It’s fairly common, in my experience.

You're referring to Syncretism, and it's extremely common in the Western world. 25% of American Christians report believing in reincarnation.

Literally every religion except the first one are formed via this method.

No. Every religion started that way.

Its all made up, so you're free to make up your own stuff too I guess.

I think it's normal and healthy, if it's not taken too far. Same goes for mainstream religion.

Religion is ultimately about answering the unanswerable. Why are we here, the meaning of life, what happens after we die, that kind of thing. Nobody is able to answer these questions with evidence, so therefore any established religion has just as much credence as whatever you come up with yourself.

Denying objective reality or restricting the rights of others is where you have to draw the line though. That's where things become weird.

Regarding mixing christian and pagan rites, there's a fascinating history of how catholicism in particular incorporated pagan beliefs into their own pantheon. If it's okay for them to pick and choose what to believe, then the same goes for everyone else too

What you have is beliefs, which is normal.

A religion is a scam where people are told that all of their beliefs are or should be the same, which is absurd.

Believe what you feel is right, question it often, and that's all. Religions are useless at best, dangerous in general.

Pretty much everyone has their own unique blend of beliefs. Like. Most Christian’s have their things they do or don’t believe, even if there’s a shared framework.

Like, ask 10 Christian’s what the hell the trinity is, you’ll get 20 different and usually mutually contradictory answers.

Or about hell and who goes and for how long.

It's weird but not uncommon. There are lots of weird people out there. You'll have company.

honestly, that's why I think about stuff as 'religion' versus 'organized religion'

anyone can come up with their own relgion :)

Arguably, even the most devout of devout have their own unique mixture of beliefs, because the scripture is inconsistent and has parts that are unclear.

I'd say that literally everyone has a unique set of beliefs, even atheists will hold into some superstitions, often unaware they are.

I'm atheist, I still do "touch wood" (a pagan thing that got coopted by UK Protestantism, that to prevent a jinx or bring a blessing, you say "touch wood" and tap the nearest wooden thing), cause it does something in my brain, a comforting effect

Its honestly really common. Most people sorta mostly believe in their religion and sorta pick and choose whats important to them about it and often grab add ons they come across. A heavily catholic hispanic area I lived in had these psychics who would integrate catholic saints into their thing and make it semi religious and plenty of religious catholics took it in as a thing.

Not at all! Eclectic belief structures are perfectly normal.

There are thousands of religious sects among each larger religion, so even within a "single" religion, beliefs vary so greatly that not even everyone of the "same" religion sees everyone else on the "same" religion is actually the same.

Need on what you said, either a Christian Mysticism or Christian-Pagan-Syncratic belief isn't even unique to you. Others feel the same way.

I think everyone has their own personal code of conduct and morals that directs their lives. Some (most) people don't explicitly have a set but will justify their own behaviour based on both their religious beliefs and moral code. Some people just retroactively justify their own actons. Its a sign of maturity to think about and be intensional about creating and adhering to your own moral code which may or may not be directed by your own religious believes.

No, for most of human history people had to have their own beliefs, it's only relatively recently these monotheistic cultures forced so the free thinkers to believe the same things

Nah, loads of people don't follow some set religion but still have their own beliefs.

I do it too, we can be weird together

I don't really "believe" in anything, but I do hope that there is an afterlife in the sense of "you go where you want to go". I've got a whole little world planned out for myself if there's something out there listening.

Yes. Especially if it leads to creating a cult.

You will probably find most people in Lemmy are Atheist or agnostic, IMO, but you do need to find your own belief system.

While having your own belief system is unusual in our conformist society, it is not weird. What is weird is that so many people blindly follow someone else’s belief system.

I think it depends on what your belief system is. If you take good lessons from several different religions that help you be a better person. Not weird at all

If you wrote science fiction and then all of a sudden wanted to create scientology. Very fucking weird

I often meet this, so it's common

To me personally yes but I think any belief in the supernatural is weird. If you're not hurting anyone or talking my ear off about your beliefs, then you do you to your heart's content

Not weird at all. How else do you think all religions across the world have been developed?

No weirder than any other kind of religious belief, I suppose. The Quakers have this kind of pretty loose approach to doctrine, for instance, and they're generally pretty decent people.

Quakerism, especially unprogrammed meetings for worship, are extremely embracing of this concept

Many religions are a packaged deals. Meaning they have their own metaphysical beliefs, morality, commandments etc. If people only take some parts of it and not the other, then there will be injustices not only by the outsider's morality but also the insider ones.

Anyways, today we have laws that have largely replaced religion's morality and social justice elements precisely because mixing and matching multiple different moralities and justice systems wasn't very good. So i guess its fine to mix beliefs today

I think you just described being "Not religious, but spiritual".

So, like, you're the worst

Maybe it's nitpicking but having a moral code is a normal thing, having a religious belief system is weird, or at least not the norm.

Emma Goldman said that 80% of people are followers

You're not weird. You're just not a follower like the vast majority.