Would you see changing religions as a personal betrayal?

no you arent alone...I feel the same way..if somethings fits/works/feels right etc WHY CHANGE IT?? When I was a devoted Christian, I DIDNT feel those things and have been a Witchy type person since I was very young but was always told I was nuts when things would come up etc....so I stayed with Christianity and it was ultimately betraying myself...I dont understand why anyone would leave a path they KNOW is right for them..I mean what could possibly be the reasoning for that ya know??

Since I am a Christian, I would feel that if someone changed religions so that things would be easier on them as a betrayal to God, not to me. The person who changes religions for such superficial things as more material possessions is damaging himself even though I may have tried to get him to see the light. But now we are talking about the case of someone who believed in many gods, a pagan as it were, deciding to change to Christianity or Islam because in the first case the Christian family always invited him over for Christmas dinner and the second case, their show of reverence in they bowed five times a day to Mecca. In these cases, it was that he was more interested in what others think, and not because he believed that the worship of the Greek or Nordic or Celtic gods or goddesses were wrong. However unless he abandons his family, i.e. not come over to see them on holidays, it would not be a personal betrayal. His is between him and his deity or deities, if they do exist.

Well, if they have that connection, then changing would be odd. If it was due to peer pressure, that would be wrong. If they changed to please a friend or partner, that would be wrong as well. When I say wrong, I mean to themselves. Their choice would be one that would affect them alone and I think by changing for those reasons, it would be choice they would regret later on.

I left the Catholic religion many moons ago and never became attached to another. I don't see where changing religions is a personal betrayal. What is the purpose of belonging to any religion? Is is possible to know God or some Higher Power without belonging to a religion? Over the years, I have asked myself if God were here what religion would he belong to? Are religions like shopping for a new car? You give several a test run and pick the one you like? Another question I would ask is this...Why does God need to be worshipped? He has no ego and would not care if he got all that attention. Unlike man who is seeking to be worshipped by others thinking that it makes hime/her important. I think I can at any time be thankful to God and appreciate everything in my life. I know this is far off your subject, but I know you are deeply religious...so who better to ask than you? Besides, you have nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon...lol.

Of course not... If you did not feel any connection to your deities and decided to change religion theres no betrayal in that case.. well actually Im not good in reviews... but I can say that religion isnt that important.. Most important is who do you recognize as your creator or God.. thats all... IF you are a God feariong person whatever your religion is you will be loved by God,. :D

Changing religion is not always a personal betrayal. What if i was raised in a religion that worships a false god? Would i continue attending to that religion? Of course not. It is a personal betrayal if i know from the bottom of my heart that what i am doing or what i am following or worshipping is wrong but i keep on doing it. If changing religion can free me from the bondage that my false religion had set on me then i'l definitely find the religion that could really give me peace, love, salvation, forgiveness.

I guess I jsut can't figure out why a person who has a bond with his/her diety/ies would wish to change. If it ain't broke don't fix it. Unless I lose my faith, I'm not changing. I just can't fathom change for any reason other than that. If faith is lost and a change is worthy, than it is not a betrayal, just a change. But that is not how I understood this discussion to be. Am I right or wrong or somewhere between. LOL

i have never thought of changing religion ,i'm not very religious ,though i believe in god and i believe all gods are one ,but i agree when u say cahnging religion will feel like kind of betrayal ,kind of .never thought on this but it feels so.

Ha finally a discussion i can identify with LOL yes i had the same things going on in my mind as well but now what i have done is whenever i hear about a particular religion or practice i just research about it and if find something that i like i accept it. So yes i beleive in several gods and goddesses. My own religion has thousands of them and though i dont have a connection to all of them i do have my favorites and yes Jesus has been a influence from my school days and i am reading about Kabbalah also after joining mylot i have learnt about Yoruba from a mylotter here - its a bit of everything for me and i did have lot of relatives who discouraged it they thought i was being disloyal etc etc but for me i feel as long as i can connect i want to beleive in that particular god and though on paper and family i belong to a particular religion i love learning about different religion and i feel you dont have to change your religion you just start beleiving in a different set of belife and learn a new set of rituals otherwise inside its just the same :)

Hello lecanis!:-) I may or may not see changing religion as a personal betrayal. I'll try to explain: If I did change my religion based on some material and personal desires, that had nothing to do with 'reality' that I feel, I would definitely feel that I have betrayed. I have seen people who changed their religion based on personal gains. I realized that they never had a connection or real affiliation with their religion that they changed. I have seen some families going to another religion because they were better taken care of in the changed religion. They were prmised some worldly gains if they changed and they did change. Here I see a betrayal. But then how come it is a betrayal when they never had a "feeling" for the religion they changed? Perhaps this is not a betrayal, but I see it this way; any change for selfish reason is a betrayal. I did see only one person in one of the families crying for having been changed and coming back to the original one. There is howeve, another side to it. I myself have been through some sort of change. I was an agnostic in my teenage. When moving up in my scientific knowledge, I reasoned that there has to be a supreme being, I was on lookout where I can find it. I met some spiritual people and seeing their grandeur, (not physical, only spiritual:-)), I realized that they have something that I don't have. They made friends with me. All I met were from different places, yet so connected to each other and so harmonized. I was not sure what to make of them as far as friendship is concerned i.e. whom to declare my friend over another. It's not that I had to do that, it's just in terms of affiliation. When I myself moved in my little spiritual world, I would realize one of them more spiritual, more powerful (not hysical), more respected among others. I would attach myself to him/her more than to whom I attached before. And I felt that, the "next" would accept me more than before and even the previous one not only accepted the change but encouraged and supported the change. This was a very different kind of experience where one is supporting me to leave him/her and to attach more to other. I realzied that they (from whom I changed)themselve respected my new affiliation themsleves i.e. they consdered my new friend worhty of a higher attachment. Then I came t know that I was supposed to find the new one by myself and they are following the same person. This cycle moved on and on and I have come a long way from then. searching and finding new friends who are followed by my previously held friend. Here "previous" doesn't mean that I left them. It merely underscores the fact that I have found a higher one and I attached myself more to this higher one than the earlier ones. The earlier ones still my close friends, rather more frank now. This moving up exposed me to higher and higher field of work that they were involved in. It must be cleared here that I never considered these friends any sort of deities, though I could have, seeing their grandeur. It was just because I saw in them that they are themselves looking up, to find that was my job. I always found that however immence their power (non-physical) is, they are seeing up. All these are very simple being otherwise. In fact the more I see up, the more simpler, humble and apparently ordinary, person I see. I have realized, earlier by my reasoning, now by my experience, that the actual Deity (of course in my understanding)is a non-human, immeasureable, in calculable, un see-able, unfathomable, all knowing, all powerful, compassionate, loving, caring, looking over, but a freeing one that gives free will to humans. Why I see these perfect qualities for a diety is because I have seen how much qualified a "human" can be, I have seen the power(spiritual) of humans, their vastness and their freedom from time and space. I have known humans going from one corner of world to other without any restriction of time. I have seen them caring for others no matter, the person they are caring for know them or not. They are wind for those who don't know them and great friends for those who have known and found them. Yet they never ask to be wroshiped because they too worship something else, something immeasurable, huge and un-fathomable. Something that is not human, a supreme being. I have come this long way to say just that changing in the above case (from one ffiliation to other) never ever occured to me as betrayal, perhaps because the ones I was changing affiliation with were the ones who suported and encouraged it and they too were having a feeling of other to be superior. In this case, when I am not changing affiliation for my selfish (material) gains, I wouldn't consider it a betrayal. I don't know if my post is coherent, because I have written in a flow. There will be many typos perhaps and I hope you will excuse them:-)

Changing religion is not good, unless your mind has been changed.Religion is good for nothing.

Another great topic! hehe. Even within the christian church itself there is always a big debate over people who change from one thing to another. I dont see anyone different than the other to me they are all paths we can chose to follow or not. I dont know where the path I am on will lead me (in this world) but I hope to see it through till the end. I do know I have felt pulled towards things more now than ever before so I dont really see it as abandoning my previous thoughts more like growing and learning. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, thought like a child, and reasoned like a child. When I became an adult, I no longer used childish ways. Spirituality and hopefully any religion is a growing experience.

i think it is. if you think you're in the right path, why change at all. i'm not good in english, i hope i can explain it properly, a religion, is like a community, a family, your within a group that share the same beliefs as yours,.. and if you are going to leave that group, as you say, for no reason, i see it as a betrayal, not only to the community you belong with, but most of all to yourself.

One's religion is so very personal. I think that if you aren't personally connected with your beliefs then it would be kind of hypocritical to continue on. Some people change religions when they marry out of their faith. If I were very strong in my beliefs, I would not change my religion for any reason. It would be a part of me. I was raised catholic but questioned so much of it's teachings. When I became an adult, I chose to stop participating in the religion. Now I am no denomination and I prefer to be that way. So yes, It would be a personal betrayal if you were to go against your own beliefs. I wouldn't say you were abandoning family and friends. I would say you were abandoning yourself.

I don't think changing a religion is a way for a person to show personal betrayal. Changing religion is a personal decision but why does it have to be connected with personal betrayal. The same goes with the decision of marriage. Does a person betrayed her/his parents if he choose to marry her own choice and not her parents? This doesn't make sense. To me, we all have personal freedom to decide, when when we decide it must not be connected to personal betrayal. I think it's not fair.

this is a free world and we all have our free will to do what we think is right and good for us.. for me, it' s not a personal betrayal. we just wanted to find something or some place that we know we'll feel comfortable and good for us.. just do what you want to do,,, we all have freedom.. feel free to do everything, feel free to go everywhere.... just ignore what other people will say... it's your life.. and it's only you who knows what would be best for you..

Religion is a very personal thing. You have to or should be comfortable with your religion. If the one you were born in doesn't bring you closer to the deity you worship or you can't follow their teachings the way they descibe them , then you should seek another.Or if you find yourself questioning the existence of a higher power, then don't seek another religion.I would rather see a person that I care about change their religion and be happy than either stay with a religion that don't care about or just turn off to religion all together.There are too many ways to have religion in your life to be upset when someone choose another path.There are other things a loved one could do that I would find as a personal betrayal but changing religions isn't one of them.

One of the best (and worst) things about being human is that we can have the power to think and re-evaluate our thoughts, emotions, and beliefs. Personal truths that I held 20 years ago may no longer ring as true as they once did, or ultimately may not even matter. As we live life and our experiences, intellect, and tastes grow, they often change. This is just as true spiritually as with anything else. Music is a prime example. When I was a teenager, nine times out of ten I would reach for a Metallica or Dio record or tape when I wanted to listen to music. While I still enjoy Metallica and Deio now, they're hardly my first choices unless I'm feeling especially nostaligic or in a certain mood. The betrayal issue you bring up is an interesting one. It covers both the betrayal of self (for beliefs once held) and also betrayal to any diety, or dieties one might have believed in, but no longer does. I think most of the hurt feelings come from relatives who may have shared that religion with you. I've personally noticed some relatives who feel hurt that I no longer share their same beliefs since when I was younger I did experiment with thier religion. Your question though seems kind've loaded: "However, if you did feel a real connection to your deity or deities, would you view changing religions as being a personal betrayal?" If you still feel a connetion to your deity or deities, why on earth would change religions in the first place? That doesn't make sense to me. For the record, my beliefs and ideas and even the way that I worship have changed over the years, but my deity never has.

I'm just wondering if you might be referring to yourself?? I mean do you feel that even though you have a connectedness with your religion that maybe your searching for something else?? No, I don't think it's a betrayal...for instance, I was baptized Catholic,confirmed Protestant, yet turned to the pagan path...I never exactly abandoned my Christian viewpoints, but saw my involvement as an expansion--I've also have studied Hinduism and Buddhism and take a bit of those ideologies into my beliefs. I guess the point is,,....in many ways many of us are searching for the answers to life itself and perhaps if that means getting involved with another religion it can only expand our knowledge as well to try and get those answers in life

i personally dont belive in religion and all,,i am a hindu and i am very much more fond of christanity,,i even celebrate christmas on a big scale,i dont think there anythin wronga at all if anyone changes his or her religion,,its his/her life why should anyone care or bother about that