do not think i will rot in hell) are based on a fragile lie. which i fear will break apart before i'm ready...

but what will be, will be. and i dont have much say in that =D

[Pendragon]

Correct response: "Yeah, well so was Anton LaVey."

Excellant point, Joe! Also "And you never learned to read in all that time? Bummer." There is an excellent quote in the Bible: I Corinthians 14:38 "But if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant."

[Arguendo]

i was born totally oblivious to religion

Everyone is, eh.


I and all my siblings were christened because my secretly atheist mum didn't want to piss off my die-hard Christian grandmother. I was raised with a fair amount of religious teaching, but it came to a point where I realised that I saw absolutely no sense in any kind of faith.

Eventually I left the State Church (although they constantly try to sneak us non-members in, using the population register as their member list) and I'm certainly an atheist. I'm a member of the humanist organisation in Norway, and I'm very comfortable with relying on ethics instead of belief.

[higley]

I was born into a Christian family. My father is Jewish by blood, but his mother converted to Christianity when she was a girl. My grandfather was a pastor. Both Mom and Dad grew up being involved in church, and so did I.

I have remained a Christian. I have never felt that there were questions I had that couldn't be answered, and believe me I asked them. But that's relative to my life and the people around me, meaning I wasn't surrounded by the shortsightedness and/or legalism that seems to infect a lot of churches, leading to members rebelling and questioning their faith.

[sanctus]

White...Canadian (French-Canadian technically)Mother was Hungarian.

Born and raised Catholic and Catholic I remain;-)

[Santiago-gemini]

I am Muslim by birth and proud to be as I had not to think of quitting religion like others.

Spain

[Mary Sue]

I was raised by a non-secular Mom and a more-or-less agnostic Dad. Needless to say, religion never seemed much of an issue in our family! Notwithstanding my Mom was a loving and deeply spiritual person who believed in God and who instilled me with strong moral values from my earliest recollections.

How would I label myself? I'd have to say "Christian reincarnationist." I don't really trust ANY of the organized religions, which I find too narrow and self-constricting. Too often, IMO, organized religions teach the "us-against-them" mindset, causing division and thereby defeating their own ultimate purpose. God---by whatever name you call Him---or Her!---is supposed to be all about love. Unconditional love. As we're told in the New Testament, God IS love. And so God would never promote religious wars or prejudice or misogyny or homophobia. Jesus didn't teach this type of negativity, only the fallible mortals who, coming after him, distorted or misinterpreted the original message. To my mind, all religion can be summarized as "Do unto others..." and "Love the Creator."

As for my belief in reincarnation...Well, a few years back I was hypnotized and had a past-life regression! It turned out to be one of my most memorable
and awesome experiences. While in a light trance I remembered past incarnations I'd had, often in great detail...and realized that some of my half-forgotten childhood games had been simply "re-enacting" these unconscious memories. Also, some of my more vivid dreams had been, and continue to be, clues to the past. In reality there is no death, only evolution and change. We're all of us spiritual beings who just HAPPEN to be in physical bodies at the moment! We have multiple incarnations---I believe---as part of an ongoing educative process. Each life is comparable to a course taken in school...and once you accumulate enough credits, you can graduate, i.e. move on to something bigger and better. THAT'S my belief system!

As to my ethnicity I'm a mongrel, though solidly Northern European. English, German, Austrian, French and Dutch. I grew up in a very liberal area of New England, which is probably a good thing, considering what I'm like, LOL!

[Lotus3]

I was "born" more or less protestant, went through my angnostic angst phase and I'm now a buddhist.

As for my make-up:
3/4 German and 1/4 Irish

[Shalot]

I was baptized a Catholic and I went to Catholic schools. In the second grade, a nun told us that we were lucky to have heard the good news and now that we did know about the gospel and the teachings of Christ, we were better off but I couldn't help but think that I wish that I didn't know at all.

[Shadowsarin]

English with French heritage.

I was born without a religion, and given the choice to chose what I wanted to believe. After a few years with a christian group a while back, I went agnostic for a bit, and now stand at Nihilist. However, I'm open to others points of view, and if someone can convince me their god is right, I will probably convert.

[PistisSophia]

I was born a Jew and will die a Jew. I am now a Jew-Buddhist or, a Jew-Buh..

[kilted exile]

I was raised as a Church of Scotland Presbyterian in the West of Scotland, I did the whole "Boys Brigade thing" as well. Being raised as a protestant in that area it invariably meant that I was supposed to be a Rangers supporter and definitely in favour of the Union. A lot of things are assumed to go along with this, all of which are complete nonsense (for those not aware, as far as Catholic/Protestant "issues" go, after ROI/N.IRE the west of Scotland is one of the most bigoted areas you will find)

I could not reconcile the idea of a God with any of this crap, and so I have zero faith in the existence of any God anymore.

[Poetess]

I do believe in Allah (God).
I was born a Muslim, and hopefully die a Muslim.

But, would you please elaborate the reason of losing faith in God`s existence?

[Kelly_Sprout]

I was born to parents who were Seventh-day Adventists. I went to Seventh-day Adventist elementary school, high school, and college. My parents were active members of their church and I was raised to consider the weekly cycle of attending church to be something to look forward to and something to respect.

I became a student not just of the doctrines of the Seventh-day Adventist church but also a student of theology as in, "the study of God and Godly things." I believed that I knew something about Truth with a capital T. I also felt like I had a real relationship, almost tangible, with Jesus.

Then I got married and had children. After raising them and indoctrinating them with my own beliefs, I found myself divorced and childless. Worse, I saw my ex-wife as a threat to the healthy, well-balanced spirituality that I thought was important to the spiritual health of my children. She had become a ranting fanatic, damning to hell anyone who dare to contradict her views, including me.

This forced me to look at the politics of supporting, exhorting, and defending the doctrines of organized religion in general and the Seventh-day Adventist church in particular. I didn't like what I saw. It looked like totalitarianism, exclusivity, and supreme arrogance dressed in platitudes and supported by a careful weaving of scriptures with interpretations. I began wondering about what love actually was and why it was so elusive. I began wondering how one can love a God that can't be seen, felt or proven if they can't love one another and are willing to tear each other apart, like my ex-wife had done to me when she took my children away. I began to wonder about what God values if he doesn't value his own people.

I tend to approach philosophical things much like Buddists do, but I tend also to question the existance or purpose of spiritual things. These ideas that we call spiritual... What were the motives of the people who laid the foundations of thought that have become ideas that we call spiritual? How much do those to minister to their flock actually believe, how much to they go along with while never expressing internal nagging doubts, how much do they go along with for political, financial or career motives?

I have become a distant observer of religion. I can't completely let go of the possiblity of God and purpose and good and evil and reward and judgement and spiritual understanding, but neither can I embrace these things any longer. I just don't know. I guess that makes me Agnostic.

As for ethnicity, I was born in California. I am 1/4 German, 1/4 Swedish, 1/4 English and 1/4 unknown. I have little to none of the cultural environments from any of these blood lines.