This thread will discuss your current religious beliefs and your parent's influence in them. Did your Dad put a crucifx on your neck the moment you came out of the womb? Were you told to bow towards Mecca the second you learned to stand? And how have your beliefs changed as you grew up?

Neither of my parents are religious. My mom is something of an agnostic who occasionally has spiritual crises, and my dad is pretty much an atheist who allows for the possible existence of something like God. Neither of my parents ever mentioned religion to me, but I did have a nanny who was fairly devout and who would take my sister and I to church every once and a while. I found it extremely boring.

I remember sitting in the playroom for bored kids and reading Jack in The Beanstalk. God seemed pretty much the same as the characters in that story to me (as well as Santa and the Tooth Fairy) and it never really occurred to me that anyone thought differently until several years later when I moved back to the US (from England) and met people who actually believed in God. I pretty much abandoned all belief in God and Jesus at the same time I realized that Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and Jack weren't real. The fact that people still believed in God but not in the others was fairly confusing. Frankly, it still does.

Both my parents are not religious. Spirituality was never discussed throughout my childhood. And I too never really gave a shit about religious people, and never thought about God or reality or anything that much. Pot and other drugs have had more of an influence on my interest in these matters then anything else.

Neither of my parents are religious. When I was younger my father told me from time to time not to get involved with religions and to think for myself. I guess you could classify my parents as agnostics. What brought me to my beliefs today started with of Sci-fi and fantasy books... and marijuana, which led me to look deeper into science. Naturally I came across the amazing discovery of quantum physics, and those ideas consumed much of my time. I eventually realized there is much more to reality then what I can perceive with my five senses.

This led me to metaphysics.

Much of society seems to believe space is empty, yet this cannot logically be.
If space were empty then this would break the laws of physics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TM_s0dXRk48

Searl and Newton part one. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-O7WNvKSvY&feature=related)


THE SCIENCE OF ONENESS, CHAPTER 06: GRAVITY, MAGNETISM AND ROTATION - THE MISSING LINK (http://www.divinecosmos.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=84&Itemid=36)

We can induce a very small force (7 volts and 600 ma) to produce a very large force.
It literally generated its own energy from the surrounding aether, and thus could function indefinitely with no source of stored power in the device.
Just imagine the possibilities.
http://www.divinecosmos.com/images/stories/searlcraft.jpg
Where is this energy coming from?
This my friends, is the energy of creation.

This energy of creation is the base of my belief system.

My parents are divorced, and their families are completely different so I had two really different types of influence.

My mom had, from what I saw, absolutely no religion whatsoever. The only time she even talked about religion is when she would occasionally make jokes about Jesus/Satan/God and stuff like that. The same went for that whole side of the family, a little more conservative but still really no religion to speak of.

My dads side is entirely different though. He was brought up going to church every Sunday and his parents still do. My dad sort of pretends to be Christian. He goes to church, but only when they're giving away free stuff or having cheap pancake dinners or something like that. Growing up he would say things like 'You kids don't know anything about Jesus. 'ts not right. You should learn about Jesus'.

Now, I'm an Atheist. The only 'religion' I've ever dabbled in was Wiccan, but once that turned out to be a load of shit I've pretty much decided the only religion I want to be a part in is one that is against the whole thing.

I was raised in an extremely secular household, because both of my parents were diehard hippies back in the 70's. Freedom, peace, love, all that shit. The most religious thing I ever really did was watch Jesus Christ Superstar, which is still a good movie/play. :)

My dad was raised Christian, but he became disillusioned with Christianity, and now he says he believes there is a God, but that greedy and selfish people fucked it all up, and that Jesus' teachings are the only real guidelines for life.

My mom hasn't really talked a lot about her beliefs, but she was raised by near-fundies, and she wasn't allowed to celebrate any holidays, including her birthday.

Like my dad, around the age of 13 I became more critical of religion, and by 14 I was an avowed atheist.

It literally generated its own energy from the surrounding aether, and thus could function indefinitely with no source of stored power in the device.
Just imagine the possibilities.
http://www.divinecosmos.com/images/stories/searlcraft.jpg
Where is this energy coming from?
This my friends, is the energy of creation.

This energy of creation is the base of my belief system.

Right. He designed and built a free energy machine in the 50s and the only thing he's managed to do with it (arguably the greatest human invention in all of history) is absolutely nothing of value?

You buy into most the bullshit you read, huh?

Right. He designed and built a free energy machine in the 50s and the only thing he's managed to do with it (arguably the greatest human invention in all of history) is absolutely nothing of value?


There are plenty of speculations we can make about why this potential hasn't been tapped into, none of which you or I can definitively prove. So I wont waist my time typing any out.
But it seems, Rust, that you've missed my point.
It has been proven to work.
Where is all of this extra energy coming from?

Also, since you're in this thread, I'm curious as to what has influenced your beliefs.
That is, if you're willing to share.

Proven to work? Not even close. At least not as he claims it does (i.e. free energy).

There has been no credible independent confirmation of his claims and he has not published any peer reviewed articles on the subject. The question "Where is all this energy coming from" is exactly what would be answered if his claims were properly tested instead of jumping to ridiculous conclusions as he is doing.

----

As for my beliefs/influence:

I'm atheist. My family is Catholic (as is the vast majority of people where I live), though my parents don't really go to Church. I went to a Catholic School.

That's pretty much it. There isn't much to tell. As I grew older I was more and more skeptical of the Christian/Catholic beliefs and became a sort of general theist. Then I saw there was no good reason to believe in any gods, Christian or not, so I became an atheist.

I should probably mention that even though I eventually came to the conclusion of atheism (see 2nd post), I spent some time searching religions. I went through Buddhism first, since I was attracted to the idea of enlightenment and meditation. However, I quickly abandoned it because of the whole reincarnation thing, which I couldn't bring myself to believe in. I then moved to Satanism, because I was a stupid kid, and then to LaVey Satanism, also because I was a stupid kid. Then I moved through Celtic paganism and then pantheism, before finally settling on atheism. I've been an atheist (with a nod of the head to agnosticism) for four years now, and I really can't imagine changing now. It's certainly possible that I will change, given the fluctuations in my beliefs in the past, but I really think that I'll probably stay this way for the rest of my life. Once I totally accepted nothingness, it seems like the only possible choice. When I was delving into the other beliefs, there was always this degree of separation. Right now there is only cold, logical acceptance of what seems to be the truth. Who knows what will happen in the future, though?

This thread will discuss your current religious beliefs and your parent's influence in them. And how have your beliefs changed as you grew up?

My parents were both born and raised catholic and I was to, it was kind of passive the way they rose me, but I actually written my experience of this heres the excerpt:

The Early Years (6 to 12 Years)

For as long as I could remember my first experience with religion was religious education. These years were filled with curiosity and a bit of confusion and dismay for religious education. I remember being interested in God, Christ and the sacraments and what they all really mean. I was filled with confusion because; my religious education instructors gave me textbook type responses to my curiosities. Like any child going somewhere; where they do not want to go I was filled with a bit of dismay for religion because, at the time I did not want to go somewhere; where they would give me homework and work to do to learn about what Christianity is about. My parents at this time of my life spent there time going to church every Sunday morning. Almost the same feelings arose as my feelings for my religious education. I felt disinterest, yet curious and confused. I felt again disinterest in waking up early to go somewhere and getting dressed properly for it; as I did not want to go to church.

I remember when I took part in prayers and sacraments I always felt like a little voice in side me saying "Why am I really doing this?" At the time I was more like an introverted inquisitive type of person. I asked why to myself but not on the outside especially with manners like religion because, I felt like I would get a "Textbook type response" anyway. I realize that this voice was my voice of curiosity. Confusion arose out of questions I had about religion that where only given the textbook response. Confusing things like praise and worship to God, eating and drinking of the Blood and Body of Christ, praying to God when I wanted something. These confusions were poorly answered by any grown up I asked. They would often tell me "God works in strange ways..." I was left with vagueness about anything with regards to Religion and God and was left with these poor responses from anyone I asked. Could it be that perhaps they did not know and just accepted what they were told? Looking back on it now, that is the way society seems to be....

Read the Rest Here: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/429715/my_road_to_christian_gnosticism.html

Now, its a more develope sense of God, Religion and Spirituality and my role in it. I rejected the notion of the Sunday School God painted by the Church since I was like 16, I will be 19 this September.

I had the (mis)fortune of a childhood spent with my mother's family, who were Catholic. Going to catechism wasn't fun - the nuns were mean, unapproachable and (I felt) didn't like children. There was no fun to be had, and lots of guilt and rigidity to be found in the confession rituals. The sermons were a good sedative, at best.

Then I lived with foster parents. They were raging, enthusiastic Pentecostals. They loved children, alright ... loved to scare the living shit out of them. :( Saturdays, Sundays, Tuesday nights, Wednesday nights and often "Friday Jubilees" were spent cramped in a small church with a large congregation who spoke in tongues, fell to the ground shaking and danced up the aisles wildly when catching the "Holy Ghost". Sheer terror for a 9 year-old. Being called up in front of a hundred people to receive the "Laying on of hands" ritual was especially unnerving. Being told that The Devil has taken possession and that the only way to get Satan out was to put The Lord in ... freaks a little kid out.

Cue: The teenage years. Enter: My biological father. Southern Baptist is what he called himself, though he wasn't really a spiritual person and rarely went to church. He thought he was being a good dad by insisting that I go to Sunday school and vacation Bible school. He was Baptist because his parents were Baptist. A bookie by trade, he rarely showed his spiritual side unless he was praying to God to somehow affect the point spread of a ballgame, praising God for a good winning streak, or damning God for making Roger Staubach fumble the ball.

It wasn't until I was in my mid-twenties that we started having conversations about spirituality, and when I announced my complete absence of belief in God, I got *The Look* ... you know the look, the one filled with hurt, and pity, and the widening-of-eyes, as though I just told him I'd somehow sprouted six hairy teats on my back. :rolleyes:

After his first triple bypass surgery, he began examining his own spirituality with more earnest, and as is typical, we grew closer together due to his near-brush with death. Many conversations and several years later, I finally give him my copy of "Letter to a Christian Nation" by Sam Harris, thinking he might be able to understand my viewpoints a little better if he could put it in a different perspective.

He returned that book to me, and I knew he'd read it because it was all dog-eared and worn out. When I asked him to comment on it, he just shook his head again and said: "I just don't know for sure about anything anymore"... and I exclaim: Dad! You're not a Christian! You're AGNOSTIC! That's progress!

And you know what he said, in a really gruff-old-man voice?

"How dare you group me in with those commie bastards" :mad:

Bless his heart, for he knows not what he thinks. I still love the old guy, and I know that regardless of my lack of faith in his bastardized version of God, he loves me back. We don't talk about God and spirituality anymore.

My parents were secular liberals.

I am a Christian conservative. :)

My parents were secular liberals.

I am a Christian conservative. :)

so you ARE a fucking troll!

My parents are like, lutheran, or something. We never discuss religion, but I know they both believe in God. I'm nothing. An atheist I guess. My apathy has never changed.

My parents are both Lutheran.

I'm a former Christian, former atheist, and current agnostic.

Why? Because I don't believe that I can assert any fundamental truths about the universe. Due to a form of philosophical skepticism[think: the matrix], I don't even know whether the ground below me is real or not. I choose to live my life on the assumption that it is, because my senses and extremely limited human logic pick up on it. They don't, however, pick up on a supreme deity of any sort. So I choose to live my life as though God doesn't exist.

My mother was raised Catholic and is a really casual pseudo-Christian. My father was raised by atheist CPUSA members and is a casual atheist, if you will. My mom half-assedly worked to instill Christianity in me, but I came to know it for what it is when I was 12-13.

Dad an atheist, mum a catholic. Catholic til I was 12 and thought "fuck this mum's crazy", grew up and realised atheists can be crazy too.

Father raised catholic, now athiest with a hint of celtic paganism. Mother raised protestant, remains a none-practicing christian.

I'm just a plain old athiest.

Atheist, raised in a very apathetic household. We never discussed religion, and if you had asked me as a kid what my parents believed in, I would not have been able to tell you. We did occasionally go to church for weddings and such, and all of were baptized under the CoE, but this was mainly to please my grandparents generation. My maternal grandmother especially, as she was a minister's daughter.(And to give everyone an chance to get pissed. Any excuse'll do.)

But looking back at it, I think there was some underlying resentment of religion. Or at least a good dose of disdain. My dad was known to be very rude to anyone attempting to convert him, or 'spread the good word of OUR LORD' in his presence, but he seems to follow a very half arsed, pascal's wager, type of view himself.
'I try to believe in God, just in case the bastard's there, but I'm probably going to hell to join your granddad anyhow'

My mother reacts to most types of religious beliefs with an annoyance I'd never consciously noticed as a kid. My first hint was a few years back, when I happened to mention that a member of my biology class was pissed off because they had to learn a certain theory they didn't believe in, and she came out with a 'People still believe in that God crap?'
Similar type of reaction when I informed her her mother had practically become an atheist 'She put us through all that, for nothing?!'

I'm kind of surprised I'd never noticed earlier.

Post-eating-sonovabitch!!!

Fuck you internet, FUCK YOU!

both of my parents are fucking insane bible thumping catholics with too many problems of there own to consider normal. moms a pill popping alcohlic insomniac bipolar bitch while my dad is a very tightly wound neo nazi who wishes he was in the military cowboy ninja and he too drinks way too much.
thats the family i grew up with so enjoy this faith lesson
every sunday since i was born it was get up ass crack of dawn and go to where the catholics do to make them feel better about themselves
me and my older brother (peacethru4ce on totse) hated church.
we hated the priest, the people who went, the collection box, the altar, the statues, the pictures, everything
we had to goevery week and if we didnt we either got beat or grounded
and seeing as how we hated how our parents were we always said "if we dont go to church you gonna beat our ass or what?"
and that usually happened
now my dad isnt some little bitch computer dad
hes a yoked out krav maga (israeli military fighting) instructor
and no im not israeli
so when he came at us we basically had enough time to say fuck you before we hit the floor
once i made the mistake of socking him in the jaw after he hit me so i got hit with a billyclub
when my brother was 17 he told my parents he wasnt going and after 2 weeks of him not ther i said fuck this and got a "job" where i worked on sundays conveniently at the same time as church
good plan that worked out for about a year then i just told my parents i was either going and id shoot down everything they said or id stay home and be happy
so for 17 years thats how my parents were until my bro died
after he died and one of the catholic ministers said i hope hes not in hell i was done
i swung at the priest but got thrown to the ground by soome other dude so i got up and swung at him. more people tried to stop me from getting to the priest and i prolly hit 4 other people getting to him. finally i got close enough to him and i spit a fat loog in his face and said "fuck you and your piece of shit religion"
basically telling the whole "congregation" to fuck off
now i live on my own and dont talk to my parents at all so i live and think my own way
i am not RELIGIOUS
but i do have faith
i am agnostic but i lean towards a rastafari
im all about love and peace and unification
but no religion has pinpointed it yet
and no religion ever will
religion divides people
and faith unites
one love can save the world

My religion has pointed to the virtues of: love, peace and unification. Its the only way to God... Unfortunately the religious powers that be in particular the RCC have attacked them as heretics against the faith and converting to them will give you a slate ticket to hell interestingly enough the RCC has the same general message about the Gnostic's, in this instance it was in response to the movie The Golden Compass which had Gnostic flavoring, again THIS IS THE ORTHODOXY MESSAGE:

"But the deeper problem, he said, is that the books advocate gnosticism, the idea that a select elite can develop special powers and gifts through specialized knowledge that is hidden from most mortals -- or "muggles," as normal humans are called in Rowling's books...

The future pope praised Kuby's attempt to "enlighten people about Harry Potter" and the possible "subtle seductions" that can distort children's thinking before they mature in the Christian faith."

So you see Gnostic's value beyond the Prejudices and the hate, they value LOVE - PEACE - UNIFICATION but look; look at how they are attacked because, there views are different than the status quo. Why dont you hear about them? You don't here about them because, they are bashed constantly from the beginning they have been persecuted and so I asked myself: What if Christ did not intend for Christianity as we know it to happen in the first place?

Of course the biggest thing that made me turn to Gnosticism is the fact that Christ was considered heretical by the Teachers of the Law and The Priest of his day and we are considered heretical by the religious powers of our day... So this is not the way... There are only I believe like some 5,000 to 10,000 Gnostic's in the world and everyone of them is attacked... But we persevere, by God's will...

My religion has pointed to the virtues of: love, peace and unification. Its the only way to God... Unfortunately the religious powers that be in particular the RCC have attacked them as heretics against the faith and converting to them will give you a slate ticket to hell interestingly enough the RCC has the same general message about the Gnostic's, in this instance it was in response to the movie The Golden Compass which had Gnostic flavoring, again THIS IS THE ORTHODOXY MESSAGE:

"But the deeper problem, he said, is that the books advocate gnosticism, the idea that a select elite can develop special powers and gifts through specialized knowledge that is hidden from most mortals -- or "muggles," as normal humans are called in Rowling's books...

The future pope praised Kuby's attempt to "enlighten people about Harry Potter" and the possible "subtle seductions" that can distort children's thinking before they mature in the Christian faith."

So you see Gnostic's value beyond the Prejudices and the hate, they value LOVE - PEACE - UNIFICATION but look; look at how they are attacked because, there views are different than the status quo. Why dont you hear about them? You don't here about them because, they are bashed constantly from the beginning they have been persecuted and so I asked myself: What if Christ did not intend for Christianity as we know it to happen in the first place?

Of course the biggest thing that made me turn to Gnosticism is the fact that Christ was considered heretical by the Teachers of the Law and The Priest of his day and we are considered heretical by the religious powers of our day... So this is not the way... There are only I believe like some 5,000 to 10,000 Gnostic's in the world and everyone of them is attacked... But we persevere, by God's will...


gnosticism?
wtf?
sounds good tho

Right, let's see if the internet eats my post this time.

Religion was never really brought up when I was a child, my Dad is an atheistand my mum is probaly an atheist, but it never really came up and I never really gave it a thought. If you'd asked me child I would've said I was a chrsitian, although this wasn't really true, I would've said I believed in God, although that wouldn't've been true either.

When I was became a teenager I ended up becoming an athiest, of a slightly more rabid variety ( although mainly it was just stupidity) and enjoyed bashing christians, I also became aware my Dad was an atheist a little later .. a while I became interested in philosophy, thinking back it probaly had something to do with reading too much fantasy, and, to nicely fit the trend that seems to be appearing, smoking too much pot. I originally started reading material against religion and stuff focused more on man, the individual and group as a whole. Existentialism has a good happy place in my heart. From this I decided to take a religious studies class in College, and from there I began thinking about religion a lot more, and also became far less intolerant of christianity ('cause, to be honest, it was never really atheism, merely anti-christianity for a while) and started reading more on various religions and the thoughts behind them.

Now I'd reject any labels if I could help it, as I don't feel I know enough to make a decision. At the moment I'm just reading and thinking, as far as I see it I have shit-loads of time left, and I never really need to make a decision anyway.

gnosticism?
wtf?
sounds good tho

Gnosticism... Largely a misunderstood religious movement turning late antiquity - Oppressed by the so-called "Righteous" and now reviving after the the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library, it now calls itself Neo-Gnosticism. If you have any questions please feel free to ask me... I would watch out where you get your info with regards to the Gnostics because, they are largely consider a dangerous heresy by orthodoxy.... Leave a PM if you have questions on it...

Gnostics believed that if you were going to accept Jesus you should try your bst to be like Jesus in your own individual way... They also believed you could know GOD, it wasnt for some spiritual elite but anyone who turns from the illusions of the world. Hence, (Agnostic = We dont know if God exist) V. (Gnostic = We can know if God exist). Majority of instutionalized religious are Agnostic as they have some Doctrine of Faith, however, faith has been perverted by these agnostic spiritual / religious entities.

Agnostic, was raised in a strict Catholic household (while I lived with my grandparents while I was younger) and had to do the normal Catholic stuff, like go to Church on Sundays (sometimes during the week), Confessions, Daily Rosary and all that stuff.

The main thing that being bought up a Catholic has done is made me look at more views on things (such as god) because I find looking at one singular belief and believing every single thing in the scriptures to be close-minded, and it's exactly what my grandparents do. My mother used to be a practicing Catholic but over the last few years she's been less concerned with going to church and stuff so she will usually only go to church when we're visiting my grandparents. I never go to church and though I listen to what my grandparents say about Catholicism (I'm not a total anti-religion bible-hating atheist) but rarely totally believe it the way they do.