Raised secular vs. raised religious
As many of you know, Flimsy and I come from entirely diffeent religious backgrounds, yet we're both equally passionate about atheism.
Flimsy was raised Fundamentalist Southern Baptist, while I was raised almost entirely secularly. Religion was pushed on him when he was a child, while religion was barely mentioned in passing to me.
For the longest time, Flimsy was afraid that his passion for atheism was just an awkward manifestation of continued imprisonment by his early indoctrination. He didn't know any secular people who had the same fire inside as he did.
So, my dear commenters: tell me about your religious upbringing!
Flimsy was raised Fundamentalist Southern Baptist, while I was raised almost entirely secularly. Religion was pushed on him when he was a child, while religion was barely mentioned in passing to me.
For the longest time, Flimsy was afraid that his passion for atheism was just an awkward manifestation of continued imprisonment by his early indoctrination. He didn't know any secular people who had the same fire inside as he did.
So, my dear commenters: tell me about your religious upbringing!
posted by Ziztur
at
3:00 PM
9 Comments:
I was raised by Unitarian Universalists, who pressed no beliefs on me at all, which is exactly as all parents should raise their children.
I don't know if they were extraordinarily sensible parents or if I was just a very sensible child, but I cannot remember ever having believed in Santa Claus, souls, deities, the Tooth Fairy, astrology, or anything else that is clearly contrary to reality.
For awhile I went to UU church with my family, though they were never all that diligent about going every week, and my dad has stopped recently as well (mostly because he doesn't find the current minister's sermons particularly gripping). When we lived in Boston, and for a few years after we moved to Buffalo (I was three at the time), we went to a UU retreat off the coast of New England called Star Island.
My sister greatly enjoyed UU youth group, and went to a UU summer camp in the Adirondacks called Unirondack and wound up working there for a few summers once she got old enough. I went to Unirondack one year, and hated it a lot (you know how young boys are), and never went again. Once I was old enough to make decisions for myself, I stopped going to church, because the whole point of UUism is to hang out and socialize with other people, and I have always been very much an introvert.
Several years ago, I started reading books like The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion and Letter To A Christian Nation and god is not Great, and realized explicitly what had been true all along: I am an atheist. After some experimentation, I settled more specifically on the designation "rationalist" (that everything can be explained by observation and logic).
And now I'm a philosophy major, and whenever anybody who knows me hears that, they say "Yeah. That fits you." Make of that what you will.
Well, I was christian until I got interested in satanism when I was 10 years old, then I got scared into becoming christian again, then I was an atheist for a brief period. My current beliefs are nearly identical to the beliefs of the people at www.enkiea.org. I'm not trying to advertise for them, but copying a web address is a lot easier than writing an essay.
Julian - welcome! Enkiea is interesting! It seems very much like the anti-Christianity.
@Maimar - yes, your parents are awesome. I pretty much realized I was an atheist reading the same books.
I don't remember ever going to church as a child, except for when we went with our babysitter. She was a 7th Day Adventist and she would take my brother and me to church with her occasionally. Usually we would do the children's activities like painting and coloring and gluing cotton balls onto drawings of lambs and stuff. I had fun and I liked the storybooks that she had of Bible stories. I even learned part of the 23rd psalm from a cartoon of David and Goliath she had.
In high school I had some friends who introduced me to Wicca, so I was interested in that for a long time. I still like to read books about rituals and ceremonies from time to time, but I consider myself an agnostic who is leaning heavily towards atheism.
My brother went to several different churches when he was in high school because most of his friends were Mormon, but now he pretty much shares my beliefs, as does our mom and our mom's side of the family. Many of the people on my dad's side are some flavor of fundamental Christian, but as long as I don't bring up religion I like to be around them.
Nelli
I was raised Methodist and went to church weekly, but by the time I was 16 I realized I didn't believe it. I took a step back, looked at the story of Christianity from the outside, and had a realization that can only be described as, "You're fucking kidding me, right?"
My mom, who is still Christian, figured it out pretty early. She wasn't happy but she didn't pressure me. My dad never went to church when I was a kid, but has apparently started going since, if only intermittently.
I called myself agnostic for 20 years before I finally decided to call myself atheist. I would still, at times, go to services on Christmas when I went home so I could socialize with other friends who'd returned for the holiday, but finally quit going even then because I decided I'd rather be anti-social than betray my principles.
The first time my parents and I ever discussed religion was after my father found that I had bookmarked some websites regarding satanism and deleted them.
I don't think I had ever taken any sort of religion seriously before, and my parents hadn't ever taken me to church or anything like that, but I knew that the typical standpoint was christianity = good, satanism = bad. My only interest in reading up on satanism was to find out what was so bad about it. I mean, you always hear what the good parts of christianity is and just that other things are bad. What kind of vague bullcrap is that?
Anyways, my dad later confronted me about it, I told him it all sounded pretty silly to me, this and that doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me, and that I didn't really believe in god. He proceeded to tell me that I couldn't make any assumptions or have any opinion on the subject because I didn't go to church or read the bible. It then hit me that he wasn't a practicing christian and didn't seem to know very much regarding whatever question I threw his way, but was telling me I was wrong because he was "scared of me not going to heaven." Sorry, Pops. That's an opinion. I'll listen to yours if you listen to mine.
Agnostic leaning towards atheist pretty much my whole life. No matter how hard I try, I still can't seem to take end of the world cults, I mean... religion very seriously. Never really had much to do with my upbringing.
I was raised in a secular home. Religion was not really brought up in my home. Around 14 or so I got curious about religion and went to a few different church groups that some of my friends invited me to, and realized it was just all a fairy-tale. Then I hung out with a Wicca group, and I loved the ideas and stuff behind it, but still found it to be not real. So I'm now a true atheist, but some of my ideas on right and wrong are derived from Wicca.
Completely secular upbringing, but knew something was missing. Went looking for answers with friends of different religions. Jews, Presbyterians, Baptists, Catholics (The scariest aside from Mormons) and a couple others. They were all adamant that they were all right, and all others were wrong. Some even casting you to eternal damnation if you didn't believe the way they do. Perhaps these are the same folks who've taken over/become the Right wing political arm of our modern day USA. Anything in the far extreme is dangerous. These people (Fanatical Christians) who say they believe in peace and freedom are the very same ones who KILL on a daily basis (Iraq.Iran/Afganistan) to protect their beliefs and ideals are DANGEROUS as would any extreme group be. Sorry, I digress...I found my way. I'm not an athiest, I believe in a higher power and for me in Manifests itself as God and I believe Jesus is my saviour. But I also believe that an athiest has all the right and convictions to believe the way they do and I respect and would never judge their decision. We all need to realize that we are all on a journey and if that means you are here once and when your done and gone that's it, then so be it, that is your reality. Or if you go to a higher place and this physical life is a lesson, then that is your version and is to be a private, personal lesson for you and you only.
Just thought I'd add a different perspective, adds credence to the site and a diametric perspective.
DJ
Altadena, Calif.
Hey, DJ! Welcome!
Oh, you're always welcome to come here to disagree with us. Hopefully, a brief look at some of our blog posts will make it apparent that we genuinely love it when we get to talk with people with a different perspective and opinion to our own.
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I will never delete a comment because I disagree with you, but if you're posting anonymously, at least give us a name so that if you make multiple comments we can tell you apart from the other anonymous people.
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