I'm not religious in the least. I loosely believe in reincarnation, if I'm ever forced to think about what happens after death.

I do wish to investigate religion more, just for the sake of it, though. 'Catholicism For Dummies' is on my personal reading list.

i think it's nice that as an "atheist" i can still celebrate christmas.
my older brother and sister are very mad that i don't believe in god.

Yeah, I went through a few years of being stubborn and refusing to celebrate Christmas because I didn't want to be hypocritical. But I softened up, and I realized that Christmas is barely a religious holiday now anyway. It's about decorating the tree and spending time with your family, and exchanging presents. All that stuff.

Bill O'Reilly is disappointed in you as well.

the church I affiliated with the title of "cult" a few posts ago made me throw out about 60-100 cds. I didn't count them so i'm not sure of how many were there, but it was about two large stacks of discs, it was the rap collection I built up since I was in elementary school. There was also some other stuff other than rap in there.
I gave them all to my brothers friend because the church told me they were sinful in the eyes of god and I couldn't expose myself to any opportunity that would cause me to sin.
I don't even remember what was in there, but about 50% were burned and the rest were cds given to me for birthdays, christmas, just in general.
god I hope the church burns.

You'd think exposing yourself to opportunities to sin would build up defenses. Like immunity to sin flu or something.

One of the dumbest things the modern church does is to perpetuate a literal defining of "the world" and "the church" while ignoring what "be in the world but not of it" was supposed to mean.

It meant don't be a prick, be compassionate, comport yourself in a god-honoring manner so that you can HELP people, NOT so you can set yourself above and apart from them or condemn their "depravity."

That church was crazy, they sent me home crying a lot because they made me feel like since my parents didn't attend church they were going to hell and I had to witness to them.

I hate that church, and I have bad feelings towards my old friends from there. This one girl I knew from the church confronted me last year and she was telling me how bad she wanted out. Those people are crazy. I'm not saying the adults are really, not all of them because I didn't know most of them, but the ones who taught Sunday School, Sunday night Youth meetings, and the weeknight youth meetings, they were crazy.

There is nothing in the Bible that equates lack of church attendence with damnation. Them peeps is wrong, theologically and practically.

I would say I am semi-religous and leaning slightly more towards religion that I have in the past. Maybe being deployed to a war zone with mortars going off daily has something to do with it. Maybe it's that TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network) I was watching since I don't have cable and nothing else was on at 2AM. Some of the religous theories make a hell of alot more proof that Darwin's theory. Science has told us that man and dinosaur never co-existed. Yet there is fossil records of man & dinosaur footprints side by side in a dry-up river bed in Texas. Don't even get me started on this whole man evolved from apes thing. That theory has more holes in it the my M-16 qualification target.
So I do I believe in God, yes. Do I subscribe to any one particular religion; well I was raised roman catholic but haven't attended Mass on a regular basis in several years, so in that sense I'm not a 'practicing catholic'. I still believe in christian values though. does that answer the question? Or does it create more?

I realized that a long time after I began attending the church. I was roped in already, though, and I dedicated myself to the church atleast 4 out of 7 days a week. My mom wouldn't ground me from going out on the weekends like a normal kid would be if they got bad grades or something. I was grounded from church if I did something wrong.

I don't think I can ever go back after going to that church.

TBN ain't the way to go, man. Pat Crouch is Mr. Materialism masked in God Talk.

raised presbyterian, got over that when i was about 14. i think any belief system that says you can live a wonderful life, devote yourself to helping other people, feed the hungry, be kind to your neighbors, etc, and STILL go to hell just because you don't accept that jesus was the son of god is fucking screwy.

All you need is The Jefferson Bible.

nah, not at all. was christened, haven't been confirmed or anything. can't even think of the last time i went to church...it was probably easter like 4 years ago. religion is way too weird for me.

Cranky atheist mini-rant on capital-R Religion:

Everyone makes up their own religion and no two of them are the same. If organized religions didn't willingly choose to overlook this fact to keep the pews filled on Sundays, they'd have to excommunicate at least 98% of their members.

"Touched by His Noodly Appendage"

I was born and raised Catholic, but married the daughter of a Southern Baptist minister.

So, now we're both Lutherans.

yes. catholic.

to me it seems more people have a problem with the people in the religion than the religion.

actually religion is just a gay, ludicrous idea.

I couldn't disagree more. Yes, you're indoctrinated as a child, but no, it doesn't mean that that's your lot in life.

no and no.

or maybe I am Spiritualized.
(insert clever Jason Spaceman quip here)

I'm gonna drop the faith concept in here (again), and then quietly tiptoe out of the room. Most of the regulars here are familiar with my beliefs.

cemeterypolka, I would like to say that it may be unwise to discard an entire belief system over the stupid hijinks of one church.

i'm not a big fan of religion in general.

i'm lutheran, attend church fairly regularly, and pray a lot. i think religion is an interesting concept, but i'm not sure what i believe. but, because i was raised lutheran, i'm afraid to not believe. don't want the hell to get me.

i'm fascinated by scientology. i'm not sure they're considered religious, though. i've always wanted to see if they can convert me. haha...

basically, god is gay