Coven members religion

First let me state that this can be a hot topic and my intention is to get to know fellow members better, not to cause strife. If you have problems with a given religion, please keep them to yourself. If preaching or auguments start I will ask the adminstators to lock this subject.
The questions: What religion are you?
How long have you believed?
What first brought you into the religion?

Please keep the discussion civil and remember that not everyone see's the world the same way you do.

What religion are you? Taoist
How long have you believed? About two years
What brought you into the religion? Found a copy of the Tao Te Ching at my sister's condo. Read the entire thing in two days and realized it made perfect sense to me.

I'm kristian but I dont believe in all of the things.

I am a Christian.

Its not easy to be one, especially in my own country...
God helped me a lot throughout my life (wont tell ya, too long if I had to wrote down all of it)...

born a Missouri-Synod Lutheran (Christian) but for about 8 years now I have been learning my own path. I have read many books now that have expanded my beliefs. I still believe Jesus did what they said he did (maybe just not quite as much or as big as they say) and I believe God is there. But most of the nitpicky things that divide the different Christian Denominations I don't believe in.

I am a Zen Buddhist. Both my parents are Buddhists (of a slightly different flavor) and I have been one for my entire life, but actually understood what I was doing and what it was all about since I was 14...so, almost 4 years now.

What religion are you? Church of Scientology
How long have you believed? About 4 years
What brought you into the religion? Tom Cruise did it....

Ok, no I am not a Scientologist. I am atheist. The short of my reasons for being atheist, probably comes down to the fact that there have been thousands of different beliefs over the years who's to say one is right and the other is wrong. So... I feel that they are all wrong. Not to mention I am a big science buff with evolution and such. So I hate what christens have done with that creationism crap, but I guess thats another subject.

More bad has been done then good in the name of religion. But I stay away from the topic of religion as much as possible. It is a winless argument when one sides reasoning is something called "Faith".

But I guess if I had to pick a religion why not go for something cool. I could go for maybe some of the ancient Aztec's beliefs... Bring out the virgin sacrifices to the volcano gods and dancing around a fire naked!

Faloma wrote:

What religion are you? Church of Scientology
How long have you believed? About 4 years
What brought you into the religion? Tom Cruise did it....

Ok, no I am not a Scientologist. I am atheist. The short of my reasons for being atheist, probably comes down to the fact that there have been thousands of different beliefs over the years who's to say one is right and the other is wrong. So... I feel that they are all wrong. Not to mention I am a big science buff with evolution and such. So I hate what christens have done with that creationism crap, but I guess thats another subject.

More bad has been done then good in the name of religion. But I stay away from the topic of religion as much as possible. It is a winless argument when one sides reasoning is something called "Faith".

But I guess if I had to pick a religion why not go for something cool. I could go for maybe some of the ancient Aztec's beliefs... Bring out the virgin sacrifices to the volcano gods and dancing around a fire naked!

I agree who's to say.........thats why I say "higher power"..........Killing because of a so called "God" has always puzzeled me.

i regret to inform everyone that i am none religious

It's not surprising that the majority here appear to be Christian. While I was never raised Christian I am well enough versed in the doctrines that I've held auguments with theologeons.
I feel I should clarify one thing about my beliefs. I'm what is called a philosophical Taoist. This means that while I do believe in the great capital T Tao and the desire to bring my own tao into accord with it, it is viewed more as the flow of nature than any form of godhead.
This is opposed to the religious Taoists who worship Laozi and the Yellow Emperor and believe they can act as divine diplomats for the dead.

Im from Asia n I dont understand a bit of what ur belief is Shin...
No offense though...

I know about Tao, Laozi but dont know that it is a belief, I thought he was a guru or something...

Laozi is a semi-mythical figure who was said to have been a hermit who got fed up with the curruption of the Chinese goverment and decided to leave the land. At the border a guard stopped him and demanded that he write down his wisdom before leaving so that the land could benifit from it. Laozi then wrote the Tao Te Ching [The Way and it's Power] gave it to the guard and left China.
Whether Laozi was real or not is debatable, since his name simply means Old Master and it is common practice for Taoists to refuse credit for their actions, rather giving credit to an old master.
Though the real master of Taoism was Zhuangzi, who's writings may predate the Tao Te Ching.
Without going into complex detail the basics of Taoism is that one should observe the patterns in nature and then learn to harmonize one's life to them. It is called the water course way because one should seek to become like water, flowing freely without striving agaist anything. This is done through wu-wei. [effortless action]
That's a basic summary. When Buddhism entered China, Buddhists and Taoists merged into the Chan school of Buddhism. When the Chan school made it's way to Japan it became Zen Buddhism.
I don't know what area of Asia you are from Roark, but Taoism has been a belief system in one form or another in China for the last 2000 years or so. Though it has only recently started spreading out of China on it's own, rather than being combined with Buddhism.

There you are wrong KingPin I am not deep at all, I simply have a good head for trivia. Like all people I get caught up in the web of delusions that this world offers. Part of what drew me to Taoism is I had a long love of Buddhism, but was unable to follow the passifist and none intoxicant restrictions. Taoism follows a similiar path to Buddhism, but permit violence if needed and the most famous Taoist poet was an alchoholic.

P.S. Keep in mind that I prefer to use the Pinyin translation of Chinese words while most books in America still use the Wade style. i.e. Laozi is pinyin/ Lao Tzu is Wade.

My mom n auntie probably knew these stuffs, Im the only one in my family that can't understand Chinese language...

Guess, I'm too lazy when I was little to learn, but now I wanted to learn yet my mom sooooo far away as Im in Europe studying now...

U got a good head on this kind of stuff Shin. Too bad I just still dont get it lolz...

The sad fact is Roark that I'm a 7th grade drop out. After the third year in 7th grade and two rulings of partial retardation I was asked to leave the school.
So while you were busy learning basic life skills in school, I had nothing better to do than think. When you subtract all the little distractions life throws at you, you find that abstract concepts make a lot more sense. Thus my love of religion, philosophy and psychology.

What Religion are you?: Buddhist Christian
How long?: i've believed in the teachings of Buddha for... 7 years, i was made aware of god's prescence 2 years ago.

A lot of people say WTF when they find out my religion but it's possible. I believe so much in what Buddha said. i really feel that we're all one, connected if not on a physical or emotional then on a spiritual level. It just explains why you can just -feel- someone comming into a room you're in. I also believe in the philosophy to want is to suffer. as long a syou're wanting you'r enever having. why put yourself through that type of torture? Those are the two main things i follow within Buddhism. there's more than that but i'm trying to keep this brief.

as for god? for a long time i was convinced that god was only real to people cuz they wanted him to be. I was talking to a pasture just about religion one day though, and he asked me to just pray with him and ask god to mak ehimself known in my life if he was real. I like to stay open to everything, so i prayed. It's hard to explain to someone who hasn't done as much drugs as i have what exactly happened. But it felt as if i'd never touched a drug. My vision was so clear and crisp, all the colors were vivid... it was real and true sobriety. i knew right then god was answering my prayer in his own way.

I don't believe in the bible. It's man's interpetation of god's word. As we are capable of fault and it can not be asumed that we could properly interpret god's words in the way htat he means them, i cannot devout my life to an object that could be wrong.

Christian