How Close is Your Personal Belief System to the Religion You're In?

[Exaltist Ethan]

Pretty straightforward question. I'll answer for myself.

Earthseed has three basic beliefs: (1) God is change. (2) Shape God. (3) The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. My beliefs are essentially the same but more elaborate. I believe that God is what nature is becoming (change), and that every religion, and every person, is doing something to create the divinity of God (shaping God). Earthseed's third belief, to take root among the stars, is aligned to my beliefs about extropy and cosmism. I would go further than that, however, and I would say that it is our duty to create as much life in the Universe as possible, but this is just a more detailed version of belief three and it's probably a given that members of Earthseed also believe this.

So overall I would either say it's almost exactly, or nearly the same. My vernacular is a more verbose and robust than what Earthseed entails, and I add some things that Earthseed doesn't touch on - such as, defining which changes creates the divinity in God, and my personal belief system that I call Exaltism isn't a 1=1 match to Earthseed, but it's very, very close as members of Earthseed tend to be pantheistic and syntheistic, just like me. So I'm going to answer "nearly the same" because Exaltism is a version of Earthseed that has narrower definitions of God and divinity than how Earthseed explains it.

How did you answer the poll and how close is your personal belief system compared to the religion you follow? Let us know how you answered the poll and any differences between your personal beliefs over your religion below.

 

[SalixIncendium]

It's exactly the same. Otherwise I wouldn't identify as such.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

It's exactly the same. Otherwise I wouldn't identify as such.

I get that Hinduism is a large religion with many different schools of thought, but I am bit surprised that there is no difference between your own personal investigation of truth and the religion you practice. Many people have to be in line with certain things to be involved in the religion they practice, and for many it's not a direct correlation between what they personally believe and what they are taught to believe as part of the social construct. I understand that not many people follow and practice a religion they don't accept as truth, but for many their personal credo has some amount of differentials that make it stand out from the religion they claim to be.

 

[Secret Chief]

It's exactly the same. Otherwise I wouldn't identify as such.

^^^^
this

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

Thankfully Heathenry is as varied as those of us who follow the Northern gods, and I am required by no doctrine or scripture to adapt or adopt my personhood to a set of "divine rules" and sacrifice who I am in order to continue to identify as a Heathen.

 

[Trailblazer]

Pretty straightforward question. I'll answer for myself.

Earthseed has three basic beliefs: (1) God is change. (2) Shape God. (3) The destiny of Earthseed is to take root among the stars. My beliefs are essentially the same but more elaborate. I believe that God is what nature is becoming (change), and that every religion, and every person, is doing something to create the divinity of God (shaping God). Earthseed's third belief, to take root among the stars, is aligned to my beliefs about extropy and cosmism. I would go further than that, however, and I would say that it is our duty to create as much life in the Universe as possible, but this is just a more detailed version of belief three and it's probably a given that members of Earthseed also believe this.

So overall I would either say it's almost exactly, or nearly the same. My vernacular is a more verbose and robust than what Earthseed entails, and I add some things that Earthseed doesn't touch on - such as, defining which changes creates the divinity in God, and my personal belief system that I call Exaltism isn't a 1=1 match to Earthseed, but it's very, very close as members of Earthseed tend to be pantheistic and syntheistic, just like me. So I'm going to answer "nearly the same" because Exaltism is a version of Earthseed that has narrower definitions of God and divinity than how Earthseed explains it.

How did you answer the poll and how close is your personal belief system compared to the religion you follow? Let us know how you answered the poll and any differences between your personal beliefs over your religion below.

It's exactly the same. Otherwise I wouldn't identify as such.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Thankfully Heathenry is as varied as those of us who follow the Northern gods, and I am required by no doctrine or scripture to adapt or adopt my personhood to a set of "divine rules" and sacrifice who I am in order to continue to identify as a Heathen.

See, I thought if anyone would answer "vaguely", "A little", or "not at all" it would be some variation of paganism, because I would think that the variety of Gods and rituals they have would mean that each individual would have to cherry-pick their individual favorites, thus, making them less "pagan-y", and I thought that perhaps there are more restrictions not just towards pagan religions but other religions too that would have led people to not answer "exactly". But I'm apparently wrong on that assumption and that with most people, what they identify is, is exactly what you're getting with that person.

The only way I would be exactly a religion is if I self-identified as Exaltist, as I came up with the idea a few years ago, but even the things I believed when I invented the term is outdated compared to what I believe now. However, since Exaltism is not a doctrine that doesn't change, it in fact changes as much as I do, so while I'm 100% Exaltist because that's my own term, I believe in everything Earthseed is but I add more stuff into my theology that is uniquely Exaltist in nature, as I laid out in my original post.

I was not expecting personal credos to match up so closely with religious beliefs and I assumed there were more restrictions with religions that weren't exactly true. Maybe making this thread was a mistake and I should reword the question or topic header so not everybody tells me the exact same thing...

 

[The Kilted Heathen]

I was not expecting personal credos to match up so closely with religious beliefs and I assumed there were more restrictions with religions that weren't exactly true. Maybe making this thread was a mistake and I should reword the question or topic header so not everybody tells me the exact same thing...

Well, what's the information you're trying to find out? If the OP is the question that you meant to ask, then these answers are the correct result. At risk of misunderstanding, you shouldn't reword the question to try and arrive at a preconception of other faiths.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

Well, what's the information you're trying to find out?

If religious status and the personal understanding of truth is exactly the same thing.

 

[syo]

Very close. Identical.

 

[Exaltist Ethan]

The way that people answered this poll and thread, both have shown me that maybe I am doing something wrong by calling myself simply Earthseed. The way I see it, Earthseed is like Christianity, whereas my personal credo of Exaltism is more like a denomination in Christianity. If I call myself Earthseed, people can research what that means on their own time and find pretty much find exactly what I believe, but if they did the same with Exaltism, they wouldn't be able to find much on Google that isn't already outdated beliefs. Perhaps the best thing to do is create a thread and link it to my signature and then show people, "this is what I believe, why I believe it, etc" and instead of linking it all directly to Earthseed, show people that I have a mind of my own and I call these ideas "Exaltism" instead. By changing my religious status to Exaltism it by no means makes me any less of a member of Earthseed, but I want to stress that I'm more than that at the same time.

So I plan on making a thread in the NRM DIR explaining exactly what I believe and using that as a gateway in case I want to modify or update said beliefs. I am going to change my religious status from Earthseed to Exaltism to reflect this difference. And I'm going to change my answer from "nearly the same" to "exactly" to clear the confusion that I was apparently having with my own religious status.

 

[SalixIncendium]

I get that Hinduism is a large religion with many different schools of thought, but I am bit surprised that there is no difference between your own personal investigation of truth and the religion you practice. Many people have to be in line with certain things to be involved in the religion they practice, and for many it's not a direct correlation between what they personally believe and what they are taught to believe as part of the social construct. I understand that not many people follow and practice a religion they don't accept as truth, but for many their personal credo has some amount of differentials that make it stand out from the religion they claim to be.

My worldview has remained consistent throughout my life, before I discovered Hinduism and after.

I simply came to find a religious philosophy that aligned with these views and validated my experiences.

 

[Apostle John]

Yes, I don’t just believe I’m lucky to know but that’s only by the Grace of God Who gives me words of wisdom/knowledge in accordance with 1 Corinthians 12. I believe if everyone knew there would be know need for faith. In the Bible the word religion means faith.

 

[Kathryn]

I voted for "Nearly the same" and that's close enough for me. I figure that the whole of church history is better intellectually than I am so there's that.

 

[Quintessence]

Non-creedal, but "personal belief system" is inherently covered in its entirety by religion. Religion -> life way.

 

[The Hammer]

My beliefs fit my religion (and vice versa) because they are mine.

 

[SalixIncendium]

For the record I've explored religions/philosophies, both theistic and atheistic during my lifetime that fit within all the categories in the poll (though I'm not understanding the difference between "vaguely" and "a little bit;" as I struggle to make the distinction) seeking to understand myself, my experiences, and my worldview.

 

[SalixIncendium]

My beliefs fit my religion (and vice versa) because they are mine.

Druidism is yours? I thought it was @Quintessence's.

Can someone please send me email updates?

 

[The Sum of Awe]

It's exactly the same. Otherwise I wouldn't identify as such.

I don't know... It's a good question and I often wondered about it. Especially for religions with a whole acre's worth of very specific tenets like the Abrahamic faiths. I found it odd that someone would just so happen to believe in everything the religions teach. But then I remember, maybe a lot of people let their religions tell them what to believe instead of joining a religion because of what they believe.

And I wonder how someone could end up in an actual religion if it's the latter, it's like rolling 10 six-sided die and guessing all the numbers right.

EDIT: I'm not saying it doesn't happen, I'm just saying I'm surprised. I personally have just never found one religion that I agree 100% with, but many religions that have good philosophies and morals.

 

[Vinayaka]

I voted nearly the same instead of 100%, but that was because of the vastness of Hinduism, and the fact that I would disagree with a few key concepts that other Hindus would believe. In terms of my particular sect/sampradaya. it's 100%, but in terms of a general consensus within the diverse umbrella that we know as Hinduism today, it's only nearly. But that's one of the beauties of Hinduism: acceptance of diversity within the religion.

Not sure if the poll captured the idea of wider ranges of thought all within the same religion.