(no subject)
From the altfriday5:
1. Do you consider yourself religious? Spiritual? Neither? Something else? What do those words mean to you?
Religious to me means someone who has the outward appearance of Christianity but not much of the inward manifestations. Religious means going to church, perhaps saying grace before meals, talking about your church, but not showing genuine love and compassion for others outside your narrow circle of those you think are somehow worthy.
Spiritual to me means having some mystical aspect to your personality, over and above the practical aspects of life. It means being in touch with non-tangible parts of yourself or the universe. I'm finding this hard to define, but I know it's not me.
I do not consider myself either religious or spiritual, in spite of having been brought up going to church and Sunday school. I think you have to be a lot less pragmatic than I am to be able to be truly spiritual. I need to be able to touch, see, and understand things to believe in them; it seems to be impossible for me to make the leap of faith required to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for me, for example. Maybe he was a man, and maybe he did die on the cross, but how could he have been literally the son of God? I know this probably sounds blasphemous to many people, but it's the way I think.
2. How would you describe your system of beliefs about the world? Does a commonly used term (Muslim, humanist, Pagan, agnostic) fit comfortably for you or have you had to develop your own way of thinking about and describing this?
I would describe myself as agnostic. When I consider the world in all its complexity and interconnectedness, I think somebody/something planned it that way, but I can't quite bring myself to say that that somebody/something is the God of most organised Christian religions. I believe that everything that's alive today evolved from something earlier; I believe everything that was created or existed in the beginning was designed to evolve in order to adapt to changing conditions, therefore I don't see evolution as contradicting creation by some higher power. I just don't believe that everything that exists today was created in exactly the form in which it now exists.
3. Were you raised in a family that participated in a religious tradition? Either way, how do you feel about that? If you were raised in a particular tradition, what's your relationship to that tradition now?
Yes, I grew up Methodist; I was taken to church from the time I was born and was sent to Sunday School from as soon as I was old enough until I went away to school when I was 16. When I entered my teens I started complaining about having to go to church, but I didn't stop going until about 25 years later.
In my home, I did not see Christianity practised. Going to church was an outward show that, as far as I could see, did not result in the kind of inward relationship with God (the God of the Christian religion) that changes your life for the better. In other words, my parents were religious as I defined it above. They were good, honest, hard working, upright citizens and good neighbours, but my father ruled the household with his bad moods, was physically abusive, and sexually molested me as well.
Later, after I went to work in Perth, I searched in various churches for something that I had not found in my childhood church, but it proved elusive. I could see that some people had true faith that resulted in a close relationship with God from which they drew comfort, peace, and guidance, and I wanted that but I have never been able to achieve it. Going to church provided me with a community, but it was a community where I felt like an impostor. I said the right things and went to prayer meetings and Bible study groups and church services, but underneath I could never quite believe in God as my heavenly father or Jesus as my saviour. When I prayed it felt like words going nowhere. Basically, I felt like a hypocrite.
A few years later, in a different state and going to a different church, I started to feel worse and worse about my lack of faith. This church preached that if you don't believe in God and aren't showing any of the gifts of the spirit it's your own fault because you don't have enough faith, and every time I went to church I went away feeling bad about myself because I knew I didn't measure up to their standards. Finally I just stopped going, and it was a huge relief. I started feeling better about myself than I had for years.
When we moved back to Perth I went to church a few times at a couple of different churches, but again, it was fairly meaningless to me, and also, I felt that I didn't fit in because I was not middle class enough (and too divorced). It seems that some churches believe that if you have faith, God will bless you with material wealth, and that's a belief I don't subscribe to so I didn't fit in.
So to sum up, I now have no relationship with any religious tradition, and I feel good about that. Religion just imposed on me a set of unreachable expectations that I'm happy to be free of.
4. What factors have influenced your decision to affiliate -- or not -- with an organized religious tradition?
I see I partly covered this in the previous question. I also avoid organised religion because so many churches are so blatantly hate-filled towards homosexuals and other people whom they deem to be sinners.
5. Whether or not you consider yourself religious or spiritual, are there things you consider to be sacred? What are they?
Although I know that "real people" aren't buried in cemeteries (only their physical bodies), I do consider cemeteries/graveyards to be sacred.
1. Do you consider yourself religious? Spiritual? Neither? Something else? What do those words mean to you?
Religious to me means someone who has the outward appearance of Christianity but not much of the inward manifestations. Religious means going to church, perhaps saying grace before meals, talking about your church, but not showing genuine love and compassion for others outside your narrow circle of those you think are somehow worthy.
Spiritual to me means having some mystical aspect to your personality, over and above the practical aspects of life. It means being in touch with non-tangible parts of yourself or the universe. I'm finding this hard to define, but I know it's not me.
I do not consider myself either religious or spiritual, in spite of having been brought up going to church and Sunday school. I think you have to be a lot less pragmatic than I am to be able to be truly spiritual. I need to be able to touch, see, and understand things to believe in them; it seems to be impossible for me to make the leap of faith required to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and died for me, for example. Maybe he was a man, and maybe he did die on the cross, but how could he have been literally the son of God? I know this probably sounds blasphemous to many people, but it's the way I think.
2. How would you describe your system of beliefs about the world? Does a commonly used term (Muslim, humanist, Pagan, agnostic) fit comfortably for you or have you had to develop your own way of thinking about and describing this?
I would describe myself as agnostic. When I consider the world in all its complexity and interconnectedness, I think somebody/something planned it that way, but I can't quite bring myself to say that that somebody/something is the God of most organised Christian religions. I believe that everything that's alive today evolved from something earlier; I believe everything that was created or existed in the beginning was designed to evolve in order to adapt to changing conditions, therefore I don't see evolution as contradicting creation by some higher power. I just don't believe that everything that exists today was created in exactly the form in which it now exists.
3. Were you raised in a family that participated in a religious tradition? Either way, how do you feel about that? If you were raised in a particular tradition, what's your relationship to that tradition now?
Yes, I grew up Methodist; I was taken to church from the time I was born and was sent to Sunday School from as soon as I was old enough until I went away to school when I was 16. When I entered my teens I started complaining about having to go to church, but I didn't stop going until about 25 years later.
In my home, I did not see Christianity practised. Going to church was an outward show that, as far as I could see, did not result in the kind of inward relationship with God (the God of the Christian religion) that changes your life for the better. In other words, my parents were religious as I defined it above. They were good, honest, hard working, upright citizens and good neighbours, but my father ruled the household with his bad moods, was physically abusive, and sexually molested me as well.
Later, after I went to work in Perth, I searched in various churches for something that I had not found in my childhood church, but it proved elusive. I could see that some people had true faith that resulted in a close relationship with God from which they drew comfort, peace, and guidance, and I wanted that but I have never been able to achieve it. Going to church provided me with a community, but it was a community where I felt like an impostor. I said the right things and went to prayer meetings and Bible study groups and church services, but underneath I could never quite believe in God as my heavenly father or Jesus as my saviour. When I prayed it felt like words going nowhere. Basically, I felt like a hypocrite.
A few years later, in a different state and going to a different church, I started to feel worse and worse about my lack of faith. This church preached that if you don't believe in God and aren't showing any of the gifts of the spirit it's your own fault because you don't have enough faith, and every time I went to church I went away feeling bad about myself because I knew I didn't measure up to their standards. Finally I just stopped going, and it was a huge relief. I started feeling better about myself than I had for years.
When we moved back to Perth I went to church a few times at a couple of different churches, but again, it was fairly meaningless to me, and also, I felt that I didn't fit in because I was not middle class enough (and too divorced). It seems that some churches believe that if you have faith, God will bless you with material wealth, and that's a belief I don't subscribe to so I didn't fit in.
So to sum up, I now have no relationship with any religious tradition, and I feel good about that. Religion just imposed on me a set of unreachable expectations that I'm happy to be free of.
4. What factors have influenced your decision to affiliate -- or not -- with an organized religious tradition?
I see I partly covered this in the previous question. I also avoid organised religion because so many churches are so blatantly hate-filled towards homosexuals and other people whom they deem to be sinners.
5. Whether or not you consider yourself religious or spiritual, are there things you consider to be sacred? What are they?
Although I know that "real people" aren't buried in cemeteries (only their physical bodies), I do consider cemeteries/graveyards to be sacred.