Did you come to religion or let it go at some point in your life?

Religion came to me. I didn’t have anywhere to stay for the night on evening when I was 21, and a Catholic priest I met in a gay bar put meup iin his home. He didn’t take advantage of me, but the place was unusual to say the least. It was decorated like a seminary. Thinking back I’m wondering if it was a seminary. I was a bit out of it.

LOL!

Perfect, r1

Likely a troll but I’ll bite.

I became a Pagan on graduating college a few years ago. I spent my highschool years heckling other students for their religion. Typically contrarian like a fool, I was a staunch agnostic sceptic in my College years proper even when I was sleeping on a ratty couch in a commune house with Radical Faeries. I did not want to know.

It was only when I got out and scampered back to my little old country town that I looked around and realised that there were old ancient forgotten Gods as well as supernatural powers and spirits and beings still striding around the place, unnoticed. Even in my own personal life there had always been signs; I had fallen in love with a Fae as a teen and hadn’t even realised. There’s Traveler/gypsy somewhere in my blood a few generations back, and I was raised from birth eating the fruit and drinking the water in an area known to swirl with Iron Age/pre-Roman Druidic magic.

I started off making a general candle altar and blessing the trees in my local woodland. Now I’m three years in and tentatively starting to practise divining and speaking humbly to specific Gods with a view to asking for patronage. It’s a surprisingly gentle, almost banal process involving supplication and subtly changing how I express myself - even lying the grass sunbathing a lot. I’m more a cultural than spiritual Pagan though, perhaps that’s why.

I went to catholic school for most of my education. At some point around 7-8th grade I realized what bullshit it all was.

By the time college rolled around, I was an avowed atheist

Ewwww religion.

I have better things to do with my life on a Sunday.

r3 - Has a good buzz.

Raised unreligious by parents of two different religions that neither practiced. But I went to Quaker school and realized in my 30s that so many of my beliefs came from there that I was, in fact, Quaker. So I joined a Meeting.

Not a troll. Thank you, r3.

[quote] Now I’m three years in and tentatively starting to practise divining and speaking humbly to specific Gods with a view to asking for patronage. It’s a surprisingly gentle, almost banal process involving supplication and subtly changing how I express myself - even lying the grass sunbathing a lot.

Does the Laws of Attraction stuff get its basis from Paganism?

Why are people so obsessed with religion now? In my day, we just went to church on Christmas and Easter (perhaps to show off a lovely new outfit) and no one talked about their "beliefs." I doubt anyone even thought about it. We certainly didn't call attention to ourselves by proclaiming ourselves to be "atheists" or becoming fanatical church-goers. It's all very low-class.

Raised by hardcore Catholics. Catholic school for 12 years. Mass every week with family for 18 years. Rejected religion at 16-17 when realized I was gay - and that it was BS. All 4 of my siblings go to church with their kids. Not evangelical or super-religious but maintain the Catholic culture - and I think a fear of giving it up. They also send kids to Catholic school.

In retrospect, I’m fine with religion. It gives you something to reject. Know a lot of people who were raised without religion who ended up latching on to some whacky, cult-like belief system. Seemed like people need something to turn to or grab onto into times of crisis. And if you haven’t thought through the concept of religion and logically rejected the ideas, it’s easy to be suckered into crazy belief systems that aren’t necessarily “religion” per se but are equally warped and blinding.

I was raised as a Protestant (non-denominational Congregationalist), but I never came to faith. I asked my mother questions about how trinity was supposed to work by about age 10 and she said that for her it was ultimately Jesus' message that mattered.

I've studied religion my whole life and now teach it at the college level because I think the phenomenon of religious belief is so fascinating, especially Christian belief.

Religious revivals tend to come after national traumas. The fundies and "Deplorables" you see now were the first victims of Reagan in the 80s. 9/11 resparked all that.

Another famous revival was after the 1906 earthquake in SF.

That's really interesting, r12. Do you have a source I can read on that?

I think you either have faith, or you don't. I know people who were raised in a religious environment but they didn't understand what the deal with it was and didn't believe what their parents did. Others do quite naturally, and stick with it, or change it, or go new age.

In my case, I have faith but I wish I didn't.

I learned about traumas and religions revivals first in my college geology class where the chapter on earthquakes opened with a discussion of the religious fervor that followed. Next, the 100th anniversary of the SF quake had some pundit talk about the revivals that followed, and a sociology prof I know told me about how US evangelism in the current era started with the Reagan Revolution.

I don't think there is a book, but there should be -- I link a Wiki article on the 1531 Lisbon quake that briefly summarizes the religious frenzy seen in the aftermath.

I grew up in a Catholic household. My mom was protestant, but went to church after my sister and I were baptized. The good thing was my both my grandfathers were Agnostic, so my parents weren't hard-shelled.

Got my sacraments through Confirmation, but left the church after that. When I was going to church, even when I was little I felt like I never fit in, I'd fall asleep during mass.

When I moved down to the Bible Belt from New England, I got sick of the holy roller screeching Evangelicals which ultimately turned me against ever going to church.

The final straw was these assholes who dropped me like a bad habit when I fell into a serious depression after my dad died and not one managed to visit, help out, do really anything except offer prayers.

So fuck religion.

Thanks, r15!

I was raised in a religion, but when I became an adult it seemed that I was that religion only because of the accident of my being born into it. It didn’t seem logical to base one’s beliefs on that. So now I’m agnostic about religion, leaning towards atheism. And I feel more intellectually honest about it.

Don’t base your beliefs on blind faith or feelings. You’ll be led down the path too easily. And there are a lot of people out there willing to take advantage of you for it.

I was raised Catholic. Deeply religious. Main reason why it took me years to finally come out. Even went to Baptist church, a non denominational church and even joined a cult including an exgay ministry hoping to pray the gay away. Finally came out after college, left church and swore off religion and never looked back.

I was raised atheist / agnostic and first became interested in the teachings of the Buddha during my teens. During my time studying at university, I started to practice meditation and follow the teachings more seriously. By the end of my studies, I had firmly settled on one tradition which had clicked with me strongly (Thai Theravada) and, by the time I finished my PhD, being Buddhist (or, rather, practicing the Buddha's Dhamma and being part of this tradition) felt completely natural.

I was raised with no religion with one parent an agnostic and the other an atheist and was told it was so I could choose what I wanted as an adult. I don't recommend it as there was nothing to fall back on as a child. The ironic thing is that I am related to Pope Pius Xl. He was required to excommunicate his family because they were rebels in the church and caused too many problems. (that's what i was told) I became a Catholic in my late teens. I love the church but hate the hierarchy and understand why my family were rebels.

I no longer attend church because I felt like I was attending kindergarten year after year with no progression and it got really boring. I am very spiritual, have had an encounter with an angel, have witnessed miracles and also believe in reincarnation and a multitude of other things that are too forward thinking for the church. I am very happy with all of this.

Diolch OP!

[quote] Does the Laws of Attraction stuff get its basis from Paganism?

Allow me to explain. Hopefully I won’t bore anyone.

I don’t know terribly much about LOA/mindfulness/The Secret type of dodge and there are many different varieties of Pagan who may find a connection, but from a personal standpoint and speaking for my branch (Recon Brythons) I’d say, “no”.

My pantheon of Gods aren’t benevolent figures. They aren’t genies and they don’t bring ‘#blessings’. They aren’t omnipotent, and they can’t and won’t rearrange the world to make their devotees comfortable. They’re old deities with foibles and desires of their own, and as things stand they do not care about me on a personal level (perhaps that will change if I can establish a stronger connection with one or more, and maybe become Oathed when I am older).

I make offerings, say praises, light altars and tell tales of the Gods’ deeds because I admire them like one might admire a mentor or role model or folk hero, not because of any kind of ‘savior/martyr’ corollary that Abrahamics love so much.

This is confusing for those outside the faith practise because Paganism and polytheism are almost completely delegitimised now, with only to Japanese Shintoism and certain Native American belief systems recognised as valid. Voudun, reconstructed Norse Heathenry and Gaelic Paganism are all unfairly depicted as an affectation that tumblr users and Reddit d&D-playing incels put on, but for some of us it’s birth culture.

Feel free to AMA if you want to know more.

I was raised going to a Presbyterian church, the driest, most boring Protestant denomination in existence. I haven't been to a service in 20+ years.

Is Presbyterianism what Emily Watson’s family practised in BREAKING THE WAVES?

I like the idea of seeing my parents again in the afterlife.

God The was the most painful movie I’ve ever sat through R24. Perfect summary of religion. Suffering for no reason.

R10 we seem to have been raised in a similar way in a similar family and have come to a similar realisation.

I was brought up Catholic by my mother, who herself was raised by an Irish Catholic father—my mom's grandmother wanted her to be a nun. My father, on the other hand, is irreligious and an agnostic, so I was not brought up in a hardcore religious environment that left me with shellshock or anything. I came out to some friends at family at 18/was outed to others, but I have decent parents for whom it was a non-issue. I went to public high school and college, but attended graduate school at a Jesuit university, and felt very at home there. There is something about Catholic churches that still gives me an overwhelming sense of comfort. I'm a lapsed Catholic for all intents and purposes, though the church's policy is "once a Catholic, always a Catholic," so I'm technically still part of it, on paper at least. I am too much of a skeptic to fully adhere to it, though I know there are good value systems there in all the muck.

I saw Julia Sweeney's "Letting Go of God" and that was the beginning of the end for me.

I always hated mass even as a boy. It never gave me any kind of comfort. There are people who do not believe but find masses peaceful. I've always found them crushingly tedious. I don't understand how people can even believe in eastern or native American philosophies and deities. They're just as idiotic as the western ones. Each individual on this planet means about as much as a rock. If that's what you want to focus on that's your business but I don't get it in the least.

I never went to religion in the first place and never will. Want nothing to do with that shit.

Raised evangelical Christian. Started questioning my faith while enduring trauma at home. Became an atheist during college when I took a philosophy course. Your religion is based on where you were born and what your parents believe. How can that possibly be right? Born in India? Congrats, you're a Hindi or Muslim. Born in the US? You're a Catholic or Christian. That so many people believe their culture's idea of a god or gods is laughably immature, when you think about it. Plus, religion is born from fear. Humans are the only species that contemplate death. Death is scary so let's pretend we all get to have an afterlife! Nope.

I rejected my family's religion in my teens but went through a period about 5 years ago where I explored my spirituality. I attended a ton of "spiritual" personal growth workshops and briefly joined a knowledge-based Pagan group. I stopped doing both because I realized the people were just as enmeshed in group think as the conservative people at my family's church. These days, I don't worry too much about religion or spirituality and instead focus on living my best life.

[Quote] I've encountered an angel

Lol r21

I'm probably more agnostic, than atheist. I believe there's a higher being/power, but don't know what that is. I was raised Presbyterian, went to Sunday school and church every Sunday. When I turned 18, I stopped going to church. I never got anything out of it, and found it boring with a lot of BS and hypocrisy. As I've gotten older, especially today with organized religious institutions becoming very political.. I abhor these houses of worship. They've become intolerant and hateful and very judgmental...trying to influence the rest of the world to their ways. They are money makers for unscrupulous preachers. Politicians cater to them, as they hold a powerful vote. In that case, the religious houses need to pay taxes.

Was tormented by nuns in catholic grammar school. Fought back in 5th grade and had to...ahem...leave. But my mother made me go back to catholic school in HS. So I refused to go to mass. I never forgave her for taking me away from my vast number of friends in public school and my relatives and making me go to a catholic school that was two hour round trip away from home.

I refused to go to church even for weddings. I did go for a few funerals. But fuck that Church, fuck all churches and their nonsense. Religion controls you; they work with the wealthy and powerful to send you to war to defend their wealth & power and use it to make you afraid of murdering them.

I'm a member of a Druidic order and came to it through studying my family history and realizing that's what they were. I was raised Catholic, but it was always the rituals that attracted me and not the actual belief. I think Jesus is great, and so I was shocked to find out there are legends of him coming to a old Druidic school in Ireland...perhaps the one my family sponsored.

Many of the druids chose to remain in plain sight and continue to work with the new religious order by becoming ordained. Many of the early Irish saints came from these families. St. Brigid, St. Finbar, and St. Brigid were all rumored to be from the original Drui.

When I found the story about the 'conversion' of two female druids in the family line and their immediate deaths afterwards, I turned away from the Catholic church and fully embraced my heritage.

I was raised first in a Southern Baptist and then a non-denominational evangelical church. I enjoyed it, and both of my childhood preachers were nice kind men, that focused mainly on the love and kindness of Jesus' message, they weren't fire and brimstone types. When I first went to college, I took a break from the church, and wasn't sure that I could reconcile my sexuality and my faith. Then my faith was renewed when on my way home one weekend, my car broke down in very sketchy area. This older gentleman, came to my aid, he went out of his way to get me a new battery for my car and to get me out of there, because he said the guys hanging around where my car was would rob me as soon as night fell. I asked him for his address so I could repay him once I got home, he refused. I asked him why and he said he was a deacon and therefore it was his job and that he would be repaid in heaven.

After that, I reread my Bible and theological books, so I now consider myself a Baptist, but an old school one. Originally Baptists believed that everyman(person) was their own priest and theologian, and that is my position as well. My faith isn't defined by what any preacher or theologian says it should be, it is between me and my God. And, my faith isn't about rules and hate, it is about love and forgiveness.

My family was Southern Baptist, but mostly non-observant until I was six or seven years old, at which point they got the notion that going to church would be beneficial to me. We had several non-starters as far as finding a "church home." After a few encounters with congregations who wanted copies of my parents' tax returns so they could determine for themselves what would be an accurate tithing requirement, my parents gave up.

My parents divorced in 1979, not long after my mom's schizophrenic break with reality. But since I was always closer to her than to my dad, I stayed with her, abusive though she was. The next few years were a rough ride.

I was just becoming aware that I was different, and that I needed to conceal it at all cost. When I was sixteen, I caught the religion bug, and became an evangelical fanatic, albeit one with a highly independent turn of mind - I was never satisfied to simply take the word of religious authorities; I had to figure everything out for myself. I read everything. Upon being baptized by my Southern Baptist uncle, a preacher, I promptly went heretic, rejecting 'Once Saved, Always Saved.' I began sojourning with various churches in the Protestant communion - never liturgical, and never Catholic. Whilst with the Church of the Nazarene, the wife of the choir director gave me my first Chick tracts and comics, and it was off to the races with anti-Catholicism.

But the special focus of my religious obsession was with the End Times, and with the prophetic texts. Soon dissatisfied with dispensationalist theology and its unsupportable schemes, I wound up among the Seventh-Day Adventists, perhaps the ultimate of all End-Times denominations.

By this point, I was nearing 30, and had just about come to the end of my rope as far as resisting my homosexuality. That, I am convinced, was what all this religious obsession was really about - seeking some kind of solution to it, or at least a way to deflect my energies onto something else. Then I was diagnosed with appendicitis - though it later turned out to have been nothing but kidney stones - and I was put under for the surgery. The anesthesia was like I would imagine death would be - utter nothingness - no dreams, no consciousness - nothing. When I awoke, it was as though I had rebooted - I was different somehow. I was no longer interested in resisting being gay. Neither was I interested in participating in it - the monk-like disposition I had cultivated to that point more or less continued. Instead, I approached it like I did everything else - through obsessive reading: LGBT history, gay studies, queer theory - everything.

I was also easing into more liberal interpretations of my faith. It took a few years more, but I gradually drifted into agnosticism, then atheism. Now I am a hard-line antitheist. All that I learned and knew as a religious fanatic is still with me, but to a different purpose. I help others leave religion, which poisons everything, and I help my fellow gays, even those who are still imprisoned in faith, to understand that the bible poses no real threat to them. There are other interpretations to those texts, better ones.

My decades spent in Christianity had warped me - rather like a bonsai tree, or those fictional kittens grown inside a jar, deformed. Even now, I am still celibate, unable to relinquish the barriers against intimacy with another human being. I have had but one lover, but after a time, let him go, unable to require any more from him in that way. It was for the best, because in his heart of hearts, he is straight. We are still best friends, having been so for some 24 years.

R37 female Druids? As I have understood in my studies to date, there were never any women permitted in the Bardic Orders. Do enlighten me on your findings to the contrary.

Sorry, but whatever you're studying, it isn't traditional. Women were always allowed in the orders and are an important part of the tradition in Ireland. Are you a Brit?

Read the stories around the coming of St. Patrick (with a legion of soldiers) and you'll find what you're looking for. The story I'm referring to is in the link below. The story is whitewashed and we retained the original understanding that they were raped, tortured and forcibly converted by the legionary soldiers under Patrick's command. He was no saint and was there to abolish the heresy of an earlier form of the church in Ireland that was not in line with the Roman version.

The supposed date of his arrival is also off by about 200 years in order to allow the whitewashing legends and make it seem as though the conversion of the whole country occurred during his lifetime. It didn't. King Laoghaire Mac Neill never converted and the Druidic order he patronized survived until the Norman era when they fled inland to maintain the records they kept. It's also bs that there were no writings done by these earlier rulers and their Druids. Much of the information was kept secret in particular families and there is a rumored book buried/entombed somewhere in that valley. That was a story told to me by my grandfather, a direct descendant of that line, and a pagan until his death - though he never said exactly what he believed.

Sorry, forgot the link. Here you go.

[quote]. I think Jesus is great, and so I was shocked to find out there are legends of him coming to a old Druidic school in Ireland...perhaps the one my family sponsored.

Yeah sure he did, hon. He took a Viking ship. He also walked upon England's mountains green and visited America where he fought the Indians after his cruvifixion. He was also in Japan, according to Mormons.

But I'm sure it was YOUR family he visited in Ireland, uh huh.

Don't know, R43, but you can be skeptical all you want. And I do think Jesus was pretty damn cool and had a lot of good things to say that his current followers would be advised to listen to and read now and again.

As for the historical context of his visit, it's very possible. Neill of the Nine Hostages (related to a lot of Irish, Welsh, Brits, and French) lived during an era when his tribal group traded extensively with civilizations throughout the Mediterranean and may have been descendents of the "Sea Peoples" that attacked during a critical period and were recorded for history by Ramses the II of Egypt. One of those tribes were the "Danu" or people of the goddess Danu and it's theorized they joined with other seafaring tribes from islands off the coast of Turkey to take advantage of an environmental collapse. The claim of Jesus coming to Ireland to visit with the Drui' was not something I made up. It's also not about the Drui', but a different order, existing in Gaul, who decided to begin recording the achievements of mankind because of a cataclysmic disaster that wiped out the Mediterranean civilizations and their acquired knowledge of mathematics, astronomy, biology and other sciences. These men were not Drui', but influenced and shaped them.

Here's a video of another member of the tribe, same region of the country as my ancestors, same town, in fact. O'Brady speaks about some of the same things and the legend of the originators in Gaul. I think he also mentions the Jesus story.

The secretive nature of these orders sadly created his isolation. I've asked my father about it and he claims O'Brady is adhering to the oral tradition that kept the knowledge and the order safe and telling only what he knows cannot be challenged.

The missing years of Jesus are known about, but not known. He was far more likely to travel by ship and the trade routes both East and West during his time were well established.

Make up your own mind, R43. The truth is often a lot stranger than we can imagine. Whatever you may believe, it's a compelling story.

Finally, the school of Ross was well known for hundreds of years until the Normans came. It was a Druidic school first and then a Catholic one. Look it up. It's also historical fact that people came from the Continent to study there, in both eras.

I respect everyone's view on religion. For me, my church got me out of my depressive head. I was so unhappy. Now I'm in a reformed Catholic church (none of that sin shit and gays are very welcome) and I spend my time totally involved in others instead of myself. That being born into sin stuff is what's killing wester religion. I love it. Our pastor is a divorced former Roman Catholic priest and the associate pastor is a woman. I'm studying to be a deacon. And I'm 60.

My family are leprechauns. We descend from the leprechauns who caught King Heremon‘s red hand on the Irish shore. My grandfather told me of this. You can look up King Heremon and you can look up leprechauns. We have a line of our family who were selkies.

I have always been religious. I became more conservative as I got older. I wasn't born in it but I grew up religious and the last almost twenty years I practice Pentecostal faith.

Religion interests me. All of them. So I'm not religious myself.

I was taken to church and Sunday school until I was 11, when I decided to stop going. I remember telling my younger sister that I didn't believe in God; for some reason she told my mom, who came to me in tears and asked me if it was true, and I said yes. Atheism was the right choice for me, then and now.

I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school. I wasn’t interested as an adult but I had friends that went to Quaker meeting and I went and really enjoyed it. It’s very peaceful and meditative which appeals to me.

My family are leprechauns reformed. The dogma is enlightened and the services are more streamlined, but we are still rather small. I try to embrace the big picture, which can be daunting as I am so wee. I like to read the stories about Jesus coming to Ireland to visit my ancient family and how he kept hitting his forehead on the tops of the doors.

When I was a child Lucky Charms was one of my favorite cereals. But I outgrew it. Too sweet.

R37/R40 thanks for your reply, I sincerely appreciate it and didn’t mean any offence with my question. I am looking to begin down a Bardic path and so I would like to be better informed. The OBOD are the organisation from which I take much of my information, and as a woman myself it does not surprise me in the least to learn from your sources that they have likely glossed over the history of women members of their order (tale as old as time, right?). I have heard from members there that historically women were barred from the orders and that never sat quite right with me - now I know why. Please note I am not a member nor would ever be of my own choosing, as I do not believe in an overarching ruling guild of their ilk and moreover do not agree with their subsuming of the Gorsedd (Welsh Bardic order) into their order. I seek my own way as a Brythonic Pagan Bard without answering to Druid, Ovate or Wizard.

To answer your question I am indeed British; Angle by given nationality, Brythonic by choice and Cymry by ancestry (my great grandparents and further forebears hail from Pembrokeshire). Unfortunately I don’t know terribly much about the history of the Gwynddyl/Irish Pagans beyond Da Derga’s Hostel & the Red Book (touchstones in my spiritual life) and have little connection beyond the Gypsy knowledge from my maternal line. I’m glad to hear Paganry is alive and well in Eire, all the same.

R48 I sometimes wonder if I’m part Fae or or Shuck or Cwn Annwn (demon/death dog) something like it. It would add up given my tastes and personality and the way my life and relationships tend to go. I’ve known a man in the past (well, he was a teen boy the time) who I’m sure was Fae and we had a strange too-familiar jolt of connection even on first meeting - as if something supernatural had occurred. I suspect my sister might be a Changeling some days; she’s mischievous & impish, green-eyed, impossibly lucky and with strange physical sensitivities to our environment.

Was Jesus an alien? Are Angels just intergalactic operatives? Was Sodom & Gomorrah a nuclear explosion?

That's really positive, r47.

R55, none was taken and I appeciate your seeking nature. The leprechaun ass has a right to his own views, too, even if he is a mocking asshole without a grain of understanding or historical knowledge.

Leprechauns are myths. Druids existed or Julius Caesar was lying. They still exist, despite the mockery and derision for their world view.