yes.

[kaigou]

Religion is a circumstance of birth for most people. We're indoctrinated into it and that's where we hang out for most of our lives, wallowing in and out of varying degrees of fanaticism for it. ... Yeah, people convert, but outside of countries where [there's] Freedom of Religion or something, [for] the most part, generically speaking, you are what your parents taught you to be.

killermuff rocks my world.

Comments

[sintari.livejournal.com]

Well yeah, same with political beliefs. It's culture, baby.

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

My dad believes that the only religion you can truly commit yourself to spiritually is one you've converted to.

But then, my dad himself converted, so maybe that's why he feels that way.

Actually, when I use the word 'converted' it gives the impression of a huge inter-cultural change, like from Judiasm to Mormonism or something. He grew up the son of a travelling Baptist minister, and in graduate school converted to Unitarian Universalism. I'm pretty sure he thinks that even just lapsing from your faith for a time, and then coming back as an adult and re-examining its values, then deciding that it's the right religion for you after all, counts.

[habibti.livejournal.com]

I was raised in an Antiochian Orthodox family with a very religious mother (she still is). All the Byzantine chanting, incense, robes, gold crosses, processions, a 2.5 hour chanted liturgy, having to go entirely vegan over all of Lent, church every night during holy week, holy oil and water, candles and ashes, body and blood, blah, blah, blah.

My family enouraged reading and eduation but my mother meant becoming a doctor or a lawyer, not questioning her basic assumptions about life, as I mistakenly thought. When that led me far, far away from my religious upbringing, all was not happy in the household. Luckily, my mother still loves the sinner! And while my own particular brand of philosophy and spirituality has undergone quite a few changes over the years, I only have to go back to an Orthodox church for a wedding, etc and it's the only form of church worship to me that feels 'real' somehow. And it is incredibly beautiful.

That's inculturation.