Question About Religion?

Question

Has anyone here ever been so fed up with his or her original faith/religion that they have looked for an alternative religion in replace of it or no religion at all. If so I'd really like to know your story. Please write as long an answer as you want because I promise to read all of them and not be bias!

Answer 1

I was raised as a Lutheran. I've been an atheist for over 20 years.

There's really no story there. It's just that as I looked into what I believed, what the church believed, other religions, and the nature of belief in general, I came to realize that gods just don't exist. I think the fallacy in your question, btw, is the assumption that you have to necessarily replace one religion with another religion. There really is no need for religion at all. It is just superstition inherited from our ignorant past.

Answer 2

I was raised and baptized as a United Methodist. My uncle is a retired minister and my mother was a church secretary for 20 years. For a brief time I wanted to join the church choir but was in high school and just didn't have the time, but I did sing many a solo when home on break from college, and as a little girl I was an alter girl that lit the candles.

I am now Wiccan. This is not because I became "fed up" with my original faith. I just grew up and began to think about the world and faith on my own. When I started doing that, Christianity stopped making sense. I think a large part of it had to do with my mother being a church secretary. I got to see the inner workings of the church, and how so many "good Christians" were snobby, opinionated, narrow-minded, and power hungry. Everything in the church was about politics and who was on what committee and who was "acceptable" to join what committee. I came to all the conclusions that fall under the umbrella of "Wicca" on my own - reincarnation, karma, the use of energies, a feminine and masculine divine, and so forth. When I became interested in witchcraft and magick and started reading up on it, I was amazed to discover that lo and behold, here was this system of belief that matched what I had "figured out" when I started thinking outside the box of Christianity!

Now I'm starting to get fed up with Christianity, but only because there are so many fundamentalists trying to pass laws that will affect all of us, and because followers of my faith are still grossly slandered and misrepresented because so much hysteria and misinformation has been attached to the term "witch", and because our Pentagram is continually used by Hollywood and TV as a Satanic symbol for the shock value.

)O(

Answer 3

I have my own
rational thinking
to tell me what to accept and
what to reject............
I am not ready to follow any written word/book/scripture
"God" has for some purpose given me a Brain
It cannot be for just filling up the skull
I don't claim infallibility....I have retraced my steps whenever necessary
I have after two decades of search from without ( holy books)
and within ( constant introspection ) come to believe that there is something somewhere that the normal human mind is incapable of knowing leave alone understanding.
Those who did come to "know" used the minimum of words to explain/describe the same. Looks as if the vocabulary( this includes all the languages in the world) we have falls short of an explicit explanation. No wonder even the wise though, by and large, in agreement with each other on general principles differ when it comes to detail.
Thus the best way to know the 'reality' involves being alert, active and agile, mentally and intellectually. It is your own experience and understanding that can quench your thirst. If you have one and a real one at that to know god

Answer 4

I was raised Christian and my mom is a minister. I never got "fed up" with religion but I did abandon it. On the "fed up" front, there were always plenty of Christians out there that I didn't like and didn't want to be associated with, but I never had a problem with people assuming I was like them, because in this country we know there are lots of different kinds of Christians (even if we don't understand that there are lots of different kinds of Muslims).

But I did stop being a Christian at some point. I just decided that it didn't make sense. I had always had "doubts" about whether there was a God, but I always thought it seemed more likely than not that there was a God. After reading a lot and thinking about it for hours and hours and hours, I decided that there probably wasn't a God. So I stopped believing and stopped praying. And that's that!

Answer 5

Denominations divide because of our human opinions - the teaching from Christ never divides, but promotes unity. It's when our pride gets in the way is when division occurs. The reason I say this is I grew up in a denomination that promoted rules and regulations, guilt and weight - a works based religion that was quite depressing. I've now found the Grace of God through a church that is devoted to His teachings and commands, a church that promotes unity, forgiveness, and confession when we've missed the mark. instead of getting caught up in the multitudes of rules (don't do this, don't do that), the focus is on how much greater is Christ and how much we as we progressively become more like him in our walk, have so much farther go to, and it's a realization that we cannot work our way to heaven, but are given that gift through the sacrifice of Jesus blood. That's the 'religion' if you call it, it's rather the Good News of Christ to which I am a part.

Answer 6

I was not very religious until I entered confirmation at my catholic church. I believed blindly in God and all I was told about him for about a year. Then I began to question my faith, and found that I had little or nothing in common with Roman Catholicism. I decided to become agnostic, but my parents, after a seven hour ;lecture, refused to let me declare myself to a religion that is, as they put it, a "cop-out".

Since then, I have refused to label myself to a particular faith, and simply HAVE faith. When asked, I say that I am "Quasi-Christian", due to fact that I believe that all religions branch from some higher power. I do not believe in Satan, and view the afterlife as a sort of selective reincarnation.

I don't believe that following a religion I don't agree with 100% is an appropriate way to live one's life, and as such, do not do so.

Answer 7

Atheism is not something that is stumbled on in the dark or in a blinding flash. To achieve rationality is a developmental process that has to overcome the mindless programming that has been shoved at you since childhood. I'm amazed that I started asking the right questions when I was eleven and even more amazed that I was able to take the "because" answers of religion with a jaundiced eye at such a young age. Still it took three more years before I called myself an agnostic and three hard years more before being able to call myself an Atheist. Happy about it? Sometimes I envy delusionalists who think they are going to end up in some cosmic Disneyland when they die, instead of the void on non-existence, but in the end, I'm happy I do not live in the delusional haze that seems to keep them anesthetized to reality.

Answer 8

Oh yes, I'm a confirmed Catholic. At age 17 I figured if my Mother and all the adults in the church thought it was the right path, that I should just go ahead and get confirmed, despite my personal resistance and objections to the catholic church.

Much of what the church tought was illogical. (e.g. God loves you, but if you make mistake he will send you to hell for eternity)

After school I stopped going to church (Except when I was home and my mom forced me). Then after a few years I started reading a lot of books on religeon and spirituality, as well as some historic books about christianity and how it all started etc.

For a while I was angry with the christian church, but not anymore. I see it as a path that is suitable for some people, just not for me.

I have since done a lot more research on all different religions and spiritual paths and decided on studying A Course In Miracles.

Answer 9

I think that's the whole point of FAITH....without faith you have NOTHING. Faith goes past your feelings (like being fed up). Of course, we all get fed up with things in life but that's no reason to give up. When I was a KID, I HATED going to school but my parents made me because that knew how much it would benefit me in the long run. Sometimes we have to look past the "right now" and choose what works best for our future. What's a future without FAITH? :-)

Answer 10

Yes. I was Catholic and got fed up with all the rituals - I felt like they got so caught up in all of it that they were missing the big picture (the only christian church where people don't bring a
Bible!) I never got much out of their services.. . . Now I try to attend nondenominational churches with a basic Christian message where I actually feel like I get something out of it.