Is there any part of your religion that you don't agree with?

I don’t have a religion, so no.

When I was a Catholic, I couldn’t accept that the Pope was infallible. My wife and I didn’t agree with the church’s stance on birth control. During marriage class, the old priest said that birth control pills and condoms were illegal. The only permitted birth control was abstinence and the rhythm method. Catholics that follow the church’s teachings are called Parents! The young priest said that we should follow our conscience. Our consciences said to use birth control pills.

We left the church and fell pretty good about it plus you don’t have to “celebrate” lent and a steak tastes best on Friday, especially Fridays in lent.

There are things in religions that I don’t agree with. I don’t have a religion. I consider myself an agnostic but one who believes in higher power. I just recognize that fact that it is impossible to be certain about this.

I think some people think about religion as one set of rules. We must remember that not every Christian or every Jew or every Muslim see their faith in the same way. So one could be a Christian and not agree with a certain part of Christianity, but this would not be their version of Christianity and thus not their religion, if this makes sense.

I have no use for the traditional Buddhist understanding of rebirth. I find that it doesn’t work well with the teaching that there’s no enduring personal essence, and that is a teaching that is both helpful and observable. I can’t verify rebirth, and the fact is that believing it wouldn’t change a thing for me. I’m not trying to live well so as to gain a favorable rebirth; I’m trying to live well for the sake of living well.

The Buddha said not to take anything as true just because it’s written in some holy book or because it’s traditional, but to accept it when you find that it accords with your own experience and is helpful. Rebirth just doesn’t pass that test for me. Maybe it’s real, I don’t know. If it works for somebody else, then fine. I’m not going to go around saying it’s wrong.

I don’t agree with the religious part.

I recently moved from a really conservative Lutheran church to the United Church of Christ which is extremely liberal and very open to individual interpretation.
The one thing I miss is the reverence during communion. Missouri Synod Lutherans take communion very seriously (to the point of being exclusionary which I don’t like. ) I do miss the sacredness and awe though.
I went with a friend to a Catholic Church and the Communion service was beautiful. I was crying because I was excluded. :-(

@Ron_C My mom’s a Catholic; has been for years and is not leaving the church anytime soon, but she doesn’t agree with their stance on birth control and probably never will.

When I had a religion, my congregation spoke in tongues. They’d get to blathering. They called spiritual. I called it idiotic. I was a bad, bad Christian.

My mom walked away from the Catholic church because after she’d been married to my dad for about 9 years, and had 4 children with him, she got a letter from them saying they didn’t recognize her marriage to my father because he had been married (briefly) before. To someone named…Trixie.

I agree with @livelaughlove21

As an atheist I am afforded the luxury of not agreeing with any part of any religion!

Tricky question for me. I don’t really look to my religion for guidance, yet I like a lot of what it has to say. I guess technically I am a reform Jewish atheist. The religion doesn’t put many demands on me and I am accepted. Ideally I would at least go to or belong to a synagogue, which I don’t. But, it isn’t that I really disagree with going, I just don’t bother, and am not inclined to sit through a service.

My religion when interpreted very strictly, orthodox, I disagree with plenty. I know people who will not drive on the sabbath, not even if their child or parents is in the hospital to visit them. Or, will leave their larents in the hospital over the weekend when they could have been discharged, but since it was not done early eniugh in the day Friday to get the, home, the relatives ask for them to not be released. A friend of a friend would not carry his tennis racket to the courts, he had someone else do it, on the sabbath because it is work, but would play once there. Some observant Jews will consider a child dead and mourn them if they marry outside of the religion. I believe a person can consider himself Jewish if his father is Jewish and he identifies Jewish. In Judaism it is through the mother a child is considered Jewish, otherwise technically they would need to convert. From what I understand some reform rabbis will accept a Jewish father as sufficient. I don’t think eating nonkosher is a big deal. I don’t think if there is a God, God is really worried about this. Reform Jews don’t worry about it.

The G-d bits and the kosher bits and the shomer shabbes bits and the segregation of women in Orthodoxy bits…....

^^^ I think of John Goodman in “The Big Lebowksi,” when he says, “I don’t roll on Shabbos,” in a spray of profanity that he turns into an art form;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GPo9OBrIOi4

I believe in the Christian God but actually do not have a religion. I do not have a religion because I do not trust people.

For example I think sometimes religion uses it position because people abuse their power and I have a problem with that.

No I do not have a problem with God as an authority in my life. For me it is different, God is not manipulating me or taking my money. For me it’s plain and simple.

Somewhere along the way, I was taught that Catholicism is an all or nothing proposition. My “elders” were critical of “cafeteria Catholics” who picked and chose which doctrines to follow. So, when the religion stopped making sense in my life, I stopped practicing.

I am boggled somewhat by Catholics who are advocates of allowing women into the priesthood and other sort of game changing ideas. Catholicism isn’t a democracy. Even nuns who petition as a bloc do not effect change. Unless you enjoy the misery of unfulfiled expectations, then either submit or find a different religion.

I was never one for religion. I tried and failed. I do believe there is a God although I wonder at times where he is. Religion is a nasty thing that is used in nasty ways in some instances. Although I am sure it helps many. I have experienced God so l am seeking the right path to follow.

@DominicX I think that most of my generation of “baby boomers” disagree with the Catholic church’s stance on birth control. That seems to be the gateway out of the religion. Most of the people I know are former Catholic and are now range from Atheists to Wiccans. The Wiccans are Catholics that miss the ceremony, the Atheist are people that can’t be bothered with the whole process of faith. Knowing is better than believing.

For generations you could tell who was Catholic by the vast number of children they had.

@Dutchess_III, not to many generations as birth control hasn’t been around very long.

Well, that’s true. And man, what a fight it was to make it legal for women to get it.

Really only 2 or three generations, many of whom are still living.

It’s my belief that in their best sense, religions are here to help us along our spiritual path and to give us a means of worshipping in community alongside others. They are not meant to stop us from thinking for ourselves or to stop us from questioning and challenging their creeds when we need to. Each religion should be a supporting structure and not a cage that holds us in. Good religions will allow for this and feel enriched by challenge rather than threatened. They should not be rigid but allowed to flow and evolve with the changing times and contexts in which they find themselves and people should feel confident that the eternal truths will always hold their ground. In the light of this, I believe that any person who thinks for themselves would find it very difficult to agree with every part of any of our current religions.

John Shelby Spong
“God is not a Christian, God is not a Jew, or a Muslim, or a Hindu, or a Buddhist. All of those are human systems which human beings have created to try to help us walk into the mystery of God. I honor my tradition, I walk through my tradition, but I don’t think my tradition defines God, I think it only points me to God.”

Yes, there are some. As a science student, I don’t see how the story of Noah could be literally true. I think it’s there to teach a lesson, like Jesus’ parables and Plato’s “Dialogues”.

As a scientist at heart I don’t see how ANY of it could be true. Never could get reasonable explanations from my pastor, and other Christians, either.

I’m a Christian who leans Democratic and it seems that good 80–90 percent of the other Christians I encounter seem to assume that to be a Christian you need to be a conservative and think that any governmental program- i.e. Headstart, Welfare, the EPA, Medicare and Medicaid are bad, that we can handle everything at a state level and personally only. Some people are not able to pay for things on their own and need these programs. Why are they looked at as bad? I know that it is not a part of Christianity, but it seems to go part and parcel with these beliefs for many people.