Not chosing cristianity

[Loke]

Hi to you all

I read a lot of threads on this forum and almost all members are of cristian upbringing. All have their reasons to walk another path than their upbringing expected from them.

Im just curious when it happened to any of them who cares to write and why they had to do it or just done it.

Best to you

Loke - Holger

[Kelreth]

The summer after i got conformed. Literally a few months, my best friends sister was killed in a car accident. I do not understand how a peace loving entity would take her away from her family and her fiance.

I never really understood why ever one worshipped a deity that would smite u for doing one thing wrong.

The fact that hypocrits abound.

And that i started to read books that most peopel wouldnt. Just stuff that pushed the limits of normal thinking and logic.

And one other experience in life but I'm not going to share that. It was rather mind opening. A connection if you will.

All led me to realize that christianity was not for me and that i needed to find a religion or at least loss based group that shared knowledge on an equal level.

I am focused on chakras and internal energy for some reason. I do not know why.

[Crazy Healer Lady]

I was raised Catholic but it was a weird Catholicism. My mom had just left the church, and she raised me to believe in past lives and ghosts and gave me all this strange encouragement that really didn't fit with a STRICT Catholic upbringing. My mom has some real psychic talent which she hides or denies and is a natural healer (nurse, too). My dad would say things like the trees were dancing. All this stuff made me grow up knowing it was real and natural. It was still really weird when I saw my sister's dead cat and everyone said I didn't O_O
But where I am, this path and this knowing, has always been this strong yearning, a huge pull like the moon tugging at me. Now that I'm here I'm just going along with the flow.
I've always communicated with animals in a strange way. I had an animal mentality. Hard to explain.
Anyway, it was a huge huge tug and definately a "Re-Learning." This is all information I knew before. I just am relearning it.

Well, that's my story.

[Kystar]

Hypocrisy is what made me question.
I was raised loosely Byzantine Catholic...in that I was forced to go through with First Holy Communion because it was socially expected.

Anyways...I always thought that the Old Testament and the New Testament were at odds, and no one could really answer my questions clearly...if they bothered to answer them at all.

After I realized that I was a natural medium, I started wondering if it was all it was cracked up to be, which led me to research, which eventually led me to Paganism.

[Rain ForestMoon]

After living for many years in a clearing in the Rainforest, a restrictive religion such as Christianity just has no longer any relevance; because its teachings are in major conflict with most of what goes on around you.

Thinking about it now, it was not so much a moving away from Christianity, but a move towards a Earth/Nature/Spirit based belief.

Having said that, I am of the opinion that, ultimately, all religions worship the same Divine. So, as far as I am concerned there are no "right" and no "wrong" religions. They all just "are", and everyone needs to find (or make) the one that suits.

Blessings

[Rain ForestMoon]

.....I was raised loosely Byzantine Catholic...

Do you mind me asking: What is "Byzantine Catholic"? I've never come across that term before.

Blessings

[Willow]

It is a little different for me, I am still very Christian, Jesus as a very important place in my life but there were a few things, some of which were more private.
1) I never bought the 7 day creation story, I am more inclined towards evolution, and I never thought it was a big deal. Either way the world is here.
2) I got tired of being told I was going t hell for my too liberal beliefs
3) I realised that I had the strangest connection to nature, it was alive too me and I also realised I had a very cyclical worldview that was quite at odds with the linear"ness" of Christianity
4) Finally, and this is the big one, I fell in love with another woman, even though we didn't stay together, I realised I needed a religion where I could love whoever I loved, oddly enough, me dating a catholic has caused more turmoil in my family.
Lots of other little reasons, I found I needed to supplement my Christian beliefs and get back t o the roots of what Jesus taught, not the crap that was tagged on later.
Blessings

[morgana]

I was never raised Christian, or any other belief system for that matter. My parents pretty much didn't say anything to me about spirituality or religion until I was old enough to come to them with questions. They wanted me to figure out what the right path was for myself. They did however teach me of the importance of respecting others' beliefs. So when the time came where I began to look seriously into Paganism, my mom being somewhat New Agey/Pagan herself was completely ok with it.

[Kystar]

Do you mind me asking: What is "Byzantine Catholic"? I've never come across that term before.

Blessings

Okay, I'm not sure of all the details...but there were two major churches in Medieval Europe: Roman Catholic and Byzantine Catholic.

Byzantine catholic has its roots in the Byzantine Empire. I'm not sure if there are any major theological differences, but I do know that there are visual differences.




I know that there are Slavic influences...after all, my church when I was a child did mass in Slovak.
I believe it was strong in Eastern Europe and Russia...but I'm not too sure...since I really stopped paying attention around the age of 5 or 6.

[Kelreth]

Eastern Orthidoc Christinaity and Roman Catholic?

[Kystar]

I think Easter Orthodox is a little different from Byzantine, more strict.

[Rain ForestMoon]

Thanks, Kystar, that was interesting.
(Fancy learning about christianity on a pagan site....)

I have done a bit of quick research: "Byzantine Catholics are Orthodox Christians who embrace full communion with the Church of Rome and its primate, Pope John Paul II, the successor of St. Peter, the first among the Apostles." (Presumably this is from an older source, still referring to the previous pope.)

It seems they split from Rome in 1054 (The Schism of the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches), but later (500 years or so) re-united with the Roman Church, but remained somewhat separate liturgically and theologically.

Blessings

[Raven]

Like Morgana, my Parents chose not to raise me as anything, and let me find my own path. I became in close contact with nature and discovered that I had an ability to shape and mold energy and air around me. Although my beliefs really don't match up at all with Paganism in general, the reason its beautiful is because they don't have to to be considered Pagan. Thus, I call myself Pagan because to me, it represents my freedom and individuality, as part of a group of free and individual people. Slightly paradoxial, but still.

[Ragnar]

I think most people here know, but I was brought up exactly the way I am.

Conversely, this gets me into more trouble on "Norse/Runic web sites than I get from christians.

Here people are honest, if they do not know, they will say so. On Norse sights, however, it's like a damn dog fight ring. No one will back down.

When I come along with my family history, (In short for the new people, Grandmother sammi shaman, Great granny ditto, all the way back, I was trained by my Granny in Norse myths and runes) I can see the wholes in the theories right away. Most of them consider themselves as "old hands" if they have been in the religion 5 years!

As you can imagine. FIRE WORKS.

[Brown Eyed Girl]

Right-Oh I'm confusing.

My mother before i was born is CoE, but she turned pagan, BUT from what i can gather and from what my boyfriend has picked up she messed around a little. i don't know ANY DETAILS at all because it is all totally and utterly hidden from me. my sister said to me once "is mum still into the pagan stuff" "i was like Whaaaa????? mum is CoE!!!!!" but before i was born my bro and my sis had her into paganism i don't know why she stopped but it might be my brother related (lots of things wrong with him in his head), but she keeps it shut of from me.

when i was very young i spent all my time in the garden, to the point were dragon flies would quite happily sit on my hand, we had horses which i loved and always had a connection with, for me it was every day life till we moved to more city like area's and i noticed a lot of people didn't have the same feelings. then i found out about my mum so i researched with family about myself (yeesh it was hard i have very little memories from being younger from medication and therapies) i found out i was a miracle birth, my mum was told she would never conceive and my dad could not get her pregnant anyway. at a friend house they said the upstairs bed (no one slept on) was blessed my a great grandmother and who ever sat on it became pregnant no matter what. my mum spent the night in it and became pregnant. i came out early dead and so on and apparently that is when she back tracked to CoE.

but it never worked on me, i was obsessed with finding out why i did not want to be a christian and it got me in trouble with teachers because i became argumentative when they wouldn't answer my questions (i even had one teacher say your going to hell for you insolent beliefs and questioning of the divine...) i became obsessed with vampire and became amused when i found god knows how many links in christian myths, the extra section of the bible said to be written closer to Jesus made more sense to me than everything else, but its discredited cause it basically kills the need for the church, i became obsessed with Lilith and the dead sea scroll (this is when i was 11ish) and became more put of when Christian's didn't even know what they were...

In my mind i never saw religion as right and i just became obsessed with seeing nature and the sky as people or entities, I've never researched it so i don't even know if that is part of a religion, and i stopped researching when my therapist got worried when i mentioned i had conversations with tree's...(i just talk to anything including the sea... mainly the sea actually) then i became interested with find out other Christians beliefs and joined christian forums, bumped into a lot of pagan people floating around... found this place of google... and there we have it lmao.

Sorry for the HUGE essay... i got carried away... as usual..