What is your religion?

[anoni]

I'm just wondering what the religion of the other furs on this forum are, so post about your religion!

Note: I know religion is a shifty topic so I have to point this out.

• No bashing against someones religion
• No discussion on the validity, reliability or accuracy of a religion and it's creation stories and stories related
• Be respectful of other peoples beliefs

So if you don't exactly know what to post about your religion, you could fill out this question form

  What is the name of your religion?
  What is the creation story of your religion?
  Is there anything different or iconic about your religion?
  How has this religion affected your life?

[NovaAurora]

I consider myself to be an agnostic atheist. Because obviously no one can prove or disprove the existence of a higher power, I cannot say that there is, for a fact, none. However, it is my extremely strong opinion that there isn't one, so personally I don't engage in any kind of religious activities.

[Byracka]

 I am in contact with strong believing christians on a weekly basis because I perform music in church and help the elderly. To my utter joy, and surprise.. When I got to know people better, almost everyone of them felt sorry that a few, loud mouthed and hating percent gave such a bad name to so many believers. There are of course different churches, with different views. I feel had the 'luck'? to get myself involved with a very caring and open one.


To be honest I am a bit jealous of those people who truly believes that there is an afterlife, it just seems to give so much relief in the daily life. I have gone from and away praying for my loved ones and believing that it helped. At the moment I can't say I'm very religious, though after several midnight discussions with my grandfather (we talked about math, physics, biology, music, ect. Religion was just a small piece of it all). He said that there's so much in this world that there's bound to be something after life, and that is the idea I carry with me at the moment. 

[Ottersmash]

I think I fall loosely under Agnostic, believing more than that there is no way to prove it we have no way to prove it. If God is or gods are real, we live in a time where they no longer show themselves or communicate as they used to, and the only ones who claim to interact with them firsthand are those taking leaps of faith via their intuition and crazy people.

I believe it's nonsense to worry too much about the spiritual while the material is still in ruins, so I don't devote a lot of myself to trying to discover a reliable way to prove or disprove that existence or weigh the evidence.

[Dirtcopter77]

If I had to classify, I'd say Buddhist. I do meditate and follow the Buddhist teachings. It's a good religion (in my opinion, of course) because it encourages kindness and thankfulness while developing calmness and clarity in thinking.

[___]

I respect Buddhism quite a lot DirtCopter. There's a Chinese proverb that goes "Just for today, do not anger and have gratatude" and I feel that its really hard to stay angry if I think of someone that I'm thankful to have in my life.


What is the name of your religion?
I'm an Eclectic Pagan (Paganism is a term for any polytheistic religion- think like in the Egypt pantheon they had many gods like Anubis, Set, Baset, etc instead of having one god, like in Christianity or other Abrahamic religions).   

The Eclectic part means that I have no set path- there are many different types of pagans- Wiccans, Druidism, LaVey Satanism (Not the worship of the Devil), Neopagans- and take parts from each that resonate with you. My beliefs mainly are from Wicca, which worships Nature, in the form of a moon (Sometimes an Earth) goddess and a sun god, Animism which believes that everything has a spirit, including things like mountains and forests, and Shinto, which is pretty hard to describe in the terms of a religion because it doesn't have a founder; its more of a philosophy. 


What is the creation story of your religion?
There are as many creation stories in Paganism as there are nationalities and types of people, because its a blanket term for all polytheistic religions, however I go by the Wiccan creation story; the Lord and Lady gone and "did it", creating everything.


Is there anything different or iconic about your religion?
The most ironic thing about my religion I find is all of the hate we get. Although we don't have a set holy book, like the Bible or the Kouran, we have something called the Rede which most Pagans follow, and one of the most well-known line from it is "An Ye Harm None, Do What Ye Will" which pretty much means as long as you don't hurt someone or something, then do what you want. That, along with the Threefold Law- Meaning that what you put out into the world comes back to you three times- makes sure all true Pagans keep from hurting people; Karma will return good with good and bad with bad. There are many intrereptatitions of how the three works, like it'll affect you three lifetimes in the future, or that it'll come back to you three times as bad, but I see that it it will come back to you physically, mentally, and emotionally.)

Another thing that I find funny is when people come to us in a witch chatroom and ask if we can do things like transform them into wolves and  ask if we can shoot fireballs from our hands. I usually just say "Sorry, I have to be a Level 20 Warlock to aquire that skill" xD The thing about spell-working is that its natural, and we can't break the laws of nature, we can only bend it and manipulate the flow of things a tad. That's the media for ya, they're always either demonizing something, or just twisting the facts for entertainment value. (Reminds you of a certain fandom, eh? ;P) But in all actuality, not all Pagans use spells (Known as witchcraft to most, but that also has such a nasty conotation these days...)

 (I just read it wrong, it said iconic, but I guess all of the above is pretty iconic to Paganism...)



How has this religion affected your life?
Makes me much more... Conscious of life. People go about life without noticing things because they're not paying attention, but in my faith, you learn to pay attention to things. There are many other things that it's changed for me, but its 3:15 in the morning here, so its about time for me to go to sleep. x)


I'm sorry I wrote a mini-book about my religion here, but not only is it a large part of my life, I'd also like to dispel any misconsecptions there may be surrounding it. I always do my best to be a good advocate for Paganism, and hopefuly people see that there's more to it than many think they know. There's a LOT more to my specific beliefs than what's here, it's a lot to type, but if you'd like to know more about Paganism, or just my beliefs in general, feel free to ask.

[Draco Vertolgr]

Im an Athiest but Im very familiar with many religions. I literally research history, mythology, civilizations and religions all for fun. Mainly cause I think all of it is interesting.

[Luke White-Heart]

I'm not really religious, but i believe on God. Meaning i believe the church can get in the way of God sometimes.

[MrRazot]

I'm Atheist 100% as I feel that though you can't disprove god, that doesn't mean he's there.


The idea of creation is that it came to being without the outside influence of any gods. so far, this is entirely possible that out universe can appear from nothing without such an influence.



It's my feeling that to follow a god is to avoid any of the actual answers to the question "why?" as such it is much simpler to say that "God did it" and leave it at that than to go and find the real answer.


It is fair to say that being an Atheist has changed my life for the good as I am not ignorant to the truth and should there be something I don't know, I can search for the answer and learn to understand it.

[Vee Katame: His Wolfy]

I'm Agnostic and therefore I'm unsure of what to believe. I mean, I believe in ghosts so I'd like to think that there is some kind of afterlife, but I'll never know for certain until I die.
Death has always been a big fear of mine because of the fact that I have no idea what lies beyond it. It scares me to think that because I can only remember black/nothing from before I was born that that might be all that's waiting for me when I die.
Because of that fear, I want to believe in God (or multiple Gods, which seems fairer) and some sort of afterlife, but I still remain unsure about it all.

[Midnight Madness]

Personally, I do not put myself under any particular category. I could say agnostic, but, I don't know. And I really couldn't care less if there's a denomination or not for exactly what I believe.

My Family was based more around Episcopalian teachings, but my Father was the one who really started a chain reaction in the family - in the sense he rejected organized fellowship and went off on his own in that regard. He taught me that no one belief is right, no one way is infallible and no one idea is without some initial basis. Which brings me to my next point.

Is there a God? Maybe. Is there not one? Maybe. Is there a very beginning to our realm? Yes. My Father brought to light, albeit indirectly, that there is always a question before and after every answer - and I learned this at a very young age. It is impossible to prove or disprove at this point. Many things point to it, many things point away from it, but how do we know it's just not the opposite?

I profess neither faith nor disfaith in a creator, and I claim no single form or existence for this being. For all we know, God could be what many think, or it could just be a Supermassive Black Hole, or it could be some strange combination of several human beliefs. We just can't claim it's this or that, because even our dreams of this entity could be simply dreams.

[Mephitidae]

Non denominational.

Basically a fancy way of saying, I believe in a higher power, but not any organized religions views of god or their rules/ways. I am anti organized religion.

[[Sov]]

I'm very much with Vee here, as Agnostic is the only thing that really fits me. I want to believe in God. I enjoy going to church. It's just that when I do go to church, I don't feel anything but uncomfortable when anything about being God-Fearing or anything about God's Almighty Wrath. That is not the God I want to believe in. I don't want to follow or believe in a God who reigns over his peoples with an iron fist.

My solid views on Christianity were ruined a long time ago when I decided to question how Mary got pregnant, because I cannot and do not believe in immaculate conception. I was told "You just don't question those things," and from there, I never questioned anything again, and my faith was forever ruined. 

[Marcus]

I was born into a Christian family, but I never practiced it.
I identify myself with Shinto.

"What is the name of your religion?"-Shintoism

"What is the creation story of your religion?"-It depends. There are many myths, and the Kojiki has many missing sections. Or should I say, volumes.
 
"Is there anything different or iconic about your religion?"-Shintoism is generally only Japanese. It is a mixture of Buddhism, and traditional Japanese beliefs. The only way I feel I have a right to practice it is because I have blood ancestors who where Japanese.
 
"How has this religion affected your life?"-It's stabilized me quite a bit. It's also giving me and my grandfather consolidation for fighting the Imperial Army in WWII. He had a child with a woman he met in Nagasaki, after the blast. He was part of life there, and the family accepted him and his descendants, so I feel I am Japanese, even if I'm 50% Russian, 25% German, 20% Cherokee, and just 5% Japanese. I will always stand for my uncle, and our family.

[Alexei]

I identify as being agnostic atheist but I remain very open towards other religions, and have great respect for those who are spiritual.


I actually think it's pretty cool learning and studying about other religions, I've read several holy books in order to understand people with differing religions.