Does anyone not have a religion?

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I don't mean are you athiest or agnostic, I'm talking about people that follow no religions and don't nessisarly identify as athiests or agnostic. That would be my stance on religion.....I am not religious and I don't care enough to try and put a label on it. not to mention neither of those quite describe me very well. What are your thoughts on this, and do you feel the need to identify as something concerning religion.

No I don't follow a religion as such... I have my own theory about god.. Though I lean a little towards Buddhism

I usually describe myself as religious--but truth be told my faith doesn't really require any formalized ritual, which often describes how people usually think of as religion. I would say my personal rituals like scripture reading, meditation, and prayer are religion-like. I do go to church, but SBCs don't really have any established ritual. An order of service doesn't really count in that it is merely a means of organization intended to keep order. We do, however, observe the Lord's Supper and Baptism by immersion. I would say in contrast that Roman Catholicism is much more formalized as a religion than what I practice.

I just spoke of this in another thread. It depends very much what part of the world you live in. I grew up in England and to most people I knew religion was simply not part of their lives full stop. It wasn't something they thought about.

If asked if they were religious you would be hard pushed to get a reply because religion was so irrelevant to them - they had no stock reply of "Christian", "Atheist", "Agnostic" etc. They hadn't even thought about the issue!

I used to be a christian..at least that is what I was raised as...but yes after a while of rejecting christianity, trying to find something else to belive in and not finding anything that made much more sense led me to just kind of quit caring about it all together. I don't care if other people follow religions, but I don't want it pushed on me is all.

Same here. Was raised Catholic but drifted away right after moving out.

These days I'm intrigued with Buddhism and would really like to find a teaching center or visit some lectures. For now I've just been reading books on it.

I'm undecided or at least still trying to follow the deeper concepts like Nirvana and Reincarnation, but otherwise I think it offers great guidelines on living life.

Yes the deeper concepts are a bit of a puzzle to me as well I want to find a guru or someone to learn meditation... My problem is I never find time and even I do I cant block my thoughts... Apparently that is when the real effect on the mind takes place

If you're sure you don't believe in any gods, that's the short definition of "atheist".

If you're not sure whether you care to believe in any gods, that's the short definition of "agnostic".

It really is that easy.

You don't have to be a cockbag about it and wear your decision on your sleeve - that's strictly optional, and i wish more atheists would give it a rest.

Define "a religion". All people have underlying beliefs which are not the results of their own personal experience.

ruveyn

I am a theist who grew up in a Christian background, but now I take a little from every religion or religious tradition, but mainly subscribe to Judaism, its beliefs, ethics, and values. So no, I practice a few religious concepts from Christianity and Judaism but I am largely a non-religious theist.

How about: "A social expression of belief in an unprovable god or gods"?

Well, there I got it a double whammy problem.

First, what is an UNDERLYING belief? If you simply mean the irreducible unprovens underlying al knowledge, little if any of that has anything to do with religion. Though I may wrongly extrapolate from my timeline, divine entity belief is fairly high up from the fundament.

Second, "religion" is usually not restricted to the social and organizational, though it commonly includes it. My Christianity has very little especially these days to do with socil expression and was always far more iceberg than social tip.

By the way, "unprovable" is redundant - in the current state of our technology and with out current mental structure proof of a divine entity is impossible.

MIGHT be able to prove a demon some day.

atheist - literally "without religion". Like it or not, it's a label. Labels mean things so instead of saying, "see that person over there?", say, "See that emo kid over there with the purple hair?"

Labels have uses.

Atheist is not "literally without religion". It is literally without god.

I am areligious and in fact completely anti-religious. I think religion is bull, and followers of religions only ruin this world. But I am not an atheist. I am closer to pantheism really. Albeit to be honest I don't think I like labels too much.

nits.

Right - nonthought in a heavily Bible Belt or Catholic community MIGHT identify as theist, nonthought in a strongly atheist environment MAY identify as atheist. But for most of the nonacademics I have known in US UK Can - regardless of upbringing - it is a nonissue.