Religion Personal Religious Affiliation, Then and Now

raised without much religious reference, although I felt/feel that my parents had some religious beliefs....well they do these days.
believed in God since aged 6, although not in an afterlife.
Bits of the Bible, and what Jesus said have often/always spoke to me, and made sense.
Brief period in mid-teens where I would probably have said I was an atheist, although I'm not sure I really was.
Sister became a born again Christian in my 20s, and her convictions have strengthened my beliefs.
So I'm sort of a Christian these days, and I believe in Heaven........I really should really sort out my life, and walk the walk, but I'm a coward, who feels safer stuck in his flat, and watching the world go by......or something like that.
 
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I was born Lutheran , baptized as infant at 2 months old, went to the Lutheran church up until early teens and was confirmed. A year later we all turned to the Catholic church and I converted. In meantime I had a Born Again Christian family talk to me peacefully to live for Christ and how that was the start of wanting something else then religion. When I graduated from high school I started to sway away from the catholic church , I refused to go with my parents and late teens and early 20's I wasn't anything for a few years until I met my current at this time husband. My husband was raised Baptist and gospel family, so when we married in ten years ago we got married into a Bible church. Two years later I got baptized again inmersion in an non denimonational Bible church. Later that year we moved to TN on Faith and started going to the old fashioned type King James Bible Baptist churches , we attended that for years up until 2010 and that really was a bad move , our problems aroused throughout those years because I hated King James onlyism and dress wearing. When we found a church in 2010 , I didnt like how they treated the pastor at the time with his private life. He had to resign and I was upset.
So since he started a church recently I am just a Non demoniontal peaceful Christian that hold unto the simple preaching of Jesus Christ, we don't believe in legalism or tradition of the church and you can wear anything to the church excpetion if its not acceptable.
If I leave my husband with my current boyfriend I am holding unto simple beliefs and not going to be too religous and I want to enjoy my life without any worries.
 
I just saw on the news that 59% of people questioned in the 2011 census identify as Christian. I thought that was quite high although I think some people consider themselves Christian because they had a Christian education and have never really questioned those views.

Census 2011: Sharp rise in foreign-born residents - Channel 4 News.

11_Census_gfx.jpg
 
Oh yes, sorry, England and Wales, there has been a massive rise in people claiming to have no religious views.
 
On the census 56,620 said they were Pagan. But there's still probably more pagans out there. There was a big campaign in the pagan community before the census to get people to write "Pagan-[their path]" on the census instead of just their path in order to get a better view of how many pagans there are in the UK. So basically write "Pagan - Wicca" rather than just "Wicca". (I wrote "Pagan - Witch")

Taking into account the people who wrote their path with the "Pagan -" prefix there's about 80,000 people who identified themselves as following a pagan path. (Like 11,766 people just wrote "Wicca" )

At least that's what I can figure out from the data. I might be wrong :p
 
I am other even tho I have Christian beliefs I don't like Organized Religion or Organized churches, I like non traditonal churches and I like the close knit of small churches that is separated from Organized Religion.
 
My mother was Church of England and my father a Baptist I learn about christianity at school and attended sunday school as a child. I was not really sure if i believed in God as a child and later considered myself an atheist for a while. However I began to look for answers to the suffing i had experience and saw around me as an adult.I looked at various faith christian and none christian but was not happy as none supplied any real answers till i had a bible study with Jehovahs Witnesses in 1996 i was baptized in 2002 and remain one tilll today.
 
I have stopped going to church all together I am tired of the bull that happens in churches today and closed minded idiots and judgemental ways, I still attend my pastor friend's church once awhile when i need a pick me up but, I can get some great teachings online without worried about being overly judged by other Christians.
 
I was raised Roman Catholic by very religious and nice parents. I had all the sacraments, was confirmed and all, and rarely missed mass until I went to boarding school at 14.

Although a Catholic school, there were no nuns, only one awesome priest, an Irish Dominican monk, and I learned more from him in theology classes and over cups of tea than I can remember. His comparative religion class, combined coincidently the same year with a free class on Transcendental Meditation and with my newfound feminism, helped me decide to leave the Church. I did later marry in my childhood church, for my parents' sake, but had no mass. I didn't baptize my children.

I'm now a Buddhist, my husband is still as agnostic as he always has been, my son is atheist and my daughter is spiritual in her own way; I guess closest to pagan with elements of Buddhism and Hinduism. And we all get along pretty well. ;)
 
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I was raised in a very non religious Jewish family by atheists who taught me that the answers to everything are found in science, not religion. We were never affiliated with any synagogue and my brother never had a bar mitzvah, nor did I or my sister ever have a bat mitzvah. We have always been "culturally Jewish", rather than religiously Jewish. Pass the lox* and bagels, please, but skip the blessing over it as there is no God. When my mother redid the family Passover Haggadah back in the late 1980's, she removed all references to God in it. This made the more religious members of the extended family unhappy, so my cousin took it and redid it again, and put God back here and there. We decided to put up with it for the sake of family harmony. :p

Despite all of this, my nephew married a girl from a Jewish Persian family and her family is very religious. She keeps kosher, so my nephew also keeps kosher for the convenience of keeping a kosher household, if not for the religion. It will be interesting to see how much religion their son will be taught. My brother, once he moved to Oklahoma with his second wife and they had a daughter, decided that the family would be synagogue members, and my niece was raised in the synagogue and had a bat mitzvah. She is now 16 y/o (or 17, can't remember) and has been very active with the shul's youth programs for years. My SIL even went through a formal conversion (she was raised Southern Baptist), as did their daughter, just to make sure. :p

*smoked salmon. I haven't eaten it since I went veg back in 1997.
 
A Methodist church invited us to church we got a letter this is where we get our food pantry food from not sure if I want to take the offer yet.
 
I have moved unto better things , I do attend our friends church once an awhile but I like the self help stuff I get through Books and stuff I have online to read, there is so much you can do about religious affiliation . I feel like its best to save energy on positive things.
 
I have decided to branch out of Christianity since the end times fanatics are in full force and bullying people to turn their way… I cannot live one day without someone sending me or showing me about end times crap and so on…. I am moving unto more Yoga and Buddhism and earth based stuff awhile for protection and live a normal life…
 
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I was raised Protestant, but later attended many different Christian churches. Every single one sooner or later did something that turned me off from attending them. (Usually it was bigotry.)

I had a personal religious experience (which I don't care to share - sorry). Afterward I studied the Bible (in my estimation a flawed work of man, but a good study guide as long as you don't take it too seriously). I also looked into the Koran and the Torah, plus a few other philosophical works.

I developed my own personal religion. I base my beliefs on what feels right to me and a core of the golden rule. I'm still at base a Christian, but my belief system encompasses all religions. I think they're all correct.

I believe God is ALL. He/She is everything, all beliefs, all thoughts, all matter. God is the universe and everything within it. You are part of God and God is part of you.

God doesn't care how you worship, or what you were raised to believe. God cares if you're a good person.

There's more to it, but my person belief system is uncomfortable with proselytizing, which this is approaching.
 
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