Everyone here has given above the average amount of time pondering thier religious beliefs, the proof being in the quality of thought on this board.
So, What things have greatly influenced your religious beliefs, and how?
<I was raised Roman Cath., but I began to question it when the youth group leaders (A married couple, ages 30,32) began to sleep around with the members (avg age 14-15). >
Now, I find myself influenced mainly by my studies of history and philosophy.
My birth. It all snowballed from there.
Seriously…I proclaimed Atheism at age 7 in the 3rd grade, changed to Agnosticism in highschool, and have been sticking with that. I was just born without the crutch of faith in my hand.
My parents couldn’t even convince me that Satan Cause existed. When I lost my first tooth, I asked my mother for a dollar, she said I had to wait for the tooth fairy to give it to me, so I sighed and told her “fine, I’ll wait for you to get around to it.”
I guess the biggest impact, though, probably was when it dawned on me that the Muppets weren’t really alive. Freaked me out bigtime.
they are too!!!
but anyway…
my parents are both atheist/agnostic, so i was a militant atheist until i tried buddhism, but i didn’t like that due to the heavy seriousness 
, so i found discordianism, and that’s where i am now (freshman in high school, btw)
Good question.
I was born into a southern baptist family, so my religious beliefs were heavily predicated through such fundemental beliefs that “everything that everything our christian prejuduce maintains is ‘good’ and whatever is contrary to this is ‘bad.’” They were the “best.” Of course it should come as no surprise that growing up I felt that homosexuality, interracial relationships, and many other things preached to me that were immoral.
I seperated from my church and visited other churches and noticed that they had different preferences, but they were the “Best.” Then I joined the military in which I travelled the world and noticed that all of these different countries had considerably different preferences, but they were the “best” too!
Then I went to college which converted me to skepticism thus earning me a one way ticket to hell. lol
A lot of professors influenced me to certain philosophers which really shifted my understanding of religion. Lamont, Hume, among many others. Also living in Japan, which is a very agnostic country, has impacted my beliefs as well.
Good thread and a treat to revisit some historical introspection.
I stayed in Tokyo too, to attend a seminar about our Genkotsu-ryu school.
Back to the point:
My family was old-school Roman Catholic, as I claimed to be until HS.
I was part of a youth group then, staffing retreats and the like. We were led by a married couple, ages 30 & 33. I began to question when the began to sleep around within the group, (ages 14-15) why these “role models” were behaving that way.
This opened the door to questioning, which landed me as a agnostic. I also love the ideas of Stoicism and the ethics taught in my ryu.
I recall one of my professors really giving me a hard time regarding my homophobia. Due to my religious upbringing, I felt that homosexuality was just a vile evil and this belief transcended into my academic opinion.
One teacher confronted me about it and it just irritated the dickens out of me. But she was right and I was heavily biased against homosexuality due to religious morals conditioned into my psyche through my childhood.
At that point I really made an effort to reflect on what I was led to believe growing up that turned into a moral conviction:
I owe a lot of my religious ideals to my college education, but reflecting back on my upbringing gives me a small dose of contempt for being misled in favor of ethnocentric conceit.
Wow, this may be an odd question and i dont expect ya to answer but how did that sudden “paradigm-shift” if you will… (my teacher in high school used that word and i always like to make use of it now and then) make you feel?
YES! I want to know this too! I admire you greatly. I was raised in a house of people who had already made that paradigm shift, so my natural tendencies of anti-dogmatism and pro-rational decisions was already set for me…
You, on the other hand, did something I truly admire and changed your own views you were raised with! I really really admire that, there’s just no other word for it.
I was pissed!
I was pissed at this little Indian professor for confronting my conviction (and remained pissed for quite some time), I was pissed at my church for instilling this conviction, and I was pissed at myself for allowing myself to succumb to such a conviction.
It is really gut-wrenching for someone to take the foundation of everything you hold to be true and just destroy it with sincere and pure reason. This little Indian women did this and I do not think she even intended for it to happen. I really do not know what she said or did specifically because I was so pissed, but whatever happened altered the course of my religious views significantly.
Needless to say, I hated that professor for the rest of my college days. Later on I realized that the challenges she presented were the greatest intellectual obstacles I faced and perhaps the most rewarding aspects of my intellectual development during my university studies. Later on I realized that I never really hated this woman, but the recognition of what I once was was the product of my irritation. I emailed her a few weeks ago and thanked her.
First I suppose my great Aunt was a big influence on me. She was Methodist and someone who had a different approach to life than I had known until then. She was kind and generous to all people and always was, which was how I believed Christ was.
Second, my Army Pastor adressed the issue of Religion in a very novel way (for me then) and was unabashedly a Christian of a similiar sort to my great Aunt. At least he got me thinking about what seems to embaress us when showing commitment to a cause that only a few support.
Third, the German Pastor that married my wife and I had a few things to say that were quite helpful and started me unwittingly back off on the road to faith. I grabbed a Bible and was determined to prove that it was a lot of rubbish, but I couldn’t. I suddenly realised how the Bible connects and got away from the face value approach.
Fourth, Erich Fromm started me thinking about the social aspects of Religion, I read so many of his books that I saw Jesus, Buddha, Meister Eckhardt, numerous AT Prophets all in the light of Psychoanalysis and was deeply motivated.
Fifth, I brushed an evangelical group who taught me to preach and I spent some time looking at their approach, but was mostly involved with Youth Work. It was practical Christianity that was important then.
Sixth, a very simple kind of German village Pastor impressed me with his down to earth approach to life, his modest conversations with me and his commitment. The meaning of Community became important.
Seventh, I trained as a male nurse and started working in old peoples homes. I discovered how much intuition I had, saw how people died, tried to comfort the relatives of the departed, spoke with colleagues about the distress they were holding out. I discovered what spiritual advice entailed.
Eigth, I became a Care-Manager with responsibility for the residents and the workers. Discovered methods of relaxation and returned back to Meister Eckhardt via some books of a German Theologian, Jörg Zink. I discovered what value personal peace has.
Ninth, I started reading Jewish books about Christianity and Religion, and discovered what we have been missing and why so many things seem contadictory. I also read James Carrols book “Constantine’s Sword” and was shocked at the dimension of antisemitism within the church.
Shalom
Bob
I stopped believing in Protestantism (Church of Ireland, it’s fairly liberal) around the time I entered Grammar School. I feel strongly that those things were interconnected (hell begins to lose it’s deterrance when you have to get up to it five days a week).
I guess my beliefs parallel those of Enigma’s for a ways. I grew up Christian: methodist, baptist, church of the brethren and the like, i was even into it myself a little in the Navy. After i got out of the navy, i had time to read again. And this time instead of math and stuff, i concentrated on philosophy. I’m afraid it was Ayn Rand that convinced me of Atheism, and i’ve been a devout atheist ever since. Then Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Joseph campbell, and the mind has splintered into a thousand different avenues since then I now read Buddhism , Confucianism, Zoroastrainism, Stoicism (greatly influences me too Telesis, especially Seneca), Taoism in addition to various philosophers. It is almost as if i appreciate religion more as an adjunct to philosophy.
My parents were from communistic, so atheistic China. They came to the Netherlands for a better living, so money is/was important for them. I refuted the idea that money was the way for a better living in my teens, so I searched for other meanings of life. I read some about religions, got interested in New age and spirituality, and later on I got more understanding of philosophy.
The term ‘agnostic’ suits me too. But I do believe in God for pragmatic reasons, because I feel a need for a higher ‘something’ in life. And believe in god provides for it. But at the end ‘we don’t know’.
The things that influences my beliefs (I’m not stuck to any religion or movement), is everything I experience in my life. At the moment reading the ILP forum .
I was influenced by Judaism and am right now battling it all out within myself. Let me tell you it’s a hell of a struggle!
Erich Fromm is brilliant. I am a true fan of Fromm’s perspective.
I have to admit Bob that I have the utmost respect for your perspective as well. I don’t always agree with it, but you present a compelling argument.
That’s interesting. I was in the Navy as well and my last brush with religious conviction was at that time.
Tiuhu mentioned the fact that money is not a predominant theme in his life. I have recently rediscovered this in mine. There are times when i am glad to have little(as compared to some in my country; i am gratefully rich as compared to many in the World), it has helped me to understand what is truly important; I once read a bumper sticker that said, “live simply, so that others may simply live.”, i like that statement. Reading the stoics has helped me to better understand the relation that money has to me.
I have been an athiest my entire life. When I was about 19 I started reading about Buddhism, and now I’d have to say my beliefs are predominantly Buddhist. My core beliefs are that one should always act with a clear mind and with compassion. That extends to animals too (see my ongoing argument with enigma!). I use meditation to try to purify my mind and heart, and to make spiritual progress.
The Buddha was one of the first people in history to oppose animal sacrifices.