Religions of APS Members

[RaspberrySurprise]

Atheist, as in I have no religion, not as in I believe there is no god or that all theistic people are crazy.

Though I am rather fond of cursing the nameless gods from time to time

Do you just not care about religion

Pretty much, don't try to ram your religion down my throat and I won't try to ram my foot up your ass. And I really do mean ram, I don't take offense at every little religious thing.

or what might be the answer to life's questions?

I don't believe that religion and the answer to life's questions are related. I prefer to look to science for many of my answers. It's not perfect but nothing else is either. If if religion is perfect you can hardly claim that human understanding of it is.

[Perd Hapley]

What do you mean by "Christian orthodoxy"?  Do you mean Eastern Orthodox?

You forgot one of the largest Christian groups, the Evangelicals.  Evangelical =/= Protestant. 

[GigaBuist]

Ahhh, that makes you a CaJew

Gazoontite!

I believe that there is a higher power that created the universe, but it doesn't really care about us in particular.

Same here.

[Physics]

I am agnostic, because I really just don't know.  I figure, if I live my life like there is a God, then I would be a good person anyways, so what does it even matter?  I was raised in a strict Mormon family. 

[Racehorse]

Mormon here.

[Ryan in Maine]

I think I fall under a pretty broad definition of animism.

[Strings]

I'm pagan, though neither animist nor wiccan. But I generally don't discuss the particulars of my personal beliefs in public: too many religious hysterics in the world...

[zahc]

I'm a Christian but not affiliated with any organization. I checked Protestant, but would probably be closer to Evangelical.

[Nightfall]

Atheist.  Looking at the poll results, we have quite a diverse little forum here!

[Cromlech]

Agnostic/Weak Atheist
'The absence of belief' in my case. I do not claim there is/are no God(s), but I do not hold any belief that there is/are, either.
/cop-out fence-sitter! 
Brought up Church of England Protestant.

[2swap]

Weak atheist, interested in religion but not believing in any. I am not a social Darwinist in any form. Heck, I am visually impaired so believing in that would mean to go first. 

The joke religion, I sometimes defend (for nothing but lulz) is that the world was created as is at the start of the Unix epoch -- and that the gods want us to use free software. 

[BryanP]

I'd be an agnostic leaning towards atheism if I cared that much.   

I used to consider myself a Christian.  Some rather unfortunate experiences drove me away from organized religion.  It wasn't until later I realized it's all a bunch of hooey.

[slingshot]

Organized religion is what you make of it.  I'm sure glad we have the freedom to choose here.  Catholic here by the way; probably would be considered a lazy catholic.  Grew up with it and hated it; 12 years of private schools, the whole bit.... things change as you get a bit older, at least for me.

[Marnoot]

'nother Mormon.

[grampster]

One of the things that has mildly surprised me over the years are the rather substantial numbers of folks on the gun boards who either do not subscribe to any belief in the biblical God or who follow ancient or modern variations of paganism.

It makes me wonder if the notion of personal freedom is more closely associated with folks of the above genre as opposed to followers of 2 of the 3 faiths that subscribe to the belief in the biblical God.  It seems to me that Judaism and Islam would tend to not hold to personal freedom as they are very "rule" oriented faiths.  Christianity, having free will as part of the belief system, would hold to the notion of personal freedom more closely than it's two cousin faiths.

Maybe that's why America's form of constitutional representative republicanism came into being and worked;  our founders being mostly Christian or at least deists.  Scratches head and wonders...hadn't thought about this before.  I would imagine America would be a much different place if the pilgrims had been Muslim or Jewish.  I wonder how much more free we would be today if atheists or agnostics had been the pilgrims and America became a haven for those who were fleeing religious oppression for those beliefs or lack of them?

[Jamisjockey]

Devout agnostic.

[mfree]

Eclectic Pantheism.

[Tallpine]

I used to consider myself a Christian.  Some rather unfortunate experiences drove me away from organized religion.  It wasn't until later I realized it's all a bunch of hooey.

You too, huh...? 

I checked "Pagan" but I don't really practice anything.  I believe in the "Great Mystery."

[lee n. field]

You forgot one of the largest Christian groups, the Evangelicals.  Evangelical =/= Protestant. 

Evangelical is a subset of protestant.  One that I am less and less happy to be identified with. 

There's almost no useful definition of the term "evangelical" anymore.  A term that would cover both Todd Bentley and R. C. Sproul is pretty much useless.

(Y-all think the MSM has it in for evangelicals? You should hear what the internal critics are saying.  How about "Christless"?)

If you think there's a little bit of frustration on my part coming out in this post, you're right.

[Lennyjoe]

Christian here.  No specific denomination though.  Pop's is a Pentacostal preacher, Mom was a Catholic.  Before Pop's became a preacher he was a big time sinner.  His transformation helped me strengthen my beliefs.

Me, I read the bible, make my own decisions and don't need anyone to tell me what the bible says.  I'm not the one to try to convert anyone.  To each his own I guess.

[Owens]

Non-demoninational Christian. I guess some would call it Evangelical. Was raised in Church of Christ.

[BlueStarLizzard]

i voted agnostic, although i tend to waver back and forth.

i strugled for years to understand religion and faith. my grandparents were lutheren, and for awhile i attended a lutheren church with a friend. my mother had a thing for unity church when i was a child and i hated it. towards the end of her attendance i would refuse to even attend the sunday school and would sit int he hall with a walkman and a book.
after a summer spent at a non denomiational christian camp, i pretty much fell straight into the agnostic/atheist camp. suprisingly, it wasn't the summer camp that drove me away from the religion. it was actually the closest i ever came to believing. i even attended again the next year. the driving force was that ever time i would start leaning towards belief, something would come up and strike me as really wrong. the concept of hell, for example, totally offends me.

basically, if there is something out there, its out there and there is no way a human can understand it. i truly doubt its a supioror being or anything like a god. i'm just gonna live my life as i see fit, and hopefully i can be happy with what i had when i die.

[Perd Hapley]

Evangelical is a subset of protestant.  One that I am less and less happy to be identified with. 

There's almost no useful definition of the term "evangelical" anymore.  A term that would cover both Todd Bentley and R. C. Sproul is pretty much useless.

(Y-all think the MSM has it in for evangelicals? You should hear what the internal critics are saying.  How about "Christless"?)

If you think there's a little bit of frustration on my part coming out in this post, you're right.

If you don't mind, how would you identify yourself? 

"Protestant" is mistakenly applied to any Christian sect that is neither Roman Catholic nor Orthodox.  This might have made sense in the sixteenth century, but not anymore.  My faith, and that of growing numbers of Christians world-wide,  is not a protest of the RC church.  I have never been a member of it, been under its authority, nor does it have anything to do with my beliefs or the scriptures or creeds to which I hold.  Nor am I member of an actual Protestant denomination, such as the Lutherans.  I protest the false teachings of the Lutherans or the Roman Catholics, just as much as the Baptists or Word of Faith churches. 

[grampster]

What I'm seeing in these posts is a good deal of anger or disappointment about "religion".  It is always sad to see mindsets be solidified because of the example of those who should not be an example.

I used to feel the same way, I guess.  Then it dawned on me that I was making a decision (or not making a decision) about religion/faith based on the sayings and actions of people.  I had not understood that the Good News was the Good News, and it stands alone.   I shouldn't be making any judgments about foundational things by using the example of some people as a benchmark as to the validity of that News, or that there was indeed any Good News at all; which is that foundation.

In one stunning evening it occurred to me that the Truth was right smack dab in front of me and I could grasp it or not, as I chose, through my own free will.  No one else can or should make that decision for me.  When it comes to faith or the lack of it, a person is indeed an island.  One stands totally by oneself in that judgment.  The Good News sustains groups, but it transforms individuals.

So, to those of you who find yourself unable or unwilling to seek the Truth because of the past or because of the example of people, I urge you to not stop looking.  To those of you who are content in your present state, no matter what that state, I urge you to begin looking.  There is more to see.

As for me, I found the risen Christ.  I discovered that he'd been looking for me all the while I had been either ignoring Him, and finally searching for Him in all the wrong places.  It's a long story and I won't bore you with it...and it's not over just yet.  But even though the present may be like walking in a dim room bumping into things that hurt, the journey is worthwhile because there is a light switch in there someplace.  When that light gets turned on....Oh my!!

[AJ Dual]

I used to feel the same way, I guess.  Then it dawned on me that I was making a decision (or not making a decision) about religion/faith based on the sayings and actions of people.  I had not understood that the Good News was the Good News, and it stands alone.   I shouldn't be making any judgments about foundational things by using the example of some people as a benchmark as to the validity of that News, or that there was indeed any Good News at all; which is that foundation.

I respect that viewpoint. And I certainly believe that any true faith has to come from within, rather than looking to an external institution.

I guess the broader issue is that the most fundamental story of revelations or salvation in the Judeo Christian tradition is an account put down by people too. Then re-re-re-re-translated by yet more people. What exactly says the notion of Catholic Papal Infallibility many Christians find offensive is any worse than ascribing it to Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, or the Council of Nicea?

It seems to me that to argue people are fallible makes perfect sense, but then goes back to say at some point: "Yes, but those other people had divine inspiration were infallible." at least in regards to what they wrote.

What if Jesus was just a self-taught hippie Rabbi with great teachings, and got the Orthodox Jewish powers peeved enough that they goaded the Romans into killing him? And then the rest of it is embellishment as Christianity worked it's way counter-clockwise around the Mediterranean, perhaps designed to make inroads (Paul/Saul especially) with pagan populations that had heavy worship of Apollo (Risen Sun/Risen Son) Zeus (God, father of Apollo/Sun/Son), and Aphrodite (Mary) etc.?

What if you were born in rural China instead of America, and had never received any exposure to the Bible and Christianity? Would you have found the Truth "smack dab in in front of you" as well?

I'm NOT trying to poke holes in your faith or Christianity, I despise militant atheists, and those who set up Christianity as a straw man enemy it is not. I am asking just for the sake of discussion, and I'm curious as to why you believe the "foundational things" are truly foundational.

Is it just a "gut feeling", like I have about the existence of a creator, or some higher power when I look at the fundamental laws of the universe and find them too finely balanced for coincidence?