Are you religious?/Were you raised religious?

[nclib]

No/No

[Joe Biden 2020]

Yes/Yes

[falling apart like the ashes of American flags]

No/Yes

[Wiggle Your Yummy Moist Preggers Cake Ben Shapiro]

No/Yes

You quit the church?

[Free Speech Enjoyer]

Yes/still being raised.

Oddly enough, I probably ended up being more religious than my parents.

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

No/Yes

You quit the church?

BRTD doesn't consider following his brand of charismatic Christianity being religious, because his perception of what it means to be religious appears to have been formed by a combination of people who aren't and people who are but in the worst way.

[Tender Branson]

No/More or less

(Voted No/Yes)

[Tokugawa Sexgod Ieyasu]

Yes/Kind of but not really, by the way.

[Oakvale]

Not at all/Nominally but not really.

No/Yes

re·li·gion/ riˈlijən/


1. The belief in and worship of a superhuman controlling power, esp. a personal God or gods.

[Franzl]

Kind of.... / Yes

[DC Al Fine]

Yes/Yes

[anvi]

No/Yes

[John Dibble]

No/No.

[DemPGH]

No / Yes, by default. Religion in my childhood years was your typical combination Methodist and Presbyterian upbringing in the northern style. Nothing remotely insidious.

[afleitch]

No/Yes.

[TNF]

No/Yes

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

No/ kind of... maybe.

[© tweed]

No/Yes

You quit the church?

BRTD doesn't consider following his brand of charismatic Christianity being religious, because his perception of what it means to be religious appears to have been formed by a combination of people who aren't and people who are but in the worst way.

it's developing into a pet peeve of mine, every single time one of them says "it's not a religion it is a relationship with Christ" they always think it is so profound, they pause dramatically...

[patrick1]

No/No.

Both of the above answers need some qualification.  I was sent to Catholic schools but my parents and even me really were not regular church goers. Most of the time I have spent in a church was an ancillary experience.  Every so often I duck in on a periodic bout of religiousity. However, I am still skeptical of it all- even though I typically vigorously defend it.  When most religious people start yammering on, my eyes typically start glazing over and I look for the nearest exit.

[afleitch]

No/No.

Both of the above answers need some qualification.  I was sent to Catholic schools but my parents and even me really were not regular church goers. Most of the time I have spent in a church was an ancillary experience.  Every so often I duck in on a periodic bout of religiousity. However, I am still skeptical of it all- even though I typically vigorously defend it.  When most religious people start yammering on, my eyes typically start glazing over and I look for the nearest exit.

That was about me three years ago.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Yes to the first one, but I'm not sure on the second one.  I went to Vacation Bible School every summer as a kid but never attended church much.  I believed in God but didn't want much to do with religion.  Since I was about 10, however, I have become more religious/spiritual.  I personally don't like the term "religious" because it has a lot of negative connotations, but most people would probably use that term to describe me.  Nowadays, I usually attend church on a weekly basis.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

No/No.

[k-onmmunist]

Sorta/No

[danny]

No/ Kind of, my parents dragged me to the synagogue when I was a child, but they saw it mostly as a tradition, and are not particularly religious themselves.

[angus]

No/No.

Both of the above answers need some qualification.  I was sent to Catholic schools but my parents and even me really were not regular church goers. Most of the time I have spent in a church was an ancillary experience.  Every so often I duck in on a periodic bout of religiousity. However, I am still skeptical of it all- even though I typically vigorously defend it.  When most religious people start yammering on, my eyes typically start glazing over and I look for the nearest exit.

haha.  I voted no/still being raised.

I was raised in the church as well, but you could count the number of times we actually said grace on the fingers of one hand.  Once in a while my mother would say, "We need to start going to mass."  That'd last about a month.  Usually it'd be right around the time one of us had our first communion or confirmation.  I guess she didn't want to come off in a bad light to the catechism teachers.  She didn't seem to be too interested in forcing any Catholic mysticism on us, but it was important to her that we learn to go through the motions.  (yes, I got the transubstantiation question right on that little quiz.)  Daddy didn't much seem to mind one way or the other.  He'd let Mama drag us to mass, though.  She was religiously very open, like Elvis.  She went through various periods.  For a time, she got into some Eastern religions.  When I was about 9, she had me doing transcendental meditation with her.  Then for a while she was into reading about Rama and Sita.  Right before she died, she actually started going to Episcopalian mass.

I guess I haven't been to mass in about 20 years or more, and I've never taken my son to see a priest or a guru or a rabbi or an imam, but I have nothing against organized religion.  If he comes home one day and says, "Dad, I want to be a Muslim" or "Dad, I've become a Mormon" or whatever, it's okay with me.  As a practical matter, I suppose I'm more of a pantheist than an agnostic.  I don't go around claiming to question the existence of gods.  People invented gods, therefore they exist.  Whatever gods there might be leave me alone and I leave them alone.

My wife, an unobservant atheist--nominally atheist, but is very superstitious and has a genuine belief in religious themes and afterlife, etc.  she's a nonpracticing atheist like I am a nonpracticing monotheist, I suppose--has been nagging me for years to take the boy to church.  We finally took him to one a few months ago.  I posted about it.  We have been a few times.  It's a touchy/feely "interdenominational" megachurch, replete with hideously loud rock music and a service bar that serves latte and scones and such.  Anyway, he goes into the 5-12 "Kidventure Island" activity for an hour.  He gets to play with other children and learn about anger management and such.  I think it's probably good for him, but I just hate giving up my Sunday like that.

I still self-identify as Catholic.  We've discussed this phenomenon elsewhere.  Similarly, my wife still identifies as atheist.  These qualifiers are ethnic identities, but don't necessarily say anything about one's supernatural beliefs.  I think we agree on this.