Did you make the choice to be / not be religious?

[the0logical]

Just been reading another thread on here about religion and I always think the theological discussions on here are fascinating.

I'll start - I identify as an athiest, I was brought up in a non-religious family but attended heavily Catholic schools. I didn't like some of the ideologies that became mixed into the religious elements of my schooling (e.g. through correlation or randomness, the most "devout" children were always the most prejudiced) and this pushed me away from entering into any faith. I studied Philosophy & Religion at a higher level and then learned about my perception of fallacies in most major religions, which I couldn't seem to logically support especially when I didn't have any feelings of faith. I've never felt the capacity to let myself be succumbed by a religion, though I have tried - I just don't believe.

So, guess I'm just curious to know some reasons why people are / aren't religious and how much of a "choice" it is. Not a reporter before anyone asks, just a nerd who loves anecdotes especially in a religious debate!

YABU - I made an active choice to become religious, or to become non-religious
YANBU - I didn't make any choice, I have always believed / never believed
(hoping that makes sense!)

I was christened C of E, went to a CofE primary school, and went to Sunday school when I was at my grandparents when I was younger. I went on an exchange trip through the church youth programme too at about 12.

I'm not remotely religious and I never pretended to be, even as a kid - it felt like a thing you just went along with. So it wasn't a conscious choice, although I suppose at some point I must have realised I was definitely not into it all.

I think even though all that sounds like quite a churchy upbringing, it was very ambivalent/out of convenience. My dad's an atheist, my mum would describe herself as Christian but never goes to church and never ever discussed God with us as kids - I remember being vaguely surprised as an adult that she said she believed. We only went to our school because it was closest and we didn't really do anything religious except hymns in assembly. Sunday school was just because we were at my grandparents anyway and my grandad (who isn't religious) got a quiet Sunday morning if we went with my grandma. The exchange trip was just a cheap, subsidised trip with some kids I knew.

So I think that lack of strong feeling on either side kind of contributed to my lack of conscious decision on it either way. Even my grandma, the only person I knew who was actively religious, never spoke to us about it or God. And my best friend was Jewish (although also not actually a believer) and I occasionally went to shul (sp?) with her. So it was all just... Vague and not really something I was choosing either way.

@tangerinelollipop

Die and not allowed to be burried in the graveyard attached to the church

This is an example of what I mean. Sure, a priest probably making a poor judgement call, but it's no reason (IMO) not to believe in God or become an atheist

Well, if we are to assume that Christians, in following Christ, should be distinguishable among the general population for their capacity to act with charity and justice because of a personal relationship with a deity, surely this priest should be held (and self-held) to higher standards?

It’s a bit different to someone saying ‘I once went to a WI meeting and someone was mean to me, so now I hate anything todo worth women, or jam-making’, because the WI makes no claim to live according to an exacting moral code.

because the WI makes no claim to live according to an exacting moral code

I agree, but what I mean that humans are humans and make mistakes (I don't think any priest believes they are immune to that). But in my mind, this has little to do with God and the key teachings of (most) religions

Yes, I made the choice. I spent years studying religious texts and concepts - I guess with my raisin' I thought someone had to have the answers and I find the history of how the documents have changed and used over time as fascinating glimpses into social history (and I disagree that there are key teaching shared across most religions, most religions in themselves don't agree on the teachings).

One day, it was a discussion with an Orthodox Jewish man who was analysing and criticising the Chasidic Noachide movement, particularly the idea within it that certain texts shouldn't be studied by Noachides without a 'proper guide' -- and maybe just why certain texts were included in that and... it was just a moment where it was that really, there were no truths - it was just another attempt to codify human behaviour and create systems of control, no matter universal it's advertised. Religions are institutions as if not more susceptible to corruption as any other - it's easy to excuse things by divine will or love of a deity.

Generally I came around to the idea that humans lack the capacity to know with any certainty anything about the divine - old fashioned agnostic methods. While I get the appeal of doing so, creating a universal theory with divine elements to fill the gaps and create social incentives does no better than any other human system to influence behaviour. Judging the ideas alongside other ideas that we 'know', religions fall flat as I don't see why I should make special allowances just because an individualistic deity or deities or a pantheistic universe is part of the explanation.

I still enjoy reading philosophy, particularly monistic ones, but I prefer reading them as interesting ideas people have developed to consider rather than something to believe or to build a worldview or identity on. I still have that pull at times for a universal theory, but I feel better connecting with others over centuries around the world having considered and focusing on ideas I can test out over when I've followed a devout path with an extrinsic model for good to weigh myself against. I was raised to think being good was the most important thing ever, but I find I actually do more of benefit when I'm not focusing on being good.

Parents not that bothered about religion, but my friends went to Sunday school and I wanted to as well, so we went. I was quite a good child and went along with it. Until I was early secondary and started to think about it and couldn't conclude it was right and it all felt horribly dishonest, so we left.

As an adult I see that religion gives some people significant benefit, and respect that, but also see how religion is used to justify the worst aspects of humanity. But all ideologies are; at the end of the day people are the real problem there. I also enjoy the sense of history and tradition, even if I don't believe. Half of history is myth making and story telling anyway. And I find the history of religion interesting as I like understanding more about how humans work. But genuinely don't get how someone can look at fantastical stories and decide that one's true but that one isn't.

No - I don’t do things because of punishment. And even if I didn’t believe - and I have had periods of doubt - I would still behave in a moral way. But I can’t see any reason for it.

I think I would just be very sad. As in - someone wants to take something, someone else doesn’t want them to. Well, I guess I might just see it as 2 different opinions. Some cultures might not have the same concept of ownership - so can you even own stuff? What if 1 morality goes against another morality? I guess it’s a bit like religion. I think love, kindness, self-sacrifice are wonderful things. And I think I would try and do them whether I believed or not. However I don’t know if they are reasonable - which is why, I think I would be sad. Don’t know if I explained it that well.

I grew up in a lovely, positive, actively Christian family. Both my grandfather's were vicars. From a very young age I hated going to church, felt the chanting and singing was ridiculous and was very suspicious of it. My mum got our vicar to have a chat with me around age 7 as I was so adamantly anti-religion. I was polite but felt nothing and just that it was all very silly still. I'm an atheist from birth I feel like. My sister was different, she accepted the stories. I don't know why it never felt anyway true to me.

No decision, i just cant believe in such crazy bs
Nor do i wish to be a part of the hate, sexism and discrimination religion produces

I'm not blessed with an abundance of common sense but what I do have dictates that everything organised religion is based on is bollocks.

@Echobelly

It's interesting to consider what 'being religious' even means, I think.

I mean, I am Jewish, one of three siblings. We observed a certain amount of the religion at home - kept kosher at home, went to synagogue fairly often, not just the major festivals. My parents were always clear it was our choice what we did with it. My brother and I both married Jewish partners, my sister made it clear after her bat mitzvah that she had no further interest in it and never really did anything thereafter and married a lovely man from a similarly non-judgmental Catholic family.

I think I felt I ought to carry things on in part because of my maternal grandfather's family being almost obliterated in the Holocaust and the many other Jews who were lost. But also I liked carrying on such an ancient tradition - as my MIL has said, it can feel like a duty, but actually it becomes a privilege. Judaism to me, and I think most modern non-Orthodox Jews, is a spiritual and cultural tradition rather than a faith. I don't think many non-Orthodox Jews actually believe in God, but they do believe in carrying on the tradition, and it does have spiritual meaning, God or no.

I'm Jewish too, but I didn't grow up in a Jewish community, so rarely attended synagogue. We celebrated Shabbas and festivals at home, but didn't keep kosher (though most of us were vegetarian anyway), and drove on Saturdays etc.

I never actively believed in God despite the readings at the Seder etc, and as soon as I explicitly thought about it when I was older it was clear to me that I was an atheist.

I think all my family probably are too, though I haven't asked them. My dad told me a couple of years ago that he'd lost his faith, and I said "I didn't know you ever had any!". Maybe he just meant he doesn't practice any longer though.

One of my sisters has children with her Jewish partner, and the other married (now separated) someone of a Christian background (but again I suspect with atheist tendencies; him personally at least, though his brother is a curate). None of my partners have been Jewish.

I still practice to some extent for cultural reasons, and also to pass knowledge of her heritage on to my daughter.

And, as you say, as a form of resilience and respect. It seems a poor way to repay all the Jews who have been oppressed and murdered over the millennia to just forget it all, even if I don't believe God told us to do it. I think the below song is a good summary of that.

But as Jews are an ethnoreligious group (like Sikhs), it's always going to be different than for someone who is e.g. from a Christian background, because that is just a religion (albeit with some cultural associations), not a race as well.

I’m atheist, christened and raised as C of E, and my mum was in the Salvation Army until she left home. Me and my siblings were all given our own bibles and went to church regularly.

However, I just never believed any of it, even at primary school it just sounded like make believe. There have been times I really wanted to believe, but it’s as if as soon as my mind decided that God didn’t exist I couldn’t think otherwise.

OP - what does deserving mean? What is deserving to one person is not to another. I guess we all just decide. Maybe because we all have up to recently been interacting in very local communities, there is a kind of local common agreement - like a contract that suits the majority. But I guess with the internet and global travel (except covid), this is changing.

I reckon that people either have something in them- their brain- that gives them spirituality or not.

I figured it with a friend and neither of us could imagine feeling like the other. She just has that 'something more' feeling and I just don't.

We were raised in the same religion (RC).

Having said that, there's a host of reasons people practice a religion - belief obviously. Link to culture or background. Feeling of community. Cadence to the week. Or just enjoying the music, ritual etc.

I grew up in a large extended family with a lot of adoptions, there are about 5 different religions and nearly as many cultures.
Several members of my family are nicer than the rest but none are good - that is, they are actively good, would go out of their way to help others if they could, and would resisted acting in ways that were harmful to others even if it causes them some inconvenience.
The family members who were most religious, or who subscribed most strongly to the dogma of their culture, also acted in ways that were harmful to others.

I can remember thinking about this when I was little and deciding I didnt want anything to do with it. I became disillusioned with adults, their rules and religion, and just got on with developing a moral compass, mostly by using the example of what not to do.

The idea that people would only be 'good' because they fear punishment after they die is disturbing. I dont get why people bother being 'bad', it seems like an awful lot of hard work and drama for very little return.

I was raised in the church and was religious until I was 16 when I made an active choice to walk away from religion because of some of the sheer hypocrisy I saw happening amongst certain church leaders and so called born again Christians. When my children were born I did not have them christened and have never taken them to church, though I know they have been a few times with their dad. The choice to have a faith / not have a faith is completely theirs to make as adults, not mine to enforce on them when they were children.

I chose to be atheist I suppose but I don't know if I can really call that a choice? I mean, I genuinely don't believe in a god of any kind. I don't see a need to either - it's just a basic fact to me (yes, others disagree I know). I could just pretend and go to church etc but I don't think that counts as being genuinely religious.

Interesting thread.

I grew up in a missionary school (not UK) which had daily chapels and christian ethos. I made the active decision at 12 that I did not believe in God and I will not actively follow the bible.

Before then, I tried so hard to be good like the Bibles told me to but ultimately I could not feel guilt or regret for my sins and just could not get excited really. Also, I had great difficulty reconciling why God is omnipotent and omnipresent yet so many horrific, unfair things and injustice happens in the world and the perpetrators just get away with it.

One of my boyfriends, who was religious, remarked that I did not have a spiritual bone in my body.

@the0logical

This is so interesting.

My faith does waiver sometimes, and throughout lockdown I haven't missed church ( I hate zoom), but I talk to God all the time

Could I ask what talking to God looks like or feels like for you? It doesn't sound crazy by any means, but I'm wondering if it resembles a monologue or a dialogue more closely. I think the nature of having any kind of communication with a spiritual entity is an interesting one, I wish I had the faith to attempt it.

Also, since most of the responders on here have been of the athiest / non-religious persuasion, can I ask - if you had the choice to be religious or believe in God, would you take it?

No I wouldn't take it.

Even if I knew for sure that God was real and you had to believe/do certain things to get into heaven or whatever, I would boycott it, because I think a system like that is unethical.

Just be a decent person, whether or not there's some kind of eternal reward at the end of it, or some non-human being telling you to.

I don't know if it was a "choice" exactly, it just occurred to me at quite an early age that I didn't believe, thought it was all ridiculous nonsense and I hugely resisted and resented the indoctrination.

I grew up in catholic Ireland so there was no getting away from religion - there still isn't in some ways unfortunately. I dabbled in other faiths very briefly whilst in a "finding myself" phase in my twenties but no, they didn't wash either. I'm just a non-believer, I can't help it and I'm happy with it.

Also, since most of the responders on here have been of the athiest / non-religious persuasion, can I ask - if you had the choice to be religious or believe in God, would you take it?

Yes, I would take it. I would love to have a faith and be part of that kind of community.

However, I don't think I would ever be able to believe in a religion that was predicated on concepts like sin, damnation, needing to sign up to something in order to be saved etc. That all seems so small-minded and transactional. For me to be inspired to believe, I would have to see evidence of a god who was truly loving and compassionate - not the vengeful, narcissistic version of God that is typically described by evangelical Christians. And the religion would need to offer me guidance and inspiration for how to live well in the present, not the promise of eternal salvation.

Yes OP - I guess I don’t really see a reason for morality if there isn’t God. I know and am grateful that people will still be moral whether they are religious or not and have met kind atheists. But I guess I don’t really see a reason for it - it’s just as reasonable to be mean as kind

This is so disturbing. Having read later posts, I don't really understand - it's not a 'moral code' that for example, murdering someone, is wrong. It just is wrong. I find it profoundly odd and yes, disturbing, that this poster says it would make them 'sad' to not have a set of religious rules guiding behaviour.

I rape and murder and steal as much as I like, which is not at all. Not because I'm anything other than a normal human being. Our base level is not murdering rapist thieves. At least, I don't believe that to be so.

And plus it really pisses me off when religious people say that MY moral code is off because I don't believe in an entity that cannot be proven, that doesn't stop all the bad things from happening, and that was clearly made up as a way for women to be controlled by men. In almost all religions anyway.

I think I did make the choice not to be 'religious'; it was a gradual process. I do however have strong faith, that has not left me.

I was brought up lapsed RC.

The first school I went to was RC, the second wasn't, when we moved again I went back into an RC school (where I had to spend breaks getting RI so I could make my first communion so I could be confirmed with the rest of the class) then RC high school and then RC VI form.

When getting ready for my confirmation I thought, "This is a big promise to make" so I must have believed then but it made less and less sense as I got older.

I quite enjoyed some RE lessons because one particular teacher you could distract and she would spend 20 mins talking about her dogs.

I also enjoyed asking awkward questions and pointing out things the teachers were glossing over eg the woman, 'taken in adulatory' story and suggested it was unfair the man she was with wasn't punished.

That caused a bit of a stir.

We hardly attended church to the point my dad took us to confession before Easter and as I was about to sit in a pew when my dad said a word to me, I said what? and after two more attempts it was clear I had no idea what 'genuflect' meant and told me to curtsey.

As I got older it made less and less sense to me.

I'm now atheist with pagan tendencies.

I was Christened and went to a primary school where we prayed, and sang hymns. My family weren't religious, but we do Christmas and Easter in the non religious sense. I think that I was about 12 when I went through a phase of not understanding why any one would buy into any of it. Later, at about 18, I went through a phase of actively trying to believe it, because the idea was appealing. I think that it was partly an attempt to cope with anxiety. I would pray every day that everyone in the world would be safe and well that night. I became a firm atheist in my early 20s, when I heard other people's views more, and being atheist just made the most sense to me. So it was a conscious choice in the end.

I grew up in a C of E family, who had a strong commitment to the community, my parents both served the local communities in unpaid roles for over 30 years.
I was christened, choose to be confirmed and then at university drifted.
When I qualified as a vet I rediscovered my faith (though not a classical church based faith), being present at the very start and very end of life has a strong spiritual element for me. Whilst I don't currently go to church I would like to find the right church to share my faith. My partner does not share my faith, but he respects it:
Over the last few days my faith has been tested with the loss of a small child in my friendship circle, the only thing that has given me any solace is that a friend of my partner also passed at a very similar time on the same day. A much older person who had lived a long,full and rich life know for his kindness and compassion I have this feeling that he took the small child's hand and together they have gone to look at cars.

My faith involves an afterlife and a spirit whom at times I feel very close to, mostly in the countryside. This spirit can't change events, but can create connections.
My own daughter was christened, I took her to church on occasions and she is 17 and we have discussed my faith and how she feels, at the moment she is agnostic.