Did you stay with the faith you were raised with or change or get rid of religion altogether?

I wonder if anyone has stayed with the religion they were raised with without asking questions or if they had questioned it and decided not to practice any religion or found another religion that felt more suited to their needs - there are a few that noted they changed their religions (spiritual.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=12) has anyone else done this? What made you change and what no longer suited you in your old religion as compared to your new one?

When I was younger I went to several different types of church but could find nothing to fit me.

Now I realize that you do not have to belong to a church to belong to god or father mother god.  For me I have a hard time choosing which religion is correct there are too many different.  I would rather live in peace, love and light and walk with the knowledge that no matter which religion is chosen as long as with it you walk a divinely guided path and connect with the higher sources, every path leads to the same end.

For me,i was born and raised as a Muslim.I find Islam is the source of happiness.My soul is at ease and comfortable.I have nothing to wonder about.. If you look for happiness and the right path,just search for the real Islam not in the media.If you want all answers for your questions,just read the Quran.

I was raised without any religion

I was raised a Roman Catholic. I was a very devout and religious child and I still harbour a wish that Jesus was/is an enlightened being with extraordinary spiritual gifts. 

When I studied History at uni and learnt all about crusades, inquisitions, and the Reformation, I questioned and realised I did not believe in the infallibility of the Pope, or any individual for that matter.  Subsequently, I've read considerable scholarship on how the New Testament scriptures were composed well after Jesus' death, how certain scriptures were declared heresy and removed while others were favoured and embellished, how Constantine's institution of Christianity was politically motivated and the basis for the feudal order that suppressed the majority and, of course, about the syncretism of paganism and Christianity. I have also read of how the Old Testament often contains anachronisms and contradictions (as an English - in a Catholic school - we'd call it lacking textual integrity). Its stories often depict a childish, vindictive and jealous god and that doesn't resonate with me at all.  I do not believe the entire Bible was divinely inspired, though parts of it may have been. I also do not believe in the coming Anti-Christ or that a saviour will return in physical or visible form, though I quite like the idea that we will embrace genuine spiritual maturity and save ourselves from our own insanity.

I have moved so far from Christian belief as taught in Catholicism that I cannot in conscience say all of the prayers in the mass or some other prayers and, yet, I believe in the power of prayer if you pray for what is in your spiritual best interest. I still believe in God and feel compelled to seek what feels true to me.

Although im not religious as such I do believe in a higher power and it amazes me when religious folk as you said speak of god as though he/she is a really nasty piece of work sometimes.

Violet wrote:I was raised without any religion

I'm the same as you Violet. As I got older I wondered if there was more to life and here I am!

I was raised loosely as a Christian, but I was a spiritual minded child and understood the stories of the bible in my own way, and I spoke to had conversations with God in my own way too, and took the comfort and guidance from that God.

Auras wrote:

Violet wrote:I was raised without any religion

I'm the same as you Violet. As I got older I wondered if there was more to life and here I am!

I felt like an alien from about age 4 and I somehow' knew' there was ' more', I just didnt know what sort of makes you feel lost doesnt it

Hi.

 I was sent to Sunday school when tiny, where I immediately started wondering if it were all man made stories to give people comfort!

  Pre school, I would hear voices calling my name, and I always looked up to my left as I felt there were watchers in attendance.

  It was not long before I figured that dropping it all, and trying to conform would be better, but it never was. It was never going to be better. Alien was it!  Marginalized.  I stuck with trying to conform though.

  Then in my teens and onwards I realised that there is a whole section of society which claims to be spiritual, and that was the churches.  I tried almost all of them in my search for the meaningful.  I had so many questions that churches could not answer.
So many anomalies as well, such as so many professing to church values, but reverting to less desirable values during the weekdays.

So many long years of searching and of being completely and totally puzzled!

So I too empathise with this question in the opening post.

Then, I resisted invitations to the Spiritualist churches, due to society and family using such loaded words as " dabbling ".  
Eventually, the repeated invitations coming to me over the years from many different quarters suggested to me that something was trying to tell me something. 

From then on I learnt so much, and found out how to discern genuine from not, and all of that laid out the groundwork for my searching journey.  

Now I am on the main part of the journey, and looking back, I can see just how every bit of the past, both positive and the negative, was all an essential training for what is here for me in this "  Now."   I had so much to learn about almost everything, and I still am learning.  " Aliens " have to do that.   Learn from the third dimensional ground up.



The story continues!    

I was raised without any religion as such, as my parents weren't active in that respects.
Strangely enough, life still set me up with a number of lesson, the most relevant in this respect being a Jehovah's witness who was my classmate in highschool.
He introduced me to the Bible, but of course from a very traditional point of view. After a short while, I left that viewpoint and went on to progressively discover the deeper, esoteric, relevance of what was written in it. Even today, the Bible is still a part of my "toolkit", especially when it comes to understanding and communicating with Christians.

I look back with gratitude and nostalgia for my religious upbringing. I have moved on and up since those days, but they were a stepping stone to where I am today and for that I am profoundly grateful.