How to answer "What religion are you?"

[Yimpa]

15 hours ago, Keef said:

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

I get where you’re coming from… being misunderstood and not fully able to be yourself sucks. Being in touch with God/Love/Truth, you no longer need others to know who you are. Your Truth and Their Truth would be ONE. 

[Yimpa]

15 hours ago, Keef said:

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

Okay… then tell them that you’ll be anything that they want you to be 😏 

To your FWB of course…  NOT family members!

[Danioover9000]

@Keef

17 hours ago, Keef said:

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.

 

 

 

 

   I'd be honest and say what my religion was. For me, it's Christianity because that's my upbringing and bias as a self.

[gettoefl]

my religion is

daily love of neighbor

making a cup of tea

for whoever wants a chat

as to other religions

i am open minded

and very favorable towards them all

so tell me what is your religion

if you don't mind me asking

THAT is  how i respond

[Danioover9000]

@gettoefl

3 minutes ago, gettoefl said:

my religion is

daily love of neighbor

making a cup of tea

for whoever wants a chat

as to other religions

i am open minded

and very favorable towards them all

so tell me what is your religion

if you don't mind me asking

THAT is  how i respond

   If you don't mind me asking:

   Daily love of neighbor? Christianity, and some aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism got that. Unless it's paganism, in which case it's loving the neighbor's wife.

   Making a cup of tea? Yes, Japan's culture actually does tea ceremonies.

   Depends on who wants to chat, and if their intention is good or bad.

   So your religion is the new age?  The hippie and anti culture movement?

   As to other religions? Pantheistic or is it perennialism? 

[gettoefl]

20 minutes ago, Danioover9000 said:

@gettoefl

   If you don't mind me asking:

   Daily love of neighbor? Christianity, and some aspects of Hinduism and Buddhism got that. Unless it's paganism, in which case it's loving the neighbor's wife.

   Making a cup of tea? Yes, Japan's culture actually does tea ceremonies.

   Depends on who wants to chat, and if their intention is good or bad.

   So your religion is the new age?  The hippie and anti culture movement?

   As to other religions? Pantheistic or is it perennialism? 

i go to the center of town with a large thermos of water, four pints of milk and a a large bag of tea-bags and leave when supply depletes

you are the only god i see

and i love you for being t/here

 

[MuadDib]

New age Jew.

 

[eos_nyxia]

I used to answer this question one of three ways, but I haven't been asked this in a while anyway.

 

If I'm feeling neutral and open to having a conversation, or I'm talking to a certain kind of open-minded person from a 1st world country, I'd say:  "I'm spiritual but not religious".

If I'm not feeling like conversation or opening a can of worms and potentially dealing with conflict or other draining and time consuming things, I'll say: "..... I'm nothing." (And if asked: you mean like, you're atheist or agnostic?"  ME: "no... literally. I'm just nothing." (I believe that all beliefs and perspectives are generative rather than intrinsic, and are as flexible and rigid as you can make them to be.)

If I'm feeling like defining myself by descriptive -isms, I'll probably say that I'm a secular occultist (describes the practical and ritualistic aspect) and pantheist (describes my worldview, perspective, and attitude).

[gettoefl]

when someone poses a question

they have minimal interest in your answer and you

they want to discuss THEIR outlook and experience

you should notice this

therefore don't divulge anything heavy

say something light and engaging

then permit them to get their stuff off their chest

this is the best religion there is

to gift someone a safe platform and a kind mirror

in order to know themselves

[Keef]

On 12/9/2023 at 8:59 PM, Carl-Richard said:

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 alternative terms brought up by the students (e.g. "spirituality") were interpreted in relationship to their 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".

Thanks for sharing it.

 

On 12/9/2023 at 8:59 PM, Carl-Richard said:

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

I like how overtime, the worldviews completely changed to the opposite.

 

 

 

 

[DocWatts]

I tend to answer in a few different ways depending on their level of interest.

For small talk, I'll just say that I pursue spiritually in a secular way, and leave it at that.

If I sense that they might actually interested in discussing spirituality, I might say something along of: 'My practice involves integrating spiritually with insights from science and philosophy'. Or: 'I'm not religious in a traditional sense, but I'm highly interested in how the mind constructs its Reality.'

Then they'll either find this interesting and we'll end up having a conversation, or they'll politely change the subject. 😆

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by DocWatts

[Yimpa]

Quote

"What religion are you?"

“Let me ask God.”