Anyone Else 'Make Up' Their Religion?

@Tina:

"I am in no way judging you or criticizing you but this type of worship is cult-like."

Tak, tsk, Tina. Pot, kettle.

We are very like you. Mostly I believe in physics. The more of it you study the more spiritual you end up being.

With the kids we do much like you do... pick and choose according to their age level. Good response to Tina bTW.

Yep. Sounds a bit like our house. I don't personally believe in God, but my three kids do (not *quite* sure how THAT happened). They're familiar with many religions and can believe whatever they want, just like I believe whatever I want. I've had some very interesting conversations with my kids...

Yep, I'm pretty much the same.

Lol--"I'm not judging, but you're all going to Hell."

ETA: Years ago I received a mass email from a friend warning us against the sin of oral sex. You see, according to God, indulging in this terrible, awful thing meant that I didn't love God or myself and, after leading a sad, pitiful life of shame and insecurity, I would likely go to hell. When I challenged it, she told me that she had prayed about it and had received confirmation that this was simply the wrong thing to do. She presented a lot of clever "evidence" to support her claim (like kneeling before a man to perform oral sex meant putting him in the position of God). I told her that maybe it was wrong for her life because of where she'd been and where she was going. Maybe her history would cause it to be a stumbling block for her (she was an unwed mother with no father in her child's life; she had been raped at some point), but that that wasn't necessarily true for the others on her distribution list. There are people who can't handle their liquor, who don't know how to leave the club once they've entered.... By all means, they should steer clear of what might trigger their downward spirals. I don't have that issue. I know how to have a few drinks, dance, keep my panties on...and go home. So I don't need to read that particular warning label. Because I was feeling kinda saucy, I topped it off by telling her that if she doesn't do it for her husband, she'd better just know that somebody else is. She proudly cited the saint of a pastor who had given her this instruction. He is now in the middle of a scandal involving sex with boys, and his wife is trying ot decide if she should divorce him.

My path is an eclectic combo of Paganism, Unitarianism, and humanism. I think that all religions contain some wisdom and some dreck, since they are all man-made. I keep what I find useful and disregard the rest.

I don't feel the need to ask a deity to forgive me of my "sins." If I wrong someone, I ask the person I wronged for forgiveness, and it is theirs to grant or deny.

I don't believe in deities as literal beings, but as anthropomorhic representations of various aspects of human nature. Aphrodite, for example, was not an actual supernatural entity capable of making people fall in love against their will, but a way of embodying all the crazy things, good and bad, that people do for the sake of love/passion.

And Tina you know all this to be true because..? You were told it by someone who was not there to witness it and a book that was supposedly written by who? And rewritten how many times?

Lesley I pretty much believe things similar to you. My DH got pretty stuck in Catholicism so he does not see much past that, so we just don't do religion in our house.

I think most of us, if we're honest with ourselves, do a little bit of that. We might belong to a church or a denomination, but that doesn't necessarily mean we agree with everything.

Catholics will often refer to those of us who are honest about our disagreement as "Cafeteria Catholics." Some will look down on us and say that we aren't "real" Catholics. But I maintain that most "real" Catholics are either in denial or are not completely educated in all teachings of the Church.

I do believe most of us adapt things to fit what we believe in our hearts to be true and the right thing to do.

I believe what my heart tells me is right to believe. I can't blindly follow the word or teaching of any human because I don't believe any human can objectively and accurately interpret the word or intentions of God 100%. For years, I left the church, but I recently found a church community that closely aligns with my own beliefs and supports finding your way and creating your own relationship with God. Works for me.

Deism is a little more complicated than just believing in God. It was the product of the Enlightenment, deists believe you can "know" God through his creations, without need for esoteric knowledge (like miracles or praying). They separated themselves from the religious people of the day, in that they didn't believe in the need for sacraments and such to be close to God. It accepts the existence of science and nature as proof of a creator, but doesn't try to anthropomorphise that creator. He can be known through reason, but not through revelation.

Theists simply believer in a creator, some schools of thought believe it means only one god, others allow it to means more than one, but basically it just means there is one, as opposed to Atheism. They accept that their God has an active role in our daily lives and the functioning of the universe. However, it doesn't dictate how *you* come to know this god, so it doesn't reject religion.

Understanding these terms and their distinction is important as many of our founding fathers were Deists, which makes people's attempts to label the USA a Christian nation as borderline ridiculous.

There, now I know my degree is useful for something :p And I use the pronoun He for simplicity's sake, not because I think any god has a gender.

Whatever works for you! I don't focus on hell and the devil-though, I will tell you, my first husband was evil and being married to him was hell.

The Bible, to me, is the "inspired word of God" and contains many wonderful stories, teachings, prayers, etc. I stick to my religion which includes acts of contrition when I deviate from my path-I practice my religion. It empowers me, and inspires me to do well and to be grateful for all I have and to serve others as well as God.

I think the only people who don't modify their religions beliefs to any extent are folks like the pope. Very few. I don't know a single church-goer that adheres to their religion's creeds 100%. Yah, they aren't supposed to work on Sunday. But they do anyway. They aren't suppposed to lie, cheat, steal, or commit adultry. But I don't know a single adult who isn't guilty of at least one of the 4.

I am kind of like you. I label myself as agnostic.

We belong to a mainline Christian church that has does not belive that the bible is to be taken literally, doesn't believe in hell or the devil and does believe in science and evolution.

Wow, what a great question. My thinking is very similar to yours. I was brought up in the Catholic Church, even going through all the Catholic schooling. Too many things just don't make sense so I have also made my own version. Right or wrong, it is what it is. I strongly think there is something/someone out there. What or who it is I have no idea. We always just taught our children to the "do unto others as you would have done to you." It pretty much covered everything in our lives.

I think just about everyone does this. Even someone who goes to church/synagogue/mosque/etc. every single week and reads the scriptures daily -- that person is going to find certain lines from a sermon or a sacred text to be particularly meaningful and focus on that.

I am Jewish -- not any other religion, just Jewish -- but I definitely adhere to some Jewish teachings and not others. And I can still proudly state that I'm raising a Jewish child in a Jewish home. People who are more Orthodox or strictly observant than I am do this too, but in a more structured, possibly less eclectic way. I also love some of the underlying principles of Animist traditions (that everything is sacred) and (surprisingly, to me) some early Christian traditions like vows of poverty and silence.

I believe in God, I believe lost loved ones are our angels, I believe that God mostly wants all of us to be kind to each other, take care of each other (no, I don't mean financially), and basically have good morals. I do not believe that one person is better than the next because they go to church every week. So, Yep I guess I have my own religion. Oh and most important, I think God totally agrees with "Freedom of Religion"!!! ETA: After reading Aileene's answer I have to look up Deism, as I have never heard of that lol.

You have described Deism. You and DH would be deists - meaning you believe in God.

My beliefs are very similar to yours. I also believe that organized religion has caused most of our wars and conflicts.