Have you renounced any beliefs or practices you were brought up with?

Yes, the last time I went to hear Mass was at least eight years ago. But questions about the Catholic religion has already started nagging at me when I was just a kid in a Catholic school.

I was raised catholic and walked away from that in 8th grade. My mom growing up was also and still is pretty racist. She isnt opening hateful like some are but you can see she doesnt trust people of other races like she does her own kind. I always hated this growing up and is something ive tried to distance myself from as much as possible.

I no longer believe that if I dug straight down I’d wind up in China, I now know better. I’d be 1,000 feet underwater in the middle of the Indian Ocean!
Antipode Map
btw…I Don’t live in Vancouver

Everything but alcoholism and a love for the Green Bay Packers.

I renounced my belief that if I just worked a little harder, lost a little more weight, was a little bit smarter, a little bit more successful, a little bit more understanding, a little bit prettier, a little bit better cook….. that the guy I was dating would actually appreciate me and fall in love with me.

I also renounced the idea that just doing better, and hoping and praying and talking about the situation with my best friend and working hard and making changes and having a positive attitude and making killer chocolate chip cookies was not going to make any guy fall in love with me. It just doesn’t work that way. Either they fall in love with you or they don’t and you can’t make somebody feel anything that they don’t. Even if you or me or anyone else is a terrific, attractive person. Just ask Sandra Bullock.

Love comes out of nowhere and we really can’t explain how or why it works, or for whom it will strike. It’s not worth anybody’s time to try to force someone to love you or to wait around for years hoping that they will love you.

But if you are lucky enough to have the person that you love, love you back then you should do everything that you can to be a good person (to deserve their love) and you should treat them well and nurture your relationship and never take it for granted.

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Catholicism and monotheism in general, capitalism, industrialism, the idea that humans are any more special than any other animal.

Anything spiritual, pseudo-scientific, and generally non-physical.

My parents were pretty anti-gay and racist. They were upset when I dated a Japanese woman, and my dad never understood why I was so comfortable with people he knew were gay, but my parents never came down hard on me for my beliefs.

I was raised Catholic and I don’t exactly follow it anymore. I didn’t have a strict upbringing or anything like that; it was mostly just characterized by Sunday school and going to church regularly. I had no problem with it until I realized I was gay and it seemed like I was being rejected by the religion and rejected by God and the concept of God started to seem less and less likely to me to the point where I became an agnostic atheist. It was after that that I realized that I don’t think I ever fully believed in it all. I’m still fascinated by religion and the Catholic church, though.

@DominicX Fascinated by how so many people can invest so much time in it? Yeah man, I totally agree :P

I was raised in the Episcipal church. That and all of it’s ideas have been renounced.

Religion (I was raised Catholic), eating meat, fishing.

I was raised in a religious (baptist) home where my dad was a deacon in the church and my mom taught sunday school class. I had questions that couldn’t be answered about my faith when I was about 19 and began seeking out other beliefs. I became intrigued with reincarnation at the age of 22 and from there became heavily involved in the occult. I read everything I could get my hands on about consciousness, quantum physics, mind body connection, hypnosis, energy, and pretty much anything else new age I could find. I began communicating with spirits, was trained in 1st and 2nd degree Reiki by a Reiki master, and studied astrology in depth. I continued on that path for about 12 years and told everyone that knew me about the things I was studying. You didn’t come into my house that I wasn’t doing your natal chart in the next 12 hours or so… I was so sure of this path.

I had an experience that to me opened my eyes and I am no longer on that path. Things were made clear to me by my maker and I have never looked back. I wouldn’t say that I believe as I was brought up because I was taught much hellfire and brimstone. I know God now and the mercy that is there for me now.

kardamom I know you are right but I just can’t let go of the idea…and I still love this song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI844RAJo58
I love the way you wrote that up! It is so true that loving and being loved back in return is a gift that seems like a miracle every time.

I think the practice I always wanted to reject and do now is the idea of confessing my sins to a priest and having him “forgive” me in God’s stead. If I say a couple Hail Mary’s and Our Father’s and resolve to “sin no more” and am truly sorry for my sins they will all be forgiven. It’s not so much that I don’t believe in a merciful God, it is that I don’t accept that the priest can fill in for Him/Her and be His/Her “representative on earth”.

Guilt and shame, seemed we always had to have some of those going. I have since understood that God made us for clean in faith in Christ, not appeasement. Humanity was God’s idea not ours. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.

My grandparents were alcoholics (excepting my grandmother, who died very young). All of them smoked cigarettes.
My Mother wouldn’t touch the stuff, and was unhappy with my Dad when he did. He did, though not to the excess of my grandparents. My Mom smoked when she was young, and quit when she was 20. My Dad quit when he hit 40.
I am not a heavy drinker, by any stretch of the imagination. One glass of wine, or one beer a night. If I am on vacation, I will have a bloody mary before flying, or a scorpion if I have a chance. I have smoked maybe 10 cigarettes or cigars in my life, and never saw the attraction.
My kids are all heavy drinkers, and my daughters both smoke. So much for being the good example.

@filmfann

Good point. Both my parents were heavy drinkers and smokers (and it killed them both…) I neither drink nor smoke.