Why Choose Christianity (or One of the Other Possibilities) as Your Religion?

I was just wandering why so many people here decided upon christianity of some form or another. I realise that there are people of other religions that visit this forums, and same question to them i suppose. Did you go out, consider all the different sources to try and decide on a religion that seemed most likely to you? perhaps you looked for a religion that you felt tied in most closely to how you feel? or perhaps a religion that was easy to become part of with no real need to do much?Personally if i wasnt an athiest i reckon the Vikings had the best heaven. fighting all day and drinking all night, bliss {Prior to opening this topic to debate, I have modified the topic title from "Why christianity?" to "Why Choose Christianity (or One of the Other Possibilities) as Your Religion?" - Adminnemooseus}[This message has been edited by Adminnemooseus, 04-27-2004]

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....

Thread moved here from the Proposed New Topics forum.

I think you'll find that parental influence is the principle determinate of religious beliefs.

Ach! Yeah, i meant to mention Or was it merely the religion you were born into, but obviously forgot, cheers for bringing it up Still onwards!

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....

I would describe it this way: less directly but in a broader sense, geographic location of birth is the principal determinant of religious belief. For example, I never had to struggle with the existence of Krishna. I was fully grown and skeptically inclined before I ever saw one of his followers. Ditto most of the other faiths, except for the fringe Christian groups I was instructed to view as cults. For the majority of the people who have ever lived and will ever live, the same statement would be true of Jesus.I have come to see this as one of the biggest problems with people claiming that a particular God mandates we acknowledge him/her by any specific faith and/or works. The nature of the world absolutely guarantees that most of us would fail and, in doing so, be condemned to everlasting torment (depending whom you believe, but generally speaking). Thus, even the strictest fundie of any religion has to acknowledge that their deity is either arbitrarily cruel in condemning the vast majority of his creation, or judges the hearts of man according to their motives and not their success in locating the correct doctrine among the cacaphony of liars, swindlers, and lunatics that infest the marketplace of religious thought. To restate, s/he either has made and follows a rule set that damns nearly all of us, or s/he is a universalist and makes exceptions for the well-meaning.I was taught to belive the first, and to shun the second as a mushy sentimental delusion. Now I have trouble taking either seriously.

As a Christian who grew up in a Jewish neighborhood I would have to say that family upbringing was the initial push. During the earliest years almost all of the information coming in was from a purly Christian point of view. Later but while still young, since all of my friends were Jewish, I became pretty comfortable with their belief systems. Still later, while in a Christian School, I along with the other students were very heavily exposed, to a broad variety of religions.Interestingly, the faculty point of view was actually towards encouraging a basic faith base, a moral foundation, and one of the best guides I ever found to explore the culture and beliefs of other religions was actually the Priest that taught Sacred Studies. His point of view was that you needed a moral base if you were going to exist in the broader community. I cannot remember the idea of someone going to hell if they did not maintain a particular religious affiliation even coming up but rather that a lack of a belief foundation would certainly lead to failure.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I brought this topic up once before if I am not mistaken... I think it was called "Why is you Religion the "right" one?" I got nowhere with the topic...

The only real exception that I have noticed have been athiests. Mind you, I am speaking from my personal experiences, so it hardly qualifies as a anything more than anecdotal evidence. I myself was raised in a christian home, though I was an athiest by the time I was a teenager. Most of the athiests I know grew up in religious homes and choose atheism later for various reasons. I am curiuos about other peoples experiences relating to this topic.

zephyr writes:

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...geographic location of birth is the principal determinant of religious belief.

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Thomas Paine would have agreed with you, as he avers in this quote from his Letter to a Christian Regarding The Age of Reason: If you've never read this letter, click on the link. You'll enjoy it, I promise; there's lots of good, quotable stuff.I wonder if Paine would believe in a deity if he were around today.

I'll give you an idea of my experience: I grew up in a liberal congregation of the Episcopal Church at the tail end of the civil rights movement. My church supported integration. Several of the women, including my mother, participated in marches. The home of one of these women, a dear family friend, was fire-bombed by the KKK one night. Luckily she and her family escaped injury.Growing up in the South I couldn't escape the Baptists, and at an early age I picked up a bitterness towards them from my mother. Southern Baptists were, almost to a man, segregationist. (Please DO read sexism into my use of the word 'man' here; since it's Southern Baptists we're talking about the opinions of the women don't really matter). Southern Baptists used to like to say, in regards to "colored people", that they "love the individual but hate the race". I have a similar attitude toward them: I often love the individual but I hate the church.Anyway, when I was a believer my beliefs were influenced mostly by the teachings of these two churches, one positively and one negatively. When I took physical science in high school I started to become more skeptical of the bible, but I still believed in the basics of Christianity (as pretty well summed up in the Nicene Creed). My bible skepticism continued to grow in college.As a young, gay adult I became more interested in precisely what the bible said about homosexuality. The more I studied it the more I became repelled by it. Over the years I've become increasingly aware of the way the bible is used to justify false knowledge and to close the minds of young people at the earliest possible age.When the Episcopal Church I'd been attending for years started preaching biblical innerancy after the ordination of Bishop Robinson, I left. It was rather easy to do really, given that I didn't have much belief in the bible left by that time. Still, I liked the sense of community we had at church and I appreciated the support for arts and the humanities that the Episcopal Church provides. I might one day return to a more liberal congregation but I'll never again believe as much of the Christian message as I once did.

I was born into a good Catholic family, went to Mass every Sunday, did all the rituals like Communion and Confirmation and whatever. After my grandmother died when I was 12, I began to lose faith in Christianity - and at 17 finally admitted that religion no longer had anything resembling meaning for me. At 18 I found a new religion that finally made me feel whole again, and although I can't follow openly at least I have a little faith.Personally I chose it because it made sense in a way that Catholicism never did. Also, it compliments my scientific background instead of clashing with it.I'm sorry I can't give any specifics. I don't like talking about it in detail, but I did want to answer your question. I hope this is ok.The Rock Hound

It confuses me as to why you cant give specifics, but i suppose its upto u. I would appreciate knowing what it is, since if you found that it made some sense, maybe other athiests/agnostics on this board could find it useful. But like i said its your choice Unseul

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Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life....

Thanks for the sentiment, but I really prefer not to discuss my religion in detail. I do live in Ireland, and non-Christians are viewed as oddities at best here... So I'm just uncomfortable talking about it.Anyway, I think it's better that people don't have any preconcieved notions of what I believe in.The Rock Hound

I have atheist/agnostic friends who grew up in both nonreligious and religious homes.I was raised in a Catholic home and became officially Agnostic in my early twenties. I had never had a very deep faith in the first place.

Well you are right with the first thing you said, which everybody ignored. I did DECIDE on christianity. I've never listened to what people say in regard to my motivation. IOW - Only I can motivate myself. I never questioned Christ's teachings as they are peaceful, I also (because of my self-motivation) ignored what others said about Christ i.e. Priests, religious people, church goers unbelievers etc. When I was about 17 I started to believe stronger and at about 20 the belief and faith just increased, especially because I am able to ignore fallible man and his ramblings. And so as a mustard seed my faith grew, now nothing can shake it. NO one thing on earth is worthy to shake it.