Reply to POLL: Do you feel pressure to be religious?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On a few recent threads, we’ve touched on external pressures from friends and family around religion.

Would love to hear more experiences.

At any point in your life: 
1) Have you ever omitted (or even lied) about your true religious beliefs to make a social situation easier?

2) Has anyone ever insisted that you believe in a certain god or religious figure?

3) Has anyone ever made you go to a religious service?

4) Has anyone ever made you participate in a religious activity?

5) Do you ever feel like an outsider because of your religious beliefs?

If you feel comfortable, please share your general location/religious belief. Or any other related thoughts. 
[/quote]
I'll play!
1) I'm Jewish and, as another Jewish PP stated, sometimes it's a safety issue. Also sometimes in large groups of acquaintances people will start talking about their Christmas trees or something and it can be awkward to interject, as it will derail what is otherwise a nice conversation for everyone else. 
2) I assume you're not asking about door-to-door Jehovah's witnesses or the guys on street corners yelling about the end times. Aside from those, yes, people have asked if I'm worried about my eternal soul for not believing in Jesus as the Messiah.
3) No. There were weeks when I was younger that my family went to shul and I would have preferred to sleep in, but I wouldn't say I was made to go.
4) No. Like youth groups or confirmation or something?
5) Yes, especially at this time of year when my neighbors ask where we plan to get a tree, and at the High Holidays when I have to fight with my kids' school about missing/making up assignments for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. From family, I'm Conservative, but have family who are Orthodox and family who are Reform. One Orthodox cousin in particular is always lending me books about Jewish womanhood extolling the virtues of Orthodoxy for women (no thank you; I enjoy sitting with my family at services and hearing from our female rabbi). My Reform MIL always remarks on how uncomfortable she is in our kosher home, because she doesn't understand the rules and doesn't understand why we would keep kosher. So in both of those cases (though obviously in different directions), I feel pressure to be more or less religious to make my family more comfortable.

Generally-speaking, however, I've found a community where I am comfortable (theologically, socially, spiritually) and that goes a long way toward helping to block out external pressures. I'm happy with my level of observance, my relationship with God and Torah, and my community. I'm proud of the connection to Judaism DH and I are fostering in our children. Everything else is (to a certain extent) just noise.[/quote]

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