Not really. Spiritual, yeah. - Sue Radd

Not now. Raised in a very Catholic household (12 ys of Catholic school, church every Sunday for 18 ys) and it was overkill. - Just Katie

I'm with Sue. I'm not religious, but I am spiritual - Shevonne

I'm in the process of returning to Catholicism. I have a hard time explaining decisions that aren't purely logic based, but over the past year it's become very important to me. - Heather Solos

No. Also raised Catholic but received a good education that taught me how to use my brain; monks at my school even told us not to believe anything in the Bible, merely to learn the lessons. Fair enough. Lessons learnt. No need for religion. You're not missing out on anything Derrick. - Mark H

My grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher in Memphis and my grandmother taught Sunday school. Sang in the choir every summer when we visited but don't remember having it forced upon me. And I'm in the midst of examining a lot of stuff in my life...new career, relocating, pondering relationships, am I on the right path, and it's in these minor road bumps where I start to think about higher powers, etc. - Derrick

Spiritual, yes; religious, no. - Michael W. May

Religious, no. Spiritual, very much so. - Beau Liening

I am a believer. Raised in a Christian home, but faith became mine in adulthood. Too much rational thought can't answer or explain. Faith is a choice, and one that's served me well. - Jim Hughes

Have found that genuine change can sometimes occur more easily when there is a belief in some sort of higher power or divine energy or infinite-field-of-intelligence-and-compassion. It doesn't have to be a literal interpretation of ancient scripture -- perhaps it doesn't matter at all what you call it. (Star Wars fans: "The Force") - Dane Findley

I struggle with religion. My Mom was Catholic, my Father Jewish. After they got married they really didn't practice either. They got divorced when I was 4. Later in life my Mother returned to Catholicism. My Wife was raised Mormon. Over the last 2 years my Wife and I became active in the Christian church. I got involved for a few reasons. I had personal struggles that weren't being resolved by other means and I really wanted to give it a chance. My Wife also really wanted it for my kids. Unfortunately the more I learned, I realized that I disagreed with many views and have been slipping away. I feel there are some great things offered by involvement with the church but I can't seem to reconcile my differences. - Mark Krynsky

I'm not religious at all. I think being forced to go through CCD ruined Catholicism for me. If anything it pushed me away from the religion and made me rather jaded towards organized religion in general. - James Ferguson

I am. I grew up in the church, but I sort of found my own path after becoming an adult. I don't consider myself one of those dogmatic bible-swingers, though. I'm still Christian, but I found a different denomination (and local church body) where I feel more comfortable and got more of my questions answered. - ha3rvey (literally)

Always religious, made my mother take me to church when I was four, she allowed me to go by myself when I was five. Converted to Catholicism 1999 after a very private spiritual event during a tremendous amount of stress. Happier and more calm these past 10 years. - Janet-The Bottley Crue

Short answer: Yes. It's evolved over time by various factors, no singular event. No, you aren't at any loss, Derrick. (Long answer is probably not fit for this conversation, maybe some other time.) - Parth Awasthi

Mark, you have a very interesting and compelling back story. Thanks for sharing that. I'm confounded too. How one reconcile say, Jesus on one hand and G-d on the other...wow. Big questions. - Derrick

Nope. Mom took me to church when I was young but I was always sort of underwhelmed. Not actually sure when I became an atheist but it was a pretty young age. - Eric P

It has evolved. I consider myself religious now and came to it through a long intellectual questioning process ending with a very strong belief for God and Jesus. I have no problem reconciling the teachings with my love for science. Happy to talk more if anyone cares - Kevin Kuphal

If you mean do I believe in deities, then no, I see no evidence that there are any all-powerful beings involved in things. If there are, then they or it has constituted reality in such a way as to perfectly mimic a reality in which they did not. However, I am perfectly willing to accept the idea that there may be entities and portions of reality which may be much more powerful than us, such that they might appear to be deities to people who had fuzzy definitions of deity. I basically believe in reality: nature and the entities and relations within it on all possible levels; sort of a philosophical paganism. I just don't believe that anyone is running the show. If Thor, YHVH, Jesus, or Zenu exist in any sense, the things recorded of them certainly are not consistent with omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence, etc., and I find the reports of them rather suspect for various reasons. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons

Yes, religious and Jewish. :) - Rochelle

Nope, but I feel i'm at an advantage and not a loss. - SteVe C

I do, in a general sort of way. I've read a lot about many different faiths, and I can't really point to one event that inspired my beliefs. I feel like I'm constantly running into ideas, things and people that add complexity and depth. (I also think that most organized religions wouldn't consider me to be particularly religious...) - Jennifer Dittrich

Wow - lots of Catholics on here! I was raised a Catholic but I am firmly lapsed now. It did bring me to spirituality and a good grounding on service to others. The Church, though....that's a whole other story. - WoH: Minding her Botts

Well-said, Pea. Question: you say you see your culture/ancestry as being intertwined with Catholicism. Some people say the same things about being Greek Orthodox or Protestants in Germany (I am predominantly German and Pict/Scot, myself). The problem with this (historically) is that these are not the faiths of our ancestors, but our respective ancestor's conquerors. I find the fact that the entire national character of my ancestors was hijacked so that Rome could expand its territory a poor reason to accept a religion and a good reason to resent the hell out of it. I also don't agree with the history presented by the Church of all those poor savage heathens who were "rescued" from their "ignorance" by their conquerors, reeking as it does of every "white man's burden" and "manifest destiny" jingoism I am familiar with. If you define your enemies as savages and conquest as saving those savages, almost any atrocity is justified (and was). How do you react to this history, that your ancestors were similarly "saved" by their conquerors, and that their culture and religion replaced by that of their "saviors"? - Neal "thePuck" Jansons from IM

I am a Christian. I don't always look like it though. That said, I don't try to force Christianity into other people. - Valley

Again, a well-considered response. My parents were pagan, but my mom and I lived with my grandparents in southern Texas for a long time. It was not exactly comfortable. Much later, after I moved out here and when I was in college studying identity politics and so on, it occurred to me that certain notions applied to me personally. I wanted to see what your perspective was on that kind of an issue...religion as the tool of cultural subjugation. - Neal "thePuck" Jansons from IM

Pea, very well put. Valley, my church (and guessing most Christians) make it a pretty big point to recruit others to the religion which while I understand the premise, is not something I'm comfortable doing and therefore I'm not doing it right. And for the most part if I'm not doing something right, I don't want to do it at all. - Mark Krynsky

having been raised in organized religion and going to christian schools....i've developed a particular distaste for it all....exclusion of people in the name of a deity out while preaching a loving and inclusive GOD seems to smack of lies....so i admire those that can have a relationship with GOD while at the same time actually practicing the thing they espouse....so not religious in any organized way, no - Live4Emma (L4S)

Nope. I'm just nice naturally. - m9m, Crone of FriendFeed

I'm spiritual. My parents have gottena little more hardcore into the Hinduism, but I can't abide by any religion. I believe in certain things, like karma, and the power of positive energy, but the rituals, incantations, prayers, ceremonies...it's all a waste to me. - Mike Nayyar

Yep, always. - Steven Perez

Not really. I grew up Buddhist. I still go to church events though. Religion to me means community gathering. edit: I guess I am religious... but not very spiritual? I guess it depends on my mood at the moment. - Rodfather

Not religious. Spiritual? I guess. I went to a Unitarian church as a kid for a while. I had Christians and Jews (and Jews for Jesus) in my family. It was all about explaining the same stuff. If pressed I usually say I'm agnostic on my good days and an atheist of my bad days. Oddly, I most identify with Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange land ... which essentially said that we each carry a bit of God inside of us and together we comprise God and can achieve some higher state. Hence, be good to others etc. etc. - AJ Kohn

faith? yes, religious? no. : ) - vijay

Truth is One, Paths are Many. - Jason

Thanks 4 starting this meme Derrick. I am religious and spiritual both. I practice Catholicism and have respect 4 all other religions as well. but i have to admit that my faith is still in a weak stage and needs a lot of effort on my part to develop it. someone in the meme above mentioned that one needs to develop a relationship with god over time. i believe that. no one can simply follow the bible or any religious doctrine word by word. striving to find a balance between religious and personal life is the way to go, imho. having said that it is no easy task at all. - Freddie Benjamin

Hi Derrick! I missed this thread. I consider myself religious, but far from perfect. I've had different "sparks" throughout my life that led me to believe in God. I don't think you're at a loss. I see you giving love all the time on FF. That's your religion. It doesn't have to have an official label. - Trish Haley

I'm not religious at all, and I'm marginally spiritual, if even that. I was raised Catholic but walked away from the church a long time ago. I've dabbled in Buddhism, Daoism, and several Pagan belief systems, but in the end I realized I'm just a crusty ol' atheist. :) Though I would like to weave Buddhism back into my life a little. The peaceful, meditative aspects of it are very attractive to me. - Hookuh Tinypants

No, agnostic, but very much interested in the subject philosophically. It was never an issue while growing up, but my father´s side is really catholic and my mother´s is christian protestant. Although, I desperately prayed I wouldn´t stay virgin forever when things looked gloomy at a certain time in my teens. Oh, and for more pubic hair when 13. Never really did get it. (The religious part!!). My wife and her family are true christians though. - ɯɥøq sɐɯoɥʇ

I don't know - Johnny

Science as we know it could only have arisen in the Christian West, asserted Stanley Jaki - see http://bit.ly/6miTR (for more on Jaki, see http://bit.ly/98mTx) and the theory of the primeval atom (also known as the Big Bang) was formulated by the mathematical physicist (and Catholic priest) Georges Lemaitre, see http://bit.ly/cn64B. The 2008 Templeton Prize winner was Michal Heller, a cosmologist and Catholic priest currently working on "the singularity problem in general relativity and the use of noncommutative geometry in seeking the unification of general relativity and quantum mechanics." (see http://bit.ly/LEZ7a). Because I have some mathematical training I do appreciate to some extent the puzzlement that many express when they encounter people who have a robust religious faith but can write good scientific papers complete with footnotes. It's a bit humbling to realize that many of the finest scientific minds came from the Catholic Church, which played a key role in the development of Western civilization (http://bit.ly/AJA4y) - Victor Panlilio

So, long story short, I consider myself religious, because from my perspective there is no conflict between religious faith and the rigorous pursuit of scientific understanding. As Fr. Heller said upon receiving the Templeton Prize: "If we ask about the cause of the universe we should ask about the cause of mathematical laws. By doing so we are back in the great blueprint of God’s thinking about the universe; the question on ultimate causality: why is there something rather than nothing? When asking this question, we are not asking about a cause like all other causes. We are asking about the root of all possible causes. Science is but a collective effort of the human mind to read the mind of God from question marks out of which we and the world around us seem to be made." G.K. Chesterton wrote: "There is no end to the dissolution of ideas, the destruction of all tests of truth, that has become possible since men abandoned the attempt to keep a central and civilized Truth, to contain all truths and trace out and refute all errors. Since then, each group has taken one truth at a time and spent the time in turning it into a falsehood. We have had nothing but movements; or in other words, monomanias. But the Church is not a movement but a meeting-place; the trysting-place of all the truths in the world." Indeed. - Victor Panlilio

The closest I come to religion/spirituality is romantic love... in other words, it's an idea I find to be a comforting and useful emotional framework, but all the same, a framework which I know to be a cultural fiction propped up by an illogical (and often, misplaced) faith in others and the random hormonal surges I experience. Every time I feel like shooting spitballs at conventionally religious people for no good reason, I pause to remember that I'm truly convinced my wife and I will love one another forever, and just how ridiculous that is. - Roger Benningfield

I consider myself a Jedi although I still haven't managed to perfect mind control - Joe Dawson

Somewhat, it is something I think about often, but I am by no means a perfect adherent. It may change in the future. I'm not an atheist though. - Mo Kargas

Religious, nope. - Kol Tregaskes

Yes...an event. - John E. Bredehoft from fftogo

I was Catholic, went to a Catholic school up until college. I'm now Agnostic/borderline-Athiest. - Ⓐ ☠ slayerboy ☠ Ⓐ

Yeah. Hereditary Catholic. - James Myatt

Anti-religious atheist. - dkb

As An Iranian Musilm Guy. I am Anti religious Atheist - Amir

Amir: You mean muslim by culture, but atheist ? As I am christian by culture, but an agnostic (/atheist by some definitions)? - ɯɥøq sɐɯoɥʇ

Christian, I have been for years, since uni really (~10 years ago), God became real to me then. Mum had always taken us to church, but it was all a bit routine before then. - Glenn Slaven

Fortunatly not. - امیر؟

Amir: Ok, so muslim and anti-atheists. I see. Personally I think people should be able to believe whatever they like as long as they behave. But that´s another discussion. - ɯɥøq sɐɯoɥʇ