Your faith timeline.

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

[afleitch]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

Whst would the alternative be? I've been married 8 years and if a state sanctioned union isn't appropriate whst would be (besring in mind most nations ALL marriages are by statute, state sanctioned, including religious ones.)

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

Whst would the alternative be? I've been married 8 years and if a state sanctioned union isn't appropriate whst would be (besring in mind most nations ALL marriages are by statute, state sanctioned, including religious ones.)

I am not sure. As I said I don't make much sense on this. I realize there are good reasons to have this kind of legal framework for 'family law' matters. But sometimes the idea of the register office having to do with love/family doesn't click to me. And to be honest sometimes I just surrender to reality. I guess I like 'common-law marriages'?

[afleitch]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

Whst would the alternative be? I've been married 8 years and if a state sanctioned union isn't appropriate whst would be (besring in mind most nations ALL marriages are by statute, state sanctioned, including religious ones.)

I am not sure. As I said I don't make much sense on this. I realize there are good reasons to have this kind of legal framework for 'family law' matters. But sometimes the idea of the register office having to do with love/family doesn't click to me. And to be honest sometimes I just surrender to reality. I guess I like 'common-law marriages'?

So no marriage registration at all which means no enforceable marriage law?

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

Whst would the alternative be? I've been married 8 years and if a state sanctioned union isn't appropriate whst would be (besring in mind most nations ALL marriages are by statute, state sanctioned, including religious ones.)

I am not sure. As I said I don't make much sense on this. I realize there are good reasons to have this kind of legal framework for 'family law' matters. But sometimes the idea of the register office having to do with love/family doesn't click to me. And to be honest sometimes I just surrender to reality. I guess I like 'common-law marriages'?

So no marriage registration at all which means no enforceable marriage law?

I think that may be the logical conclusion, but I'm very shaky.

This conversation is feeling a lot like an application of the Socratic method...
To be honest we are kind of derailing the thread, as none of these musings of mine have necessarily to do with my faith.

[afleitch]

I definitely think I am more conservative than my age group (although not more right-wing); I am 19 years old. My discomfort with civil marriage in general is admittedly extremely weird and not really an Italian thing. But if you want to go about it, I've just checked and according to a 2020 Eurispes poll 77% of Italians aged 18-24 support SSM. Thanks for saying I am "so grounded", anyways.

Which ones? Anyone you know in particular?

I'm talking about the concept in general - both opposite-sex and same-sex to be clear.

My inner musings about the meaning of 'marriage' and about the point of having state-sanctioned unions of this kind at all are very complicated and to be honest don't make too much sense.

Whst would the alternative be? I've been married 8 years and if a state sanctioned union isn't appropriate whst would be (besring in mind most nations ALL marriages are by statute, state sanctioned, including religious ones.)

I am not sure. As I said I don't make much sense on this. I realize there are good reasons to have this kind of legal framework for 'family law' matters. But sometimes the idea of the register office having to do with love/family doesn't click to me. And to be honest sometimes I just surrender to reality. I guess I like 'common-law marriages'?

So no marriage registration at all which means no enforceable marriage law?

I think that may be the logical conclusion, but I'm very shaky.

This conversation is feeling a lot like an application of the Socratic method...
To be honest we are kind of derailing the thread, as none of these musings of mine have necessarily to do with my faith.

Yeah, I don't want to derail. I just thought it seemed a remarkably 'free love' sort of position on human relationships which I don't necessarily disagree with in principle.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Actually the most important change in civil marriage in the past century hasn't been the recognition of same-sex marriage, but it changing from a property transfer of the bride from her father to her husband into a union of two independent adults.  Indeed, without that change, SSM wouldn't make much sense. Indeed, much of the opposition to SSM comes from those who wanted to return to the former traditional marriage forms.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

So as of now, I'm looking into online colleges to get my Bachelor's. I've decided to get a degree in psychology, because then I would have more flexibility, but I still want to eventually earn an M.Div at the Iliff School of Theology in Denver - which I've wanted to attend ever since I started exploring the ordination tract.

I don't know if I have what it takes to be a priest. I'm not a very good Christian. I'm foul-mouthed, I use cannabis to self-medicate, I say things that wouldn't be appropriate in some circles. I don't want to become the male Nadia Bolz-Weber or the next John Shelby Spong. In fact, if I were a priest I would want to push the Episcopal Church in a more traditional direction and stop the bleeding of people leaving the church.

One thing I'm proud of is that people say I'm approachable and empathetic, and I think that's essential for anyone involved in psychology or spiritual counseling. So even if I decide against the ordination tract, I'll still have more options to explore with a psychology degree.

At the same time, I am applying for disability while I continue attending weekly therapy myself to recover from... certain events. Personal growth is my priority now, and once I'm healthier and in better financial standing, I want to counsel to other people who've been through trauma. And when the pandemic finally ends I fully intend on becoming more involved with the Church.

I consider myself a small-c catholic, but I wouldn't become a Roman Catholic for many of the same reasons I wouldn't become a Southern Baptist. The Sacraments are essential to me, but I also have a litmus test on womens' ordination, same-sex marriage, and the use of contraceptives. I'm not going to change my views to align with any church, and I'm not going to pretend to believe that Roman Catholic and Baptist or Calvinist views on gender roles are correct. All people are one in Christ.

[John Dule]

I feel like I get more hostile towards religion every day nowadays. There was a time when I could just live and let live, and it didn't bother me so much. I wish I could go back to those days, but it is extremely hard for me to keep quiet and act respectful (as I'm sure anyone on Atlas could attest to).

[Хahar 🤔]

This thread is interesting because I find most of the posts (and, really, the general concept) so foreign to my experience. I can't imagine having a religious identity other than the one I've had, and I've always been fascinated by how thin the line in this country is between religion and irreligion. (I first thought about this years ago when reading BRTD's discussion of his Christian awakening, which seemed to involve not much behavioral modification other than church attendance.)

Thinking about why my religious identity has always been fixed in comparison to others on this thread, I can think of two explanations working in tandem. The first reason is that my religious identity, which feels immutable to me, is tied up with my ethnic identity, which genuinely is immutable. Obviously I don't observe an ethnic religion, but speaking Bengali and being Muslim were always the two ways as a child that I felt different from society as a child, and those were the two characteristics that demarcated people in our cultural community from outsiders. In my mind those are completely entwined as fundamental to who I am.

The second reason is that fundamental to the religion I observe is the concept of rules for everyday life. It's one thing if irreligion simply involves the absence of an action: the absence of going to church, for example, or of performing regular prayer or simply believing. In my mind, it's another thing altogether to actively engage in that which is prohibited; it would require an active and conscious break in my mind much stronger than simply the lack of active religious motivation to engage in consuming alcohol or fornicating or the like. (Obviously some Christian denominations also proscribe fornication, but the statistics and my anecdotal evidence both indicate that nobody really cares about that.)
I was raised in an orthodox Sunni household, and that was the religious system I inherited and have always retained. Inasmuch as there has been an evolution, it has been in the sense that my religious beliefs were very emotional as a young child and became highly intellectualized by the time I was a teenager, but I think that that's just the result of my brain developing rather than any religious journey. I would not describe myself as a terribly spiritual person.

My parents were observant in every sense except that they did not pray regularly, which seems odd now but obviously did not seem odd to me when it was the only thing I knew. I was enrolled in various weekend classes to learn tajweed and the like, but basically I learned my religion from my parents. I began performing the obligatory prayers when I was 11 (which was probably a little too old, but that's water under the bridge now) and from that point on my parents did also, since they could hardly fail to fulfill the most basic requirements when their son was doing so.

Unlike me, my mother can be said to have had a religious evolution. When I was in high school she began going to events at the mosque on a regular basis and then she began wearing a headscarf when out in public and a few years after that fasting on optional fast days. Later during Ramadan the family began going to taraweeh every night, and now whenever I'm home there's an insistence that every prayer be congregational. In 2014, when I was nineteen years old and home for the summer from college, I went to San Francisco with my friends for a baseball game during Ramadan, and I broke my fast at sundown in the fourth inning with some food I bought at the ballpark. I don't think it would be acceptable now for me to intentionally be away from home for maghrib prayers. None of this really bothers me, but I'm also comfortable with the idea that the way I lead my life when I'm at my own residence is religiously appropriate.

[PSOL]

My faith timeline has been a bit spiced up, with there being three major episodes in my life so far along with 4 major shifts in belief

The beginnings 1/3: Uncaring about the Faith. Associated with my youth as I had yet to form political opinions. Outside of doubting a few relatives overseas in their atheism with gotcha questions, I did not care, and I don’t think agnosticism would be the right choice here to describe young me

2/3: begin learning more about the world through books and the internet. I was in school and mainly doing that outside of periods of work in my latter years. I developed into an agnostic period where I thought that there might be a chance for spiritual powers to exist

3/3 outside of a latter month(s?): atheism. Associated with periods of absence of me working and me struggling with staying in school. Became quite sure in my belief that there was no gods out there or spiritual beings. Still, I was and still am irl interested about faith systems and learning more.

Now: stability in my life but not faith. I’ve become sort of a caricature irreligious person in the eyes of fundies by somewhat embracing misotheism and hating god and all that. I think my recent anger at the abstract is bleeding through. Still, I’m having debates in my head that hating something which is not real is kind of nonsense, but whatever. Honestly, maybe in me progressing with my life I’m realizing what has been lost before, and am lashing out in undirected anger at things which do not exist as a proxy for what does. I’ll probably revert back to atheism as I get a grip on my life and COVID isn’t f•••ing my life up

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

It's straightforward in terms of consistency (I don't "church shop") and yet complex in terms of faith: raised in a dual-nationality, multilingual, dual-religion household. Father and mother agreed to have us raised between both Lutheranism (ELCA) and Brahmo Hinduism.

Went to church regularly and was baptized, also attended every major event at the local Hindu temple.

Both of my parents have always given us a lot of space and freedom when it comes to religion, and have never tried to force something onto us. However, my mother was by far the strongest and dominating influence.

We still keep traditions on both sides, but my mom was far more interested in the actual "instilling values" part compared to my father, and is also much better at keeping Bengali Hindu traditions, e.g. only eating vegetarian after someone passed away (which is something that I do myself now that I live alone). I still celebrate Christian holidays such as Advent, St Martin's Day, Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, All Saints' Day, and Epiphany, but this is also just a factor of now living in a country where these days are taken seriously by the public.

At this point I don't really see any point in identifying as a Christian. It has done really nothing for me, either in finding meaning in the world or daily life. It means nothing to me, other than holidays I organize dinner parties for or go light candles in a cemetery. In retrospect, it's a huge mistake IMO for churches to confirm people so young, since I did not understand at all why I should have been confirmed in the Lutheran Church and was clearly pressured by my father's and the congregation's social expectations.

But I can't really identify as a Hindu, despite finding far more meaning and relevance in the teachings and values, since I was never really immersed in it as a child, can't speak Bengali, and Hinduism is a very place-specific religion. Furthermore, it is very clear that many of my family members, whether they are still back in Calcutta or are in the West, are stereotypical of the hybrid British-Indian-educated Bengali middle class, in that they repeat the stories of Hinduism to their children but clearly don't truly believe in it themselves (they are probably closer in actual beliefs to Unitarian Universalism), and yet they are very much about keeping traditions and observing certain holidays (much as Unitarians still keep certain Christian traditions like Sunday worship).

I don't really identify as anything, simply because I've never needed to. If asked, I just say that my parents agreed to raise us between Lutheranism and Brahmoism, and just leave it at that. I do believe there is *some* kind of higher power, but I don't really think much beyond that and just try to be a good person.

EDIT - does this make me religious but not spiritual?

[jamestroll]

I have not been to Church since Trump won in 2016 and will not pay a tithing or go to any LDS services until the state of Utah elects a Democrat to statewide office. And that wouldn't even require a majority or Mormons.

[Cokeland Saxton]

0: Born
1: Baptized LCMS
5: Started Kindergarten at a Christian Montessori school
6: Began attending children's ministry at church
11: Confirmed as a member of the LCMS, first communion
13: Learned that LGBTQ+ people exist
16: Read the Bible from cover to cover and began doubting my faith
18: Began complaining each week about going to church
19: Renounced my faith and became an atheist, stopped praying
20: Began to question my sexuality
21: Realized I'm ace

[𝕭𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖎𝖘𝖙𝖆 𝕸𝖎𝖓𝖔𝖑𝖆]

Well, I realize rewriting posts is considered bad form, but what I had originally written was confusionary and still fairly "in the heat of the moment" while now that more than a year since my return to Catholicism has passed I feel that I can be more composed. I am all for second attempts.

0 Baptized in the Catholic Church.
0 - 7 I suppose my parents brought me to Mass regularly, but I was too young to remember much of anything.
7 - 11 Catechism, or what you would more likely call Sunday School, except it was not on Sunday. I went to Mass fairly regularly with my parents. I definitely believed in God in some form but I think it was somewhat vague and incoherent and without a strong grasp of theology.
8 My first Confession.
9 My first Communion.
11 My Confirmation.
11 - 13 This period coincides with middle school and with the onset of puberty. I think I started lapsing around this age. I mostly remember finding the Mass boring and like an inconvenience and being afraid of going to Communion, and perhaps I lacked a spur after having completed my sacraments of initiation.
13 - 15 I remember a period around this age when I asked my father to bring me to a different church each Sunday, but it failed to stimulate my interest. Not much later was the moment I last went to Mass outside of special ceremonies (e.g. sacraments of relatives) until I would be 19 and a half - see below.
15 Likely when I started to publicly identify as agnostic.
15 - 18 For most of my teenage years I was some sort of agnostic, vaguely deist, "spiritual but not religious" (lol) person. My most notable expression of spirituality involved stars and constellations, which at times I venerated, especially Orion. I disliked the concept of organized or institutional religion mostly out of a belief that faith is personal and private and unique for each of us, but I always equally disliked actively anti-religious people, and was still in many ways fascinated or moved by religious and Christian ideals.
18 - 19 I gradually developed a stronger - if seldom put in practice - interest in going to churches outside of service hours to reflect or meditate or pray. At some point I also started to reflect more consciously about what we can call my cultural Catholic background.
19 The COVID pandemic happened. I joined Atlas/Talk Elections. The aforementioned developments became more prominent, and I got to a point where I felt like I was searching for religion, albeit projected onto a non-specified non-immediate future. Then between the end of August 2020 and the beginning of September 2020 something sudden and overwhelming and peculiar happened, which we refer to as 'my religious conversion' to be short, and I found myself becoming a practicing Catholic (again). Not that it will surprise anyone but there was a strong (involuntary) influence of Nathan in this, and also for some parts some (involuntary) influence of Scott. I have been profoundly changed by this despite remaining fundamentally the same in various ways.
19 - 20 Committed Catholic with fairly discontinuous practice and strongly affected by a series of events that have made my last year or so an anguishing emotional wild ride. I have been still somewhat influenced by a more personal and 'vertical' conception of faith. At the moment of writing I am in a relatively confused phase, but I still pray God almost daily.

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

As I said in Discord, just knowing the fact that I played any role in a person's spiritual growth and development makes me very, very happy and more inclined to pursue the ordination tract. The Holy Spirit gets the real credit, of course.

[Senator-elect Spark]

0 - Baptism
6 - Reconciliation
8 - Holy Communion
10 - Confirmation
20-21 - Spiritual discernment for a call to religious life

[Farmlands]

0-14: Christianity in general. Raised in a Catholic environment and school, Lutheran parents.
15-22: Agnostic atheism, I suppose you could call it. Still don't mind attending Mass whenever required.

Ultimately though, unless it's with my closest friends, I'd much rather argue politics than religion. There's somewhat less of an emotional attachment to those views.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

If you would prefer video form, watch this 5 minute video:

https://www.facebook.com/matt.colleran.90/videos/vb.100006343779808/2458917170996385/?type=2&video_source=user_video_tab

Text form:

Conception-5: Born to a Catholic dad and a mom who was raised Baptist but wasn't particularly religious.  Baptized Catholic.

5-10: Without a deep understanding of faith, I became acutely aware of what religion I was being raised in, almost in a my group versus the other group mentality.

11-13: Didn't see much of a point in religion and began having some doubts about God's existence while still ultimately telling myself I believed in Him, still went to church when dragged by my dad and was confirmed in the Catholic Church.

14-16: Became an atheist.  Probably the most vehement in the 15-16 year old range; like a lot of people that age, I thought I knew everything.  I do remember going to church once with my Baptist grandparents when I was 15 and thinking "this isn't as bad as what I'm used to".

17-20: Had a health scare at age 17 that made me contemplate mortality for the first time, but didn't instantly change my views.  Went to college and gradually went from a sort of agnostic my freshman year to vaguely Christian, without a real understanding of what it meant by my junior year, very gradually.  In this time, God put a ton of people in my path that He used to change the way I saw religion.  I went to church a few times at age 20 and enjoyed it but still didn't fully connect with it.

21: I finally felt the need to go to church and develop a deeper faith.  I was baptized again (in a Southern Baptist church) at age 21.

22-Present: After significant initial growth, I kind of felt stagnant.  I wound up going to a new church, where I found a great group of people that have helped each other grow since then.

Since then, I have come to find fellowship and Christian community even more important to our walk (after starting going to a new church with a huge young adults community).  I've also gotten a lot better about reading my Bible daily and have evolved on certain theological views that don't impact salvation (such as going from an old-Earth creationist to a young-Earth creationist and certain views around the continuation of gifts of the Holy Spirit).

[RINO Tom]

EDIT (... fairly serious):

1) Proud/strict Lutheran who thought religious conservatism was "cool" and actually wished my church was a bit more conservative.

2) Clear ELCA Lutheran but didn't think about it overly much ... girls, high school sports, drinking in basements and parks, etc.

3) A bit more serious about it again in the years after college, especially as I got more in touch with my heritage through things like Ancestry.com and just learning about history.  My theological beliefs were a bit "vague," though, as I tried to reconcile the parts of the Bible (or, more accurately, people's interpretation of it) that I found unlikely to be true with my definite belief in some form of "The Devine."

4) Approximately in the last few years, I have started to believe that the specific aspects of one's belief in his religious doctrine isn't very important.  I identify as an ELCA Lutheran, and I believe in what most would call "God" (though I'm sure some Fundies would object).  My "beliefs" are ever-changing, as I believe all beliefs should be, and they are currently at some bizarre intersection between Christianity, vaguely Jungian ideas and simply thinking that "the answer" to the ultimate nature of reality is too strange and mystical and "beyond" our understanding to have been accurately described (at least specifically) by humans thus far ... though I do, indeed, believe in a higher power and I think Christianity (of which ELCA Lutheranism is BY FAR my preferred interpretation) most accurately describes what I would imagine such a being to be like, once I adjust for my own interpretation of Scripture.

[GM Team Member and Senator WB]

0-4: didn't care about religion really
5: Christian-adjacent due to my kindergarten teachers not realizing that some of us weren't Christian. I didn't actually believe the stuff but I remember saying something about "the one true God" to my mom
6-7:Atheist, bullying about religion starts and continues getting worse
8-11: Militant anti-theist, radicalized by incessant bullying. I mean militant in the worst ways. Like, daydreaming about blowing up stuff sorta ways. Yeah…
12-13: year spent in New Jersey gave me new perspectives, lost the militancy and violent thoughts.
14: return to SC, bullying hits its worst though not focused on religion. Slowly continues from anti-theist to more regular atheist
15-18: moved to another school system, things get better and I lose the last bits of that militancy as I join the forum.
Now: Atheist, still with strong skepticism of most organized religion but respect for those who are religious.

[Georg Ebner]

I was and am, have always been a puer senex. Thus very precocious: On the one hand my "heart" had already as a small child the emotional certainty, that catholicism was right and this has never really changed. On the other hand was my "brain" and already in my early years i calculated with a pencil on the white wall of my exCrib, how many seconds i would have in hopefully 60 years to find the verity (60x60x24x365x60 impressed me for few seconds before remembering, that it were after all not more than the 60 years i hoped for...).
In youth this deepened - while remaining an AltarBoy aso. - into a radical intellectual scepticism (based on an abstract homo) a la DESCARTES or HUME, which was just also too sceptical for any rePlacement of faith by anything else.
Enabled by my not too low sexDrive happened my turn into a vitalistic anthropoLogy, which overcame the former hiatus "heart"-"brain", when i was 17 (around May 17th 1994 - the day GOMEZ DAVILA died...).
After that intellectual BreakThrough to religion i experienced HIS graces for the first time without intellectual scruples and as a result left immediately the modern mass and AnthropoCentrical AntiChurch (where i had anyway always been a stranger) and was worshipping at the Byzantine rite before hearing of the Latin rite.

[FrancoAgo]

Catholic practicing from baptism, around 2 months old, to the sunday after the confirmation, around 14 years old, after i becoming not practicing and in the low 20s i become atheist, later materialist.
From the communion, around 8 year old,  to the confirmation i "worked" as altar boy

[Ferguson97]

0-19: Christian
19-21: Deist
21-present: Agnostic

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Reality is a scary place

That's reality's problem.

I thought you Christians were supposed to accept the things you cannot change.

Christianity is not a 12-step program.