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 Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 8:44 pm
So I'm sure we're all pretty aware quite a few religions generally hold anti-gay ideals, but often even within those faiths there are straight allies as well as people who are LBGTQ yet still hold to that religion.
I'm wondering if anyone else here is religious and how it affects them.
I was raised Christian, but partly due to how I was mistreated (greatly because of the sexuality issue, though there was other stuff), I found myself unable to continue identifying with the Christian faith. I'm now a Deist, and while I believe many aspects of Christianity I can't put full faith in a book. As a friend of mine has said, the Bible is written by man and even if it is inspired by God and all that, man are corrupt. There are too many different translations to say with certainty "I believe the Bible". So what do I believe? I believe in God, I believe in Jesus and that Jesus died to offer redemption for sins.
What do you believe? (Please adhere to the guild rules concerning respect. smile )
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Posted: Sat Jul 27, 2013 9:05 pm
Religion is something that is unique to each and every person.
No two people hold the same faith. The idea is that you take the religion and tailor it to your wants and needs, that is then your faith.
You don't have to follow a book to be of that religion, that's brainwashing.
Take what you can, what you want, and what you believe, and hold true to it. You don't have to look at the person sitting next to you and compare yourself to them, their faith is their own.
The way I look at religion is much more of a historical and cultural thing that can explain a lot about a culture and peoples.
With that said, I find religion incredibly fascinating and aspire to learn more about each and every religion.
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Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 10:18 am
I was raised in a Roman Catholic family, but I haven't been a practising Catholic in a long time. I still have a lot of fondness for the various aspects of Catholicism, as well as a lot of respect for various people I've known that are part of the church. However, I strongly disagree with many of the core beliefs, and I've had a number of particularly memorable negative experiences with the church and its members, so I don't imagine I would ever be Catholic again.
I was confirmed when I was a teenager, even though I didn't want to be. (I was told that I had to go through with it, or move out.) As I explained to my family at the time, I disagreed with the church on several important points, so it would be dishonest to stand before the congregation and be confirmed. :/ You know, even for someone who didn't have much faith, the idea of blatantly lying to everyone in a church seemed wrong. But my mother was concerned with what all her CWL friends would think if her son wasn't confirmed, so apparently image was more important than honesty. razz
I still identified as Christian for some time after that, although not affiliated with any particular denomination.
When I was 19, I became seriously involved with a guy who was still a practising Catholic, and we even went to Mass together. The parish was a very tolerant one, and the experience was pretty positive. My partner still had a lot of issues when it came to his sexuality vs. his religion; he felt a lot of guilt and self-loathing about his relationship with me, and I know that the conflict was really hard for him. It certainly caused a lot of tension between the two of us, especially when he was feeling particularly guilt-ridden. After several years, we broke up because he wanted to "settle down" right away, get married and have kids (!). I loved him, but I was still in my early 20s, and definitely wasn't ready for that.
These days, I would say it's more accurate to describe myself as agnostic (or apathetic, really) or a secular humanist. I have friends who are all over the board when it comes to beliefs, from hardcore conservative Christians (although my friendship with that guy is...strained) to militant anti-theists.
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Posted: Sun Jul 28, 2013 1:48 pm
I was seriously in the closet throughout my religious journey, and I was adamant about destroying that part about me. I had a lot of self-hate for not feeling like I could ever please God, and I never felt saved. My sexuality was torturous for me because it went against my radical, ultraconservative beliefs. It was either marry a man, or be celibate. Hell wasn't a choice.
My beliefs became so fringe that I was even involved in a Messianic-Judaic cult for about three years. I was excommunicated by them eventually. Living in that group was driving me crazy. The indoctrination was constant and frightening.
My religion left me very depressed and suicidal. I felt rejected by society for already being different since childhood, and my beliefs made me feel like it was do all, or fail. I was a catechumen in the Catholic Church when my depression became its worse. Getting away from religion, for me, was the best decision I've ever made. Even when I was just a regular, conservative Christian, I felt like (and was influenced by my friends) that my aspirations in life had no value, unless I did them solely for God. For me, that meant giving up my music and writing, and those were a strong part of who I was. And still are.
Now that I'm from all of that, I feel so much more peace and happiness in who I am. I consider myself to be an agnostic deist/humanist now. I still value the general principles that Jesus talked about in the bible, but I don't believe the book is the divinely inspired word of God.The deeper I delve into the bible, the more I had trouble explaining things. And as an agnostic deist now, I've been able to see even stranger things that I never noticed before when I was extremely religious.
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Posted: Mon Jul 29, 2013 5:01 pm
I am lesbian, and I'm not Christian or indeed any of the Abhrahamic faiths, but rather Pagan. I am Norse Pagan, and though I identify as Rokkatruar I dont really follow a set belief system. I just think everyone is equal, a "we all bleed red" sort of thing.
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