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Originally posted by Ideal08
I have VERY few friends who have ever converted from one religion to another. I am wondering what your thought process was and was it hard. How long did it take for you to really change? How did your family take the change? What brought about the change?
I will let you know now, if you post something to the effect of "I would never change my religion," I will delete your post. This thread is specifically for people who have converted or are thinking about converting to another religion. I normally don't post such controversial subjects, but I am now. Just so you know, if this thread is hijacked, I will delete your post.
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I was raised in the COGIC church, but I do not consider myself that anymore, though I would NEVER tell my grandmother that. I have cousins that converted to Islam and there is always the air of your beliefs 'ain't quite right' whether anyone says it to them outright or not. I consider myself completely non-denominational now and would be slow to fix my lips to call myself a Christian simply because I do not believe many Christians live by their own principles. I now practice Buddhism/Taoism because it suits me. . . . mentally and gives me more peace of mind in the here and now than the COGIC 'brimstone' doctrine ever could. It was very hard at first because I have basically been taught, directly and indirectly, that anything outside of the COGIC faith or Christianity was not of God. You don't realize how much religion can cause psychological bondage until you try to adopt a new belief system and abandon another one. I believe that change is a life-time process and even though I ascribe to Buddhist/Taoist beliefs primarily, I don't think I will ever bind myself to a religious label ever again. I think that doing so takes away from the true purpose of religion, so I would rather say I practice the principles of Buddhism/Taoism rather than call myself a Buddhist or Taoist. I will NEVER admit that to my family because I don't want or need the psychological drama, guilt trips, or eternal damnation scare tactics. So I just have resolved to not even bring religion up to my family members and dodge any attempts to engage me in any conversation about my spiritual life. What brought about the change was that even after I stopped attending COGIC church or any church period, I still read my bible
because I wasn't dissatisfied with what was in it, I was dissatisfied with the people around me that claimed to abide by what was in it and so obviously didn't. After I got over my hellfire fears of exploring other religions I realized that Buddhism and historical Christianity are quite similar, therefore for me, it was not an issue to "convert".