Have you ever altered your religion?

Question

I am interested to hear from people that truly believed in one particular faith, but who have subsequently chosen to live their lives by a different faith. What triggered it and what are the good things about your new faith?

Answer 1

I grew up as a Jehovah's witness. I am no longer interested in any religion. I am agnostic. I have had my fill of religion from just one cult thank you.

Answer 2

I was born and raised Christian, being baptized at age 3 and raised in the Lutheran manner mostly. My trigger point was the realization that too many inconsistencies existed in the Old and New Testament to be ignored any longer.

I am an avid historian by education and I have read and traveled extensively in my career. I saw first hand some of the actual areas in the Bible and that caused me to solidify my new beliefs.

The faith I chose came long and hard and I did not really settle into it for nearly a decade. It is an ancient Celtic belief that is older that modern Christianity and nearly as old as the Judaic faith that Christianity sprang from 2000 years ago.

That belief is called Druidry, and I have been on that path for nearly two decades now. The advantages and "good things" is that unless I go out of my way to harm another person I am free to do as I wish.

There are three things that I follow as a Druid and they come from a Greek source in 300 B.C.E.
1- Help others to live Fearless In Strength
2- Help others understand the Laws of Nature
3- Help others to avoid the attention of the 'Mighty Ones'.

Answer 3

I have actually converted a couple times. I started as an unaffiliated Christian, though going to a Baptist church, as I was taught to be. Then, I was given the freedom to choose when we stopped going to church. I soon realised I had never had any prayers answered that I didn't have the power to answer myself. The whole idea of God made no sense to me, so I fell into science, becoming an atheist. After awhile of feeling punished for no good reason, I thought "perhaps there is a god and I've angered him." I didn't truly convert at this point, but I opened my eyes to the possibility. I made a prayer that if there is a god I need a sign. I did this multiple times, none of which yielded results. So, I once again determined that I was probably just trying to find an explaination when there was none to be found. I soon realised that this was true for any choice of beliefs; no matter what I followed, religion or science, I was taking the word of others without truly having my own opinion. So, I did just that; I determined a logical possibility based on the ideas of knowledge that I had. Although it made sense and seemed to work, it still felt flawed. Knowing that, I didn't drop the theory, but instead decided it's best not to judge what is right or wrong because there is no real proof either way; there is, however, evidence of each. So, I am now agnostic and have my own loose set of beliefs, but am dead set on the knowledge that there is no answer until we get to it for sure.

Answer 4

I was brought up by my secular parents, my father being an Atheist who encouraged me to have an open scientific based mind, focusing upon logic, ethics and morality in line with socialist and humanitarian values which I still hold dear to my heart.
For a while (one year) I believed in Christianity (at the age of Twelve) mainly due to the loss of my grand parents.
However even though I excepted (and still respect) the message of love, I could not logically believe in the Virgin birth nor in the resurrection, so for some years after I reverted back to Atheism.
It was at the age of thirty, when confronted by the death of my older brother whilst I was working in an oppressive factory environment, I neared the point of a nervous breakdown, I found my eventual turn around .
I was reading a book written by the Jack Kerouac called "Dharma bums", at the time, which I not only enjoyed but also identified with the characters.
At the time, Buddhism had been just one more foreign religion which I knew very little about, yet the book Dharma bums inspired my to read more about this logical yet to me (at the time) mysterious religion.
Inturn it lead on to a book called "a buddhist bible" edited by Dwight Goddard.
I started to practise mediation whilst studying fully the principles of the Dharma and found that I had mostly shared such beliefs most of my life.
It was not the case that I converted to Buddhism but more the case of realising that I shared my own innate beliefs with the principles of Buddhism.
As I am sure you will understand, this is summary of my past, but what I will say is that through the knowledge and experiencing the essence of the middle way, I found strength within my mind and managed to find a peace that I had so longed for.
As you may already know, Buddhism is less a religion and more philisophical, it does not rely on faith but upon experience and a peaceful inspired perception.

Answer 5

I changed faith twice.

I was raised as a Catholic, but never really believed in Jesus. When I was a teenager, I became an atheist because I was turned off by the Christian mindset in the community I lived in -- a read a button once that described how I felt perfectly: it said, "Jesus, save me from your followers".

After a few years of Atheism, I started hanging out at a Coffee shop called "The Sanctuary." The owner was an aging 80's punk rocker and artist. He became a sort-of mentor for me. We were having a debate about religion and the existance of God. I believed there was no God divine miracle, only chance and evolution.

He pointed out the contradiction of believing in evolution as opposed to believing in God by explaining how it takes just as much faith to believe in something you can never experience yourself as it does to have faith in God.

There are two universal truths about human existance (if you ask me):
1) We pop into this life miraculously out of nowhere in that nobody can recall the start of their existance from memory or experience.
2) I currently exist (based on the logic of Descarte's "Cogito ergo sum" or "I think therefore I am".)

Everything else is a matter of faith. Nobody can say for sure that we don't just pop into this life for only a brief moment complete with a package of memories and history. It goes right along the lines of the 2nd law of thermodynamics.

So all of that, plus the apparent connection between all things, living or non-living, make me a pantheist. I am also a Minister for the Church of the Subgenius. There's nothing good or bad about my new faith.

Answer 6

HI, I used to be Christian, I was until about 15 or 16 and then I was an agnostic until about 22 until I found Wicca. I've been Wiccan now for about 8 years. Basically, I decided that Christianity wasn't for me when I read the Bible and realized how many contradictions it has. For example, the Mosaic Code, which Jesus said was still valid, yet we don't follow it. Also, I realized that most of the things that are in the bible were taken from Roman and Persian Mythology.

So I studied all sources of religion including Buddhism, Atheism, Hinduism, etc. I hung out with a diverse religious group including Satanists and many Pagans. One day, I borrowed a book called Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age by Vivienne Crowley. I realized that alot of the thoughts I had about Nature were actually encompassed already into Wicca. I've now read countless books and I still agree with everything about Modern Wicca. I am now a Wiccan Minister with a small group in Chicago. I also post videos about Wicca on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=BlueFireWitch

Answer 7

I was brought up (dragged up if you prefer) as a strict Protestant was marched off to Sunday School, told what to believe and was mocked when I disagreed or brought up a discrepancy I couldn't handle. When I went to Uni I had freedom to research other faiths and found Witchcraft. Everything I had really believed of what I had been told had a name - Paganism.
The good things about my faith now is that it is not judgemental, there is no 'convert or you will burn in hell when judgement comes'. I do what feels right, not what I have read or been told is right. I can explore my path the way I think I should.
I feel content and sleep better at night than I ever did wondering if I was going to go to Hell because I didn't agree with what the Vicar had taught us that day.

Answer 8

I haven't changed my faith in that I still believe in God or rather now its a God Source, I am a Catholic because that's what I was born into but I respect all religions. The sad fact all religions think that theres' is the true religion, what arrogance. The key to faith is all religions they have the answers we seek, we just have to seek and we will find out when we do. I know I have.

Answer 9

I used to be a 'religious christian' ie I tried to do what I thought was the right thing (and was sure nobody else was doing it quite as well)
Then I had an encounter with Jesus (Y'shua HaMaschiach) and He transformed my life.
The good things are that I have vpeace of mind, a love for other people, a sense of forgiveness and much more. And it happened almost 50 years ago so it is no flash in the pan

Answer 10

I grew up Catholic. In my 20's and 30's, I searched around other Christian faiths, but a poem I wrote at about 22 kept haunting me.

I've recognized who I truly am, and what I truly believe, and am now a professiong Pagan, with my own beliefs in Wicca, though I do work with a few different teachers.

Answer 11

Yes , I believe I have. I was raised Presbyterian and up until I was 26 I believed the doctrine I was raised with. Then my Dad died and I started to question. For years I just felt I don't know, and how can anybody really know because you have to die before you find out. As far as I know this is impossible. This is a pain full place to be. I now attend a Unity Church. There approach is through the metaphysical and it all makes much more sense to me especially the bible.