How did you choose your religion?

I was raised Christian. Did I rebel? Yes.
Did I doubt? Yes.
Do I now have all the answers? No.
Have I studied other religions? Yes.
Has my belief system changed from the way I grew up? Yes, I used to be rather fundamentalist, but as I matured in my faith, I began to focus on the heart of my faith. Loving God and loving others. Love justice, seek mercy, walk humbly.
Why did I choose to remain Christian?
Throughout my life I have had several “God” experiences. The older I get, and the more I learn about life, the more he validates himself to me. He is the core of my being, and on my good days, I try to let my understanding of him direct my actions.

I studied various religions, and gradually, over time, formed the beliefs that live by today.

Without religion, born and raised, being without superstition I spent all of my days.
That was later reinforced when I learned about the nonsense, internal contradictions, immoral teachings of the major religions, and the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever supporting their claims.
I did not choose to be an atheist. It is impossible for me to be anything but an atheist, even if I wanted to be something else.

I was raised a Catholic. I stopped attending when I left for college.

When I got sober at the age of 30, one thing that happened to me was a re-examination of all my principles and values. It was then that I realized the Catholic Church is a vehicle for my spiritual connection. I don’t agree with everything the church declares, but the ritual and structure is very important to me.

It’s important to think long and hard about picking a religion. There are a ton out there. Just because one is right for your friends and family doesn’t mean it’s right for you. Look at the pros and cons. Do you get an eternal afterlife? Is it a pleasant one? Are there prerequisites for gaining access to said afterlife? What does it cost? Some religions require monetary commitment, others will wave this in lieu of service.

It might seem a daunting task finding the right religion with all the options out there, not unlike choosing where to buy insurance. And in a way it is like buying insurance. Insurance for your soul. So don’t rush. Sit down. Make a list of the qualities that are most important to you in religion, what you could take or leave, and what is an absolute deal breaker for you. If you cherish your foreskin for example no matter how much parts of the Abrahamic religions appeal to you you need to look other places. Unless you are female and don’t have strong feelings about the sanctity of other people’s foreskins.

But don’t worry too much. Remember, if it doesn’t work out with the religion you pick you can always change it later.

I was born to it. My parents had no religion, and neither do I. However, I do now have spiritual practices. I’m not sure if they have any. My spiritual practices are designed to manipulate my perceived relationship to the world. I have no sense that my perception is the same as anyone else’s, so I would never tell someone else that my way of doing things is the only way to do them. I would, however, argue with people about their interpretation of the way they do things.

When I was about 5 years old I discovered there was a thing called religion, it took me about all of an afternoon to decide I did not believe any of it.

I was a highly manipulative kid, I used to lie a lot and was good at getting people to do what I wanted. They say it takes one to know one, and as I sat there listening to my religion teacher in school talk about the garden of eden and other things, I could not help but spot all the hallmarks of a lie.

It took me about a week before I told me mother “In the future there will be no such thing as religion”. When she asked me why not, I told her that “it is not true”. A poorly constructed statement by a mind with a poor vocabulary, but little did I know that I had just made my first argument against the god of the gaps.

@fundevogel I personally do not believe in a god. I have my own beliefs based on what I have studied in my scientific qualifications. Both my parents do not believe in god either and so I guess I was born into it and never christened or anything. I am very interested in how people find their own religions though, I was never intending on using this question as a way to decide upon a religion, I am just really interested in how others have come to theirs. I feel that the way that I have sort of fallen into my religion would probably be almost the norm, but I think its fascinating when people swap religions or become religious through their own experiences. I find that kind of belief just amazing and I would love to hear about those experiences from other people.
Oh and I am female and have no worries about foreskins!

Thanks to all so far for sharing how you came to your faith!

@bongo I just think the idea of choosing what to believe is preposterous. I guess that isn’t really what you meant, but a lot of people do seem to think that people choose what to believe rather than just accept the conclusions that seem to best coincide with the world we live in.

@fundevogel yeah maybe the word “choosing” was wrong for that but you know what I meant!

My mother married a guy whose brother was a pastor. I was recently ripped from my favored parent, young, and in desperate need of a support mechanism.

Fifteen years later, I realised the flaws in that religion and, by extension, all religion, and chose atheism.

I was kidnapped by Muslim terrorists who threatened to cut my head off if I didn’t convert to Islam.

“OK No Problemo…”

Then I was attacked by hoards of Hare Krishna’s at the airport who wouldn’t let me pass until I accepted their free books.

“OK No Problemo…”

Then my XXX wife awoke me in the middle of the night exclaiming how she’d found Jesus and wanted me to become a Christian so I didn’t burn in hell for eternity.

“OK No Problemo…”

And yesterday, some nice boys from the Latter Day Saints stopped by and wanted to foist the Spirit of the Lord upon me. Accepting Mormonism means that we could all pray for the lost dead souls of those past in my family.

“OK No Problemo…”

This weekend I’ll be attending the local Renaissance Festival where the New Agers have promised to protect me with Sprites and Fairies against the Darker forces of Evil that roam the unseen realms. They’ve got a special rock that I get to carry around for the rest of my life that ensures my soul will be protected.

“OK No Problemo”

Parents were not observers of anything really. Mother was Jewish but didn’t follow the religious teachings. Grew up seeing how religion separates people and wanted no part of it. Lean towards atheism, joined the Unitarian Church for awhile, but couldn’t really relate. I like people of all faiths, color, sexual orientation, shape, size, etc., etc., as long as they’re nice and caring. My family is a multi cultural one and we even span the gamut when it comes to politics. I’m a liberal, my husband a conservative and I feel if we can get along, so can the rest of the world. Here’s to diversity!!

I don’t think I ever really ‘chose it’. I just followed the religion my parents have and never really bothered commenting. I just continued living my life normally.

I was not raised with a religion. I’m an atheist after studying many many religions.

I was raised as a Christian, and tried to make a go of it through my teens and early twenties. God was never more than an abstraction to me, and trying to extract a coherent and satisfying message from the Bible required so many mental contortions that it just seemed too convoluted to be true. It was presented to me as a “take it or leave it” proposition; you either accepted the doctrine as presented, or you were out. So I showed myself the door.

Being freed from the set of “answers” that I had grown up with kindled in me a voracious appetite for existential questioning, something I had never been encouraged—or even allowed—to do before I should say here that not all Christian sects are as repressive of questioning as mine was.

I was drawn to Zen Buddhism because it actively encouraged exactly the kind of questioning I was already doing. It didn’t foist a package of answers off on me, but just provided some structure, technique and support for my own exploration. There was no talk of God, nor any other figure to accept as an unconditional authority in my life. It was just what I needed.

Well… First I went to a muslim school, then catholic then christian. Now I’m an atheist for eternity ;)

@Earthflag… does that mean you believe in eternal life… but don’t believe that a God will be there?

I’m not even sure about whether it’s possible..or rather, right to constantly switch religions though? I mean, what do I know. But I was just wondering..

As a kid (of maybe 8) my parents struggled mightily to get me to go to church and then wholly regretted it when they finally “succeeded”. With that one forced look at western organized religion, I decided it had nothing whatsoever of value to offer, and never looked back.

Before and since then I’ve developed my own set of principles and beliefs through a process of picking and choosing from exposure, consideration, reason, experimentation, and self-questioning; and I can’t imagine making such a decision any other way.

@RealEyesRealizeRealLies Hmm… No.. I believe eternity in Earth only, and once we die, the term “eternity” is dead as well. So, we just live in this Earth that we have created, (because we named this huge “planet” Earth), and our bodies will be combined with plants and all the other corps… ya know.

I didn’t choose my religion, I pretty much just grew up with it. I am now a recovering Southern Baptist.

I was raised Anglican, was a regular worshipper and communicant until my mid-twenties. Then I fell away, although I never formally renounced religion. At one stage I even said to myself, that there was no God. That is changing now. The deaths of much loved relatives, illness, troubles, aging: do make one stop and think: what is this all about? I have met people with a rich and abiding faith: one of them was an atheist, so he could not be described as Christian. I would like to share their faith, that everything has a purpose and that we are so constructed that we cannot know the answers, at least not in life. A friend told me that she had faith that one day she would know why things happen and that it would make sense. All this says is that I did not choose my religion; it was chosen for me, and I have seen no reason to leave it, especially since Anglican teaching is very similar to that of all the other sects. I may even resume church attendance.

I was raised a muslim. But thought Islam didn’t suit me. I have studied and am studying various other religions and beliefs such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism and Atheism. At present I regard myself as an Agnostic. I have definitley rebelled against my parent’s religion, and strongly believe I will continue to do so. I do not belong to any religion right now, as I haven’t chosen one yet.

With a role of the dice.

What @Judi said, only a bit moreso. I had to completely revamp my beliefs

I was raised in a family religion. All the adults in my life belonged to it, and I respected them. I wondered why I could never feel the spirit they talked about so much. I went searching for it in other churches. Finally I found the answer.

I was asked to leave a Bible Class after asking too many questions about the lessons, and one member said I have no faith. So now I know.

I was born into a Catholic family. My parents forced me to go to church and receive all the sacraments as they came until I was in eighth grade and received my confirmation. I stayed with the church for a while after that but fell away in my early 20’s. My father still asks me if I went to church after almost every holy day of obligation and asks when my boys will be receiving their First Communion. I spent the next years searching and trying a bunch of different faiths. I grew incredibly alienated by the arrogance of them all. It seemed each was the True Faith and so much better then all the rest and the God they worshiped could kick the asses of all the other religion’s Gods. That alienation led to years as an avowed atheist or at the very least agnostic.

About four years ago I discovered the Bahá’í Faith. Like @zenvelo, I do not necessarily agree with all of the tenets of the faith, but it speaks to me like no other. Bahá’ís believe in the oneness of man, the equality of men and women, that science and religion are necessarily in complete harmony and many other things that make sense to me and are in line with my worldview. Also like @zenvelo, I appreciate the rituals and I enjoy belonging to a community of faith.

How did you become the religion you are or how did you come to believe what you do? I can’t say I’m religious but I’m a theist. However I’m not a deist. I came to believe what I do because of personal experiences (I used to be a viscious sceptic) that matched up with other peoples’ experiences that I would talk to and read about. I would say I came to believe what I do from a combination of personal experiences, comparing my experiences to that of others and alot of offline/online research.

If you aren’t religious how did you decide that religion wasn’t for you? I was always sceptical of the religious beliefs I was taught. In fact I used to laugh at the rest of my family for actually believing that Noah’s Flood and the events that surrounded it mentioned in the Bible really happened. I was sceptical of my family’s religion (Catholic, mom’s side and Protestant, dad’s side) as young as 7.

Did you just believe pretty much what your parents believe or did you go against what they believe and make your own decision away from them? ^^^
Did it just choose you? No.

Why have you chosen that religion over others? Well I don’t consider what I believe to be related to any religion or something transcendental since I don’t believe in magic, miracles or being outside of science. If there is some type of universal creator than I suspect that it only exists because of science, not vice versa. The universal creator to me would have an enormous amount of power but not omnipotent since even to me the creator would have to abide by the laws of physics itself.

There is nothing real about quantum mechanics, it behaves as a mathematical computation but yet we ourselves and all other forms of matter, living and nonliving, are made up of this?! I look at my beliefs in a God, afterlife dimensions, spirit entities, paranormal events (telepathy, clairvoyance, esp, etc) to be an actual part of physics, not miracles or religion. I could never explain my ‘spiritual’ beliefs here in their entirely but this website perhaps come the closest to my spiritual views.

I think that likely the majority of religions were just ancient/unenlightened man’s ways of trying to describe something that such an enormous universal intellegence could never fully explain itself to. Primitive minds would never have the ability to understand such an enormous intelligence. Even today I don’t believe that anybody would have the mental capacity to fully understand such a universal power. I do believe there is probably a bit of truth as well as nontruths in most religions but I don’t believe that any single religion has universal authority over an other. I do believe there is alot of symbolic spiritual truths in the Bible but I’ll leave it at that. I don’t have a religion as you can see but yet I’m no atheist so I don’t know how to describe myself or my ‘beliefs’ to most others. My religion is I Am.

@bongo

To elaborate a bit, I was raised in the Southern Baptist church and had enough fire and brimstone to last me a lifetime. I got away from all that over the years while I was in the Army. I was a self-described agnostic for many years, then started going back to various churches after I got married the first time. I was searching for something. I finally found it, not in church, but in the wilderness. Many factors led me to believe that almost all organized religion misses the boat because it’s a man-made institution. I almost never attend church now, but I pray to God daily and do my best to live up to what I consider to be the core admonition of the Christian faith: Love God with all my mind and soul and strength, and love my neighbor at least as much as I love myself.

Well, no… I don’t know… about that anyway @Earthflag.

You’ve got a peaceful and pleasant way of stating that we’re nothing more than worm food. You actually make it sound kind of nice. How did you come to this understanding?

By not choosing.

I listened for what made sense to me.
Sure, I kicked at everything I was told. I kicked at the ties that bind.
And in the end, after questioning everything, I found my answers. It’s not something I can put into words.
Yes, I did have to question it if I was going to base my life on it. But I’m basing my life on what I can feel good about. So I don’t have to lay awake in my bed at night, not knowing what’s out there. So I don’t ever have to cut myself again, so I can feel okay.
People get so confused about it. “Why’s your hair so long? Why do you always wear skirts? What’s Pentecostal?” Sometimes they even get mad, and yell. You’d think they’d be glad I can feel okay…

You know, I’ve always said “People are going to believe what they want to believe. Define meaning where they can, and they cling to it. In the end I guess it doesn’t really matter what’s a trick and what’s true. What matters is that they believe.”

I did not choose a religion. My parents were British. Mom was RC, Dad was C of E. Both churches ostracized the parent who was not of “The Faith” so my folks said to hell with both of you and raised us to be moral, self-sufficient, confident adults without the help of either church.

Raised Baptist. I had doubts of Gods existence for a very long time. Went Satanist, then Buddhist, then Agnostic. Happily settled with Nihilism/Atheism. Just the fact that I was raised to believe in a higher power made it difficult for me to cut ties with the thought that something had to be out there.

@King_Pariah LaVayan?

@fundevogel no, LaVeyan, :P

@King_Pariah Of course, how silly of me.

Like @CaptainHarley, I have similar issues with just about every other organized religion as well. For instance, even a cursory study of the Bible shows inconsistencies and hypocrisy. That means that no sane, rational person can take it literally, and taking it as allegory leads to confirmation bias; you will find a sect that agrees with your existing opinions and then use Jesus to justify all sorts of stuff. Even Discordianism and Dudeism seem a bit too dogmatic for me.

That led me to believe that there are actually oer 7 billion religions on Earth, and it just so happens that some of them share some stuff in common. Following that to it’s logical conclusion is how I justify being a devout Agnostic; a fervent belief that there may or may not be something that may qualify as “divine”, but that we humans are incapable of comprehending the nature of it

Does God exist? I don’t know, I seriously doubt you do either, but I do know that anything attributed to Allah or God or Eris or any other such entity is mere speculation at best.

Raised by apatheists. Exposed to all sorts of theism growing up on three continents. Then went to an anglican boys school (blaah).

Always been skeptical of buying into unsubtantiated hypotheses, enthraolled by the natural world, and fascinated by the capacity to fool oneself and those memes which seem built to take advantage of that tendency.

I’m an atheist because no other position is the slightest bit convincing.