Who here has ALWAYS been openly Atheist?

[brooklynite]

I walked out of Sunday School when I was 8, and was never uncomfortable letting people know (if they asked) that I didn't believe in God, even as an expat in a conservative (military/embassy) neighborhood in Southeast Asia in the '70s, where one of my friends was the son of a Baptist Minister.

[mr blur]

1. I have

Nobody here has ever really cared much. Why should they? Different culture, I guess.

[madmom]

2. Since about 16, I have never really broadcast it, but never

denied it either. If asked, I just say "I don't do the god thing!" The only person who has ever thrown a hissy fit is/was my mother in law.

[Ron Obvious]

3. Me...

Me, but I don't know if I can take credit for it particularly as I grew up in a completely non-religious household and secular surroundings. My mother did teach Sunday school back in her youth, but she was more one of those European 'wouldn't it be nice?' Christians as opposed to one of those radical extremists who actually believed any of it. My father never gave it a thought, I suspect.

My parents did deem it necessary for my general education to send me to an hour a week religious education class when I was about 13. This was something I resented deeply, and I took out my resentments on the pastor by constantly arguing the poor man into a corner and by giving mocking answers on his tests. I suppose if there was a transformative experience that led me to become the kind of atheist that deeply loathed religion and religious-thinking, that might have been it. More likely, it was moving the US South, where I first encountered wide-spread mediaeval religious fundamentalism of a type that I assumed had long been extinct.

[Warpy]

4. I've been in that "I'm not religious" closet since I was ten

and realized when the nuns had me doing penance in the church that I was the only one there and it had always been like that.

Before then, it was more being afraid to say I didn't believe that crap even though I'd always found it pretty stupid. Sister Mary Torquemada did a bang up job of terrifying the kiddies into toeing the church line....for a while.

It's funny, most of the atheists I know in real life also survived the Irish Catholic church and parochial school. I'm quite tempted to say that Catholic schools are institutions dedicated to the production of atheists and I don't think that's far off.

I've always been outspoken in rejecting religion since the age of ten. Branding myself with the "A" word to people I don't know very well has been dangerous to my livelihood, so I've been quite careful. The world is exceptionally unforgiving of women who stray outside the bosom of the church.

[dimbear]

5. Not me. I was born as a small child. Didn't even talk till I was around 2 or 3.

Grasped that I didn't believe in God about age 12. Considering how radical a minority report that was in my God fearing family, you can cut me some slack.

[LeftishBrit]

6. I have.

But it's much more accepted in England than it seems to be in America.

[Curmudgeoness]

7. Nope, I haven't.

I was in my teens when I realized the flaws in religion. Actually, I didn't think much about it before I hit that questioning phase of life. It was still years before I would admit that I was an atheist. I started with saying I was agnostic----I wasn't a believer, but I wasn't sure there was no god either. It was a long journey to feeling comfortable with the word atheist.

[OriginalGeek]

8. I can barely even imagine a place

where being atheist is the normal thing and nobody cares.



And I'm pretty jealous and more than a little pissed off that I didn't get to grow up in that place.

I firmly believe my mother and step-father becoming far-right-wing crazy religious nutbags robbed me of a normal childhood and uncountable opportunities. Particularly in my education but also in just being able to relate to other human beings.

I got an incredibly late start at being grown up because of their childish, fantasy bullshit and I am still trying to recover from it.

[brooklynite]

9. I never said it was "normal"...

...I just didn't care if people thought differently of me.

My Prep School (think of the kind of school Mitt Romney attended) required "chapel" attendance every evening after dinner. I attended, standing with one other student while everyone else prayed, until I was able to get a job assignment that excused me.

[OriginalGeek]

10. My bad

I was wistfully pondering Mr. Blur's experience of being in a place where it didn't matter much if he was an atheist. That's what boggles my mind. I've never lived anywhere remotely like that...and I work with a fellow atheist.

[dmallind]

11. I had the no big deal British upbringing too.

Never really believed but never knew it mattered until I moved to the US so not sure if that counts as "open" or not. It would be like coming out as heterosexual to be a US-style open atheist in the UK, in my generation and later at least. Basically unless you make a concerted effort to show otherwise, it's kind of assumed.

But yes I went to the Goodbye Mr. Chips type school with assembly and hymns and prayers and R.E. too. It's a tradition more than a religion in that way. Funnily enough I seriously considered entering the CofE clergy as a profession. Not from any hoop-it-up joke or Macchiavellian modern day Meslier wannabe either. Just that given the focus my education took as I got older and the rather dire employment prospects in Thatcherite England, plus the fact that I still believe as I did then I would have been rather good at it, it seemed like a good plan. Only the very likely impending (at the time - obviously done deal long ago now) marriage to an American and hence emigration probably stopped me from donning the collar. I do have the Rev. title here thanks to legally free ordination, but they are more restrictive in the UK so it's strange to think I might have had it there anyway.

[Oregonian]

12. I wish

Unfortunately I was raised in a house where we believed the earth was 6,000 years old, that God listened to every word I said, where masturbation was quite possibly a sin, and where at the end of every day I had to remember every bad thing I did, specifically request Jesus' forgiveness for each bad thing and -- if I couldn't recall all the bad things I did -- pray to God to help me remember, so I wouldn't burn in hell.

Being an atheist now sure is a load off!

[frogmarch]

13. Me. I don't

go around shouting it to passersby, but when the topic of religion comes up in conversation, I let it be known I'm an atheist.

[AlbertCat]

14. moi

I upset the sunday school class my parents dropped me off at when I was like 7 or 8 when I referred to the "Adam & Eve Myth". The other kids sucked the air out of the room and the teacher freaked! "It's not a MYTH!!!!!". Stupid me. It had never even occurred to me before that that anyone would take the stuff literally, or seriously.

But everybody always thought I was a dumb sissy idiot anyway, so no one cared or listened to what I thought. I mean.... I liked Shakespeare and classical music in elementary school. So...eh....

[idwiyo]

15. Me

[awoke_in_2003]

16. Hell, I am not...

fully open now.

[Grave Grumbler]

17. Not always, but since I was 12. Does that count?

It's never really been an issue.