# What Are Your Religious Beliefs? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [August 17, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484 "2010-08-17T01:25:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/81 "2010-08-19T12:34:05Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I picked atheist, but I still feel a strong connection with Judaism and Jewish culture. Although I don’t actively believe in god, I do often find myself making decisions based on Jewish ethics. What Kyla said. I’m not spiritually inclined, but I believe that humans are capable of behaving in a wise and ethical way because it’s the right thing to do, not to placate some supreme being. This tracks pretty closely with Jewish ethics and morals. You can take the girl out of the shul… ---
**Author:** ![ryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@ryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ryan)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2010, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/82 "2010-08-19T12:47:32Z")
Raised loosely Roman Catholic but never a “True Believer”. Now consider myself sort-of a zen-agnostic secularist. ---
**Author:** ![Perciful](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Perciful](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Perciful)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2010, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/83 "2010-08-20T13:33:55Z")
I’m a “dyed in the wool” Roman Catholic. I have never not believed and have only found happiness in my faith. My life …now that is a different story but that is still evolving. I would not be me without a strong faith in God. I don’t know what it would be like to lose my faith because it has not happened yet? I think I would be weaker for not having strong faith? One thing that I have found for me is that when I am furthest away from God I am the unhappiest. This has happened enough times for me to know that I was missing my spiritual connection. I was grounded in self and that is a very bad place for me to be stuck in. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 1:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/84 "2010-08-21T01:30:13Z")
> [@LouisB](#): > > You need an option for “My personal religious beliefs are my own business and no ones business but mine.” That’s the one I would have chosen. Well, that’s a good one too. ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/85 "2010-08-21T01:45:49Z")
> [@Rand\_Rover](#): > > > [@carnut](#): > > > > You’re missing a lot of stuff here. Many of us cherry pick. I marked secularist because that’s how I act to others but I am an actively spiritual person. > > That’s “Other Religion.” Not really, not imo as one who is also spiritual but not affiliated with any particular religion. At the same time that I refuse to affiliate with any particular set of beliefs about “God” and “life after death” and “human spirituality”, I cannot in any honesty call myself “secular” or “agnostic” or “Athiest” or even “other religion”…Nope, sorry, NOT the definative poll. I am a “religious/spiritual Independent”, same as I am politically. I do not HAVE a “religion”, even “other”. I don’t think they make a box I fit into. ---
**Author:** ![Ann\_Onimous](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ea5d25/32.png) [@Ann\_Onimous](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ann_Onimous)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/86 "2010-08-21T02:16:33Z")
I’m a mutt. ---
**Author:** ![MeanOldLady](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/meanoldlady/32/10737_2.png) [@MeanOldLady](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MeanOldLady)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/87 "2010-08-21T03:30:43Z")
> [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > You mean they haven’t _already_? And there’s actually a website? > > I got it several years ago from a local band who was having a “name the band” contest, and one of the submissions was “Al Dente and the Pastafarians”. Heavens to Betsy, please don’t tell me you’ve never seen the website dedicated to my lord and savior, the [Flying Spaghetti Monster](http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/). ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/88 "2010-08-21T04:21:37Z")
> [@MeanOldLady](#): > > > [@Mister\_Rik](#): > > > > You mean they haven’t _already_? And there’s actually a website? > > > > I got it several years ago from a local band who was having a “name the band” contest, and one of the submissions was “Al Dente and the Pastafarians”. > > Heavens to Betsy, please don’t tell me you’ve never seen the website dedicated to my lord and savior, the [Flying Spaghetti Monster](http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/). Oh yes, I’ve been there. But I first heard “Al Dente and the Pastafarians” a number of years before the Internet. ---
**Author:** ![PlainJain](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5daacb/32.png) [@PlainJain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlainJain)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/89 "2010-08-21T17:34:59Z")
I chose atheist but I would have much prefered ‘none’. I hate being defined by theists terms. ---
**Author:** ![tumbleddown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9bcb4/32.png) [@tumbleddown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tumbleddown)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/90 "2010-08-21T18:09:59Z")
I am a Reconstructionist Jew. There are Jewish movements beyond the “big three” and none of them are denominations, per se. ---
**Author:** ![Llama\_Llogophile](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@Llama\_Llogophile](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Llama_Llogophile)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/91 "2010-08-21T20:31:17Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m what you’d call a teleological, existential atheist. I believe there’s an intelligence to the universe, with the exception of certain parts of New Jersey." Seriously though, you’d probably call me an atheist. ---
**Author:** ![Count\_Blucher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Count\_Blucher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Count_Blucher)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/92 "2010-08-21T22:07:57Z")
I believe that you should do what you know is right, that you should do no harm, and that you should keep the faith that by doing so you make the world in some small way a better place. . . . . I’m sure that this offends the living shit out of somebody. . . . . . Too Damn Bad. ---
**Author:** ![Othersider](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/cab0a1/32.png) [@Othersider](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Othersider)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/93 "2010-08-21T22:33:15Z")
> [@InterestedObserver](#): > > Nope, sorry, NOT the definative poll. There probably won’t ever be a definitive one, because there are always people that, as you said, don’t really “fit” into one specific category. ---
**Author:** ![Maiira](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Maiira](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maiira)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2010, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/94 "2010-08-21T22:41:12Z")
I picked “unsure,” because it’s true–I really don’t know what I am. But don’t try to convert me to whatever YOU are. ---
**Author:** ![NoiseBomb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/49beb7/32.png) [@NoiseBomb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NoiseBomb)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484/95 "2010-08-22T01:05:10Z")
Agnostic, if I must put a label on it. Mostly I’m in the “don’t know, don’t care, it’s not a part of my life” camp. I am open to the possibility that there is something out there beyond this physical world, but I have no proof nor experience to prove that to me one way or the other. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-your-religious-beliefs/550484.md?page=4)