Welcome to Gaia! ::

Since I'm equally lame and unhappy at the moment, I'll simply do this little diddy in a statistical format. I'll change it at a later date, as I always tend to update these things as time changes.
That, and I'm not, at this particular moment, in the mood. xd
I'll have it all perfected by next week, so don't fret.

Name Kaie-Marie
Age 18
Gender Female
Religion Wiccan
Invited By Naeryn, 'cause she loves me.
Other Misc. Spiritual Beliefs
Minor traits of the following:
Roman Catholisism
Satanism

I am also a licenced practitioner and minor instructor of Pranic Healing and the associated philosophies.

Once again: This'll be updated in the future.

Howdy. I'm not really part of any organized religion, although I suppose you could call me a non-practicing Buddhist in many respects. I do believe in God, but I take a more scientific view of "God."

I'm 3rd generation Polish and also VERY German. It's actually kind of a funny coincidence that my Grandfather's VERY distant relatives were Nazis and set my Great Grandmothers house on fire. Not a very happy coincidence, but still really weird.

I like to play skunk (my guitar) and listen to music. I would also be a perfect Miss America in that I want World Peace.

I respect all religions, although I do dislike any religion that discriminates against people of another religion.

Hi, I'm Bittersweet Blue. I was raised and baptised Christian, but I stopped going to church before confirmation. My father was very strictly religious and followed the old testament closely, though he didn't agree with the teachings of the Christian church. About twice ayear he would go to a sort of Christain retreat since there were no churches around that taught his beliefs. When I was little, of course, I believed everything Daddy said to be the absolute truth, even his belief that all other religions were illegitamate (though now I can't belive I ever thought tthat wasy sweatdrop ). My mother, on the other hand, has always been somewhat casual about her religious beliefs, though she was the one who urged me to go to church when I was little.

I stopped going to church in fourth or fifth grade and a year or two later my parents separated. I went to live with my mother, and without my father's presence I began to question my faith little by little. After my father's death, I began to pick up bits of information about different religions here and there and became very interested in learning about these religions.

At this point, I doubt I could ever commit to any one religion. I tend to pick up tidbits from whatever religion I come across. Sometimes the logic half of my brain will take over and try to tell me how unlikely it is that God even exists, but I just can't come to believe that there isn't some form of greater power out there, that there isn't some greater meaning to exsistence.

And so, now I'm taking a world religions course and joining this guild in hopes of learning more about all kinds of religions. I look forward to talking with all of you! wink

Good Day.
My name, officially, is Ben, but you can call me whatever you want to. That is so long as you are not offended when I take similar liberties with your respective titles.
I was baptized a christian, though I am unsure of what branch... (By unsure I mean that I have a good idea, but that good idea leads me to believe that it may have been catholic, and I'm not currently at a stage where I can readily admit that.) AT any rate though, by the age of four I was regularly going to an episcopal church.
I have since discontinued this practice.
Right now, I cannot label, or even explain my beliefs, mostly because I am completely unsure of what they may be. However, I am very interested in the subject, and I continue to look for more areas to study so that hopefully I may find something close to what my beliefs are currently lending themselves.

As open-minded as I am towards religious doctrines, I am not tolerant. Well, certainly not tolerant enough. An astute listener will find that when I say the names of most major and institutionalized religions, such as cathollocism, I do so with a hint of disdain in my voice strong enough to knock over a small horse. I do not know why I have come to hate them, but I hope that hanging around you tolerable folks more often will help subdue my anger. After all, that is your goal, correct? To promote religious tolerance. That is why I'm here, to have my tolerance promoted.

Hey everyone! I'm new here!

Name: Krista, but call me Amy.
Age: 15
Gender: Female
Religon: Agnostic at the moment, my family is mostly made up of Presbyterian Christians.
Why I'm Here: I love learning about different cultures and beliefs. The entirity to it is facinating.
How I found this guild: There was a banner for it in someone's signature.

Hello everyone! I'm quite glad to find a guild like this one.
My name is Jessica and I'm 15 years old, but you can just call me Jessa. Or by my Gaia username. xp

Augh, am I the only Christian here? confused I've read some posts in this thread and so far none. Oh well. Anyway...
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I was born, raised, and baptized into the Catholic church, and have been Catholic for 11 years. Halfway through my childhood my parents stopped going to Catholic church, but I still went on to Sunday school to receive my first communion.

I never received my first communion, so I never had the chance to go up there on the Eurcharist (?) and receive the bread and blood of Christ. My parents stopped going to church, and I stopped going to Sunday school.

It wasn't until my 6th grade year in elementary that my parents have gone back to church, but this time to Protestant church. We have met a very good friend of ours, and my best friend, who's mom and her are very good, devout born-again Christians. They are firm believers in God, and I trusted and respect them.

I continued to believe in God until my 6th grade year; my best friend and her mom have already moved away during my 4th grade year, and at that time my parents completely stopped going to church while they tell me to pray anyway and still believe in God. And so I did.

But once my parents started to going to Protestant church, I found an interest in Wicca by finding this book about Wicca in a bookstore. I slowly started to slip away from Christianity. I went from Christianity to atheism, to agnostic. Well I couldn't be a Wiccan yet because of my parents, so I had to remain athiest. And I gained the typical athiest views of Christianity during that time. I started to dislike Christians and Christianity because of how they view Wiccans, yadda yadda etc. I thought all Christians were hypcrites and ignorants.

So during my time as a "soon-to-be-Wiccan", the only thing I was allowed to do was stone magick, since my parents can be easily fooled into thinking that I'm doing a science project for it.

From that time on until the beginning of my 8th grade year, I continued to secretly practice stone magick--or at least I tried to. I lost interest in it from trying so hard to cleanse and purfiy those stones. It never worked. So I was still athiest. We moved from Japan to the United States, since my dad finally completed his service in the military and wanted to retire here in Las Vegas. My parents found a church, but I was still athiest. I wasn't until they brought me to the church's youth group that I started to change my views.

This youth kids--they were the most optimistic and kind I've ever met. And one of their bible study teachers--the most loving and spiritual person I've ever met. She really has Jesus in her heart, and she knows that God is with her everyday, and that she will soon meet him in the air. She knows when Jesus's prescence is there, and her spirit cries with joy everytime she prays long.

Through her way of teaching, and how she shows herself as a Christian, I went from athiest to agnostic. But before I did, I hesitated a little bit because when my parents first brought me to her youth group class, she taught the subject on cults and occults--and that included stone magick. I still didn't like the Bible and I kind of thought of the youth kids being pretty weird, since they are all so happy they won a bible charade challenge--you know, kind of how Flander's kids act from The Simpsons.

But the youth group teacher was quite sad of why I didn't want to go next week. I thought about the whole situation for a while, and finally decided to go. I went every Friday to youth group, and the more I learned from there, the more I started to re-gain faith in God. I realized that not all Christians were those hypocritical bible-thumping types, and that not all teach just "fire and brimestone". I actually found a good group of Christians, Christians that are so devoted to God and are willing to share their faith, and show love, trust, compassion, and respect to unbelievers the Jesus way. You can say this is one of those few true Christians.

I thought all Christians were ignorant.

So after youth group, I went home and up to my room, and prayed for acceptance, prayed that I wanted Jesus inside my heart, that he is my Lord and Savior, and that I want to invite him back into my life again. I even cried while doing this. I really wanted him back.


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Ahh. And now a year later, here I am, happy and glad to be a child of God again, a good, open-minded Christian that continues to do her daily devotions and learn more about God, and to also share His word to other people.

...well, the 'sharing the word' part is still a little trouble for me, since there are those uhh, "hardcore athiests" out there, but I'm learning.

I know one day I'll be able to share His word with love and respect, and without having both parties being ignorant.

I would like to learn more about other religions, so that no ignorance can be caused. I have been studying som religions during my freetime, while I was still atheist and agnostic. I still like learning about other religions, and I respect them dearly. I respect theirs, and they respect mine; that way no one feels hated.

Ahh I'm babbling now. I know this was quite long, and that's all I have to say. whee

Hey all. I'm Pixie. I saw a banner for this guild, and well, religion, along with culture and world history, are topics that are right up my alley.

I was baptised Protestant... or something, I'm not sure exactly, but my dad's entire side of the family, which is about three times the size of my mom's side, is Ukrainian Catholic. Unfortunately, my little family unit is so far from the rest of my family, that I've never been raised very religiously. So in fifth grade I kind of seperated myself from christiantiy and followed my own theories on how the world worked. Now, I was a ten-year-old coming up with all kinds of philosophies, I've never been an average kid. In about grade eight or nine, I started learning about other religions and philosophies. That really opened up my mind about all the different beliefs. Just within the past year (grade ten) I put in a lot of time studying Paganism and its modern form Wicca, and was so close to declaring myself a Pagan when I fell in love with a Catholic and all that kind of fell apart. well, anyway, he and I broke up but I'm still hanging on to Catholicism, I haven't converted yet but am planning to eventually. I also haven't stepped foot in church for any kind of service since I was about 5, nor have I ever read the bible. I'm not greatly religious, but I do believe there is a God. In fact, I've stuck to one of my old theories that there are many gods and goddesses, spirits, demons, angels, and the likes. I just spend my time concentrating on the one the Bible refers to as "God", "Holy Spirit", "Lord Jesus Christ".

So, well, there's me. Sometimes I still feel alittle religiously confused, but I'll figure myself out someday.

Welcome everyone! (Albeit a late welcome)