If you were raised religious but are not now, why not?

I'm big on fellowship and community. 

I grew up Episcopalian. Went. Didn't really dig into it. Church was always a social event with food to me. Later it was a social event with girls.

I've been to a lot of different styles of churches. Presbyterian, Catholic, Luthern, Evangelical, UCC, UU, Synagogue, and even attended prayer at Mosque.  Always really respected the Quaker Meeting House and Unitarian churches. I wish more churches were just gathering places to discuss topics, and less about a leader telling us how to feel about others.

I go to a church. I volunteer regularly. But only if I find a community who doesn't judge, and isn't slyly telling me I should judge. 

A lot of churches out there "beat around the bush" on how they feel about various topics as to draw in people, but when you dig into how leadership really feels, they are judging. 

My pastor tries really hard to give sermons or lessons based around tearing down religion, separating church and state, and just simply loving one another. Our church is LGBT friendly, and employs people who are openly gay.  

One of the things that attracted me early on to the church was that he would always say "if your the praying type" - fully acknowledging that not everyone is. 

He refers to God as "She" or "It" quite frequently. 

He'll go into religious history about various days, or remind us "this week starts Ramadan" or "this week starts Diwali" and give us background on how those celebrations relate to Judeo-Christian history, or how various tribes across the world celebrate lunar events and how curious it is that those events also seem to match Christian holy days.  

Unfortunately, our church is shrinking, like many, and it seems like the only churches growing are those that spread hate or intolerance. 

In reply to z31maniac :

I don't have anything against Christianity in particular - no more than any other organized religion - but one of the final nails in the coffin of any religion I might have ever had was when I learned about the concept of Predestination:

Church:  God is omniscient, so He already knows if you are going to Heaven or Hell.

Humans:  OK yeah I guess He would.

Church:  So it literally doesn't matter if you're good or bad.  You may not even have a choice about it.  Being good may not get you into Heaven and being bad may not send you to Hell.    Plus we'll call you a sinner even if you're good.  But you should still be what we say is good.  Because reasons or something.

Human 1:  OK makes sense.

Human 2:  Wait, WHUT?

In reply to Duke :

I don't either, it's just not for me, there are too many things that are contradictory (like what you just pointed out) that I can't reconcile it into a cogent philosophy.

I was raised in the most wishy washy christian churches my mother could find and never felt "connected" to them.  As I got older I felt less and less desire to do any organized faith system.

In about 2000 my then wife suggested that she wanted to go Catholic since she liked the formulaic services.  I suggested we use the infant internet to find our ideal faiths and we found the website Belief-O-Matic and sure enough, her answer was some version of strict christianity but mine was "Secular Humanist".  I believe people are in charge of their actions and morality.

But I'm not entirely sure we're entirely meat sacks.  It would be nice if there was something when the lights go out, but the lack of evidence for any particular event means I won't live my life in fear of a bad afterlife.

I once heard the analogy I kind of liked:  picture the Divine as a pure white light, all the religions of the world are simply colored lenses in a lamp around it.   So everyone sees the same thing, but everyone is only getting a filtered/distorted shadow of what is actually there.   By that theory my personal belief is as valid and likely to be "correct" as any of the major faiths.

What's the difference between a religion and a cult?  Popularity.  A million followers, and you are a religion.  A hundred followers, and you're "wacky".   

Interesting This American Life episode called "Heretics". Detailed the story of the Rev Carlton Pearson who cast aside the idea of hell and decided through his readings of the Bible that we are all going to heaven. 
 

Makes sense I guess. I mean if you believe that Jesus died for ALL of our sins then we are already forgiven right? 
 

I figure if I live a mostly virtuous life I'm going to be all right. And also, I think we are already in heaven- especially being blessed with living in the United States (or any western nation where generally food and shelter and nice things are available.  -With very glaring and obvious exceptions that we could all do our part to work on and lessen the misery of those who do not have). 

We have free will! I can't think of what more we want or need than that. Organized religion was probably invented to answer questions that science was incapable of and to set ground rules for civilized people- lots look at native religions as obviously ridiculous and then walk into a church to pray before an idol. I dont get it but I'm not here to poop on those that do. 

In the home where I grew up my sister had an abortion at age 15 and my dad hid Playboy magazines in the attic, was an alcoholic and beat me from time to time, once to the point of broken bones and the usual story of me saying "I fell down the stairs". My parents belonged to a mainstream church but never went. My cousins across town were evangelicals and had a much easier time of it.

Sister finally died at age 40 from meth use after four marriages. Dad died a few year before sister did, still in the bottle, and left my mother broke for me to take care of. I don't know how I survived all that crap plus all the close calls with motorcycles, fast cars and downhill skiing, not to mention being run over by a truck on my bicycle when I was 16 years old. Somehow I not only survived but lived into my 60s, still able to work and ski and ride a motorcycle. I found a special girl 10 years younger than I am who brought me to her church, managed to collect a couple of degrees from selective universities and I live in a nice suburban house with a three car garage and a fleet of cars. The only way I can explain it is that there is a higher power up there that takes care of fools like me.

I don't know which denomination is the right one or how many angels can dance on the head of the pin, or if angels even exist. All I know is what works for me.

stukndapast said:

Which group of books do you think would most closely match the books in your local library? 

Dunno I bet their science and math books would seem a little odd unless you want to look into their history on the topics rather than state of the art 

One other thing of note I just realized is that I was heavily involved in our youth group growing up and liked that sense of community.

KyAllroad said:

 

In about 2000 my then wife suggested that she wanted to go Catholic since she liked the formulaic services. 

I'm not sure that there are many who agree with me on this, but I really enjoy this aspect of Catholicism. I love going to church. I love singing with people. I love the incense, I love knowing what comes next, I love listening to a priest give a sermon, his take on the readings, assuming he's not trying to make all sorts of convoluted conclusions (and comes to his point in 5 minutes or less, no need to keep us there).

I didn't really realize it until I went to a decidedly non-religious funeral. There was no structure to it, nobody seemed to know what was going on, the person in charge just kind of winged it, or at least it seemed that way. 

This is not in any way a comment on theology or what the religion actually stands for or anything like that. I just like the structure of the mass itself. And also cool architecture in churches.

mtn said:

I'm a struggling Catholic. Why struggling? The organizations running it mostly. And that isn't limited to Catholicism, I think basically every single organized religion I've studied has had some... issues... that make me wonder. 

I also hate the convoluted arguments needed to support a specific position. Again, this is true for multiple religions, and not just the Abrahamic religions. If it takes a theologian an entire lecture to explain to me why two men who love each other having sex is immoral, and you're allowed to cherrypick support from the Bible (but only if it supports you and your actions, you can only take some of the bible literally and its only what I say), and make all sorts of interpretations that there is no way you're able to make... Well, something is off and not adding up. 

I hate the hypocrisy of separation of church and state... But my church is allowed, just not yours.

My wife and I are raising our daughter Catholic, if only to teach her about her her family's culture. But that could change. 

I'm in the same boat. I still go to church every Sunday (and I try to revolve my Motorsports event attendance around it as well), but I don't necessarily believe in everything that the Catholic Church preaches. 
 

On one hand I fear leaving the church will alienate me from my family, who are deeply religious, but on the other hand I don't know if I fully believe in the Catholic Church and I don't want to live that lie. I'm firmly against the "pro-life"(anti-abortion) stance, and while I was on a road trip trying to find a church to go to there was one in Portland that put their anti-abortion stance front and center on their webpage but not a single mass time posted anywhere on the webpage. It really made me think about what I really want to support. 

As I've gotten older, I've become more of a pluralist. I don't believe there's one right answer. I think things are messy, and the more sound and cogent philosophies working on solving problems, the better. I think uncertainty is a virtue, because it leaves room to adapt and improve.

I want philosophies that help me guide my decisions and actions.

As I evaluate a complicated situation, I want to plug that into as many philosophical frameworks as I can. The more that come out pointing to the same decision or course of action, the more comfortable I can feel that's a good one.

My issue with most religions isn't that I think they aren't useful philosophical models - they absolutely can be. It's that the adherents of those faiths often paint their beliefs as THE way, THE truth, THE answer. I can't buy that.

Fun story related to religion:  As I said in my post above, the churches I attended growing up were very bland.  To the point that they never officially DEFINED themselves.  So the name of our primary church was the First Christian Church of (Hometown) so I was a christian.

At 18 I left home for the army and one of the first things we did was fill out a lot of forms.  One of which asked for my religious affiliation and being a good government form it was a multiple choice list with choices.  Top one was Protestant, then Catholic, Baptist, Jewish, Muslim, etc etc.  Well I was pretty sleep deprived and mentally stunned  at this point in the induction process and NONE of those said "Christian" which was what I thought of myself as.  But all the way at the bottom of the list was Christian Scientist.  I figured I was a christian with scientific leanings so that must be it, right?  

My drill sergeant pulled me aside about a week later to ask me about it at which point I realized I'd made an error.  When I got to permanent party I had new dog tags made and every 6 months I'd tell the records review clerk it was a mistake and that my records should say "no affiliation".  They never changed it and somewhere in a dusty filing cabinet there is a form saying that I'm a Christian Scientist.  Sigh.

mtn said:

KyAllroad said:

In about 2000 my then wife suggested that she wanted to go Catholic since she liked the formulaic services. 

I'm not sure that there are many who agree with me on this, but I really enjoy this aspect of Catholicism. I love going to church. I love singing with people. I love the incense, I love knowing what comes next, I love listening to a priest give a sermon, his take on the readings, assuming he's not trying to make all sorts of convoluted conclusions (and comes to his point in 5 minutes or less, no need to keep us there).

Hey, I'm not religious, and I understand that.

Ritual can be good. People like rituals. They are often derided for being mindless following, but they can be equally valid as paths to mindfully setting aside other worries and reminding ourselves to do something simple in the moment.

Mindful rituals are powerful. They don't have to be religious. I watch the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier every Memorial Day. I always cry.

In reply to hunter47 :

One of our close friends - actually, probably our closest friend - is the daughter of a Lutheran pastor. She is on the council, teaches Sunday school, etc., etc.

This pastor would likely be kicked out of the Lutheran church if the synod actually knew what he believed, but they're such a small church that they really get looked over. 

You wouldn't know it from his services. They're all common sense conclusions, kind of what you would expect Fred Rogers' sermons to be - it brings in scripture, it brings in Christianity, but the crux of it is "be a good person" and anybody could see that and agree with it. Take out the fact that it is in a chapel and he's wearing pastoral clothes, and you could put him on a Ted Talk stage or something similar, just to hear him give his thoughts out loud, and just about anybody of any creed would likely enjoy it and get something out of it and likely not realize that he was a pastor. 

He asked his daughter if, after he retired (and their church will close and be sold by the synod when that happens) if she will continue to go to church. Her answer was "not a Lutheran church, the Lutherans are pretty awful". He didn't fight it or try to argue against it. He was obviously sad, but he agreed with her. 

My wife and I have considered joining their church. It has a lot of what I want, and what I think religion should be. But we don't, because we have basically the same issues with the Lutheran church as we do with the Catholic Church. This one tiny congregation just happens to be different. 

Sounds like the church should consider becoming unaffiliated, but that's also tough because it's often the large organization that has fronted money or ownership of the facilities. 

This billboard in GA sums it up pretty well for me. "Thanks so much, Jesus, for the wars and violent deaths. We love you!"

In reply to pheller :

Synod basically owns it all and supports controls his retirement income. So he's kind of between a rock and a hard place. It is definitely not the church he was ordained into. 

One of my works of fiction - that sells zero copies on Amazon - uses the afterlife question as the main plot. One of the main characters muses that she is an 'apathetic agnostic'. The reasoning is that the questions and answers of the afterlife, gods, space, etc are simply too complex for our brains to see rationally. And, that if any of it is true or false, we have no control over it. "I don't know, because I'm incapable of knowing with any certainty. Since I cannot know, I don't care, because doing otherwise is just wasted energy" or something to that effect. And that describes me. 

This whole concept of 'faith' just seems, well, silly to me. I'm okay with other people living that way. It just doesn't work for me. At. All. My brain doesn't work that way.

Having always been this way, religious teachings never stuck with me. I remember clearly sitting in church with my folks thinking, "None of this makes any sense."  I was probably 7 or 8 at the time. As I pointed out in the locked thread, I did go searching for a religion I could maybe embrace.  That exercise just further convinced me it's all man-made bunk. Religion, anyway.

Higher power? We're back to 'apathetic agnostic'. I'll never know, so don't spend time on it. I can say that if there is a god anything like is depicted in most religious tomes he/she is kind of a jerk. I'm not worshipping a jerk. I'll go with George Carlin's theories and either worship the sun (which I can see) or Joe Pesci (because he can get stuff done). 

On a related note if you want another very interesting story on the subject, check out Hell Is the Absence of God by Ted Chiang.  It can be found in Stories of Your Life and Others (which also contains the story that Arrival (2016) is based on).

The story is set in a world where the existence of God, souls, Heaven, and Hell are obvious and indisputable, and where miracles and angelic visitations are commonplace—albeit not necessarily benevolent.

As someone who has chosen to continue to follow the Christianity I grew up with (though with some significant modifications), I want to commend those who've spoken on this thread. I really appreciate the honesty and willingness to share. 

I was actually a teaching pastor at a Bible church for 17 years till this last summer when I resigned to run the automotive charity my wife and I started. Some of the stories you all have shared about your negative experiences with churches and/or clergy grieve me deeply. I believe they grieve God deeply as well (assuming I'm correct about His existence, though I cannot prove it one way or another). There are Christians trying to do a better job representing the love and grace modeled by Jesus, and I hope they become the norm. 

I would be more than happy to share the reasons I've chosen to continue to believe despite years struggling with doubt and depression, but since that's not the purpose of this thread, I'll reserve that for the messaging system if anyone wants to engage there. 

Grace and peace, Blake Jennings.

mtn said:

KyAllroad said:

 

In about 2000 my then wife suggested that she wanted to go Catholic since she liked the formulaic services. 

I'm not sure that there are many who agree with me on this, but I really enjoy this aspect of Catholicism. I love going to church. I love singing with people. I love the incense, I love knowing what comes next, I love listening to a priest give a sermon, his take on the readings, assuming he's not trying to make all sorts of convoluted conclusions (and comes to his point in 5 minutes or less, no need to keep us there).

I didn't really realize it until I went to a decidedly non-religious funeral. There was no structure to it, nobody seemed to know what was going on, the person in charge just kind of winged it, or at least it seemed that way. 

 

This is not in any way a comment on theology or what the religion actually stands for or anything like that. I just like the structure of the mass itself. And also cool architecture in churches.

I was raised catholic, I dont go to church anymore but I do love the structure and routine of catholic mass.

gearheadmb said:

mtn said:

KyAllroad said:

 

In about 2000 my then wife suggested that she wanted to go Catholic since she liked the formulaic services. 

I'm not sure that there are many who agree with me on this, but I really enjoy this aspect of Catholicism. I love going to church. I love singing with people. I love the incense, I love knowing what comes next, I love listening to a priest give a sermon, his take on the readings, assuming he's not trying to make all sorts of convoluted conclusions (and comes to his point in 5 minutes or less, no need to keep us there).

I didn't really realize it until I went to a decidedly non-religious funeral. There was no structure to it, nobody seemed to know what was going on, the person in charge just kind of winged it, or at least it seemed that way. 

 

This is not in any way a comment on theology or what the religion actually stands for or anything like that. I just like the structure of the mass itself. And also cool architecture in churches.

I was raised catholic, I dont go to church anymore but I do love the structure and routine of catholic mass.

I've never been to a Catholic service, but several funerals and a wedding. The whole ritualistic aspect of them just killed me. It was all so uptight and stuffy, and I could feel people judging me for not knowing the words or getting in line without realizing it was for communion. It seemed like a lot of people were busy going through the motions, fulfilling a commitment. I get there a difference between a funeral and a Sunday sermon, but not for me. 

There is a Latin mass service that opened in the area I've been meaning to go to, but from what I've heard, they're not real fond of new people. 

At the same time, I've seen on TV at least, the big southern black churches, and even through a TV screen I'll admit I  felt  something. Whether that was just how happy and energetic everybody from the chorus to the people in the seats was singing, dancing, and praising, or something else all together, but it was definitely something. I've never had the opportunity to go to such a service, but I would love to for the experience. 

In reply to mtn :

DW and I got married in an Episcopal church using the Anglican ceremony, despite both being 100% atheist for years.

We didn't do it because we were expected to, or to hide our lack of faith from anyone, or anything like that.

We did it for the ceremony. My sister (also atheist) had (purposely) gotten married at the Courthouse the year before, and it was just such a depressing location and bland ceremony with no real privacy or intimacy. This was before private 'marriage officiants' were a thing.  Your choices were church or courthouse, next to the county lockup, with a couple in flip flops and t-shirts waiting for you to finish so they could get hitched.

So we chose the church.  The marriage covenant was between the two of us, anyway, so all the god stuff was irrelevant.

In reply to RevRico :

I've been to some black baptist services. Definitely an experience. I enjoyed it, but they take way too long.

mtn said:

In reply to RevRico :

I've been to some black baptist services. Definitely an experience. I enjoyed it, but they take way too long.

That's all of our get togethers lmao

In reply to Duke :

Great point

I do agree that many ceremonies can be beautiful in their own right.  It's been a few years, but I've been to mid night mass on christmas several times, even though I'm an atheist.  It's a beautiful service.  By the same reasoning I can still listen to Elvis despite his under age flings, Michael Jackson even though he was a pedo pervert, Ted Nugent even though he's a complete racist cuckoo nut job with sex abuse allegations.  Just because a person or organization is bad, crazy, evil, or anything else you don't agree with, doesn't mean it can't produce beauty that can be appreciated.