Which Religion or Spiritual Practice do you enjoy the most? Explain why it works for you and how this belief system changed your life. Also if you have time explain the origins of your religion to make it interesting! Thank you!

i was raised as a catholic
but i have also studied buddhisim for a short time
but i still have my faith in my up bringing in my religion
but i have a spiritual opening when it comes to the spiritual realm
of the paranormal and such
many may not belive but thats there own choice
on how it has changed my life(im not really sure on how to answer that)
i have had the abilties ever sense i was 5yrs old
so i guess the changes can show me more towards a right path and direction in different ways

To the first question.

GOD

How does it work for me?

Kinda self explanatory...

Its GOD.

Explain the origins...

GOD.

Hope you found this interesting!

um...mine
it doesn't really have a name or even really a category
it combines ideas and theories from several religions...from native american to Catholicism to hindu to Buddhism to neo-paganism and even things as minute as household lore

it embraces concepts like collective energy and collective subconscious
i believe in destiny but not really fate
I certainly believe in free will
i believe in re-incarnation but do not agree with some of the details as describe by hinduism or buddhism
some aspects of my "spirituality" are almost darwinian
i do believe in a higher power, something greater then myself

but most of it centers around respect and appreciation for life
that there is beauty in everything both structure and chaos beginnings and ends
and that we were not meant to control everything but to find some way to work with everything

Tough questions to explain in few words:

I have fallen in love with "Wicca". Although I put that in quotes because it's such an abstract religion that my particular version of it may not even be accepted as "Wicca" by some people.

I might add that I did not "find God" through religion. Nor does my religion define God. For me this religion is simply a way to better commune with God. It has many practical, positive, and constructive aspects.

The "origins" of my specific abstraction of "Wicca" are quite eclectic. From a philosophical and psychological vantage point I bring a lot of Eastern Mystical philosophy into the "Wicca" picture.

Having said that, I should add that I did not "find God" through the Eastern Mystical picture of god either. I simply found a philosophical picture of God that best portrays my innate feelings of what God is like.

In fact, there was never a time in my life when I was 'without God'. Religion is a totally separate thing from God in my mind. Just like a telephone is a totally separate thing from a person you might talk with using a that device.

To me, religion is just an abstract "telephone".

My version of "Wicca" can neither be "true" nor "false". It's not a statement, it's an experience. The existence of "God" does not depend upon my religion being "true".

Moreover, no "God" that exists would be exempt from my religion. So in that sense it cannot be "wrong".

Atheist with pagan/shamanic leanings.

You didn't answer all the questions!

Cast a spell on her.

Turn her into a Catholic with pagan/shamanic leanings.

That'll teach her!

I told you, I don't practice paganism or witchcraft anymore.

You did? I must have missed that.

It's just as well since I was only joking about casting the spell on EquusDancer anyway.

Abra!

Sorry, the rest of the answer is... I don't really believe in a deity of any sort, however, as I views the deities as humans trumped up into deities. They've become archetypes, and that's fine, so long as one doesn't worship them. Even with paganism, it's more about the simple respect for all life that seems to be missing from the more mainstream religions. I view our experiences with each other as more of a computer program where we can upload everything, and then we have the ability to tap in to it and others experiences that way. Being able to actively tap into it would be where shamanism comes in.

...a label...ummm...ok... "Being".


Quite simply, being presnt...every second of every moment...being right here, in this moment...connecting with the sworls of my footprints upon the earth, feeling the clean seabreeze air fill my lungs, being a participant in what my senses are feasting upon.

It works for me, as it is....it just IS.

Changed my life?...hmmm no...it has always been.

Explaining the origins of how I get about is attempting to describe the taste of light...the sound of clouds...the feel of night...the smell of life...

there are millions of words for water......and my origins are all of them...

revelling in this Now, is all I have....and it satiates my soul.

This, that I have tattooed on my arm, best sums up the Who of me...



Not Christian, Jew or Muslim,
Not Hindu, Buddhist, Sufi or Zen.
Not any religion or cultural system.

I am not from the East or the West,
Not out of the ocean,
Or up from the ground,
Not composed of elements at all.

I do not exist, am not an entity
In this World, or the next
Did not descend from Adam or Eve
Or any Origin story.

My place is the placeless,
A trace of the traceless,
neither Body or Soul.

I belong to the beloved,
Have seen the two Worlds
as one, and that one call
To Know.
First, Last, Inner, Outer

Only that breath
Breathing
human...


BEING.



Rumi- as translated by Coleman Barks.

I am a pantheistic pastafarian.



I believe in all the gods and goddesses, especially the Judeo-Christian deity. I came to terms with the fact that throughout history too many people have been killed in one god's name or another for them not to be real. If someone has a perception of their god, then that god is real to them, and therefore potentially dangerous to others. So, while I acknowledge their existence, I simply choose not to worship any of them, although I do on occasion pay homage to Poseidon since most of my naval career has been spent near, on, or underwater (it can't hurt) and to the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

When I first read about what it means to be a Pastafarian I didn't think to myself, "This is what I really want to be." I realized I had been one all along. I just didn't know it yet.



The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster has been in existence for hundreds of years and Pirates are recognized as the first true Pastafarians. It has resurfaced in modern times thanks in part due to a school deciding to teach "intelligent design" as part of it's curriculum. It was decided that if the school was going to teach children that the world was created by the Judeo-Christian deity, the children should be taught in tandem that there are those who believe, correctly, that the world was in fact created by a Flying Spaghetti Monster instead. Many non-believers have dismissed Pastafarianism as a parody or a joke, but we are all equal in the embrace of his noodley appendages.

ラメン! (Ramen!)

Oh, and did I mention our heaven has a Stripper Factory and a Beer Volcano?
And every Friday is a religious holiday.

That's pretty much the way I think of it too. I don't worship any deities. But I do enjoy psychically calling up various human archetypes in a shamanic sense as you've indicated. Their "spiritual essence" is real to me if only because I make it so in my own mind.

And yes I agree the pagan traditions are far more nature-oriented toward life in general. The mainstream religious are so human-centric, and "soul-centric" that they would gladly destroy the planet if they thought that would save their "soul", and sadly some of them even actually think that way. Well after all, they teach that the physical world is the domain of Satan!

How they got from an idea that it started out as "God's Creation" and he saw that it was "good", to it now being the domain of Satan is beyond me, but they somehow managed to do that.

That's the way I feel about both Buddhism and Wicca. These were simply philosophies and traditions that I already innately connected with and they were always part of me. I just wasn't aware of them until I had learned about them in some depth.

That both of you have found your cup runneth over... and yet each holds a different draught.

In truth...

You have each sipped from the Holy Grail.

For it is not a cup of silver or brass.

It is the cup God holds for you...

and fills each to his own measure.

No religion.
My spiritual practice is visualization, breathing and meditations which focus on feeling good and finding joy.

This practice can take me from depressed to joyful and excited overnight. (Or in a few minutes.)

The origins come from Yoga, Out of body work, Esther and Jerry Hicks "The Law of Attraction" (and other books) and from a many other sources of the same similar information. Also a great source is Wallace D. Wattles: "The science of getting rich."

My belief is based on the premise that we live in a thought created universe and as thinking centers, we are co-creators of reality.


Wallace D. Wattles:
THERE is a thinking stuff from which all things are made, and which, in its original state, permeates, penetrates, and fills the interspaces of the universe. A thought in this substance produces the thing that is imaged by the thought. Man can form things in his thought, and by impressing his thought upon formless substance can cause the thing he thinks about to be created.
In order to do this, man must pass from the competitive to the creative mind; otherwise he cannot be in harmony with the Formless Intelligence, which is always creative and never competitive in spirit.