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Author Topic: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....  (Read 8264 times)

herkles

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #45 on: November 12, 2013, 01:35:53 am »
Quote from: Allec;129133

But the one trouble I have is the "customs" I grew up with, particularly Christmas. My new religious path doesn't have anything in regards to the Christmas time of year, but it was really the only time of year that had any family tradition. My new religious path DOES focus on tradition, though, so I have decided that since I am honoring the traditions and not necessarily the religion it is OKAY for me to keep them in a secular or converted fashion. (I also imagine this is similar to how people of pre-Christian Ireland treated their conversion to Christianity--keeping the customs but making them secular.)

So in short: I am finding what I want/need to keep and how to "convert" it to my new beliefs.


this is a tricky one for me as I am in the same boat with regards to Christmas. On one hand, I do not want to celebrate Christmas. It is not part of my faith, simply as that. I just do not care to celebrate it; plus tis my birthday shortly after so there is that. On the other hand it is tradition, and spending time with one's family IMO is a part of my faith as well. So I know how you feel.

Of course, being that I have felt a pull towards the norse, so I could start celebrating Yule as well. Or I could perhaps not just not celebrate Christmas. I wonder if others have done volunteer work on the day? Then there is Wren's Day; I am not sure if that will serve as a replacement for a winter holiday.

Allec

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #46 on: November 12, 2013, 02:27:17 am »
Quote from: herkles;129142
this is a tricky one for me as I am in the same boat with regards to Christmas. On one hand, I do not want to celebrate Christmas. It is not part of my faith, simply as that. I just do not care to celebrate it; plus tis my birthday shortly after so there is that. On the other hand it is tradition, and spending time with one's family IMO is a part of my faith as well. So I know how you feel.

I am justifying my Midwinter celebrations in that I also plan to observe Midsummer (as a day dedicated to Manannan mac Lir.) So why not also honor the opposite end of the year? That, and there are theories that Gaelic cultures did observe Midwinter Solstice, just not as elaborately as they observed their festivals. Which actually really works for the family-centric aspect of the Christmas traditions I want to hold onto. That, and gifts. I show love through gifts, so losing a time of year centered around giving people I care about gifts really would set me back some ><;;
"The only good is knowledge, the only evil is ignorance." - Socrates

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Sondst

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #47 on: November 21, 2013, 02:18:48 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

Thanks

 
I was brought up mormon. My father was a bishop. My mother a good intentioned mormon wife. My brother went on a mission, and if not married by 21 the same was expected of me.

I did not beleive a word of this nonsense even at the age of 3. I kept it to myself until I left my parents home town and moved in with my brother in the city. I slowly pushed away their morals and embraced atheisim whole heartidly. I was bittered and still am by abrahamic based religions. I feel they cause nothing but pain, death, and discrimination. Though I have many friends who practise christianity and never put it down.

Even with my full embrace of there being no god I questioned a lot. Since I was a child I believed in ghosts, demons, faeries, and other entities. Atheisim sought out to say none of those existed and were not reasonible. That to me did not make sense, they had to be real, as I had seen them before. I also had always believed in witchcraft. But I was afraid to venture into the world of paganism because mostly I felt ashamed. After making such a strong example of there being no god to my family and friends how could I simply say, oh never mind there is a god, goddess and entities out there? But now I have, I researched and came to my senses. I cannot be happy if I deny what I believe is true. 17 years of this is enough. I wish I would of embraced sooner.

Final outcome is that I have embraced my celtic roots, I practise celtic based witchcraft and I also practise romani witchcraft. This is who I am. I am strong, I am beautiful inside and I am learning.

Hekla

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #48 on: November 21, 2013, 06:05:18 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

There was a time I still had a foot in Christianity.  The "fear doctrine" would pop into my head telling me I was going to hell.  I pushed that away completely after starting college.  Now, aside from communicating with Yahweh from time to time, I've completely abandoned what I was taught growing up.  Of course, how Yahweh revealed himself to me is completely skewed from any biblical interpretation, so in a way, "my" Yahweh is a pagan god.

What helped finalize my path...just feeling the presence of the gods I call on, really.  I can't give a better answer.

cartowheel

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #49 on: November 24, 2013, 06:05:14 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
I was brought up Christian, but ventured into Catholicism on my own. I disagree with a lot of their teachings, as well as Jesus as Messiah, but I feel stuck there.

At this point in my life, I am examining what I want to teach my children when I have them. I want them to grow up knowing they can choose where they want to go spiritually. I want them to be confident that they can choose their own path.

I feel a strong pull towards Catholicism, I do not know why. But I also want to do my own thing. I struggle with figuring out what that is.

I constantly waffle between the two. For a few weeks, I can be fine with deciding to leave Christianity. But then, WHAM, I feel like I should give it one more try. And back and forth it goes.

Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

Thanks

 

I personally was born and raised Catholic.  I questioned my faith a few times, but always came back because I love the traditional feel that Catholic masses have, but at the same time, I believe in 90% of what it teaches (there are a couple things I disagree with, but they're so small it doesn't effect anything).  But what helped me rationalize my faith was reminding myself that I can do whatever I wanted with my religion and no one can stop me.  And besides, so long as I follow the Ten Commandments, I highly doubt that God is going to chastise me for also being Buddhist and practicing witchcraft, since they don't clash with the teachings at all.  

There was a point where I wanted to practice Buddhism and witchcraft, but believed that I could only be an outside observer until I learned more about each and decided, 'why not?'  I've never been so content in my faith as I did after I decided to try.

xxmoonxraverxx

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #50 on: November 25, 2013, 10:00:06 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
I was brought up Christian, but ventured into Catholicism on my own. I disagree with a lot of their teachings, as well as Jesus as Messiah, but I feel stuck there.

At this point in my life, I am examining what I want to teach my children when I have them. I want them to grow up knowing they can choose where they want to go spiritually. I want them to be confident that they can choose their own path.

I feel a strong pull towards Catholicism, I do not know why. But I also want to do my own thing. I struggle with figuring out what that is.

I constantly waffle between the two. For a few weeks, I can be fine with deciding to leave Christianity. But then, WHAM, I feel like I should give it one more try. And back and forth it goes.

Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

Thanks

 
first of all, let me say that i absolutely love your avatar.
okay now that that is out of my system, yes. my grandfather always tells me i'm going to hell. he doesn't even know about my religion, he tells me i'm going to hell for doing things like leaving the light on or being a feminist. so i'm definitely worried about that.


Allec

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #51 on: November 26, 2013, 01:59:35 pm »
Quote from: xxmoonxraverxx;130685
.
okay now that that is out of my system, yes. my grandfather always tells me i'm going to hell. he doesn't even know about my religion, he tells me i'm going to hell for doing things like leaving the light on or being a feminist. so i'm definitely worried about that.

 (I love YOUR avatar, fellow pansexual!)

...If hell is full of feminists (and not transphobic and/or feminists, but actual feminists)...I kinda want to go to hell. It seems to be my kinda place.

Not to belittle your fears or other people's fears of Hell... I personally never had them. When my mom sent me to confirmation class, I wrote "Proud Sinner" on all the handouts. (I didn't get Confirmed in the Catholic Church, either. That was a fun year to spend living with my Catholic mother >>)
"The only good is knowledge, the only evil is ignorance." - Socrates

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Elizabeth

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #52 on: January 31, 2014, 02:50:24 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101




I apologize for ditching this thread. I was having a spiritual crisis, and never had the chance to come back to it.

In April of 2013, I began attending a local Greek Orthodox parish. The love and acceptance that I have found there have been and continue to be nothing short of amazing. I converted on November 10th, 2013.

Through my past experiences, no matter how far I traveled from Christianity, the Virgin Mary kept slowly drawing me back. I did not return to my birth religion of Christianity (even though Orthodox Christianity is waaaaay different than my Protestant upbringing) out of fear, but because of the deep love I developed for the Church.

I still have my struggles, but I enjoy looking to the Saints and Early Church Fathers for answers. I don't consider myself Pagan anymore, in the sense that I *am* Christian, but I do have some more Eastern leanings, which fits in great with the Eastern Orthodox Faith. I have found that Christianity in the East is not as restrictive/close-minded as it has become in the West.

I appreciated reading through the responses when I finally made my way back to these forums. If anyone is curious about my "path," don't be afraid to holler :)
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“I would like to see anyone, prophet, king or God, convince a thousand cats to do the same thing at the same time.” - Neil Gaiman

PrincessKLS

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #53 on: August 07, 2014, 10:44:40 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
I was brought up Christian, but ventured into Catholicism on my own. I disagree with a lot of their teachings, as well as Jesus as Messiah, but I feel stuck there.

At this point in my life, I am examining what I want to teach my children when I have them. I want them to grow up knowing they can choose where they want to go spiritually. I want them to be confident that they can choose their own path.

I feel a strong pull towards Catholicism, I do not know why. But I also want to do my own thing. I struggle with figuring out what that is.

I constantly waffle between the two. For a few weeks, I can be fine with deciding to leave Christianity. But then, WHAM, I feel like I should give it one more try. And back and forth it goes.

Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

Thanks


I've done that too, I identify as a Christian witch but I do go through phases where I am more drawn to one side or the other. I'm still a work in progress at age 30 but I'm trying to find a happy medium between the two religions. One thing that has helped is to look outside of the more conservative denomination such as the Baptist faith (I was raised in) and explore more liberal denominations like Episcopalian or Presbytarianism (the more liberal PCUSA branch not the opposite conservative) and yes I'm also interested in full-on Roman Catholicism and Judaism as well. However, I'm also trying to explore my more pagan side and looking into non-Christian style polytheism. I'm also looking to expand the matriarchial side of my religion by incorporating goddesses other than Mother Mary.  I've also learned that technically you should separate the old Testament God, Yahweh from the New Testament, Jesus Christ. IMO, they are separate gods with different agendas and personalities. Also I've looked outside these spectrums to explore Far East Asian ideals and getting perspectives from aethists and Satanists. I'm finding these people's ideals and pov's quite interesting and thought provoking. Youtube aethists are the best.

And as part of my spiritual journey, I've also tried to explore the less-religious parts of my life and not try to make religion the absolute center in my life. That was hard for me in the beginning. I was raised in a small, conservative bible belt town that had a lot of moderate to conservative leaning Baptists. I used to fight with my mom about how much "religious activity" should be a part of my everyday life and decision making. I was real young, I was "pressured" by my church to get saved and baptised early (between the ages of 7-9) and went through a tiny evangelical phase around age 10. Even though technically the Baptist religion as a whole is an offshoot of the Anabaptist movement and most Baptist denomination strongly encourage adult baptism over baby baptism. I've researched Anabaptist denominations such as the Amish and Mennonites and they seem to be very big on waiting until a child is a "legal" adult to get baptised, meaning, people are typically in their teens and young adult stages when they get baptised in those communities. But it does seem like, at least at my childhood church and local Baptist churches, it was extremely common for children between the ages of 5 and 12 to get "saved" and baptised. Basically before the crazy world of puberty hits and/or you have a real understanding of the world. From a Baptist perspective, I would think it would be reasonable to have people wait until they are at least in their teens if not older to go through these "rituals" so that they know more about what they are going into and what "bad habits" to leave behind.

I mean shit, no wonder so many people raised this way tend to go back and forth between "backsliding" and "being righteous".

I'm also grateful for the influences at this point in my life because it's taught me to really think in shades of gray and try not to be judgemental. And yes maybe I learned "too late" psychologically about thinking in more broad terms of morality but I'm finally in a better place.  Also I can't say it was the differences in religious ideology and morals of these religions that influenced a grayer area of thinking. I will say even in my hardest times of being raised a strict Christian during the early throes of puberty, I started to question the "black and white" style of thinking because I was aware enough to realize that people around me either physically in school or metamorphically through the media seemed to leave their life differently, and some of these people seemed happy and some even very glamorous.  Heck, even within my own family tree (my father was the oldest of 14, so that begat many aunts, uncles, and cousins) all seemed to have their p.o.v and morality practices. I mean most of my family claimed a Baptist or similar Christian background but they still had their own unique interpretations of "living right".
PrincessKLS

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Re: Did Anyone Else Have One Foot Stuck In Their Birth Religion?....
« Reply #54 on: October 09, 2014, 07:23:40 pm »
Quote from: Elizabeth;97101
I was brought up Christian, but ventured into Catholicism on my own. I disagree with a lot of their teachings, as well as Jesus as Messiah, but I feel stuck there.

At this point in my life, I am examining what I want to teach my children when I have them. I want them to grow up knowing they can choose where they want to go spiritually. I want them to be confident that they can choose their own path.

I feel a strong pull towards Catholicism, I do not know why. But I also want to do my own thing. I struggle with figuring out what that is.

I constantly waffle between the two. For a few weeks, I can be fine with deciding to leave Christianity. But then, WHAM, I feel like I should give it one more try. And back and forth it goes.

Was anyone else like this? What helped to finalize your path in either your birth religion or another?

Thanks

 
Y'know, weirdly enough...I couldn't say that I have a 'birth religion', if this makes sense.  My dad's Catholic, my mom's Protestant, and they were both pretty casual about it.  Dad stopped bothering with church when I was a baby, Mom stopped when I was a teenager (and I couldn't say they were consistent prior to that anyway.)  They did have me baptized, and my dad signed me up for my chuch's softball team when I was little....and that was pretty much it.

My parents had books on all sort of world religions, and I always found myself drawn to those--I remember one in particular had a picture of a dancing Shiva that my parents said I would stare at for hours.  

My dad feels a person's religion is their own business, and they're not obliged to explain it, whether they're Christian, Muslim, Pagan, whatever.  His only issue is if you try to use your religion as an excuse to shove social policy down the throats of others who may not live by your particular faith.  Mom also doesn't think people should go around shrieking about their religion--she's gone back to being a church goer every week, but she's kinda like my dad in the mindthought that, "It's your own business."

People ask me all the time if I've ever 'come out of the broom closet' to my parents, and I sit there and think there's not much point--my dad's reaction would be, "So what do you want, a medal?"  (He would truly not get why I felt the need to tell him what he feels isn't his business.)  My mom would be disappointed, I think, but she'd just tell me it's my life.

So I guess I don't feel I have a birth religion in a lot of ways.  My parents had theirs, they had books exposing me to other ideas, they knew I read them....and things just went from there.

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