I hope no-one minds if I ask this question, but this is my first Pagan New Year and it got me thinking.
I'm assuming that most of us were not brought up pagan/wiccan, so, what is or was your family religion, what religion were you raised?
Are your parents strict Christians or Catholics? Are you? If you are how does that fit with what you believe yourself to be inside?

My parents have never been big church goers, though they celebrated Easter and Christmas, and they often go to Church at Christmas, either Christmas Eve or Christmas day.
They don't pray, at least I don't think they do, I don't remember hearing them, but they did teach me to say my prayers when I was a child. I suppose it's hypocritical if I think about it now, but I never questioned it then.
Their attitude to religion made finding myself and my own religious way to worship much easier, as I don't feel like I'm letting them down by following a Pagan path.
I don't know what they would say if I told them, maybe I'll find out one day soon, I've been considering it, but I don't think they'll dis-own me when I tell them.

My parents are Christians who hold to Christian values but don't really go to church much.

My grandparents however are strict Christians who go to church every time it is held, and they don't own a TV or computer or anything like that.

For me I was always brought up literally thinking that Christianity was the only path.

I literally had no idea that there were any other paths out there to choose from. Then I heard the term Wicca one night after a football game and went home to learn everything I could about it. I was immediately fascinated and I spent probably about three days just deliberating if I was sure I wanted to admit to myself that it sounded like the right path for me.

I was pretty sure it was but there was that ever existent doubt and like I said I was brought up being told it just wasn't possible. So it sounded like it was too good to be true.

I looked up a bunch of stuff on energy working and learned how to channel it and receive it and such, and I spent a while just looking up every scratch of information I could find on the subject of Wicca.

I then found out about the existence of the rest of the kin world and continued even further down my path towards where I am now, and of course it is a road I still travel.


Anyways, sorry, I got a bit off topic there.

On the subject of what they would do or say if I told them what I really am. I think they would think my loony, possibly dis-own me. Possibly send me to like a Christian boot camp.


Sucks to be me doesn't it?
~Farshief

my whole family (both sides) are irish catholics, but i wasnt raised strictly.

i attened a catholic college at the moment so i have to attend mass.

as a young girl i held so of the beliefs but not all the moral coads of catholosm (as there are alot)

when i began practising magick i started trying to celebrate pagan festivals, i always felt more connected to a belief centred on nature and not just one god.

however out of respect i still attend christmas mass with my grandma and pray for the people i have lost.

to be honest im at a slight cross roads with my faith. i never believed oin heaven much, i know that once your dead you are left in the ground and become part of the earth, but after my grandad died i found it hard to think like that, i wanted to believe he went to heaven.

so at the moment im not sure what to beleive :S

My parents are Catholic and as such I was raised Catholic. It never fit for me even though I got forced through every "rite of passage" up through confirmation. I discovered paganism in about 6th grade and explored it for a little while before thinking that it fit me. My parents thought it was a phase for a long time before finally accepting that it isn't. I explained what paganism is and isn't for me so that put the misconceptions to rest.

My dad was never vocal about how he really felt on the subject, but my mom cried for the first few Christmases I stopped going to church. I think she's come to terms with it now.

I was brought up by parents who admitted to no religion, and so never had any kind of religious teaching that did not come from lessons in a school classroom.
Those lessons made absolutely no sense to me.

I looked for something else in my adult years and found the Source. A creator that has no real interest in it's creations beyond that of the actual act of creating.
I find it is enough for me.
I hold no other responsible for my life, my actions, or the direction in which I travel.
I choose my lives, my incarnations, and my ultimate destiny.
I am happy with that.

I was raised christian, by only slightly religious parents, and hated it.
I was taught christian values at school and like Noctem found no sense in the teachings because they had no relationship to what I could see happening in the world in the name of religion. Greed, killing, lies, hypocrisy, all seemed to be regular occurances in the news, all related to religion in various ways. I didn't want to play any part in that. The God my parents and grandparents believed in just didn't seem to exist any more.
I started loking for a new way when I hit college, and there were plenty of different ones to choose from there. Wiccan seemed the right one for me.
I would never have told my parents then, and still wouldn't tell my grandparents now (if they had been alive now) as they would have been very disappointed in me. Having partially 'confessed my sins', my parents are OK with the wiccan part of it, though the Vampire part of it stays safely under wraps for now, and my kids are OK will all of it, but they've been warned not to say anything to anyone about any of it.
I am still trying to fudge the idea of the Goddess into the idea of The Source and make it fit neatly together. So I can't really shed any light on that bit of my beliefs. It's not quite there yet but I'm working on it.

terri, no one likes to think of their loved ones in the ground, I have lost both my grandparents, so I sympathise with you.
It helped me to think of them as ascended either to a better place or at least as partial conciousness of a greater whole. Whether I call it Goddess or Source, it still means that the essential part of them continues in some form, and the only part that is in the ground is their old set of clothes that they dont need anymore. After all when you move to the caribbean, you don't take your raincoat and winter woolies with you do you? You leave them behind and take only the flimsiest of apparel for the warm summery place you're going to. The old clothes are buried to keep the planet tidy, and the owners move on and forget about them. I try hard remember the people I have lost and the energy they had, and not worry too much about what is happening to their old clothes.
The respect you show your grandmother does you credit. You sound like an excellent daughter and granddaughter.

I was started down the christian path by parents who to be honest, believe pretty much the wiccan or pagan ways of thinking...go figure. I never have understood why they sent me to Sunday school or took me to church. It was a waste of a day if you ask me.

I was about 7 when I discovered an idea that god wasn't a person and if anything was an energy within the universe (I think star wars and the Force helped) but it felt right and made sense that the things going on were not being tampered with by some unknowable outside force like all my teachers said they were.
So I have basically stuck with that idea. Over the years I tried applying various ideas to it but wasn't entirely happy with them.. but then I didnt have all the facts to work with.
I can work with Wicca now but can't say I really follow the path being very much an eclectic sort of being. So I use bits of all sorts of things that I have learnt over the years and combine bits of science, wicca, paganism the source and who knows what else to arrive at the things I do.
The main one to be honest is never put a limit to my thinking.

Moon.
If you liken the source to the yin yang or light and absence of light it gives you a male and female aspect if that helps any.

Zygo

I was brought up on "christian" values..but not really enforced ones..Like I wasn't ever forced to go to church if I didn't want to..And depending on my mothers at the time views on life...so I wouldn't ever tell her my beliefs are different..although I have "hinted" around with it..for example she asked if i bealived vampires were real and I told her I didn't buy into the whole holly wood version of one but yes i bealived they was real. and she accepted it..but If i was to go up and tell her hey I am a white tiger essence..therian..were whatever your personal prefrence is then she would most likely laugh at me and say I've finally lost it..My mother is as she calls herself "more libreal" or more of whatever...SO even though my family itself *aunts ect.* are strict on religion my mother just "teaches us the way of 'god' and hopes we find it in ourselves to find the right path"

*yes i realize my mom is odd...i got use to it..lol*

thankyou Moon that means alot to me its a nice way to think about death, i will have to try it sometime. hmm may look into reincarnation too thats always interesting, i always wanted to come back as a cat.
see this is why i sometimes dont agree with religion, it messes kids up lol

My parents tried their best to raise me as a Catholic. There were religious icons all over the house when I was growing up.
They failed. Though maybe it would be more honest to say I was so set in my mind about what I knew, remembered and believed that they never really stood a chance.
I moved out as soon as I was able, and I don't see them very much.
There is something incredibly disturbing for me about knowing that my parents would have me condemned as possessed by the Devil and locked up if they knew what I believed myself to be. It puts a distance between us that nothing can quite breach.

Well, some people are lucky enough to have parents who, while they may be troubled at first, eventually they find some way to work around it because they love their child.

Parents like mine however, are the type that if they knew what I was, I would probably be disowned or shipped off to christian boot camp or something of the like.

That is why if I tell them I won't tell them until after I am moved out and over eighteen when there is absolutely nothing they can do about it.

~Farshief

I never think about religion.
My parents never mentioned it, and religious education was not taught where I was schooled.
I would not say I do not believe in any kind of creation myth, more that I have never seen a need to consider one.
I may in the future, however my life, at this point, does not require one.

In the town I live in religion is big. I've counted fourteen churches..and we are a small town...So religion is almost literatly around every corner in my town, the school has "In God we Trust" and the ten commandments in each class room. I personally think my town is a bunch of hypocrites to..my family use to own a video store and preachers...PEOPLE who got up and preached every sunday about how this was wrong and this was right would come in the other six days of the week renting Adult videos. So..I mean even though religion is big and most of my friends are christian some are accepting of who i am while other tries to be fundy about things...lol

Argh, religion.

I am allergic to any and all varieties. They make me

Years ago I faced the truth. That I would be a big disappointment to my parents if they found out what I believed. It would be much more serious than having them disown me, I think it is possible that they would and throw away the key.

I love my parents, and I know they love me, but they only love the person they think I am, and I daren't risk telling them who I really am. They are Christian to the core and go to church twice a week, and say grace before meals and pray before bed and all that jazz.
I don't think like they do, I've tried, but knowing what I know about me, I just can't. I don't think I'm looking for a different way to think about religion, I'm too busy trying to get comfortable with the idea that I don't agree with what I was always taught right now. Maybe later on I'll find something that suits me better, probably much later though.

My parents, grandparents, and just about everyone in my family is Christian Catholic. I attend a Catholic school which I'm leaving next year to go to high school. Yup, I'm still in 8th grade.
We have school mass Tuesdays and Wednesdays, and my family attends weekend mass as well. We pray before every meal and before bed. I even pray everytime I hear a siren, but that's a personal thing. It's just a habit.

I know for a fact that if I told my parents about otherkin, they wouldn't accept it. I don't know what they would do, but seeing as I get grounded if I get so much as a B on a grade card, it would be bad. So I haven't told them, and I don't ever plan on it.

Right now, I don't know what I believe. I definately believe in magick, and I experiment with it occasionally. But I still try to believe in God and sort of consider myself a Christian. I'm confused right now.