A little personal religious history, if anyone is interested. What is yours?

As for me, my History is somewhat less straight forward. As a child of 7 or 8, I had a deep interest in this fascinating person called Jesus. I used to lie in bed of an evening reading the little copy of the New Testament that my mother owned over and over again, though I did concentrate on the Gospels mainly. All the time I was trying to imagine myself there, and thinking how I would have felt. Trying to understand why Jesus behaved as he did, trying, if you like, to "get under his skin". Three things very quickly became obvious to me, comparing what I read with what I learned at the Baptist Sunday School I went to. One was that the Trinity teaching simply didn't fit in there anywhere at all. An other was that was is still wrongly called "the second coming" was in no way going to be a literal return to earth. It just wouldn't work, because people would be even less likely to accept him now than they were then, and even more insistent on signs which suited what they wanted, rather like the Scribes and Pharisees of Jesus day who refused to accept the significance of the signs they saw and wanted something tailored to them. The third and final one was even more obvious. Jesus anguish at the thought that when he "returned" however that was to be, he had little confidence in finding any faithful here. That obviously meant that any group that was too large a percentage of the earth's population had to be amongst those who weren't keeping to the faith. I had no idea how or why, but that much was so obvious I used to lie there and worry about how Jesus and his Father would feel about that. I was an unusually serious child, lol.

Events in my life, in my teens, turned me away from any possibility of there being a God, and I became almost violently opposed to any form of religion. My father, hypocrite that he was, insisted that we go to church every now and then, and when we did I did all I could to embarrass him. When everyone else kneeled I would stand, when they stood I would sit down. I refused to sing or join in with the prayers. Not wanting to disturb anyone else I made little noise. All I wanted was to embarrass my father enough to stop him forcing me to go.

On the way home we had a massive row, and what he told me flipped me completely and for months I would make sure we never met up, even down to , on finding him waiting up when I came home at 1am, turning round and walking straight out again without a word. I ended up being taken to court, presumably by my father, and getting a years probation for "being beyond the control of my parents". It changed nothing.

Since then I have worked for companies such as IBM, been out of work, had a long spell in hospital following a serious motorbike accident, been married and divorced far too often. Lived in beautiful houses as well as under bridges. I've seen life from just about every angle but the criminal viewpoint. Not that I have stuck firmly to the law, but I have always respected it and rarely done anything serious against it, consciously anyway.

Somewhere along the way, my determined atheism changed back to an interest in scripture again. I think it was my disappointment at the inaccuracies and guesswork in the evolution theories I encountered that started it. I don't remember how many different theories I looked at, but there were a few, and still are at least two. Darwinian Evolution, I realised wasn't demonstrating evolution at all, merely the adaptability of certain species, and a form of natural selection, none of which caused any difficulty to the thought of creation.

Despite not being able to be associated with them I still feel they are the closest thing to true biblical Christians I have ever encountered, and their honesty and, in the main, humility impressed me greatly. That may be partly down to the fact that I eventually discovered that they had arrived at most of the same conclusions as I had, independently. I had looked at so many faiths, and not found the same logical approach in any. Some were dismissed instantly because if their adherence to the trinity teaching which I had long ago recognised simply didn't fit, but I always avoided looking at the JW's, I am not sure why. However I couldn't "dodge" forever. Someone gave me a small leaflet listing their beliefs, and the scriptural reasons for them. I didn't even have a bible at that time, but as I lay on the floor reading it I still remember the shocked "Oh no! Not them, please!". I needed no more. I knew what I had found there and then. However due to certain inner conflicts I never looked at them again for three years or so. Life has been a very rocky road since then, but a happy one.

I still don't really understand how I came to a very similar understanding to them purely on my own , mostly as a child, and based almost purely on my early reading of the Gospels, but I did. Even though my beliefs, and theirs, have changed over the decades, they have moved very little apart, and only over very trivial points. I may end up associating with them again, if God wills it, or I may not. I shall simply follow where I am led, by His spirit.

Anyway, as I say, what is your history? I do like to know where people are "coming from".

When an agnostic would-be comedy/conspiracy author first finds god, his interpretation of what is going on doesn't lead to anything pretty right away.

Um, which "agnostic would-be comedy/conspiracy author" are we talking about here?

I'm not - I never chased after my author dream because the first time I sat down to try and write a book I realised that I was coming up with ideas and vocabulary that I never previously learned.

So in between diving down strange rabbit holes I practised using that new found intelligence to share advice to others while advising myself at the same time and learning more.

I found social forums the best practice and have been posting in them since '93.

I've always known that god was all loving and unconditionally accepting but all that stupid 'devil' junk that people always go on about really made a good thing look really bad.

This is why, when people ask how to learn something new or better, I suggest they try this:

https://www.theforumsite.com/forum/topic/I-m-not-a-conversationalist-all-my-boyfriends-found-me-boring-to-talk-to-how-can/445965

I just never turned the understanding into a big massive whoop-de-do because I knew how frightening it was for me and figured most people come upon it on their own if the time is right.

See, for the longest time I wanted to know how to describe properly to people what I understood because obviously it's helpful but still wasn't certain what it was myself so did not want to toss out half of an understanding resulting in a bunch of people being lost like I was.

But for the past two years that I've been here, I just decided to be completely open and share my experiences in an IMO way and 'in my opinion' it may just be.

But I do know that there is a very beautiful and kind soul all around us and even before I completely became aware that it was there I already knew that it was good and unconditionally accepting of all of us.

I should also had that I don't translate it to 100% perfection, I don't think that any of us do.

But it is a source of inspiration, wisdom and love.

Yes I can understand where the fear comes from, but surely the knowledge that we have an even more powerful friend in God is a comfort? After all if He had allowed Satan completely free reign goodness knows where we would be by now, if there were any of us left even.

I have always taken lots of comfort from the saying "We have nothing to fear but fear itself" I can't remember who said it, but it is very true and something that Satan counts on, as well as something Jesus warned us about.

However Jesus could see no pint in hiding the unpleasant truths from those who chose to follow him, far better that they knew the truth and were prepared for it. It also follows the principle that God inspired Gideon to use, when he told those who were "faint of heart" to go home and not join in the coming battle.

Yeah, that makes sense. It can be a long and tough journey but I guess we don't learn better if we never experience it or find again what we had at one time forgotten.

I'm just sort of cruising the realities right now.

Currently I'm in the quiet and peaceful Buddhist monastery reality which is pretty cool.

Not sure when I'll bother to go back to Earth reality - they gotta get that place fixed up first.

I was raised in an atheist family, though my grandmother is a (really bad) Catholic. I used to hate when the priest came into primary school to talk to us as even then I knew it was a load of rubbish (for me anyway).

I started going to church when I joined a cathedral choir and so went to 2 services a week, sometimes even 3 or 4. It didn't make me respect religion any more than I already had, but the sermons made me think and were often helpful to my studies in philosophy. Plus I loved singing the music, though not the psalms as they bored me to death.

Studying philosophy and religious studies has cemented my atheism but I'm more open to talking about the philosophy of religion now that I know how to structure proper arguments and find flaws in them. I've also become more humanist in my beliefs and am now a member of the rationalist's association.

Yes, I can certainly see where you are coming from there. My mother was sincerely religious, and, according to family friends she left my father when I was about 7 (whether she took me with her or no, no-one has told me and I never asked. My mother never knew that I had found out, I could see no point in embarrassing her, she was a good woman. The friend who told me also sad that my father sent the local vicar after her and persuaded her to return. I seriously wish he hadn't, my mothers life was not a particularly happy one thanks to my father.To say he was not a nice man is the understatement of the century, though he was too big a coward for any physical violence, he was much sneakier than that. I think it was down to the contrast between my mother and father that I became quite so obsessed with whether things are true or not, and I do mean obsessed. My mother couldn't tell a lie to save her life, well not knowingly anyway, where as my father was about as opposite as could be.

Like SisterofMercy, I was raised in a marginal Roman Catholic home. I say marginal because we didn't practice any of the Catholic ideologies outside of an hour every Sunday morning at church. And if you missed mass for anything short of having the bubonic plague, your soul was damned for all eternity. I got out as fast as I could!

I have a mom who is only catholic on fridays during lent. I grew up going to CCD because I wanted to and did like it, but then got older and realized the catholic religion is hateful towards women. When I was 13, I denounced all religions.
My mom made sure I was exposed to other religions as a kid. I went to Jewish ceremonies and lutheran services also.
I find all religion to be oppressive.

I suppose it can seem oppressive at times, but then so can the love of a parent. Some things are only oppressive to us because we view them that way. Try looking at its fences as a protection rather than a prison, designed to keep trouble out rather than us in.

I was raised "low" Church, so low it was out of sight. I still remember, after Sunday School - where I was more interested in a borrowed teddy bear, judging by the photo I still have, than in any "talk of the lord" - we would attend the service and listen to the Sermon. I can still picture clearly how we sat up near the rafters, giggling at the goings on down below.

It got serious in my very early twenties when I accepted the Lord as my own Personal Saviour.......as the saying goes. I can truly say that my life has never been the same since. Initially, after a while, what I perceived as bigotry drove me away from the Fundamentalist group that had nurtured me, as well as the teaching of "eternal hellfire", which I eventually saw then, and still see now, as one of the most contemptible products of the triumphant herdmind.

In reaction against some mild threats from some of the brethren upon my leaving them (God will do something to you.....ha ha ha....) I took a look at Atheism, and was much taken with the likes of Sartre and Camus. Yet it was not for me. I have an instinctive sense that life has ultimate meaning which will not shift. Yet I still love Camus, a wonderful humanist - just read his book "The Plague" - and hold dear his words, that he would like to drive out of this world a god who has come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings.

Then it was into the Eastern Faiths, exotic at first, yet making more and more sense with the realisation that virtually all of the references to them in Christian literature is pure characterture, based upon ignorance, with pseudo dilemmas such as impersonal or personal, the quaint "western" habit of a constant barrage of "either /or" rather than the more true to life - because at heart paradoxical - "both/and".

I coasted for a time as a "liberal" Christian - very liberal at times - but then the reading of the book "The Vision of Dhamma" by Nyanaponika Thera inspired me to truly take the Dharma seriously, to begin meditating, and reading and studying the Pali texts. It came at a time when I suffered two years of clinically diagnose depression. Eventually I left the Theravada tradition behind, and moved towards the Mahayana, specifically the Pure Land expression.

For me, the Pure Land way embraces all that is best in Christianity and Buddhism, at least for me. It allows me to open to the heart of the Christian faith, which is the Incarnation and Grace, yet without the baggage that some insist is indispensable. And from my Pure Land base I am able to open to those of other faiths, who I can recognise are on the same journey. Many in the Hindu tradition, the Sufi's of Islam, and of course, Christians such as Thomas Merton whose life and works are a constant inspriration, demonstrating how a deep fidelity to the Mercy of God and the love of Christ can be the foundation for opening to the various faiths of the world, and seeing those who live them as true brothers and sisters.

As he has said.....

The more I am able to affirm others, to say 'yes' to them in myself, by discovering them in myself and myself in them, the more real I am. I am fully real if my own heart says yes to everyone.

I will be a better Catholic, not if I can refute every shade of Protestantism, but if I can affirm the truth in it and still go further.

So, too, with the Muslims, the Hindu's, the Buddhists, etc. This does not mean syncretism, indifferentism, the vapid and careless friendliness that accepts everything by thinking of nothing. There is much that one cannot 'affirm' and 'accept,' but first one must say 'yes' where one really can.

(From "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander" )