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I am currently trying to figure this one out. Although I am finding a strong pull towards the combined beliefs of Confusianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. AKA Chinese Popular/Folk Religion.

I wouldn't call myself a real follower right now, considering that a new religious choice takes lots of study and self reflection.

This is also why I'm considering minoring in religious studies. World religons always facinated me, and I'd have a better stab at learning about my possible choice.

Christian Deist.

I used to be Roman Catholic.

Done some thinking and I'd have to say I consider myself agnostic. At least at the moment. Maybe I'll have some experience which sways my opinion one way or the other, or maybe I'll grow content with not knowing. Who knows.

Catholic

I believe that aliens are our gods, they were the ones who put us here, began our evolution. I definitely wouldn't say I'm an athiest.

Alienspeed you glorious little fuckers

My results:

1. Secular Humanism (100%)
2. Non-theist (91%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (79%)
4. Liberal Quakers – Religious Society of Friends (58%)
5. Theravada Buddhism (48%)
6. Mainline – Liberal Christian Protestants (48%)
7. Taoism (43%)
8. Neo-Pagan (36%)
9. Reform Judaism (33%)
10. New Age (30%)
11. New Thought (25%)
12. Mahayana Buddhism (20%)
13. Christian Science Church of Christ, Scientist (12%)
14. Orthodox Quaker – Religious Society of Friends (10%)
15. Bahai (8%)
16. Scientology (8%)
17. Sikhism (8%)
18. Mainline – Conservative Christian Protestant (0%)
19. Eastern Orthodox (0%)
20. Hinduism (0%)
21. Islam (0%)
22. Jainism (0%)
23. Jehovahs Witness (0%)
24. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (0%)
25. Orthodox Judaism (0%)
26. Roman Catholic (0%)
27. Seventh Day Adventist (0%)

Anyway, I'm a devout atheist Pastafarian.

All these atheists….

Raised Irish Catholic. Two great aunts were nuns and one great uncle was a priest. Went agnostic by the time I reached high school. Dabbled in Wicca in college. More or less back to agnosticism these days. I enjoy telling people, "I'm a Discordian, but only when it's convenient."

Generally speaking though, I have no desire to try and fit my beliefs into a pre-defined box. The way I see it is, you have spirituality and you have religion. A person's spirituality is often a highly personal thing, shaped by their individual feelings about how the divine influences their lives. It's often the case that when you try to take that spirituality and make it fit into an organized religion, there's bound to be some chafing. Just look at how many denominations of Christianity there are, based on all these people who have different ideas about Jesus.

There's been one particular event in my life that defies scientific explanation, and I feel like I'd be demeaning that experience if I tried to take the mystery away from it. The whole point of spirituality is that it's not mundane, so why ground it in reality by connecting it to a book? If there is more to our existence, then it transcends what flesh and bone can perceive, otherwise we'd already have all the answers. I guess that's agnostic theism? Eh, call it what you want.

"My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness. This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness."

Dalai Lama

Sorry friends, no official religion here…

i made up my own religion

hail the headless god!

Well my parents grew up in a mostly catholic area but me and my family are agnostic. I think.

People actually believe this one v

I highly doubt jesus would've consumed alcohol.

Wine.

Not an official religion, but I suppose I'm of the self-made religion of Cyclism. I think that anything that promises eternal life is heretical, and anything that defies the cycle of life and death is an affront to the order of things. That's why I love RAVELORD NITO

In all seriousness, any religion that preaches life after death, eternal life, or preaches an eternal being, is outlandish and makes me sad.

But death isn't natural in most religions, and from a scientific/secular standpoint its the result of age and damage leading to an organism's inability to function. The belief in a cycle of life and death would fall into more of a Buddhist belief.

I don't see how living eternally is outlandish. If the soul passes from this world to my heavenly father it doesn't seem out there, it is usually the basis of most theologies and lore.

Heck, essentially anything Immortal has a long history dating back to our earliest religions, including necromancery which dates back to King Saul whom conjured a spirit through the aid of a medium.

Chickenhound the Cruel wrote:

I don’t see how living eternally is outlandish. If the soul passes from this world to my heavenly father it doesn’t seem out there, it is usually the basis of most theologies and lore.

I don't quite follow your logic here. Lots of religions preach immortality, therefore it is likely to exist? Seems to me like the reason why practically every religion ever created includes an afterlife (or reincarnation) is because humans are universally terrified of death.

All I am saying that it is hard to imagine something such as immortality as 'outlandish' when there are plenty of established afterlives and lore surrounding the concept.

Many faiths have usually varying amounts of theologies which point to different things that happens to someone upon death, and some faiths embrace it more so then others. Great example is Viking faith where the only way to find salvation is through dying in battle, or suffer blizzards and snow for a eternity. Many faiths have a afterlife, but it wasn't 'created' to fill in the gap for the fear of death.

You're equating "outlandish" with "[not] likely to exist", and I don't think that's what the term means. "Outlandish" implies that something is strange, and since the idea of some sort of afterlife is common to so many belief systems, as Chickenhound implied, it's pretty much the opposite of strange.

However, something could definitely be said for how variegated in the specifics of that belief the world's religions are. While Hindu reincarnation and the Christian concept of Heaven/Hell both imply eternal life, they don't look much like each other at all.

As for the universality of thanatophobia, the problem with that as an explanation is that not all religions posit an afterlife that takes the fear out of death.

Chickenhound the Cruel wrote:

All I am saying that it is hard to imagine something such as immortality as ‘outlandish’ when there are plenty of established afterlives and lore surrounding the concept.

Brucker wrote:

You’re equating “outlandish” with “[not] likely to exist”, and I don’t think that’s what the term means. “Outlandish” implies that something is strange, and since the idea of some sort of afterlife is common to so many belief systems, as Chickenhound implied, it’s pretty much the opposite of strange.

Good points. My bad, it looks like I misunderstood the definition of 'outlandish'. I was referring to it as a (scientific) claim, not as a religious concept.

As for the universality of thanatophobia, the problem with that as an explanation is that not all religions posit an afterlife that takes the fear out of death.

It is not so much the process of death which many people fear most, but rather the idea of eternal obliteration. Virtually every single popular religion to have ever existed has promised its adherents the opportunity to continue existing beyond death.

Particle Mare wrote:

It is not so much the process of death which many people fear most, but rather the idea of eternal obliteration. Virtually every single popular religion to have ever existed has promised its adherents the opportunity to continue existing beyond death.

I just kept thinking of ancient Greek paganism, in which people universally went to a place of eternal suffering after death. That's not very comforting, but it was a popular religion at one time.

Mankind has longed for both avoidance of obliteration and an answer to what is "beyond" death since the beginning of time. In the light of this fact, an unpleasant afterlife may seem more pleasant in comparison to no afterlife at all – it would give spiritual closure, at the very least.

Greek paganism has died out, anyway. You'd have difficulty finding an active religion nowadays which doesn't promise post-death bliss.

Very mild Roman Catholic. I had a bit of a crisis about this a few years back, but I realized that the question of whether or not God is real and what form He takes is counter-intuitive to the core concept of Catholicism, which is, I think, faith. Surrendering yourself to ambiguity in order to make yourself a better person in this life.

I follow the agnostic code.

Maybe I should become a unitarian universalist, if I knew what the fuck that was.

1. Unitarian Universalism (100%)
2. Hinduism (82%)
3. Liberal Quakers- Religious Society of Friends (74%)
4. Theravada Buddhism (71%)
5. Mahayana Buddhism (71%)
6. Sikhism (71%)
7. Orthodox Judaism (71%)
8. Taoism (68%)
9. Mainline- Liberal Christian Protestants (67%)
10. Jainism (66%)
11. Islam (64%)
12. Reform Judaism (63%)
13. Orthodox Christianity (62%)
14. Roman Catholic (62%)
15. Non-theist (61%)
16. Mainline- Conservative Christian Protestant (60%)
17. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints- Mormons (59%)
18. New Thought (57%)
19. Secular Humanism (52%)
20. Bahai (49%)
21. Neo-pagan (48%)
22. Seventh-Day Adventist (47%)
23. New Age (44%)
24. Christian Science Church of Christ, Scientist (44%)
25. Scientology (38%)
26. Orthodox Quaker- Religious Society of Friends (36%)
27. Jehova's Witnesses (36%)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitarian_Universalism

It would seem it is a branch off of extreme liberal christianity, but it seems entirely like political/moral deist faith of some kind.

Pretty typical New Age typical religion, at least one that doesn't revolve around the worship of foul xenos.

Burn the Heretic. Do not Tolerate the Mutant.

does it matter what religion i am in… because i am not really in one… more like all of them :O does this mean i am god?

No, no it does not.

Depending on the religion (really pending), god in the christian sense is all powerful to a point he can only be described as "I am", because there simply is no way to describe whom god is or his power.

Then again I am confused on what you mean that you are in all religions.

Because as someone whom knows basic religion, to be apart of every religion is simply. . .impossible. For example, you cannot be a christian muslim, as you have to either hold Jesus as savior of man kind or hold up to the truths of Muhammad. You can't be a Buddhist Hindu, because one believes in no gods, and one believes in almost 4 million of them.

I am a cradle/confirmed Roman Catholic and a self described apologetic and like going to church.

Thx KYM for this wonderful topic, I like to know where people stand on thingies and know their experiences.

Peace n love y'all.

sorry for double posting, here are my results, appearently i fall in line more with Sikhism (pronounced Seek-ism) interestingly as I am very interested in that than and though I am Roman Catholicism (i like to study all religions though) but what eves, I don't think you have to be fundamental to dogma to be Roman Catholic as one can wish to reform their faith but yeah, yeah that's how things go yo:

Sikhism (100%) More Info
2. Liberal Quakers – Religious Society of Friends (93%) More Info
3. Unitarian Universalism (92%) More Info
4. Orthodox Quaker – Religious Society of Friends (87%) More Info
5. New Thought (87%) More Info
6. Christian Science Church of Christ, Scientist (83%) More Info
7. Reform Judaism (81%) More Info
8. Neo-Pagan (81%) More Info
9. Mainline – Liberal Christian Protestants (80%) More Info
10. Hinduism (79%) More Info
11. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (72%) More Info
12. Taoism (68%) More Info
13. Scientology (68%) More Info
14. Bahai (65%) More Info
15. Mahayana Buddhism (63%) More Info
16. Jainism (58%) More Info
17. New Age (57%) More Info
18. Theravada Buddhism (55%) More Info
19. Orthodox Judaism (53%) More Info
20. Jehovahs Witness (49%) More Info
21. Seventh Day Adventist (48%) More Info
22. Secular Humanism (46%) More Info
23. Islam (43%) More Info
24. Eastern Orthodox (38%) More Info
25. Roman Catholic (38%) More Info
26. Mainline – Conservative Christian Protestant (35%) More Info
27. Non-theist (16%)

i change my answer to Capeditieanism :3

I'm a Christian. I am more specifically an Armenian Orthodox Christian. We Armenians are the first nation to adopt Christianity. I stayed a Christian because my ancestors fought, died, and had been persecuted for being a Christian.

I understand that some people might not like me for what I practice. But whatever, I'm not here to fit in with them.

I'm Agnostic/Atheist. For me there might be a god, but it's impossible to tell if there is, it's impossible to tell the one of which religion is, if it even belongs to a major religion. Also, I don't like organized religion even a little bit. I prefer to live as if there are no gods and continue to be fascinated by the universe.

I'm Anglican and proud!

High- or Low-Church Anglican?

I myself am a Christian who can't quite work out whether I'm low-Church of England or just a plain non-dom.

I'm an actual Unitarian Universalist. Having attended Sunday services since I was barely in grade school, I'm pretty intimately familiar with the faith.

Basically, the central tenet for UUs is belief in the "interconnected web of life," which is to say that all human lives are interconnected. Consequently, the practice of Unitarianism is very much about mindfulness of your actions and how they affect others.

The other dominant tenant of Unitarian Universalism is belief in the "inherent worth and dignity of all people," which is to say that because we all share in our most fundamental humanity, we need to treat others with dignity and conduct ourselves in a just manner.

These tenants are purposefully vague in their structure. Unitarians are encouraged to seek religious truth on a personal level, which means exploring the beliefs of many religions and determining which of those beliefs holds true for you as an individual.

The main groups of Unitarians are in US North East and Mid West. North East UUs like me tend to be more Christian and religiously conservative, while Mid West UUs tend to be more liberal and secular humanist; there are atheist UUs in both regions, but usually more in the Mid West than in the North East. When I say 'conservative', however, I don't mean 'part of the religious right' so much as I mean holding to more traditional views of religion. I, for example, am coming to believe in the Holy Trinity; I'm trying to discern and leaning more towards believing in the divinity of the Christ and Divine Inspiration for the writers of both testaments-- I even tend to believe in the visitation of Mohammed by the Angel Gabriel. I do this without invalidating the beliefs of others because I also believe that abject Divinity is so far beyond mortal conception that anyone can have a valid experience of Divinity-- even if that experience contradicts the experiences of others.

If anyone is interested in Unitarianism, please feel free to contact me. Also try searching online for parishes in your area; we're a phenomenally open and accepting group :)

@Kourosh Kabir

Oooh, mind if I ask you a question?

What do you think of the accusations that Unitarian Universalism isn't a "legitimate" religion? Since one of the main distinguishing features of a religion is a set of beliefs – held to be of absolute truth – about morality, spirituality, and so on, the fact that UU bucks all of this and encourages its adherents to freely search for their own interpretation of the truth makes many other Christian denominations hesitant to accept it, even as a sect.

@Particle Mare is 2spooky4u @Kourosh Kabir

The traditional stance of mainline Christianity is to reject groups that do not hold a certain set of very core beliefs. The Eastern Orthodox Church has some useful terminology for this: "Heterodoxy" is something that two groups disagree on, but is not a central tenant, eg. infant baptism or transubstantiation. "Heresy" is then when one of those central tenants is rejected by a certain group.

As such, Unitarian Universalists are not generally considered Christians by the main body of the Church not primarily because of their Universalism, but because they are Unitarians (as opposed to Trinitarians).

Which leads to my question for Kourosh: is it possible to be a Trinitarian and remain UU? I'm glad to make your acquaintance, I am yet to meet a UU!

I don't know how to quote multiple posts, but this is a reply to both you and Particle Mare.

There's a divide between how we, Unitarian Universalists, conceive of ourselves and how Christian denominations conceive of us. Unitarianism and Universalism are both older than the US Constitution, but union between those religions only came about in the 1960's. Unitarians rejected the concept of the Holy Trinity and consequently denied the divinity of Christ. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was a Unitarian, as was John Adams. Universalists, conversely, formed their faith mainly around the notion that all people would achieve salvation, regardless of the sins they've committed. Universalists could still believe in the Holy Trinity.

Since UUism is a composite of those belief systems, you can still be a UU and believe in the Trinity. Again, this is a concept I am coming to believe, not that I believe in necessarily. I've been exposed thoroughly to Catholicism in college and my exposure to both Catholicism and metaphysics has helped me gain an intellectual understanding of the Trinity, which I simply didn't understand at all in high school. At the moment, however, my conception of God is that God is the One and the souls of mortals are the Many; I believe that there is a distinct division between the One and the Many, though they are in close and inextricable relation to each other-- that's my central hangup on accepting that Christ was both Man and God.

As for believing in the Trinity and being Unitarian Universalist, there are many lapsed Catholics among us that still hold to Trinitarian beliefs. They're still accepted into Unitarian Universalism on the basis that that the search for personal truth is the highest tenant of our faith. Tangentially, this emphasis on personal truth is one of the key elements of the faith that ties us back to the Lutherans-- like the Lutherans, we believe that faith is a matter of interaction between the One and the Many and that it doesn't require the intermediary of a religious official.

Now as for Particle Mare's point, I'm well aware of the, well, persecution my faith has faced in certain regions of the country, for example, when pro-life activists disrupted one of our services and refused to leave, calling our church something like a "cathedral of Satan" or something like that. What I would argue is that people who would deny our religiosity do so out of a place of ignorance of the UU conception of Divinity and the way in which we interact with it.

Abject Divinity, as I understand it (and I believe Unitarians in general understand it) is as I implied a little earlier, the Eternal. Religion, to me, is the understanding of the relationship of the One to the Many, whether that's one person to all people, God to Creation, or the material subset of reality to the immaterial subset of reality. Abject Divinity is the unknowable constant to which we live our lives in parallel. Think of The Cloud of Unknowing. Central to UUism is the belief that everyone, divinely endowed with the Intellect and thus free will, has the capacity to choose between good and evil, belief and disbelief-- and furthermore that belief takes many names.

The Unitarian conception of Abject Divinity even allows atheists to practice UUism because for us Divinity is the unperishing and the unperishing includes the realm of moral ideals. Moral ideals can be held without the explicit acknowledgement of God supporting them. It is this logic that allows also to allow polytheists like Hindus into our fold-- one can conceive of Divinity as many gods, yet all those gods are united in their divinity and in a way a single entity.

Now, these abstracts apply to the practice of Unitarianism insofar as we as Unitarians believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all people and work to see that inherent worth and dignity realized. Thus, we marry LGBT couples in a religious context on the basis that LGBT people should be allowed holy union. We fight poverty and systemic racism on the basis that the poor and minorities are just as human as the wealthy and the majority and deserve the same rights from both a secular and a religious perspective.

Because secularism is something many Unitarians tend towards and because the religious philosophy of our faith tends more towards the abstract and the philosophical, it's easy to mistake us for an irreligious group, but that patently isn't true. There are beliefs that even atheist Unitarians need to hold in order to be called Unitarian-- you won't find any Randian objectivists among our faithful, for example (at least I haven't met any).

Sorry for the wall, but I felt like these questions needed much longer answers.

I don't really belong to any religion. I'm not atheist, but I'm not really religious either. I just believe that the fundemental force and fabric of the universe and the sort of "cog that makes it going" is the closest thing to a God there is. To me, realizing and understanding the mechanisms that build the universe is learning about God's inner workings.

So in a way, to me, the universe is God.

I guess that's agnostic?

Sounds kinda like Deism to me? I dunno, not really familiar with it, but the brief look makes it sound kinda similar to me at least.-

I think belief that the universe is God is known as "pantheism".

Christan

On second thought, i think i'm a heretic.

I don't believe in a god of any kind, but I do believe that there is a Heaven and hell, specifically a Heaven and Hell that doesn't fucking punish innocent people just for not conforming to a nonsensical religion based around a 2000 year old book.

I guess I agree most with LaVeyan Satanism.

I agree with their idea that all gods were created by humans as a means of religious and spiritual expression. This idea makes more sense to me than the faith-based ideas of religions that try to claim ownership of the earth and sometimes the entire universe, through their ideas of what their god represents.

Instead of recognising their god and gods in general as creators of all things, they see it more like Satan is a god of this earth that represents earthly things, one of many gods of this earth that represent human needs and desires on a divine level. Which makes a lot of sense to me.

I also agree with elements of Christianity (which I was raised on) and Buddhism.

But I don't really identify as any specific religion.
Still, that doesn't stop me from being spiritual.
My boyfriend is very spiritual and believes in reincarnation, but still doesn't identify with any religion in particular.
I guess I'm trying to say that you don't need to identify with a religion to be spiritual.

Also, Pastafarianism makes me laugh and probably has the best lore out of most religions.

>999.M41
>Not worshipping the God Emperor of Mankind

I smell Heresy

I may be Christian Chatolic (for now), but all these complaints about sex education and family planning is bad just because the church says so just makes me wanna hurl. (Yeah, I'm filipino)