I don’t know how I missed that. As always, I’m going to blame the people of Wales and their dark prince Charlie.
Given the diffuse nature of Bahai organization, I’m going to bet that how homophobic a given group is depends on that group. The person I alluded to in my earlier post was what I’ll call the Once & Future Lesbian; part of the reason she was with me was because she felt a lot of pressure from her faith community to be straight.
Funny. In this household, we blame everything on The Spice Girls. 
Yes, the nature of the faith is very, ummmm, varied. From my own perspective, it is not my place to tell another member of the faith what they are doing right, and what they are doing wrong. In the words of our Prophet: “Let no person speak the sins of another until they are, themselves, without sin”. Which does, in fact, sound a lot like “Let he who is without sin. . .” and for the same reasons. Before I worry about who else is doing what, I have to worry about what I’m doing.
Sorry, not an option. To the mongeese with your genitals it is!
Buddhism, definately. I already agree with a lot of it personally, I just don’t go to temple.
None of the many Buddhists I know (there’s a Korean Won Buddhist temple around the corner from me) eschew all posessions or are trying to achieve enlightenment through constant meditation. They have families, careers and hobbies. You can be a Buddhist without being a monk.
I am Pentecostally certain that all the Spice Girls are from Wales, except for that one cute one.
Huh-huh, huh huh. “69.” Huh-huh, huh-huh.
Oh, sorry; I thought this was a YouTube comments section.
But seriously, folks…
I’m a little surprised that I’m the first to say Animist. Believing that everything around me has a soul would be a good way of justifying my habit of talking to my car, getting mad at inanimate objects, and feeling sorry for old clothes that I’m throwing away.
Nah. That’d be “going with the classicals”.
Ba’Ha’i
or maybe …
LaVeyan Satanism
I’ve often gotten the impression that Catholic schools are less brainwashy than Protestant ones. I’m sure it depends on the school and the student.
And yes, I worded my first thing poorly.
Jainism.
I’m bolding this portion because a lot of people’s answers seem to be ignoring it, and I’m not sure how important Skald considers it to the hypothetical. Several posters have chosen Shintoism, but I’d be surprised if there were a Shinto shrine within 100 miles of where I live so that wouldn’t be a practical solution for me.
That said, Shinto isn’t a bad choice for a non-believer. I don’t think Shinto practitioners are expected to make any sort of pledge of faith and there is no formal conversion process. So you wouldn’t have to feel like you were living a big lie, at least not as much as with many other religions. Learning the basics would of course take some study, but learning just enough to “pass” doesn’t seem terribly difficult. Based on what I observed when I lived in Japan, I think someone could probably mimic the average not-that-devout Shinto practitioner as long as they learned the basic rituals like how to purify yourself when visiting a shrine, observed the major behavioral taboos, and showed up at the shrine on holidays and for the occasional blessing.
As for me, thinking about the options I have locally then my best bets in terms of convenience and not-making-me-angriness are probably Lutheranism, Episcopalianism, or Reform Judaism.
I was brought up Lutheran (baptized and confirmed), so I wouldn’t need to convert. But it’s my vague and possibly incorrect impression that the local Lutherans are a lot more conservative than the ones I grew up with, and that the local Episcopalians are a moral liberal bunch. There’s an Episcopal church very near to my house that many of my neighbors attend. I’m not sure what would be involved in converting, but I don’t think it would be too difficult. Neither religion has a reputation for particularly entertaining services, but for a non-believer that’s probably better than a service where I’d be expected to perform unfamiliar rituals or demonstrate faith or joy I don’t really feel.
If I had to pick a religion to seriously study and make a sincere attempt to believe in then I’d definitely consider Reform Judaism. I like what I know about it and it seems pretty sensible. I also appreciate the Jewish cultural emphasis on education and reasoned debate. But if I’m just paying lip service then I don’t think it would be worth the trouble to formally convert to Judaism. It’s my (limited) understanding that this takes a lot of study, which seems like a waste if you don’t really mean it. I also feel that if my fellow worshippers knew the truth about me then most Christians would be happy that I was at least going to church and would hope that true belief would rub off on me, while Jews generally have no interest in converting gentiles and would probably just as soon not have an insincere Jew hanging around.
Au contraire, Peanuthead. May I direct your attention to the following post (bolding mine)?:
Clearly, this is a reference to Rastafarianism.
For myself, definitely Reform Judaism. In fact, I wanted to become a Reform Jew some years ago, but didn’t do so for a number of reasons, not least of which was that I just didn’t feel right signing up for a religion which represents what I admire rather than what I actually believe.
If that didn’t work out for some reason, I’d go with Quakerism or Universalist Unitarianism. (There is a Friends’ meeting house within driving distance, although I wouldn’t exactly call it “local.”)
Forgot to mention: I’m very interested in Sikhism, but I gather that only a very small minority of Sikhs believe that gays and lesbians are included in the universal “equality” which they profess to believe in; also, the emphasis upon procreation is problematic. They do get big points for believing in equality for women, though.
Sikhism is quite hard work, what with the four pillars, the concealed weapon, beard and turban and all…
I consider it very important to the hypothetical.
The Baha’i don’t seem to hold any kind of service or have much more than the occasional information hall so maybe they have something going for them. But I think I’ll go Wiccan or if ‘modern’ religions are not acceptable, Buddhist or Hindu.
Well, the Local Spiritual Assemblies (LSA’s) and local communities that are too small to be LSA’s (you have to have at least nine adult Baha’is to be an LSA) gather every 19 days to celebrate the 19-day Feast, but that’s restricted to Baha’is only. Otherwise, it’s completely up to the LSA how often to gather for devotions, study circles, children’s classes, etc. Generally speaking, everything except Feast is open to anyone who cares to attend. But yeah, we’re not big on ceremony.
It also probably helps that both schools were pretty liberal–sometimes accused of being “Catholic in name only” by more conservative elements of the Church for having crazy things like Gay-Straight Alliances.
I want the religion, other than Roman Catholicism, that involves drinking lots of booze and having of unprotected sex.