How do you lot manage to stick with a religion?

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I think to date the longest I've managed to stay with a religion was 4 years. Asatru. I would copy the passages in the Prose and Poetic Eddas, read my own notes, study Snorri's life and death, listen exclusively to music by fellow Asatruar, etc. Then my interests changed, and while I still believe in the gods of my ancestors, I have no desire to know more about them. I certainly don't want to spend my money on offerings, especially because there's no way I can afford a new hunting bow for Ullr. A while back I was willing to get really, really drunk and "pluck" out my own eye as a sign of devotion. Glad the feeling passed, but sometimes I envy people their ability to maintain that unwavering faith no matter how much times passes and how much they'd rather be on the internet reading about lizards.

My faith used to waver. Religion is one of my special interests, so I keep reading stories. There was a time I didn't believe in god but then that empty feeling made me literally sick. Now I just keep coming back to believing in Buddhism. The more I read about it the more it keeps me sane

Well, I enjoy reading about lizards, though i suspect I trust the web resources less than those in the U library which anyone worth his salt will read with a grain of salt.

I have no impulse to join the Skoptsy or pluck out an eye [I have an eye phobia, anyway] or cut off a finger joint - devotion by me is not impulsive or unsane, and God and I do not have that kind of relationship.

Offerings and potfaiths and men's groups and the other paraphernalia of religious organizations - which are very distinct from the religion itself - do not draw me any more than you. I am at best asocial and often antisocial, and while corporate worship is fine being part of the church family - I already have three families, mine and Herself''s and ours. AND I was part of a univerfsity department long years - I gave at the office.

Not intending offence, if I mistake, sorry, but your description sounds rather like what you get with some wicca types and some neoEastern religionists - closer to a roleplaying game than a reality. I have in my lost youth done something of the sort, designing a pantheon on the IndoEuropean model, closer to the GraecoRoman than to the Germanic. But it WAS a roleplat, on the levelof my "reconstruction" of Gaulish [I was a very young and snotty critter].

But since I slammed headfirst into Christianity, much to my chagrin And the horror of family and friends, I have had an ongoing project investigating divine entity theory and theist practice. Being a comparativist, I researched credal developments and hymn traditions, monastic rules and liturgies, besides running through variantsd of the scripture in more depth than I had before.

But it has not been limited to checking out and working up the literature. I've had a quarter of a century to look and listen and work toward a sense of how God relates to me and Hersdelf and others, at there is a lot more to go.

Thing is - not quite the give a man a fish bit - If I get interested in Indic alphabets that may keep me interested for six months. But if I get interested - as I did - in languages, what they are, how they work, hoe they develp - that is a lifetime, from about 1957 to today.

Same way, checking out the Montanists might be a month or so. But feeling out the shape of the God-elephant - not likely to end any time soon.

my religion is like having a friend. it takes as much as it gives and doesn't really have a huge impact on my life. I don't "devote" time to it or go out of my way to do anything different really. if your religion is a struggle then i'd say it's a bad religion. i hang out with other people who share my beliefs, we share new things we discover, we encourage each other, we eat food that's bad for you. But i dunno, i'm a christian and as a christian i only have two "commandments". simply put they are Love God and love each other. That in itself isn't very time consuming or difficult. so...

Faith and precise belief vary over time, but I think of religion more as the faith equivalent of a nationality, or a family name: part of your heritage, the group to which you belong. My church is my faith family. Sometimes we get along beautifully, and sometimes we don't. Sometimes we agree; sometimes not at all. But it would take something pretty big to make me change my faith family.

I don't 'stick to' a specific religion. I don't pick a religion and follow it. I've found this way too stifling... constricting. I don't believe any one religion holds a monopoly on truth. Rather, I find truth in all religions.

It's all a matter of interpretation.

Why do you have to stick to one?

Some ( like Madonna) treat religion like a buffet and partake of many traditions.
Why not?
That makes them very unpopular with the faithful within each faith, but so what?