How did you come to your current religion/belief?

Hello everyone!

I am trying to understand how did people come to their religions/beliefs.

  1. Did some events prompt your choice of belief?
    For example: Tragedy? Hardship? A friend introduced you? Family influence since childhood? (If you become more pious at a certain stage of your life, you can talk about that too. :slight_smile: )

  2. What were you looking for?
    Answer to afterlife? Meaning of life? Cause of suffering?

  3. Why did you choose what you chose? What did your choice provide you?

Thank you all in advance for your participation. :slight_smile:

I took a class in grade 10 on religions and learned about buddhism. Then I started on the path of becoming one.

Nothing like that, I just kinda got lucky. I took the class out of sheer curiousity.

Buddhism is really more about the individual than most other religions and that just meshes with my sensibilities. There also seems to be a lot less pressure involved with it. I’m not letting anyone down but myself.

Up to about age 13 or so, I was a devout Christian. That’s when I found it that all religions are nothing but a giant scam.

I’m now agnostic and have led a significantly happier life than the religious folks I know.

  1. I’m a lifelong Episcopalian. My parents are, too. They took me to services and to Sunday school throughout my childhood, and it stuck. I have Catholic, Baptist and Jewish friends, and have been to worship services for each, but I like the faith in which I was raised.

  2. I like the liturgy, music, history, customs and thoughtful sermons, and the chance to pray quietly with like-minded people. I always know that I can gain solace and consolation in difficult times, and affirmation and uplift in good times.

  3. I guess I answered this…!

When I was a senior in high school I had a job for a period in the English book room. Maybe five people came the entire year I was there. One of the books there was the Bible, RSV, with an introduction giving the details of how the multiple sources for it. I was never taught that in Hebrew school. I was not exactly devout even before that, but that gave me the push I needed to start really thinking about the Bible, which led directly into atheism. Then, in 1976, I was involved in a religion bulletin board, where I said that if someone sent me a Bible I would read it all the way through and post comments. Someone did, and actually reading it all the way through made me hard core.

I’ve never found a compelling argument to believe in any religion, so I guess you could call it “atheism by default.” :smiley:

(I distinctly remember first learning about Christianity as a tyke, and immediately spotting the problem with it: “How do you know the Bible is true?”)

I met a Witch in art school. :slight_smile:

She dragged me kicking and screaming to “circles”, meetings of the Wiccan Church of Canada. They were fun (they reminded me of the Scarborough Theatre Guild), but I didn’t actually believe anything.

A couple of months after we broke up, I had a dream, in which every woman I ever knew was involved. The leader was the High Priestes of the WCC. When I woke up, I knew I was a neo-pagan.

What this mean in everyday life? Not a lot. I don’t go to circles. I haven’t abandoned my life in the world of technology or anything. I was laready interested in solar poaer and ecotopian design. And I don’t actually believe in any gods. Neo-paganism is more of an artistic tendency that shades my preferences in the world. I sometimes refer to myself as a secular neo-pagan.

This is part of why I do not believe that religious conversion is a rational process.

IMHO, all those JWs and whatnot that come to your door and try to logically argue you into their beliefs are going about it totally the wrong way.

It seems likely to me that they actually have a net effect of driving people away from their churches or even increasing the amount of hatred and disdain of religion in the world. This must mean, of course, that they are Tools of Satan. :smiley: