Do you have a story about finding religion outside of your upbringing?

http://www.charityadvantage.com/missiongateministry/HOME.asp

This is your story? ;)

Admittedly the prison crowd escaped me – good one!

We all have our prison cells. We just need a reminder that the door is unlocked, and we can leave at any time.

Understanding cosmology.

I was brought up Methodist, but attended several hardcore fundy churches with my friends as a kid, which totally scarred me against Christians, but not Christianity.
I still hold the core beliefs but also embrace alot of Buddhist teachings. I call myself a Methuudhist.
I tend to respect folks who discover ” religion” as adults rather than those raised in it. Seems much more authentic to me.

I was raised in a totally non religious household, my father is atheist and my mother is…. uh….. well we aren’t sure what she is? Growing up I was never a part of any orginized religion, my mom taught me a lot about Christian, Buddhist and Muslim religion, but we were outsiders looking in, never taking part. Around the age of 13 I became close friends with a guy who was an Evangelical Christian.

He would take me to church with him and I felt it was always more social than anything as I spent most of my time hanging out with the girls that were there. Eventually I succumbed to the “believe or you will burn in hell” talk and for about one year was intensely Christian, to the point that I felt I needed to convert my family. Over time I realized that I truly didn’t believe in what I was doing, that most of these people speaking in “tongues” around me were faking and that organized religion is really more about the power/politics than the faith.

I currently am a non-believing heathen (falling somewhere between atheist & agnostic) and have never been more at peace with myself.

Raised Lutheran, became catholic 16 years ago, back in June I got a feeling in church I was just there. I was looking at my watch, knowing it would only be 5 more minutes and I’d be out the door. My 15 yr old son started attending Youth Group at the local Non-denominational church with some friends. We was so taken with the church and the youth pastor, he encouraged me, almost begging, that we go there for Sunday service and try it out. Now mind you, I am on Parish Council, been on every committee possible, and I am entertaining the idea of trying a new church.
We went, and within 5 minutes I was welcomed by many friends as well as many strangers. I live in a small town, really not strangers, but not my regular circle

Anyway, the beginning of the service was wonderful Christian Music, drums, rytham guitar, bass, keyboards, singers, and it was music I had been introduced to during a retreat at the “Catholic Church” but not played during the services.
I came out of that service an hour and a half later…Didn’t look at my watch once.
I was inspired and realized what I was missing was the “Teaching” because all I had been getting was “preaching” There really is a difference.

I LOVE my new church and new found relationship with my Bible that is now out of the drawer and being used!

Will I go back to the Luthern church, never, Back to the Catholic Church, maybe for visits, but for now,I have found a place where I can worship and learn.
Funny after all this time, I actually LIKE going to church.

Thanks for the responses so far. Like I suspected, not many are raised without religion.

just as an insight to me, I was raised in a non-religious household – not anti-religious, just the absence of. I had a few friends that were, but it was nothing I was ever involved in or something talked about too much. I have several friends that were raised in a religious household and have turned away from it

I suppose that’s why I am so curious about people that were raised in a situation like mine but are now religious. Those that had no preconceived familial religious influence.

Um… I don’t know how you came to this idea: not many are raised without religion.

I was raised without religion, and have been without religion to this day. I do have an active spiritual life, and I participate in many activities that do the same things that happen in various religious institutions. But there is no dogma. No myth of origin. No need for magic.

When I was eight, we asked our parents why we didn’t go to church, and as a result, we went to church for two or three weeks. That was enough to sour me forever. As I grew older, I realized religion made no sense to me—at least, not the philosophical and dogmatic parts of it.

Ritual and music and dance and art and architecture do make sense to me. Schooling and community building and good works do make sense to me. However, one can do all these things without having dogma and mythology to bind it together.

@daloon I precisely came to this idea from my own experience and the responses to this question.

I do not know anyone personally and of the six respondents to this question so far, only two specifically mentioned being raised without religion (you and @drClaw).

2 out of 6 = ⅓rd. Nothing to sniff at.

Okay okay! I didn’t come here to argue or go over elementary fraction reduction! :)

Still – only two replies from folks that were raised without religion, one reply from someone who was raised without religion, became religious, then dropped it, and zero replies from folks that were raised without religion and are currently involved in one (which is what I would most like to hear about). Alas!

Alas, I think I am fishing in a somewhat dry lake. Which makes it all the more intriguing!

Ta-da!

I was raised without religion. Both my parents were nominally Catholic, but we never went to church. As a young boy, I went maybe two or three times with a friend to the Presbyterian Church for Vacation Bible School. I did have a friend who lived down the street from me who had an older sister who was a born-again Christian. She used to tell me about Jesus Christ and salvation every time I saw her…I avoided her like the plague. However, when I was fifteen, someone else took me aside and showed me how I could be sure that I was going to heaven when I died. We were at a pizza joint; in the parking lot, I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me all my sins and save me. When I told my parents, they were not too pleased – no support there.

I did ok with my faith for the next several months, but I didn’t have a good church to go to and I caved into the outside pressures. I tried to forget about God and went deeper and deeper into sin.

To make a long story short, as much as I tried to forget about the Lord, I couldn’t. In my second year of college, I decided to turn back to God. I wanted to serve God, but I didn’t know what to do. I began to attend meetings (not church) on campus with other Christians for a year, but never attended a church (didn’t know that I should and I don’t think that they were allowed to promote any denomination.). In my junior year of college I began to attend a Baptist church.

Fifteen years later, I am still a member of a Baptist Church. I teach a Sunday School class, lead the congregational singing, drive a bus, head up our visitation program, fill the pulpit when the preacher is gone…

@valdasta Interesting!

You wrote, “However, when I was fifteen, someone else took me aside and showed me how I could be sure that I was going to heaven when I died. We were at a pizza joint; in the parking lot, I asked Jesus Christ to forgive me all my sins and save me.”

Can you elaborate on this? Surely it was more than just someone taking you aside for one moment that changed your entire life view? Right…?

@inkvisitor Yes, I was trying to keep it short [I get discouraged from reading comments that are 200+ words].

I went to a wrestling camp with my best friend, Jim, at Ohio State University. Jim went to a Christian camp the week before and got saved. When we met up at camp, Jim told me that he had trusted Jesus Christ as his Saviour. During that week of camp I watched him read his Bible and pray before he went to bed. I listened to him talk about God and I made fun of him, but God was dealing with me the whole time. I wanted what he had.

It just so happened that Jim had a cousin who attended the university…Amy just happened to be a born-again Christian. Amy and her friend, Rob got permission to take Jim and me out to eat. Jim told me that they would want to talk to me about the Lord; I reluctantly agreed.

After we ate, Rob took the Bible and brought me through the plan of salvation:
1. You are a sinner – Romans 3:10, 23
2. There is a penalty for sin – Romans 6:23; Revelation 20:14, 15
3. Jesus died to pay for your sin – Romans 5:8; Romans 6:23; John 3:16
4. You must call on Jesus Christ by faith and receive the free gift of eternal life – Romans 10:9, 10, and 13

That was the message – in a nut shell. Afterwards, Rob asked me if I would like to ask Jesus Christ to forgive me of my sin and trust him to give me eternal life. I said, “Yes”. We went out to the car and prayed. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I meant business from my heart. I knew I was lost and on my way to Hell. I believed what the Bible said and I called on Jesus to save me.

No offense, but that sounds like something out of a brochure – but if your experience was just like that then so be it.

I guess I don’t get from your response how your thoughts and outlook changed. What was going through your head? How did you rationalize it? How did those two very different parts of your life reconcile?

I haven’t heard of too many kids going off to wrestling camp to become a Christian…how does that sound like a “brochure”.

As far as the “plan of salvation”; they may not have used all those verses, but they are commonly used (I don’t remember, verbatim, the exact conversation).

What “two very different parts of [my] life”? The non religious with the new faith? I believe it is much easier for someone, who has little religious background, to become a Christian than it is for someone who has been religious all their life or who has claimed to be “Christian” to receive Christ as their Saviour.

How did I rationalize it? Simple: I believed the Bible to be true. So, when they showed me that it said I was a sinner, on my way to Hell, but Jesus paid the price for my sin, and wanted to save me…To me, it was pretty clear what I needed to do. There was no battle going on in my heart; I was looking for Truth and Truth found me.

Okay, fair enough. I wasn’t expecting something so simple but I know I shouldn’t be expecting anything.

It must just be that from my incredibly skeptical perspective it would take something so fundamentally earthshaking for me to see the text of the bible that way. Okay, that’s an understatement.

I just have a hard time understanding how a non-religious person so quickly can do it. Maybe you can explain more about your journey to religion a little more deeply?