And to attempt to answer my own questions...
I do not follow any organized religion. But if you want to try to categorize my spirituality, I would fall under Pagan. If you know anything about classification within Paganism, I am considered an "Eclectic Solitary Animist". Which boils down to...
Eclectic - do not follow the rules of any one style of worship, but pick and chose those that feel right to oneself instead
Solitary - does not operate within a coven, but by oneself
Animist - someone who believes that the world is made up of spirits, and that every living creature (including plants and the earth itself) has a spirit.
I'm now going to copy and paste some things I explained in one of GF's threads once upon a time... much easier than retyping!
I've studied different religions from around the world for about half of my life now, trying to find what sounded right to me. And as it turns out, I've established that no one religion does. This is why I've taken bits and pieces from different ones until I found something that seemed right to me. Of course, I might learn something tomorrow that changes that a little. To me, it's all a learning process.
I have my own beliefs; they just don't involve an omnipotent, omnipresent being. To me, that concept just doesn't seem plausible (at least in the here and now... maybe that was once the case, but I'll explain more later). I believe that everything has a spirit.
I also believe that we are here for a purpose... to learn something. And when we have learned what we were sent here to learn, we will move on to a higher state of being. If we don't get it all right in this life, we will be reborn until we have fulfilled our purpose. Part of that belief is also that we came to earth broken... that there are others that have the same purpose as us, and that they are a part of us. That person (or persons) has been sent here to learn the same things as us. And once we find them, what we have learned is united, making it far easier for us to ascend as one than it would be to do so separately. When we ascend to that higher state, what we have learned is joined with those that ascended before us.
I'm sure that just sounds like a lot of hullabaloo and mystic bullshit to anyone who doesn't see things quite the way I do, but that's what I believe. And love, to me, happens when you find your soul mate... when that other part of your soul is found and you connect.
Now here's where I tie into the entire "God" concept mentioned at the beginning... to me, this all-powerful, all-knowing, all-seeing being does not exist. Now as to the why: I think that perhaps this being did at one point exist... maybe even created everything that we now know as our universe, but I don't think that s/he still does. Why? Because life is present. In my belief, the souls/spirits that I have mentioned are basically a shattered consciousness of what may have once been a God-like being.
Alrighty... if you've made it this far... well done!
I believe that sums up all but the last question I asked of y'all, so here's that answer too. I came to believe this way over several years of study. I was born and raised as a Southern Baptist, but I cannot truly recall ever believing what I was told in Sunday school or in sermon. Nor did I get much out of the Holy Bible itself (yes, I attempted to read it... several times. Never read the entire thing, but I've read fair patches of it, I would imagine).
When I was about twelve years old, I gave up trying to believe the way I was told I should. It didn't fit for me, nor did it make sense. And that’s when I started researching other religions. Along the way I picked up tidbits from here and there, and incorporated them… I took those things that echoed in my heart to be true, and kept them.
Religion/Beliefs
Re: Religion/Beliefs
