Finding others like you

[gwinivere]

It's uncanny how there are so many people who share similar beliefs with us, whatever your beliefs may be, yet no body else can seem to find them-or if they do, it's rare. Just because I am so curious, and I felt the need to contribute more than a sentence to the guild, how about some questions to start a discussion?

How easy is it to find people who believes what you do? When you find people who may believe similar things, how easy is it for you to tell them your beliefs? If you do at all.

Hope this is in the right place...  

[silverncold196]

Well, I recently 'converted' to Hinduism, if you will, and I do struggle with it. Sure, there's a large Hindu community in my area, but my family is devout, narrow-minded, Roman Catholic. One side of my family is Spanish, which is a /very/ Christian/Catholic culture. So, at any rate, I can't discuss religion with my friends or anyone else if my family is around. Also, since I don't know too much about Indian culture, I lack a lot of information that would help me relate to people with the same beliefs.

So... yes, I can find people here and there at school and in my area, but it's hard to talk about religion with them.  

[Rustig]

I'd have to say for me it's pretty difficult meeting people with the same beliefs (or even similar beliefs). Tomorrow I'm heading round to a monthly Pagan moot, despite the fact that (from what I can tell) the majority of the people there have beliefs oriented towards nature-reverance and stuff. That's quite a big leap from my own beliefs, which are far more pragmatic and urban-related. They're pretty much the biggest Pagan group in the area, though, so at least it's something.  

[Kilgimet]

I'll give you advance warning...this might be a bit lengthy.

I was raised Roman Catholic and was surrounded by the religion for all of my childhood. When I was finally able to explore something different, I was in college. I did the normal sneaking around to learn...buying books in secret, hiding them with covers. Don't even get me started on the hoops I had to jump through to practice. lol

Eventually, things got better. I slowly met some people in college with similar interests to mine. Through them, I met more people with similar interest to mine. Currently, I live with a druid after leaving an awesome roommate who'd pagan when I moved up here. In June, I'll reconnect with the other people who share similar interests for the pagan gathering I go to.

I'm not exactly sure what I'm trying to say or if there's a moral to my story. I guess it might be to hang in there and be persistent. Things WILL work out in the end. biggrin

(Okay. It's not as long as I had originally thought it was going to be)  

[gwinivere]

Thank you all for your replies; I'm going to respond in reverse order.

Well, Ligimet I'm glad you were able to find some close people with similar beliefs. It's nice, isn't it? Always worth the wait in the end. I know what you mean about the book hiding, I did that a tad bit before, but even though I still live at home, it's gotten better and they openly sit in my room. That will be exciting to reconnect. Also, good moral. It's important for people losing hope to know that if they believe it will work out it really will.

I hope you have fun at that meeting today Mitsh! I'm not sure if it was you or not but are your beliefs more scientific? I seem to recall and connect a more scientific approach with you; be this true or false you are right and at least it is something similar even if it is more nature based.



Silver thank you for your reply. Are any of your close friends into Hinduism like you? Also, if I may ask, how old are you? If you find and make a new friend, perhaps you two could explore this community a little more.  

[Saliman Albus]

I live in Bulgaria and I come from Greece where both countries have Eastern Orthodox Christianity as state religion. That gives the clergy a lot of power and every occultist a lot of trouble as Greece has (unofficially) a semi theocratic regime. A couple of years ago I believe, a group of people founded the Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism Movement, trying to worship the Olympian Pantheon. Of course, that didn't sit well with the church, their exact words were "They are a handful of miserable resuscitators of a degenerate dead religion who wish to return to the monstrous dark delusions of the past" and branded them as "satanic". That also goes for every wiccan, practitioner or pagan. So I'll stay in my broom closet thank you very much... Thank the God/dess/s for the internet  

[DKMG]

last year, it was reely hard, almost impossible, to find sumone who had the same beliefs as me....i was in catholic skewl then, and after many, many yeers in the hellhole (no offense to anyone) i found only one other person with an interest in my beliefs and practices....now that im in a different skewl, i found more ppl that have similar interests...its not that easy for me to tell them tho....i didnt open up to them at first bcuz i wasnt sure if i culd trust them or not...but they confided in me first, and after i got to know them a bit better, i told them as well.....they already figured it out, but now, we have formed our own group of 4 ppl that studies and practices >.<....but for the most part, i stay in the broomcloset...except on the internet XD