Have Your Religious Views Changed?

January Rose:

I think gays and lesbians should have rights and be treated as equals, but I can't say I'm 100% behind their decision.

What decision do you mean?

@ Alex; periphery.
There decision to marry somone of the same sex.

@ January Rose
So, you think they should be treated as equals, but you're not fully in support of their decision to be treated like equals? Sounds reasonable.

January Rose:

@ Alex; periphery.
There decision to marry somone of the same sex.

What would you suggest they do instead?

@ CallusedSilk
Yes, exactly. I want these people to have rights and never be judged by the way they live. It's not how I would live my life however and it's not something I would ever suggest to someone else. But they have already made their decision.

@ Alex; periphery.
I'm not sure I know what you mean. They're already married or going to be.

@ January Rose
You want them to never be judged yet you can't 100% support their decision? Are you purposely contradicting yourself or is this just a case of wording making it seem that way? Also, the whole idea of 'it's not something I would ever suggest to someone else'. Why not? I think you need to think long and hard about how you actually feel about this topic, because you sound like you know what you're supposed to say, but it doesn't sound like it actually lines up with how you feel. Which, no offense, but the LBGT community doesn't really need passive aggressive support.

I went to a Christian school as a young child, therefore I was brought up as a Christian. I prayed every day, followed Christian values and led a Christian lifestyle, going to church every Sunday etc.

However, when I reached the age of about 11 or 12, I just stopped believing. I don't mean to insult any Christians by saying this, but I stopped believing in God around about the same time that I stopped believing in Santa. I, personally, don't think there's any such thing as a God. Apparently, God loves us all. If that's so, then why is he letting terrible things happen to good people? Why is he letting 'sinners' get away with their sins with no punishment? Why is it that homosexuality is wrong, amongst so many other things?

These are just my views, and I don't have ANYTHING against Christians. I was one myself, once. Christians are generally very good people and I have nothing against their views. This is just what I believe, and this is what stopped me believing in God.

January Rose:

I'm a Christian and I still watch Harry Potter, Twilight and all that stuff. I don't believe in abortion, not just because of my faith, but what I believe in personally. I think gays and lesbians should have rights and be treated as equals, but I can't say I'm 100% behind their decision. A lot of my believes have stemmed from my faith, but also my parents and the world around me.

I really don't want to come across as patronising or condescending (because after all, I respect your personal views), but you say this as if gays and lesbians decide to be gay or lesbian. They don't decide. They are who they are, and they can't change that. I'm not homosexual myself, but I have many friends that are, and I speak for them when I say this.

January Rose:

@ Alex; periphery.
I'm not sure I know what you mean. They're already married or going to be.

If you're not 100% behind them getting married, what would you be in favour of them doing instead?

@ January Rose

January Rose:

@ CallusedSilk
Yes, exactly. I want these people to have rights and never be judged by the way they live. It's not how I would live my life however and it's not something I would ever suggest to someone else. But they have already made their decision.

@ Alex; periphery.
I'm not sure I know what you mean. They're already married or going to be.

This makes it sounds like you think people make a conscious decision to be gay. That's not the way it works. and, as everyone else has already pointed out, saying that you think gay people deserve to not be judged and to be treated as equals and then saying you don't support gay marriage is completely contradictory. How is that treating them like equals when the heterosexuals are free to marry the person they love? How is implementing discrimination against a group of people treating them like equals?

@ Goddess of Muse
Thank you for respecting my personal views. I respect yours as well. The reason I brought up Harry Potter and Twilight is because a lot of my Christian friends cannot view this material because of their parents faith and believe. Personally I believe there is nothing wrong with these movies/books and they have nothing to do with religion or God or Christianity what-so-ever. But not everyone sees it that way...

@ faster.
I see where you are confused. I believe that gay and les people should be allowed to marry legally and nothing should stand in their way of being with the person they love. (But this situation "everyone should be allowed to marry who they love" does not apply to every situation. ex: 50 year old man wanting to be with a 16 year old girl. but that is another topic for another thread) I think these people should have rights, sorry for the confusion.

I just realized I started this thread and then never actually answered this question myself.

I was raised deeply religious. My entire family is pretty much religion. Even my father, who never seems to really know what he wants to believe, knows he believes in something. I was being taken to church from a very young age, and it was a very fire and brimstone style church. Very focused on sin and God's wrath, focusing on how flawed all of us are. I was terrified of Hell. It was the scariest thing to me. That fear started young too. By like, four, I knew what Hell was and how I'd go there if I messed up. My neighbor, who'd have semi-casual/religious discussions with my parents. Or at least they gave enough away so that my neighbor knew we were devoutly religious and that I wasn't allowed to be outside on my own, so that when I did go outside on my own to escape the yelling, he knew he had a way in. He knew he had enough of a way in to say that he was saving my soul from damnation and that it was what God wanted.

Even after that abuse happened for two years, I still believed in God. I just believed I'd been filthy and was still filthy. I don't want anyone to have any misunderstanding though: my own suffering was not why I stopped believing. I clung to those beliefs even more, because I desperately wanted to believe things could get better at some point, even if it wasn't in this life. Got abused a few more times and still believed. It wasn't until I actually sat down and read it that suddenly I just found bible verse and bible verse that I could never support. At first I was just questioning things and I looked into multiple religions, found myself finding things that I couldn't respect in a lot of them either. Although Wiccan was the one that got the closest, to be honest. I then became agnostic before slowly moving toward atheist.

I had to 'come out' to my parents as an atheist. They were horrified. Although I now say agnostic atheist because I feel it's more accurate. Although sometimes when I get frustrated I sound like a Satanist I just think that if he were real, which I don't think he's real, that he'd be the lesser of two evils and I'm not. I wouldn't ever say there's nothing that could make me religious again, but I'm just not seeing it.

January Rose:

@ faster.
I see where you are confused. I believe that gay and les people should be allowed to marry legally and nothing should stand in their way of being with the person they love. (But this situation "everyone should be allowed to marry who they love" does not apply to every situation. ex: 50 year old man wanting to be with a 16 year old girl. but that is another topic for another thread) I think these people should have rights, sorry for the confusion.

yes, you are right as far as the 50 year old man with a teenager, for sure! lol. I'm sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying before, it sounds like we're on the same page as far as gay marriage goes (at least in the vague sense we've discussed, lol) :)

@ January Rose
Please don't compare homosexuality to statutory rape.

@ CallusedSilk
I wasn't. I can see whe you thought I was, but I wasn't. I was just not everyone should be allowed to love who they want to love. Ex: an older man with a teenager. But like I said before, that is another topic for another thread.

@ January Rose
If you didn't want to compare the two then why bring it up? You purposely brought up a situation that can be defined as statutory rape when discussing whether adults of the same gender should be able to have legal rights and respect.

@ CallusedSilk
I wasn't going for the rape angle, I was going for the not-everyone-can-love-who-they-want-to-love angle. All I was trying to do was name an example of a situation I didn't approve of and that's it. Hopefully that clears up any confusion.
We should probably stop having this conversation on this thread though, since it is completely unrelated.

I've had something of a complicated and interesting relationship with my religion/beliefs throughout my life. I was not raised in religion. Both of my parents were at least sort of vaguely Christian, but neither went to church nor did they make me and my sister go. I grew up not thinking much about faith or God or anything like that, but I had a vague notion of that stuff and vague ideas about it. I sort of believed in God, but to kid me He was just such an abstract concept that I really didn't fully understand (of course now I know that I cannot fully understand the Lord, it isn't my place to.)

When I was an adolescent, I struggled a bit. I wanted to believe, but I wasn't sure that I did. Yet, whenever I flirted with atheism that didn't feel right to me at all; I knew in my heart there was some kind of higher power and some kind of purpose to life. I didn't know the term agnostic at the time, but that would've fit me for most of my adolescence. During high school, I tried going to church, but I never found a church that I felt right with, too many of them preached intolerance and there was so much I didn't understand as well, and ultimately I gave up. I still would pray and I still believed in God, but I didn't really do anything like read scripture or go to church. I was more spiritual than religious.

As an adult, I drifted back into agnosticism. I still tended very heavily to a belief in God, specifically God and the belief in the afterlife as understood by the Christian faith (that being my bias and all) but ultimately I admitted I wasn't totally sure of anything. I mostly didn't think of that stuff. I was still a bit spiritual at times, and sometimes I would do things like pray, but that was about it. I even tried to distance myself from religion at times.

Recently, both my parents urged me to go to church, they both agreed that I needed to go and that they were both worried about me. Now, if you know my parents, then you know that if they BOTH agree on something and are willing to come together (and they both said they would go with me, like they agreed behind my back about it even!) then that something is important. It made me reconsider my current position in my life, but at the same time I feared change because I was happy with my life and with who I was at the time. I mulled it over a lot, and finally I asked my husband, who was raised Christian but had drifted a bit away from his religion, what I should do. He told me he thought I should go and that he privately worried about me and my salvation as well. Well, that cinched it. Three of the most important people in my life agreed on this, so I had to do it. So, I went, and I loved it. I went again, and I still felt the pull to keep going. So, I kept going, and I'm still going. I got a bible, and now I study scripture. My dad's wife got me a devotional for Christmas, and I've been reading it. I've been praying regularly. I have seen some of my prayers answered, but every time it happens it's as good as the first time. I haven't been baptised or anything "official", but I know that God exists, that Jesus is my savior, and that I have made the right choice in becoming a fully-fledged Christian at this point in my life.

Sorry this got long, but I'm something of a rambler!

I’m a Christian who believes in Christ. I want to follow Christ, but I admit I have not been doing that as of late. Nor have I been studying His teachings/ way of life. I was raised Christian. But I just started to realize that I no longer identify with the Old Testament like how I was taught as a child. This is because Jesus Himself did away with it when He fulfilled His prophecy (I think) and the only part He said to honor was the 10 Commandments.

So, I consider myself a follower of Christ and the New Testament.

However, I am a more open Christian in that I feel like Christ would be more of a person who ministered through His actions and through Himself rather than spewing condemnation and fire at people.

So, I am the Christian who doesn’t protest gay rights and abortion and a lot of other stuff that I suppose would rile other Christians up.

I am the Christian who focuses on their own walk with Christ rather than trying to make sure everyone else is on theirs. I hope, if I am living right, my walk with Christ will show and people will be inspired by that and convert.

However, I haven’t been walking really with Christ in a long time.

But I want to start back up again and redevelop my personal relationship with Him.

My religious views changed when I was about 13. I used to be a properly faithful Catholic. Baptised a roman catholic, went through a christening, communion and a confirmation. However, I started questioning my faith, especially when I identified as bisexual and you would have a lot of people claiming it was a sin and not right in the path of 'my faith'. My gran is a devout catholic, my mother is a pagan and my dad is more agnostic. I'm an athiest in my own right.

I found that my gran would condemn me and try and disregard me for my sexuality and used her faith & religion as ammo for it. So in turn, it made me stray from my faith. I personally believe in Science, but I do believe the two can go hand in hand for some people. I also began to question what kind of 'God' was I serving? One that allowed suffering and pain in children, animals and innocent humans alike.

However, I would never shame someone for their faith. People may feel they need something to believe in and if that's through Christ, then by all means, walk that path. I will applaud and support you. I just personally don't feel the need for faith in my life. However, that could change. I could maybe find my faith again when I'm older, but personally I don't feel that would happen.

Either way, it is an interesting topic. I do like to read up on things to do with religion, like Judgement day, certain saints etc. It is interesting.

Overall, though, yes, my religious views changed from being a devout catholic, to questioning, to then classing myself as an athiest.