August 2010 Weddings
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Church/Religion
I was sitting in church this weekend and had a lot of thoughts. One of them was, I wonder how much other people go to church, so I thought I would ask:[Poll]
my read shelf:
Re: Church/Religion
I grew up Baptist. I still hold the beliefs but honestly, I'm just too lazy to get up early Sunday morning and to go church. I'll go to my mom's church on special occations, sometimes, but mostly I don't.
DH was raised Catholic. He doesn't hold so much to the ideas, but still considers himself Catholic. I'm kinda anti-Catholic (don't flame, it goes against my beliefs, you can have your own) so that causes a lot of not so fun conversations, especially since his whole family is Catholic and go to mass every holiday.
When we have kids DH wants them baptized in the Catholic church, so does MIL because the whole "fearing-for-their-souls" thing (her words, not mine). But I guess before you can do that the parents have to take a class or something, and I don't believe in praying to Mary, so that's a no-go for me. So that's going to be an interesting and touchy subject.
I was raised in a Catholic Church, but around my 22nd b-day I started realizing that I just do not believe many of the stories told in the Bible. I don't believe in hell or heaven and don't agree with a lot of the things that the churches are preaching (I am pro-choice and do not believe anyone should tell me or my husband what kind of contraception we are using). There are a lot of other things that are just wrong with the religion in my view, so it's hard to go to church.
However, both my parents and my in-laws are religious, we got married in church, and will baptize our kids...DH calls it: keeping peace with the parents
I don't like the idea of pretending, but I realize this may be the only way not to have constant fights with our parents (especially his mom who is extreme in her beliefs)
My Blog
I consider myself to have religion, but DH and I don't really go to church unless my parents invite us. The problem here is that I grew up Lutheran and went to church practically every Sunday until college. This wasn't necessarily my choice. The older I got, the more critical I grew of religion. My church still does literally the exact same service, songs and all, that they were doing when I was in the 7th grade. It lost a lot of its meaning for me. It became so routine that it didn't feel like I was worshiping anything, but just going through the motions.
DH was confirmed Catholic, but stopped going once he was a freshman in high school. He never liked being Catholic because he felt it was far too strict. He still doesn't like organized religion, so I'm lucky if I can get him to join my family on Christmas and Easter, which is really the only time we go now.
It's not that I don't want to go to church; if we could find somewhere we both liked, I'd go. We've just got differing views on what a church should be. We said that when we have kids, we will find a church so that they have the option when it comes time to get confirmed. I feel that I can still have faith and believe in God even if I'm not going to church every Sunday, which I know is a topic that is debated a lot in my church.
I'm born and bred Methodist and I'd never change denominations. While I don't agree with any political stance of the Methodist Church heads, my religious views most closely align with theirs. Methodists very much believe in free will, whereas some other denominations still practices forms of predestination. I believe in a loving God who cares for me and is there to help me through my life journey. I don't believe He has already planned my life for me. If that were the case, no one would have the choice to follow God or not, and obviously we do.
Aaaannnyway.... Since DH and I got married, we've become pretty lazy when it comes to getting up for church. Then we moved to the clear other side of town and travel both ways would be about an hour. I'm embarrassed that's the reason we don't go more often, but I don't want to find a church closer to us either because I love our home church.
DH was raised very very Baptist. His parents were married in their church, DH and SIL were raised there, and my FIL is buried in the church's cemetery. They lived 1/4 mile away from the church. DH and I have agreed to have our children baptized as infants however, which is not what Baptists do. We also agree that once our children are pre-teens/teenagers, they can go through confirmation.
Once we have children, I want to make an effort to attend church every week. But that would probably mean finding a different church that had many opportunities for children, whereas our home church comprises of mostly old people.
Do the creep.
I am Presbyterian, and DH was brought up attending the Uniting church, which I had never heard of before I came to Aus.
We got married in a Presbyterian church here, sometimes go on Sundays, and sometimes go with my Dad when we are back in NZ. I don't like the new-age religion of soft rock bands and swaying hands, I prefer a hard seat,a solemn sermon and some old schools hymns that I don't sing anyway.
In my belief, you don't need to go to church to be a good Christian, and God surely has changed with the ages. We don't need to stick to the original book, just be good people.
Hmmm I was baptized Catholic, and got my first communion, but was never confirmed.
My mother used to be very Catholic, but came to sort of relax that way of thinking over the years, and it trickled down to us early on, for which I am so grateful.
I favored attending Christian churches not Catholic ones, when I did attend church at all. They were always more celebratory and open to talk and interpretation than any Catholic church I ever went to. We were mostly at the Catholic masses for the holidays only anyways.
As an adult though, I really came to feel that I can be spiritual, and have a faith and belief for God without going to a place of worship. If God is everywhere, he can hear me everywhere. Not to mention there are aspects of other religions that I admire or respect, and kind of like to adopt them into my spiritualism, I guess.
I do feel very sure that as Kath mentioned above, the goal should really be more about being good people, and showing each other grace and acceptance and tolerance. Which is really the message I get from Christianity, and most other faiths; to be loving and good to your fellow humans. I guess I'm like a Fusion Faith Person with an emphasis on Christianity...haha