At what point does one stop being a Catholic/Buddhist/Muslim/Jew?

[Djinn]

Having always been an atheist I've never really understood how people can be part of an organisation that they disgaree with on so many issues.

I know plenty of Catholics who despise and totally disagree with the Church's teachings on contraception, the ordination of women and homosexuality but they still call themselves Catholic

I know many Muslims who disagree with generally accepted Islamic doctrine but still see themselves as Muslims.

I know Sikhs who do not follow the tenets of that religion but still consider themselves Sikhs

It seems particularly puzzling with the Catholic Church as instead of it being a matter of interpretation of the Bible/Koran etc it has a supposed "head" of that Church who is supposed to be speaking the word of God.

If you don't beleive that the Pope DOES speak the word of God can you still be Catholic?

If you beleive that Jesus was not ressurected can you still be a Christian?

if you don't beleive that the Dalai/Panchen Lama are ancient people reincarnated many times can you be a buddhist?

Just curious as to what other people think

[Tux]

1. Forget organizations

Just look at the beliefs. That is what many people go for. However, people will always disagree on anything and everything. I call myself a Buddhist when I am only interested in the basics so I can recover from a neurological issue. I am a Deist but most people never heard of that here in Jesusland.

Some people can't accept some claims from religions but they are part of it because they agree with enough of it. Just like political parties.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

2. sometimes religion and culture intersect

in such a way that you may not believe the same principals of the religion but are culturally still connected to them

[cheezus]

18. It's root, root, root for the home team

if they don't win it's a shame!

Most people think you don't chose religion any more than you chose your own name. It's just part of your culture.

[Lone Pawn]

3. If you...

have no Chinese ancestors, and were not born in China, can you consider yourself Chinese?
If you don't understand French, can you consider yourself a Francophone?
If you don't have access to a television, can you consider yourself a TV critic?
If you can't read, can you consider yourself a bookworm?
Can one be a actor who does not act?
Can one consistantly vote party-line Republican and still consider oneself a Democrat?

Yes, you can. But when you do that, you strip those words of all their basic meaning, and your declaration of "I am Chinese/a Francophone/TV critic/bookworm/actor/liberal" are useless to anyone but yourself.

If you don't believe the fundamental tenets of your "faith," you are quite simply not a member of that faith. It'll make things easier for everyone if you admit it.

[spindoctor]

6. I don't agree with quite a few Democrats. Does that make me a Republican?

If I disagree with our President, does that make me un-American?

Can I not be a Catholic and disagree with the Pope?

On the same note, one does not have to be a Francophone to live in France, or in China for that matter.

Yes, actors must act but this does not mean that they confine themselves to drama OR comedy.


It's not the black and white picture that you try to paint.

[Djinn]

20. I'm not trying to paint anything

as a lifelong atheist I fully admit I'm clueless here which was why I asked the question, perhaps it'd be better not to instantly assume people have the worst motives.

Of course you can disagree with some Dem's and even Dem platform and still be a Dem but it's hardly the same thing.

Politics involves discussion, debate, compromise. The word of the Pope is supposed to be the word of God, it's a basic tenet of Catholicism. It is NOT a basic tenet of the Democratic Party that certain office holders speak the pure truth.

[cally]

25. You left out Chrisitans/ non-Catholic in your initial post

I admit that I haven't read the entire thread yet. But I'm close to declraring myself not a Christian. It's not the fundies, but the lack of Protestants disagreeing with the Pope. I acknowledge that Catholics see the Pope differently than I do, but if Protestant leaders choose to not distance themselves and explain our differences with the Pope, I think we agree on most religious parts, than I can't be a Christian.

For me, when I say I'm not Christian then I'm just not. I'll still follow Jesus but it means I've left the organized faith behind.

[spindoctor]

28. Must be my rebel nature

Because I've disagreed with Rome on just about everything for quite some time now. Still I consider myself a Catholic.

It is a misunderstanding (widespread it seems) that the Pope's word is the same as that of God. There has also always been room for debate in the Catholic church (remember the subplot of Umerto Eco's "Name of the Rose"?).

I take comfort in knowing that eventually the church will get to where I am. It just takes them an extra century or two.

[aneerkoinos]

4. One answer

"if you don't beleive that the Dalai/Panchen Lama are ancient people reincarnated many times can you be a buddhist?"

Yes, no problem. Buddhism is about having an open, critical mind, and trusting the teachings enough to try them out in practice, empirically.

[poverlay]

5. I was raised Catholic even

graduated from a Catholic H.S.. My wife's father is a Presbyterian minister. I've had a lot of religious experience from Buddhism to Mormonism(yuck), and I think your questions are the core of the problem. Beliefs are never exactly the same, even amongst indoctrinated clergy. I'm starting to think the Pagans had it right.
I've struggled and sweated it for years now. The only consistency I can find in organized religion is that the more seriously one takes itself, the more people get hurt. I don't think our civilization is going to get very far until the fact that everyone sees it a little differently, and that's OK, is codified and traditionalized.

But what do I know?

[Spider Jerusalem]

7. Cultural self-identification.

Kind of hard NOT to see yourself as Catholic coming from a Catholic family and a childhood of Catholic school, catechism lessons, First Communion and so on, I'd say. Same goes for Muslims, Sikhs, et cetera. These are as much cultural groupings as belief systems; shared experience and background is as large a part of it as shared belief. If you moved to another country, would you suddenly CEASE to be American, or British, or Canadian, or whatever?

[Nobody]

12. I was raised Catholic and did the catholic education thing

It's a lot of indoctrination to break out of. But yes, there is a point at which you can turn your back on it and say no, you're not what you once were.

If you were once American, moved to Canada, and became a Canadian citizen, you're no longer American (but you still are North American after the continent).

[Spider Jerusalem]

13. I don't think so, necessarily.

For good or ill, those experiences tend to make us who we are, whether one turns one's back on the faith one was raised in or the country of one's birth or not. You can turn your back on the Church, sure...but you're still to some extent culturally "Catholic" thanks to your upbringing. And you can move to Canada, but you'll still be culturally "American" for the same reason, by virtue of a lifetime spent in a different country, with dozens of points of cultural divergence ranging from knowledge of popular culture to favoured foods to the way you use language.

[aneerkoinos]

14. Only so far

If you decide US has gone fascist enough for you and emigrate to Cuba permanently, learn the language and culture, make your life there and apply for citicenship, no you don't cease to be a person with gringo cultural background, and in that sense, American. But also you become ex-American AND Cuban. These are not mutually exclusive terms, self-identities are seldom either-or.

The question was about the treshold and seriousness you give to the belief-systems and it's practical implications, and it's a good question. It's a question of conscience.

I left the Evangelical-Lutheran Church when I was sixteen, because I took religion seriously, as a matter of conscience, and not just a shared cultural tradition and habits without religious content. My mother left Evangelical-Lutheran Church later togother with many other women, when the rejected priesthood for women, and didn't go back when the Church changed position and accepted women priests. Best thing was when a friend of mine, who had been a Christian out of habit, for some reason went to listen a sermon, and found out he didn't agree at all with what the priest said. So he talked to the priest and told his disagreements and his intention to leave the churc. The priest could not have been happier and said that he hoped that all people would take matters of religion and conscience as seriously!

[REP]

8. On Being a Jew

I can speak to this a little; I am a mamzer acording to Jewish law; too Jewish for many Christians and was raised in a house that always had a Christmas tree and a Menorah, though my parents were not observant of either religion. I was given the facts about both traditions but not training, so I never practiced either.

Being a Jew is in many ways cultural as it is religious. "Jewishness" is passed on through the mother at birth, so even if a person does nothing else but have a Jewish mother, s/he is a Jew. So even though that person may never learn a thing about Judaism and even convert to another religion, many Jews might consider that person still a Jew. Some Christians seem to regard anyone with either a Jewish mother or father to be a Jew.

Even today, even in the relatively liberal part of the US where I live, there seems to be something about Jews that inspires something unpleasant in some. My first name is a quite common Hebrew name that is not just used by Jews (think "Friends") and a few weeks ago, upon learning my name, a stranger guessed that I carried 'tainted' (his word, not mine) blood and went on at length about the evil inherent in me because of that Jewish blood. This man claimed to be a Christian minister; however, when he tried to 'lay hands' on me to save my soul, I suspected he was trying to cop a feel so I called the police. Anyway, while this encounter was a bit extreme, it was not the first time it had happened to me.

[Skinner]

17. Yikes.

Yes, that is a bit extreme. It's absolutely unbelieveable that in 2005, there are still bigots like that around. "Tainted" blood? Jeez.

[Freedom_from_Chains]

9. I have often asked myself the same question

Why would people continue to go to a place where they have to constantly be justifying themselves.

[expatriate]

10. For me it came when I could no longer rationalize

to the point where I could still believe things that I knew logically were impossible. I could no longer believe or convince myself to accept much of Episcopalian dogma.

It helped that I had been closely affiliated with the workings of several churches as a professional church musician, and had seen firsthand the hypocrisy, infighting and cruelty that the "Christians" inflicted upon each other and members of "the flock", to say nothing of a vicious and unforgiving hierachical structure that existed in the congregation, where those most in need of the support of their fellow Christians were ostracized and denied that support.

It was when I realized that they didn't practice what they preached that I gave up on Episcopalianism. It didn't take long for me to see similar behavior in many other churches/religious organizations, including synagogues and covens. The name of the faith being practiced had little to do with the fact that people still played power games, still ostracized those who were perceived to be "different" or who didn't adhere to the party line - in many cases, this practice was in complete opposition to the tenets of the various faiths, but there was always a smug complacency and satisfaction discernable in the very religious people who ostacized and played the power games.

I do think that people will hold onto the labels, and those parts of a faith that they relate to culturally. Many people feel comfort or emotionally satisfied while praying, or when attending religious services. Even though they don't agree with all aspects of a particular dogma, they have positive reinforcement through emotional experience and memory that keeps them identifying with a particular faith.

It was when I could no longer feel anything positive about church, faith, religion or anything associated with them that I was able to simply say, "I'm an atheist". I have never felt the least urging to attend church again, or to pray. In no way do I miss religion and all that goes with it.

I have never felt such relief in my life as the day I stopped believing.

[no_hypocrisy]

11. I stopped being a Jew during Yom Kipper services (holiest day of the

Jewish calendar). Being true to the faith and not lying about it was a problem. I knew a lot of people in the synagogue could do it, but I couldn't. Plus I felt that the prayers were going nowhere, i.e., no one was there to listen and react to (or ignore) my entreaties. I didn't want to organize my life around religious rules (even in the liberal, reform denomination with its exceptions). Further, I didn't believe that Jews had a divine right to claim Israel and its elastic borders that kept taking land from other inhabitants (I likened it to Europeans taking land from Native Americans).

And as it was Yom Kipper, I did not want to atone/ask for forgiveness. Nobody was listening to my apology (see above). I wasn't guilty as I had already apologized and made emotional reparations or otherwise during the past year, so my accounts were settled. I just couldn't carry forth the program any longer according to their rules and to be fair, I couldn't ask them to change to my way of looking at things. It was time to leave.

I am now a humanist, atheist, freethinker. I rely on myself. I don't look to a supernatural power for help or support. When I die, I'll probably return from wherever I was before I was born. I know that ethnically, I'm still a Jew because for centuries, our family like many other eastern European Jewish families were not able to put down roots in a country for any length of time, e.g., to be "French" or "German". I still appreciate the ethical lessons I learned in Sunday school that come from the Talmud and the Pentateuch. I left and I'm not regretful. It just happened. I later found out my mother was a closet atheist, as was her mother, and her grandmother. So, in a strange way, I am taking up the tradition of non-religion in my family.

[Skinner]

15. For me, it all boils down to self-identification.

If you think you're a Muslim, then you're a Muslim. If you think you're a Buddhist, then you're a Buddhist. If you think you're a Christian, then you're a Christian.

I considered myself a Christian long after I had stopped believing many things taught by Christianity. I considered myself a Christian even though I didn't believe in Christ's resurrection. Eventually, I realized that I didn't really believe any of it, and that's when I stopped self-identifying as a Christian.

I don't really think there's any other way to fairly categorize people. I'm not a big fan of this whole "you're not a real _____ because" business. It seems to me that the end result is to keep splitting ourselves into smaller and smaller sub-groups of people. I prefer inclusion to exclusion.

[Celeborn Skywalker]

16. Exactly. (nt)

[Djinn]

21. again that's NOT what I said

I'm not a big fan of this whole "you're not a real _____ because"

however I notice it happens a lot within religious communities, many religious lefties(of all stripes) claim that the fundies (of all stripes) are not "real" christians, muslims etc etc but who's to say that Jerry Falwell isn't EXACTLY how Jesus wants people to act, who's to say Osama isn't exactly what Mohammed envisioned? I fervently hope that if God exists he's of the "love your brother" type but no-one can say that for certain.

This thread has NOTHING to do with categorising people, it was ASKING what people feel about this, I grew up in a fairly religion neutral environment, even outside my home it's just not as big an issue in Australia as it seems to be in the US so I was interested in people particularly religious people's) opinions on this.

[Skinner]

24. I was not accusing you of saying anything.

I was just answering the question. "At what point does one stop being a Catholic/Buddhist/Muslim/Jew?"

My answer: one stops being a Catholic/Buddhist/Muslim/Jew when they decide that they are no longer a Catholic/Buddhist/Muslim/Jew.

[Djinn]

26. but how does that make any sense

If I do not beleive God exists how can I possibly be a Jew (or Christian to take in both side of my family history)

[Skinner]

27. It doesn't have to make sense to you or to me...

...as long as it works for them.

I happen to know a lot of self-described Atheist Jews. I guess they see Judaism as not dependent on belief in a higher power. Who am I to tell them they are wrong?

[Zerex71]

19. This is an interesting question, and sounds like one my mother would pose.

My feeling on the matter, as a confirmed Catholic, is that I was not indoctrinated into something, but rather introduced to a side of life that wouldn't otherwise be present. Of course, by "side of life" I mean just one form of the spiritual side of things.

I guess the short answer is that I'm "Catholic" because I'm "nothing else".

I don't wholeheartedly reject religion, however as we've seen, it's gotten to the point where it's become this fight to see who can p*ss the most and claim some form of supposed supremacy -- not a tenet which any Jesus/Gautama/Buddha/Mohammed ever subscribed to. (Hear that, Freeper idiots?) Rather, religion has become this thing that people wear like (almost literally) a suit of armor, or a mace or halberd -- a defense, or offensive weapon with which to attack the "unsaved". Especially in America, it's a way for the sheeple to feel like part of something when nothing else suffices and nothing else satisifes. By becoming one with a "sect" (Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Baptist) they become part of a "team" fighting the other "teams", and, not surprisingly, when masses of people get together like this, it reinforces in them the idea that they should not spend any time working on themselves to better themselves in their day-to-day lives -- where it matters the most -- as opposed to some supposed afterlife -- where it won't matter. The Golden Rule trumps the golden coffin any day of the week.

Religion has become a joke, an irrelevance -- and, more than anything, beyond any masturbation, abortion, or stem cell research -- this is what REALLY p*sses off the hierarchies of Mitred Old White Clergymen.

And how could it be anything but, in this culture of "American Idol", Wal-Mart, dumb Hollywood pap, Botox, and the pornography of violence? There's nothing devout or holy about our way of life.

In truth, I am probably pantheistic, for there are many religions, and I am interested in all of them (except for, not surprisingly, the various strains of white, homegrown religions such as Southern Baptists and various forms of Protestantism). I'm talking about Zen, Sufism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam.

I hardly go to church, but I'll tell you, it isn't because I'm a "bad Catholic". It's because I can't stand what going to church has become. For starters, it's not about being holy, silent, reflective, meditative, or penitent. It's about going to something that's non-religious, looks like a complete shopping mall, and is filled with pseudo-redemptive mumbo jumbo (plus a healthy helping of "give us money" and the usual tut-tutting in circumspect language about what makes you a good Catholic). (That and the fact that I've heard these missalettes a million times. The stories not only don't change, but they rerun them every year at the same time, kind of like the Bible on HBO in its early days.) I don't find it particularly religious, and yet many of the religious experiences of my youth are memories that I will have with me, in finding the quiet sanctity and beauty of being part of a religion. I think there is great culture in the Catholic church, and medieval culture in general, and the symbolism suits me. I submit myself occasionally to its sacraments, but do not live my life in fear of confession or in going to some Hell -- which, I might add, is a historical creation, not a literal place to go to. In fact, I consider this life to be Hell much of the time, for many people.

To give you an example, last summer, when I was in Dublin for a vacation, I attended Christchurch Cathedral -- perhaps one of the oldest cathedrals in Western religion -- for an Evensong service. It was quite simple and very much like going to see one of the world's foremost operas or philharmonic orchestras. There was a minimum of boisterousness, preaching, and proclamatin', and just quiet dignity amongst the lectors and the choristers. They sung absolutely beautifully, and it was a calm service, evocative of what religion truly is about -- the slowing down and quiet reflecting on the world's beauties and awes -- not about telling you how bad you are. I have to say, it was quite a refreshing experience.

So that's what I mean when I speak of religion.

[Djinn]

22. dupe

[Djinn]

23. Thanks Zerex71

I think I probably misphrased the question a bit because it seems to have been read as my calling people not "real" muslims/jews/christians etc, that was not my intention so it's good that someone got what I meant!

[Zerex71]

29. Thanks yourself.

It's nice not to get flamed for speaking your mind all the time. I might have even misinterpreted your post too, with all my writing off on tangents. I just thought that this would be a good place to post my feelings on religion. :)

[Just Me]

30. I am what I say I am whenever I say what I am for whatever reason.

Doesn't everyone? Well, let's put it this way, doesn't everyone have the power to define who they are,...to define themselves?

[Ron Green]

31. Dependence -- Independence -- Interdependence

This is the path taken by a successful human in his or her journey through life, in that he has to first rely on his parents for everything, then rebels as he finds a separate identity, and finally, if he is successful, learns to work out mature, loving productive relationships with others: not just family, but co-workers, neighbors, and ultimately strangers and "enemies."

All this is pretty standard human development information, of course, but I see the exact same path for the spiritual life. Most of us are indoctrinated in some way by family and culture, and we have to break from that early spiritual dependence by rejecting it, if we're curious about the world. For many in DU, I believe this is the atheism stage. Ultimately, the position of a thoughtful mortal must be a kind of forgiving and courageous spiritual life, connected with other people in a trusting but rational way: in short, and in our culture, "Liberal Christianity," whether or not accompanied by some kind of church membership. This is only my opinion, of course, but I think it makes sense that, in the development of the self, the original indoctrination of the "ego" belief system must be shed and then reassembled into a Higher Mind which includes us all.