For people who have converted

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I want to know some things from all people who actually converted to their religion, and weren't "born" into their religion, i.e. brought up that way by their parents.

Which religion did you choose?
Why did you choose to convert?
How did you choose which religion and denomination to convert to?
How did it impact your life and change your views and outlook?
How did you go through the conversion process?

Which religion did you choose?

Became Protestant/Pentecostal.


Why did you choose to convert?

Realized that Roman Catholicism had major issues that didn't even match up with the book they claimed to follow. Personally, there were other issues I will not discuss here.


How did you choose which religion and denomination to convert to?

Met a person who encouraged me to come to his church. The rest just followed. I found there what I was looking for spiritually but was not getting elsewhere.


How did it impact your life and change your views and outlook?

Radical change. Became very conservative about a lot of things where I had been rather liberal. Started looking to God to provide my needs and not society or the government.


How did you go through the conversion process?

Followed what the Bible actually teaches about becoming a disciple of Christ.

Which religion did you choose?

chaos magick and discordianism.

Why did you choose to convert?

i felt like experimenting with my thought patterns.

How did you choose which religion and denomination to convert to?

randomly came up at the right time for such a decision to be decided upon. how else?

How did it impact your life and change your views and outlook?

i'm not really sure it's helped or not. it's given me a nice distraction, though and i've generally been a little happier that way.

How did you go through the conversion process?

a lot of drugs and alcohol and some bodily fluids secreted.

Which religion did you choose?

The Baha'i faith.

Why did you choose to convert?

Everything makes sense. Also, we don't believe in 'conversion', we consider it to be 'progression', as all religions are the same.

How did you choose which religion and denomination to progress to?

Independent search for truth. The Baha'i faith has no sects, all attempts to divide have miserably failed. The largest division is the Orthodox Baha'i group, with less than 100 followers worldwide.

How did it impact your life and change your views and outlook?

I stopped being cynical and started learning to love humanity.

How did you go through the conversion process?

I signed a declaration card.

It is one thing to accept humanity for what it is, it is another thing to love humanity. Humans generally are not lovable. We are a nasty lot, but that is the result of evolution. We are of the order of primates and we carry primate characteristics. We cheat, we do violence and above all we throw sh*t at each other.

ruveyn

This is just me but I don't think you need religion just to become more humane or learn to be more tolerant.

The trouble I have with religion is they all seem to advice peace and love....and then they conflict with anyone who doesn't suit that particular religion thus war.

But again, this is just my small observation and experience as a whole.

I'd say something similar but it's more along the lines of learning how to laugh at all the ironies and "wrongs" in life and how everyone misinterprets everyone else or worries about things they shouldn't worry about.

learning to appreciate the probability of someone doing what they may have just done. learning to understand from perspectives other than my own.


btw, the baha'i faith sounds like it has some similarities to what i'm doing. may have to read a little more about it at least for some good philosophical literature.

i take religion as more a set of life lessons to be learned and each one has a different attitude about it and one should find what works best with their personality and how their worldview is evolving as they grow.


i think religion should be a tool for someone to use to improve themselves but not necessarily something they "have" to use and that no one is particularly more "right" than the others...except for all that intolerant stuff written by men in most of the various religious scriptures....because it doesn't matter if you're gay or not or if you drink or not (except alcoholics, obv). what matters more is learning how to deal with people around you in a productive manner that allows the best for yourself and your interaction with society.

which means many sects and practices of christianity, islam, judaism, mormonism, scientology and some others are garbage because they're inherently intolerant and uncooperative toward the greater goal of progression of humanity on a whole.

their limitation is placement of dogma above the person.

I don't now and never have enjoyed hurting people, animals, plants or destroying public or private property. I enjoy fixing things and finding out how things work and inventing simple useful things. I never converted from anything. I just always was. I don't understand kids who enjoy being nasty and hurting and breaking things. I don't need religion to tell me that.

Then why did you post in this thread? Go away please.

This is an open forum. It should be noted conversion is not a necessary option.

Your reply had nothing to do with anything I was asking. If you want to talk about how much you don't need religion, go create your own thread.

^^^This. Verbatim.

I was raised Catholic. Had periods of interest in neo-paganism and in ISCKON(Hare Krishnas).

I stumbled upon the Baha'i Faith and it all clicked into place.

If you are not perceptive enough to realize that your inquiry had direct implications to my post I am sorry. Threads are not private properties. One exists in discussions only by making a comment and your desire that I not exist is unfortunate. I was not attempting to be confrontative, merely that I and my point of view exists. If that disturbs you it is your problem, not mine. It is quite obvious my point of view will have no influence on yours and I find that also sad but there is little if anything I can do about that and I am not attempting to do so. Christians have a proclaimed reputation for tolerance and that should be kept in mind.

Your comment had nothing to do with the original questions I asked or the discussion I was trying to create, if you need to be reminded, the title of the thread is For people who have converted not "For people who don't need religion". For a forum to be successful, the posts have to be relevant to the threads they are in. Do you think anyone would keep posting on wrongplanet if every thread, regardless of what the original post is asking, was filled with completely random replies about lego, yoghurt and global warming?
Now so I don't derail this thread further I'll stop replying to your posts.

My power to derail this thread is quite imaginary. My assumption was that you might have included the possibility that someone converted from non-belief to belief. Evidently that seemed not possible to you which, incidentally, encourages me tremendously. Nevertheless, aside from stating my position and my right to do so, I am not interested in inciting aggressive comments and no further comment in this matter is quite satisfactory to me.