What are your religious views?

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Secular. Religion in my opinion is related to ethnicity, identity, tradition and culture. No need to dress drastically or act like we're thousands of years ago. I believe in god but I don't pray and I'm going to stay non religious my whole life. I am not an atheist though, which is the other extreme... I respect everyone's religious views.

Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. Unlike Krainchgauer, I'm not a lifelong Lutheran. I was raised a Winebrennerian, aka The Churches of God--General Conference, based in Findlay, OH (also formerly The Church of God in North America, when it was based in Harrisburg, PA). While I'm more than convinced that homosexuality, same sex marriage, and transgender dysphoria are conscious choices and are abhorrent to the church catholic (read Christian), the church should still minister to these people who are willing and trying to change and give up this lifestyle. Remember, hate the sin, love the sinner. It's part of the reason I've left the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is now neither Evangelical, nor Lutheran (except in name only). Besides, I'm a hard headed, stubborn, Pennsylvania Dutchman. Don't even try to change my mind on my beliefs, because it ain't gonna happen. As for evolution, while I lived in Illinois, the senior pastor at the LC-MS congregation where I was a member did convince me that evolution was compatible with Genesis, since the length of a day is not defined anywhere in the creation story. It's the fundamentalists that insist everything was created in 7 24 hour days.

Also, while I firmly believe the canonical book of the Bible are the inerrant Word of God, it is Man who screwed up the message, and still screws up the message to this day. Why do you think, after 2 millennia, biblical scholars still argue about the meanings of the Aramaic texts of the Old Testament and the Greek texts of the New Testament? I've tried explaining that to a friend of mine, who insists the 1611 King James Bible is the be-all and end-all of the Christian faith, and I get no where fast with him (although if I show him the first edition of the New International Bible or the New English Bible, he might change his mind.)

Baptised Russian Orthodox, but I find that I have more in common with Forn Sidr. --This has appealed to me since I was a kid growing up in North Dakota, where the vast majority of people are either Scandinavian or Russian Schwabischdeutsch in origin, and the Janteloven alive and quite well.

Thread #43869607 on this but sure why not. Agnostic I guess, no point pondering or believing something that you can never prove one way or another. My family is are pretty much all Wisconsin Evangelical Lutherans which is about as extreme as Lutherans get, make the Missouri Synod look like a bunch of new agers but I find Lutherans to be more of the silent judging and ostracizing than fire and brimstone. They don't really believe in free will in my opinion, your good works are reflection of your faith in God and a lack of good works shows the absence of it, false faith being even worse than non-believing. Fatalistic at the very least. My parents were raised in it, didn't raise us that way but I have some familiarity with them as I did get taught a few things when I was really young and I'm just a naturally curious person and have learned a lot on my own. I'm not into organized religion, spiritual? I dunno.

Not to get off topic, but my dad's people were Russian - Black Sea - Germans, who had settled in South Dakota back in the 1860's. They had distinguished themselves from the Schaben, or Swabians, who had been the neighboring dialect group just to the south of them back in Germany, and who also had been among the German immigrants to Russia. Speaking a high Franconian dialect, my dad had told me how his people used to tell Swabian jokes like Americans used to tell Polish jokes.

Gnostic. Aomnitheist (universal spirit is not omnipotent). Ghost-lover. Thinking totally for myself.
Pleased to have social contact with all liberal forms of religion, but never at the price of signing up to a religion's doctrine. More fulfilled by it the more other-worldly and ghosty it is.

Atheist/agnostic. I respect religious views, though. Theology is fascinating.

Chummy - just curious - HOW can you respect EVERYBODY's religious views?

Meistersinger - I'm 1/4 Pennsylvania Dutch - western maryland overshoot - on my mother's father's side. You are right about the problem of "inerrancy in the nonexistent autographs." I go for the KJV, but not because of any big deal anointing.

I am a gnostic and imaginist interested in energy and tuning into cosmic vibes. I like imagining what other worlds might be like. Whether they exist or not remains a mystery but it's fun thinking about them but I admit the truth about them might horrify human sensibilities.

Reminds me of my pretty much neurotypical sister. She was into something new agish. Mom looks at one of her books - pretty way out. "Do you actually believe this?"

Sis says, "I don't know whether I believe it, but it's cool."

IMO, that sounds like you're more agnostic than straightforward atheist. I have no problem hanging around atheists and agnostic people, as long as I keep my mouth shut voluntarily.

I was raised as an Episcopalian, but am a semi-militant atheist. I believe Jesus lived, but since I don't believe in god I also don't believe Jesus was the son of god. I believe he was crucified, but not that he rose from the dead. HOWEVER, I believe the teachings of Jesus are intuitively obvious. He said we should love others as much as we love ourselves. I try to live up to that standard, and have spent my entire adult life helping others.

I was raised Catholic, certain things didn't work and I found with enough searching that the Hermetic current suited me better.

Native American Spiritualist, meaning:
I have a one-on-one "vertical" relationship with my Maker, thus any form of public worship is totally off-limits to me.
In addition there is no need for churches or ministries in my life, as my direct line is always open.
In order for me to avoid "sharing" any theology, I must practise a totally secular lifestyle outside my own mind.
I will never knowingly give a dime of my money to any "religious" organisation.
I request others treat me as an agnostic who has permanently abandoned traditional religion, but still supports intelligent design ideas over "big-bang" theories and also expects there to be purposely undeterminable "afterlife".
If someone offers to "pray for me", I tell them "don't bother", as it's something I can and should do for myself and the outcome will always be the same whether a thousand pray for me or I take it all on solo.

I will go out of my way not to project any type of religious acknowledgement, for example if someone around me sneezes, I'll say "gesundheit" and never "bless you", and I'll always use phrases like "seasons' greetings" or "happy hollidays", even if I know a person is devoutly Christian and has wished me a "Merry Christmas".
We'll cook "Thanksgiving" and "Xmas Day" meals at our house and have about a minute of silence pryor to eating to use quietly as we each see fit. We exchange unwrapped presents on Xmas Day in honour of the passing of winter solstice.
We do play "holliday music" around the house in late November through late December, but stick to songs like "Winter Wonderland" or "My Favourite Things".

I guess in a way it would be called religiously "independent".

I do not like religious extremists, but I am on the same side as the pious on a variety of issues. I fret over the loss of moral conviction as Christianity gets more and more marginalized. Christians can be a bulwark against many things that I find bad, as well as some things that I find good.

Although, I believe it's generally a good thing to teach people about epistemology, I do not think the way that people like Dawkins sell these ideas is always positive. Some of his political ideas can have a tendency to alienate eastern religious sects from the overall message by ignoring the effects of western imperialism on eastern religious development.

Having said that, acknowledging western imperialism's role in shaping eastern barbarisms does not mean that I believe westerners should allow themselves to be guilt tripped into being dictated to by savages as they emigrate here. In this regard, the western pious do not seem to be acting as much like a bulwark as I would prefer. Easy feel good moralism certainly exhibits glaring downsides from time to time.

atheist jew