How to answer "What religion are you?"

[Keef]

I have left my religion many years ago. I'm not atheist nor agnostic.

I simply realize that i'm dreaming reality. It can't be an ideology, because it's just it.

 

Almost every time when i meet someone, at some point they ask, "what religion do you follow?" or, are you this, or that? And when I meet someone from the same country as me, they expect me to be in the same religion as them, because 96.6% of my country follow 1 religion, and 3% follows a different religion.

My family and my childhood friends are religious, and we are very close. They still think that I'm also religious, even though I don't engage with them with they bring up religious stuff in a conversation. I cannot imagine telling these people that i'm not, and if i do, they will not see me the same anymore. Because religion and god is everything to them, and they will go batshit crazy if i tell them i left the religion, let alone telling them i'm the fucking God.

It kinda saddens me knowing that they will never find out who i truly am as a human.So those people are off limits.

 

But what about when I meet a new person. How should i go about answering: what religion are you?

For some reason, people always ask me this question. It's a very hard question for me to answer. Because people can expect any answer but the true one.

I'm tired of always stuttering and thinking hard whenever someone asks me this question.

I need help solving this question once and for all.

 

 

 

 

[Princess Arabia]

Just say you have a personal relationship with God. Usually people with any sense of "respecting one's privacy" will leave it at that.

BTW, I think this topic should have been posted in the Spirituality section. The mods will take care of it if that's the case.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Princess Arabia

[Leo Gura]

You could tell them that you're spiritual but not religious.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Leo Gura

[PurpleTree]

tell them you’re god

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, PurpleTree said:

tell them you’re god

Let's see you go out and tell everybody you're God. See how that'll work out. Whenever I tell the few people I do decide to tell that to, all they do is agree and act like they didn't even hear what I said or they agree as if I just said I like ice-cream. 

[Keef]

@Leo Gura I'm not a spiritual person at all

[Keef]

@Princess ArabiaGood idea, I will use it depends on the person

from my experience, this will not cut it with people of my type 

[Carl-Richard]

New Age religion.

[Keef]

@Carl-Richard

You gave me the best idea. Thank you!

I will say i follow the Keefism (My name)

Edited December 10, 2023 by Keef

[Carl-Richard]

7 minutes ago, Keef said:

I got it!!

I will say i follow the Keefism (My name)

Or just say what you actually follow, which is New Age religion. I've written a short research paper on this very topic, so I can talk more about it if you'd like.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[Princess Arabia]

17 minutes ago, Keef said:

@Carl-Richard

You gave me the best idea. Thank you!

I will say i follow the Keefism (My name)

See how people can bring out what's already in you. You're God agreeing to your reminder, Carl is only you reminding you of the answer you sent for yourself. Hehe

[Princess Arabia]

22 minutes ago, Keef said:

@Carl-Richard

You gave me the best idea. Thank you!

I will say i follow the Keefism (My name)

That's just going to start another conversation. "What's That, they'll ask.". Then you'll say it's my name and you'll be there for 2hrs trying to find ways to make up for the first lie you told. You'll regret ever been born Keef.

Edited December 10, 2023 by Princess Arabia

[Keef]

@Princess Arabia God works in mysterious ways

[Keef]

@Princess Arabia fuck my life 😂

[Princess Arabia]

Just now, Keef said:

@Princess Arabia God works in mysterious ways

Now, that sounds mysterious.

[Keef]

@Carl-Richard yes please i want to read your research paper 

[Carl-Richard]

On 10.12.2023 at 2:30 AM, Keef said:

@Carl-Richard yes please i want to read your research paper 

Hehe, it's in Norwegian, so you would have to use Google Translate on the entire thing (I don't know if that is practically possible). But I can give you the abstract which I've pasted into Google Translate and slightly tweaked for grammar:

Quote

As an attempt to explain the religious development in Norway in the last 40 years, the secularization literature introduces terms such as "religious complexity" (Furseth et al., 2019), which describes a split between newer individualistic forms of religiosity and more traditional and collective forms. Since the understanding of the concept of religion may have changed over time, it could be useful to examine this change in order to inform future surveys of religiosity. 82 free text responses from a survey given to 650 students from professional studies in psychology at various universities in Norway were analysed by means of thematic analysis, with the intention of finding a definition of religion that best represents their understanding of religion. 64 codes were grouped into 9 categories: "Organized community", "Vague concept", "Dichotomous concept", "Agnostics and atheists", "Religious upbringing and church membership", "Spirituality and Åndelighet [no English equivalent]", ""Something more"", "Faith", and "Christian; Christian and believer". The use of alternative terms by the students (e.g. "spirituality") was interpreted in relationship to the students' claims about religion, and these terms were either included or excluded from the definition of religion based on this relationship: “an organized community with traditional and clearly defined frameworks, institutional and social aspects, an active and involved practice in the present tense, the term "Christian", the term "believer", and to believe in "God" or a holy figure".

 

I don't mention "New Age religion" explicitly in the abstract, but it's essentially equivalent to "newer individualistic forms of religiosity", as well as "spirituality". As you can see from the concluding remarks, the students in the study don't actually perceive "spirituality" as having anything to do with religion, as it's not included in the definition that was arrived at (which you can also see on this forum and more generally), but the scholars do. What the students perceive as religion is largely what the scholars refer to as the traditional and collective forms of religion.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Carl-Richard

[UnbornTao]

Well, be honest, or refuse the question.

"None."

"My religion is science."

Or whatever.

Edited December 10, 2023 by UnbornTao

[An young being]

@Keef What about humanity? If that's what you follow, of course.

[ajai]

You must know, what is being Religious first?

No need to answer anything, infact, be honest and say- I do not know what is Religion, Sorry!

Understand that millions of languages are spoken across this globe. English just happens to be widely spoken, without understanding the literary roots we do fall into traps of knowing the meaning, feelings behind the words which is not actually so.

English words are certainly not that great as we think.