Let me preface this by saying it is not meant as an attack on any particular religion. Although particular religions come to mind on this subject, I will not name them. Instead it is just a thought that has been in my head for quite some time.

How many people follow a religion because it is the one he/she was raised in? It is their family or community tradition. And not because he/she actually came to said religion because of a belief in it or due to the spirituality gained from it.

In my case it was kind of weird.  My family was basically non-religious, a friend of my mother's took us to vacation bible school one year, I remember and that's pretty much the extent of my childhood religious training aside from the mainstream christian religions being ever-present in my school/neighborhood environment in general.  For some reason I had a set of beliefs ever since I was a small child, and I didn't talk about them, I just felt a certain way, and being in the days before pagan books or information was readily available, I didn't know exactly what it was or how to practice it, I just believed it, until the day I found my first book on paganism.  I read the back of the book and said, "THAT'S IT!!" (out loud in the store and got weird looks...lol).  It described exactly what I'd always believed, and didn't know what to call it.  In my case I'm glad my parents weren't particularly religious, because that kept me from having the dogma strongly ingrained in me, and left me open to pursue what was right for me without a lot of internal arguing.

An interesting thing that seems to me to be exactly what you are talking about, though, of feeling obligated to follow a particular religion because of being raised that way.....I met a close friend's girlfriend for the first time several years ago, and she was very nice and very interesting to talk to, and had just gotten some books on paganism and was fascinated by it and was starting to study it, and we talked about it several times.  They got married, and all went on as before, and then she had two kids.  Suddenly the paganism went straight out the door and she rejoined the christian church and is raising them Baptist.  It's like, it's good enough for me to study, but I have kids now so I have to do the "right" think and raise them as Christians.  An interesting (if a bit disappointing from my point of view...lol) mindset, that I think goes directly back to "that's the way I was raised, that's the way I should raise my kids," even though she was obviously looking elsewhere for her own spirituality.  (Her husband had no preference either way, he's really non-religious himself.)

Interesting question, Bobby.  I came to my path through my own research and growing beliefs.  I was raised in a Christian family, with strong Catholicism on my mother's side.  I began researching Paganism after I met a very spiritual friend of mine.  She began to introduce me to many different beliefs and theories.  Soon she helped finally break out of the Christian faith I had.  I'll admit that I had already began to doubt Christianity before her, but I had not left it until her influence.  I began researching different things such as chakras, energy work, Buddhism (a little), and of course, Witchcraft.  I'd been interested in Witchcraft (and actually a little afraid of it) my entire life.  Lol, I always felt different, and when I was a little girl I used to pretend I was a Sabrina like witch with all my other friends. I didn't believe witches really existed back then in anything other than movies and fairy tales, it wasn't until later that I came across "Wicca".  At that point I thought it was "stupid" and "demon worship", but as time went by and I grew mentally and spiritually (and met the right people), I became to understand what Witchcraft really is and isn't.  Anyways, thats my story.  And for clarity, I mentioned Wicca above, thats the first form of real witchcraft I came across when I was younger, and still a devout Christian.  I'm not Wiccan although there's nothing wrong with Wicca, I consider myself a cottage/green witch.

Lol, sorry for rambling on, I just thought I'd share.

I was raised in a Christian family, but I did not end up Christian.  I ended up drifting,ah -  elsewhere. :-)

Now, all in consideration, I do not think it wrong to have tradition at all.  We all need order in society, even religion, in order to protect the populace and the integrity of the religion and society.  I think though what some traditions need, in order to survive, is a broad, universal order of its own, with societal laws that are open to evolution.  It is part of why Hinduism and a several other older religions that still exist survived.  I think sometimes that traditions can falter when it is not open to the changes that societal, perhaps even spiritual, evolution brings.  Otherwise, the faith is bound to fall apart. 

It is a speculated flaw in a several research papers and persuasive articles I found in regards to traditions in religion.  A basic, holistic, belief structure tends to be fine, but when the faith is so rigid to where it has no open to change at all, it tends to fall apart.  It tends to be the fall of a several apocalyptic faiths that exist out there. 

At any rate, this is just my opinion based on the very limited research I have done.


Sincerely,
ResplendentSeraphim

Although I was brought up on the Christian Faith, later in my years, I found myself more interested in the Celtic believes. My family is Christian, even though they don't go to church (except for my grandma - who goes to church). I guess you can say, out of respect I still do the Christian holidays with my family, go to their houses for Christmas, Easter, etc. I too celebrate. But I also do my own. Unfortunately my dad doesn't really care or believe in what my beliefs are. He's more stuck in his own ways. So I don't really bother trying to explain what my beliefs are to him, becuase he just blows it off anyways. My mom on the other hand, knows that I am pagan and is fine with the fact that I don't believe in the same thing she does.