Were you once a Christian?

I believe religion is man made mombo jombo.

i was born into an agnostic family hence i have not been reactionary against religion having never been a christian to begin with. which seems to be consistent with religious people that are born into religious families. generally people are born into their beliefs.

An attempt was made to raise me as a catholic. I started my catechizing with a reaction to the violence of the nuns, and remained suspicious from an early age of the fairy tales i was being fed. Although my parents remained (nominally, at least) catholic, i gave up all pretense of participation at age 14. Since then, the normal course of researching the development of christianity, as i would any other subject or historical interest has lead me to the conclusion that much of it is cobbled together from other beliefs popular in the first century, and that there is not even a reasonable certainty for the existence of Joshuah of Nazareth (other than Yeshua the Rabbi, which is another kettle of fish altogether). Proceeding beyond that point, i called all religious belief into question, because of doubtful provenence. The existence of god is not only unproven, it is improbable. Life is sufficiently complex and daunting not to need an overbearing superstitious system of belief to muddy the waters we wade through in our quotidien world.

Well, I was baptized, but my immediate family stopped going to church when I was very young. The extended family on both sides are very catholic (Irish and Italian). They pray for us and that makes me feel weird.

I feel that religion is all man-designed to grease the wheels of civilization. And, no matter how religion all got started (human origin or divine origin), there is obviously a lot of human interpretation going on. So, how does anyone person belonging to any one religion know that his is the right religion? Just knowing that there are soooo many religions out there makes me believe that it is a human contruct.

If only we could just boil down the truest bits of all religions, I think we'd find that everyone of them preaches kindness, honor, and peace.

I was born a heathen and remain a heathen. It runs in the family, the Catholic Church has damned my father publicly and excommunicated him. But those were the late fourties in Eastern Europe, when all students were passionate builders of communism. Later the Communist Party has damned him and excommunicated him as well, after the 1968 Invasion of the Warsaw Pact armies. Given that I was brought to be weary of all mass organizations. But as a good child of scholars I have read the Bible and Qu'ran and bits and pieces of other spiritual literature (including weird pieces from Osho and such) and was constantly amazed about how they read alike. I came to develop my own 'religion', since all of them are based on the same principles of morality and immortality.

My story echoes those of others. I sometimes refer to myself as a recovering Southern Baptist. Though exposed to it very early, my parents' scientific background would not allow them to wholeheartedly endorse folklore and superstition as fact.

I mouthed the words and went through the motions until my depth of inquiry revealed the mythical nature of the basis for religion. That was at about age seven. Although I continued to enjoy the company of nubile young Baptist girls at picnics and the like for a few more years, anything resembling belief in the dogma was evaporating rapidly.

By the time I wound up in the Army at 20 I had concluded that everyone could perceive the real nature of things religious but that some chose to pretend, to absurd extremes, belief.

God is an idea created by man to explain the unknown. Most of the unknown that once necessitated the creation of God as the cause in the cause and effect explantion we seem to need has an alternative explanation based on something more than superstition.

I was raised in a very strict religious household. We were Christian Scientists. Both my parents served terms as Reader (lay minister), my mother was a CS Practitioner and my sister a licensed CS Nurse. The religion in our house was ubiquitous and smothering; and hampered my emotional and socialization growth.
I had few friends through High School because I was so weird due to my ironclad beliefs and behaviors. I was certain that God was behind me 110% and would reward me someday for being so pious. I was sadly mistaken.

I DO NOT blame the religion for my having turned agnostic- I blame the way my parents forced it down my throat and applied it constantly. And even they thought they were doing the best for me.

Also, after I left home on my own, I became increasingly convinced that science was more credible than the Bible. In fact, reading the Bible cover-to-cover did more to convince me that God didn't exist than God does exist. It seemed to me much more logical that there is oblivion after death than an eternal Heaven.

Mind you, I WANT to believe in God and life after death; but then I WANT to believe in Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, too.

I have undergone a certain evolution from atheism imposed on me by the Soviet educational system to agnosticism, and later I came to belief. Despite of my mixed ethnic origin (I am half-Jewish and half-German (Volksdeutsch)), I tend to define myself a Christian, but I have never undergone formal baptism and I do not belong to any institutionalized Christian denomination. I merely believe in Jesus Christ being the Savior of the mankind granted to the people by God; and I believe in the Divine nature of the Savior.

I'm made curious by your response, Steissd, to know if there are many christians in Israel. Does this tenet of faith on your part have any appreciable impact upon your life as an Israeli citizen?

No, it does not. I came to Christianity while being an Israeli citizen, but I do not attend any of the churches, since I consider the ritual side of any religion secondary to its essence. I do not declare my religious affiliation, since I consider that this is my private business, and no one in my country is supposed to interfere with this.
In fact, there is no discrimination of Christians in Israel; converts from Judaism are disliked by the "aborigines", but I am not a convert for two reasons:

1. I have never been a declared Judaist
   
2. I have not undergone a formal baptism
   

Therefore, my religious faith is an issue of my private conscience and nothing beyond this.

I really appreciate all your replies.

Setanta, I have overlooked one of your questions, regarding Christians in Israel. I have found a good link on this issue:
Christians in Israel and in Neighboring Areas. I hope, this may be interesting to you.

Our household was rather religion neutral. There was a god but outside that it was up to us. I didn't grow up knowing a lot about christianity but after moving to a very christian town for college I started investigating. My uncle is an elder is one of the more conservative churches in town and he tried to get me involved. There preaching just wasn't my cup of tea. I've since done some research into the history of the bible and read a lot of it and have come to the conclusion that its a mumbled mess of past religions all pulled together in yet another book.

Thanks, Steissd, i appreciate your lucid and concise response on your personal situation, and appreciate the link as well.

steissd



As far as I know the only aborigines are in Australia. Who specifically do you consider 'Aborigines in Israel?

I put the word "aborigines" in quotation marks to refer to the people that belong to the third-fifth generation of the Israeli Jews, to distinguish them from the immigrants (also the Jews in their majority).

I was raised sort of Church of England, sent to a Presbyterian school, embraced Christianity in a conscious sort of way at about 12 - reasoned myself out of it very calmly and easily by 14.

stessid:

How common is the conversion from Judaism to Christianity in Israel.

This happens in the US but it's not as common as Christian conversion to Judaism.