How religious are you?

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-15-2005
How religious are you?
31
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 1:56pm

Okay - it's sunday and I've come from a very sweet day at church made even sweeter because of the message of the season of thankfulness and Christ's birth and it made me wonder - how religious are you?

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Avatar for nodinero
iVillage Member
Registered: 06-01-2005
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 3:41pm
Well....I started out with my birth family going to a few very odd churches, looking back on it now as an adult I think I attended those non denominational "show" churches. I went to a baptist church one summer because my friends were going and they came to pick us up in our neighborhood by bus and we got candy. (not really a great reason to go, but it beat staying at home with my abusive parents). Later, my birthmom remarried a man that claimed to be a satanic worshiper and he taught us all about the satanic church. I think I swore off all religion at that point, it just seemed too scary. At 14 I was living in a foster home with the people that would become my adopted parents, with my adopted mom being mormon, and my adopted dad being presbyterian. I had to choose a church, it was my mom's rule, so having already been sent to camp with the young women's group, I decided that I'd go to the mormon church. I was baptised, went for the four years I lived with my adopted parents, did everything that was expected of me, earned all my awards and completed all my goals. At 18 I moved out, got married and started my own family. Dh comes from a very strict catholic family who has yet to accept our marriage. We didn't have the boys blessed in the mormon church or the catholic church so my in laws think our boys are doomed to hell...sad isn't it? So I'm giving you that background so you will maybe kinda understand why my dh and I choose NOT to go to any organized religion service. We tell our boys our beliefs and answer any questions they have. They have been to the mormon church a lot with my mom, we briefly went to the methodist church when my youngest begged to go to sunday school and now we mostly only attend church on Christmas eve. Out of all the religion I've been exposed to, I would say that overall, everyone has the same idea (satanic church excluded), that we have a creator, that we should strive to do good on earth and that we should strive to love one another. Our kids wouldn't be required to attend any church, but if they asked to go, we would certainly take them.

 

 

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 3:50pm

Well, I may have mentioned it here before, but I am atheist as is my DD

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Avatar for 2boyz4us
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 8:38pm
We are United Methodist. We attend church weekly. Our children go with us but I do not require them to go to Sunday School. We go on occasion-right now I am in a 6 week Parenting of Teens class.
We have Children's ministry on Wednesday nighs (K-5th) and Youth group on Sunday night (6th grade-12th grade). My children go often but I do not make them go every week.
We attend the special services as a Family Also (Christmas Eve, Good Friday, Thanksgiving, etc).
We also Vacation Bible School that they children attended when they were younger and Austin may still do this next summer.
We have many committees and groups to be involved in. I am a member of the UMW (Meth. Women) and the Children-Family Committee, plus I help with Youth Group monthly. DH is on the Finance committee and I am also involved in a weekly bible study.
Both Dh and I are members of the Capital Campaign committee also as we are in the process of raising money to build a new church on some land we have purchased.
 
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 10:14pm

Ugh, hot topic at our house right now!


I was raised Methodist.


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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-18-2003
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 10:36pm
Dh and I were both raised Baptist and went to the Baptist church until after Ben died . We were really unhappy on how the minister handled the death with us (basically ignored it and wouldn't talk to us about it) so we went looking for a new church. We have been at a Free Methodist church since then. We are very active in our church; we are there almost every Sunday, Alex attends teen group, and the kids and I babysit for a mom's group on Friday morning.

Linda
mom to
Alex (16), Rachel (14), Matthew (12)


Community Leader
Registered: 12-16-2003
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 10:49pm
The kids and I are Lutheran. Dh is a Catholic. We attend most Sundays (we were traveling today, so we didn't attend.) Dh attends with the kids and I at our church occasionally. We were married in a Lutheran church and the kids are baptised Lutheran. The kids and I also attend religious ed. on Sundays and dd has Confirmation classes on Wednesdays. My dad was the head elder of our church. My parents are divorced and my mom occasionally attends a Lutheran church near her, but not regularly. Dh's family were raised Chatolic, but he is the only one who really believes.

Ramona  Mom to 2 great kids and wife to one wonderful hubby since 1990!

iVillage Member
Registered: 06-22-2004
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 10:49pm

My dh was raised Jewish. I was raised primarily Lutheran, but confirmed Methodist because that church was closer to our house. That kind of gives the idea of how serious my folks were. Both my dh and I are agnostic, leaning toward atheist. We try to teach our girls to respect other peoples' religions. We bow our heads if someone gives a meal time blessing, for example. I would never try to dissuade someone of their religion and am mortified if someone tries to convert me. Fortunately, this doesn't seem to be as popular a pass-time as it was in the 1970's.

I sometimes wish I believed because in times of great stress, it seems that it would be comforting. But my mind won't wrap around it. I believe that you should try to be a good person and do what seems right because of principle, as opposed to fear of judgement day.

Diane

iVillage Member
Registered: 05-15-2005
Sun, 11-26-2006 - 11:18pm

See - this is what I love - so many differences!!

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iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Mon, 11-27-2006 - 12:16am

First and foremost, our family is Christian, strongly so.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2006
Mon, 11-27-2006 - 12:49am

We are Presbyterian and our particular church is pretty liberal in it's theology and beliefs. Dh was raised Catholic but didn't agree with many of the "rules". We are very involved in our church and I would say my beliefs guide my daily choices and I'm not out to convert anyone. I don't make choices because I'm afraid of hell, I make them because they're what I believe God wants me to do or they are morally the "right" thing to do. I also believe in respecting other people's beliefs and learning about what others believe. My two best friends are Jewish and my family is included in most of their holidays.

This isn't the only reason I believe in God but I can't help believe that there is a higher power controlling things when I realize that I have a medical condition that's supposed to leave me unable to have children yet I was able to conceive and bear two children (1 boy and 1 girl) with the help of an egg donor in two attempts - eggs harvested once from donor and embryos were implanted in me twice. Yes there is some scientific explanation but the odds were so against me that I can't believe it just happened. Oh and did I mention that only 2 - 5% of the fetuses with my medical condition survive?

We attend church every weekend we're in town and once in a while Evan misses church due to a swim meet but only once or twice/year. The kids go to the first 20 minutes of the service and then go to Sunday School for about an hour. Our church has a second service that's a little less formal and we attend that as a family some weekends instead. We also go to a family night type thing on Thursday evenings - dinner followed by programming for kids (choir and then movies, games, crafts, whatever) and adult ed for the grown ups.

As far as kids asking me religious questions - here's my classic - At age 3, at 7:00 one morning while I'm trying to get him and his infant sister to daycare and myself to work, Evan asks me "What does God eat?". I did what any parent does when they don't know an answer, they turn the question back to the kid. He proceeded to list his favorite foods. My OB told me I should have told him broccoli - oh well, one of many parenting mistakes!!!

Great thread!!!!!!!!

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