Does your experience with religion as a child influence how you approach Atheism?

[salparadise1000]

Here are several questions, all asking the same basic thing:

Generally speaking, do people who were raised in strict religious homes but later become Atheists 'practice' their Atheism differently then those who were raised in largely secular homes?

If you never had to reject Christianity might you now be less hostile towards it?

If you family members who are constantly trying to 'save' you how does that effect how you express your Atheism?

If you remained closeted about your atheism for many years does effect things once you come out?

[Warpy]

1. I'm no more hostile to Christianity than I am to the Tooth Fairy

I am, however, very hostile to anyone's attempt to convert anyone else toward or away from religion. Evangelizing is annoying at best, insulting at worst and it's usually at worst.

People who try to do it to me generally don't like the result.

I don't think stomping away from the Irish Catholic church at the ripe old age of 10 has anything to do with it. I just don't like bullying.

[Starboard Tack]

23. +100 I feel exactly the same.

[dimbear]

2. My grandfather taught me how to sing "Jesus Loves Me" in Swahili.

I can still do it a lifetime later.

It was my grandmother who went kind of ballistic when she got of whiff of her pagan grandkid. Bad scene followed.

Since that incident, no problems with the relates. In fact my aunt was infinitely amused by my skepticism. I would argue her into a corner and she would laugh and laugh and go "My, my." I miss those arguments.

It certainly must flavor my behavior, coming out of that pious background.

[laconicsax]

3. Nope.

1. Perhaps, but not being a member of both of those groups, I can't say.
2. My hostility toward Christianity stems from years (over a decade) of being bullied by Christians for a variety of things directly related to their religious beliefs.
3. I have family members who would constantly try to "save me" if they thought that I wasn't a God-fearing Christian like them. Turns out that if you don't say anything about what you do and don't believe, people like to assume that you're just like them...then bully and ostracize you when they learn you're not.
4. Maybe. I have not intention of "coming out" to anyone who may even have a potential connection with my family. Most of my family would probably be fine with it, but they're the ones I don't get to see very often. I'd wind up estranged from most of the family I have to deal with regularly.

[Rittermeister]

4. I'm still largely closeted, both politically and religiously

and listening to my family members and acquaintances speak candidly over a number of years has filled me with something very near loathing for them. These people universally despise me. They despise everything about me, my chosen profession, my beliefs, everything, and they don't even know it. Every problem in this country is blamed on people like me - atheistic liberal big-city scientists. On the few occasions I've been provoked to speak candidly, I've made it clear: I am hostile to religion. I think it provides no benefits but generates a great many horrible side effects. If you want to practice your delusions, fine, do it like tinfoil helmet crowd - in the shadows of rational society, with zero respectability or attention paid. And to hell with their tax exempt status. Our public schools and universities are starved of funding, students are paying crippling tuition, and we're letting little mini-Hitlers get up and speak every Sunday tax-free?

[SwissTony]

5. I was Catholic in my early days

but I wouldn't say I'm hostile towards religion at all. I don't like people who try to convert me (you think JWs coming to your door is bad, what if your sister and her family are all JWs?). I don't appreciate the fact that churches get very significant tax advantages when many of them have bags of cash. I dislike people who give credit to Jesus where no credit is due e.g. on the old DU someone posted a story about a guy who had had a bad bike accident. He was in hospital for months and had FIVE operations on his head. When he recovered, who did he give credit to? Hint: it wasn't the surgeons.

But that's about it.

I should add that my being atheist has never caused me any personal problems. In the places where I've lived, my atheism is of absolutely no importance. I've read postings on here which have made it clear that's not the situation at all for some people. I suspect that might make a difference.

Edited to add: one more thing that annoys me - Christians claiming they are being persecuted. This isn't ancient Rome, guys.

[dmallind]

6. Hmmm.. not for me seemingly

My upbringing - English by the way - was one where religion was a sort of vague ritual acknowledged, if tacitly by some, to be meaningless. I went to schools with prayers and hymns but as perfunctory tedia to be lightly dismissed. There was neither familial nor social influence from Christianity that reached as much as 1% of that typical in Middle America. Franky we looked a bit askance at overtly religious folks, even of the liberal theology type (which was the majority - fundies are scarce indeed there). Overall religion to me was akin to a musty uncomfortable armchair that nobody sat in but was kept around because it reminded folks of a dead grandfather. Needless to say I had no great need to be "closeted".

My "animosity" is exactly relative to, and entirely the result of, the influence American Christianity tries to force for itself into law and secular norms. I never spared a thought for Christianity in politics in the UK because it had none and sought very little. If the Archbishop of Canterbury got ten minutes face time on the BBC every year to whinge about the morals of kids of today they were happy. I never spared a minute to criticize, refute, make fun of or oppose them there either. The reason of course was the same. I found the history and philosophy of religions interesting, and still do. But here they need to be opposed at every turn because they seek, to a greater or lesser degree, theocracy. Theocracy is the most evil form of government imaginable. In a secular tyranny, one can at least expect Il Generalissimo to tell you what he wants, not have it left up to the guesswork of acolytes to nothingness. If American Christians simply lived how they thought they should, but left the rest of us alone to do likewise, I'd happily and instantly return to my former blase nature.

Christianity per se is not one iota more or less silly or wrong or baseless than any other mature religion. Judaism, Hinduism, Islam, whatever. It's marginally less so than more recent inventions that haven't yet had their rough ages smoothed off by centuries of syncretism and tradition and apologetics. Scientology, Reunification, Mormonism, whatever. It is the focus for me, and most US atheists, simply because of its influence and risk in our lives. Indian atheists spend their time refuting and challenging Hinduism for exactly the same reason.

[daaron]

8. Indian atheists also have to refute and challenge Islam and Christianity. What a drag! nt

[dmallind]

9. Sure - and you could say US ones do too, plus Judaism etc. But the big risks to secularism

and therefore the main legitimate targets for resistance, are Hiduism and Christianity respectively.

[RebelOne]

7. I am not hostile toward Christianity, I just reject it now.

When I was a child, my mother sent me to the Baptist church. I went there for several years, even went to Sunday and vacation bible school.

Soon that became tiring and I switched to the Episcopalian church and even went through confirmation and first communion. I attended that church for a few years and drifted away.

Then, I decided that since I did not believe in any deities that I was an atheist.

My family members all say no you are not an atheist, so I don't even try to argue with them. My son, who is religious, says that I am crazy, just as he says I am crazy because I am a vegetarian. My daughter agrees with me because she is also an atheist. We used to attend atheist meetings in Hollywood, FL on Sundays.

[daaron]

10. Interesting questions all - been thinking about this lately, too.

Because I think, in my case, that my childhood experiences with religion and religious thinking were formative. Neither of my parents was or is religious, but they went through the motions because we lived in a small town. I was baptized Methodist at around 12 yo - milquetoast protestant with hayrides and choir practice, the works. So it wasn't my parents or church that religionized me. I think it was not knowing my grandfather, who died the same year I was born, and was the Campus Minister at UMich in Ann Arbor at the time. It made me curious about religion, in particular Christianity, to read the letters in the top drawer of his desk while wearing his reading glasses and rolling his pen between my fingers (thx dad for keeping it unchanged since grandpa's death). My parents weren't excited about my interest in religion, but they never opposed it either. It helps that I never learned how to evangelize.

As I got older, I danced with atheism a few times before we got hitched, so to speak. It all started with Santa Claus, man. Then the Devil was the next to fall. I think I was 12 when I first thought The Thought, but pushed it away until 16, when a nerd buddy of mine (a genius with an IC board and cash for Radio Shack) went all Baptist on me, and started converting or trying to convert my friends and me. He cut off all contact when I told him I didn't believe in God, and he had converted a childhood friend of my (then his GF); she called me "the Devil" after he told her, and would only read one book. Bet you can guess which one. Almost all my hostility to fundamentalism was born the day speaking the words, "I don't believe in God," trashed two long friendships.

So I read the Bible, too. Cover to cover. I've since reread the more interesting chunks many times over, and delved into the literature on mysticism, and became interested in comparative religion. It has fascinated me, and at times threatened my sanity, I think - especially when I overdosed on Kabbalah. (On a side note, I think an overdose of Alchemy is the cure for that affliction.) All this reading has convinced me that all religion is based on myth, and any normative benefits that religion might have can and often is cruelly cancelled at once by one foul deed in the name of (insert name of deity, here). Reminds me of something the driller on a rig I worked on told me on my first day; hardhat in hand, he said, "It takes ten 'Attaboys' to cancel one 'Make 'em bite!'"

I think all my answers to the OP questions are in there, somewhere.

[FiveGoodMen]

11. Yes.

My family is full of preachers and (amateur) theologians.

My religious upbringing was more than just threats of hell. It was full of justifications as to why a perfect and loving god would oh-so-justly condemn me to hell. (Because I am just that big a piece of shit, of course)

Without that, I might just see xtianity as a sad bit of nonsense.

But people who teach their children that burning to death is too good for them are committing a crime against humanity.

[Curmudgeoness]

12. I don't think my childhood experiences have any impact

on the way that I approach atheism. But then again, I was not raised in a religious home. I did go to Sunday school, and to church, and to Bible camp and weekend retreats. But I took those things as more of a social event than a worship session. (I was thrown out of Sunday school once because we were telling jokes and laughing and we were supposed to be praying, so I was obviously not serious.)

I also got involved in a "born again" group, and that is probably where my opinions of religion turned off. Those people were fucking nuts. They talked the Bible and God all the time----all the time. They would go into places and try to convert everyone. They studied the Bible in detail, but as usual, they picked and chose what they wanted to believe. I will give them this....they were pretty tame and "Jesus-like". At least they tried to be like Jesus---not the way this newer brand of Christian is acting. But I found it distasteful because they felt that they were better than the rest of the world.

So maybe this experience has shaped my approach. I am much less willing to tolerate those "saving" people or the ones who want to pray for me, as if I am the one who needs the prayers. I am not nasty about it, but I am firm that I don't want to have fantasy conversations. I might not be so adament if I had not experienced it from the other side----the converting side.

Most people who know me know that I have no beliefs in anything to do with religion or god or spirituality and I find that they just avoid conversations on it. I am more offended when I go to events that are not religious, but are secular or political, and I am forced to "be good" while they pray....maybe because I still don't know how to deal with this.

[daaron]

13. I know! "Being good" while the grown-ups pray.

So condescending, and they'll never see the irony. That one always gets me, so I take the opportunity to examine people while they're not looking.

[Curmudgeoness]

15. I never thought of that one.

I usually just watch the person leading the prayer---since they are often really into it. But I stopped going to our county Dem meetings because we have a chair who thinks he is a preacher and leads prayers that go on forever. I just will not subject myself to it, and I don't want to piss off everyone else in the room by making something of it. Maybe I should.

[daaron]

16. Oh, you definitely should. It's your patriotic duty, as well as moral obligation. :) nt

[cynatnite]

14. I'd say my experience as a child directly influences my attitudes about religion...

especially Christianity.

Despite some positives that have came out of it, I still have some resentment. I'd be a liar if I denied it. I was told horrific stories about hell, the angel of death and more when I was growing up. It's why I consider the religion heartless and cruel. I don't care what anyone says...it is.

I don't speak up too much about this level of my feelings because it's just not worth the aggravation coming from them. I'd rather just be an atheist in my own little corner of the universe. As long as they don't teach their "earth is 6000 years old" and "hell" bullshit to my son, I'm okay. I will never be okay with that.

I do think if I hadn't been raised in this kind of conservative baptist home, I would be less hostile. The things that we were taught was just over the top, IMO.

Now, outside of my little corner of space I don't care. The minute that changes, my patience ends and my hostility comes out.

[Odin2005]

17. No. I grew up in a mainstream Lutheran household.

My mom made me go to church more out of Upper-Midwest small town social propriety then out of conviction. To her going to church is "just something you do", belief never entered the picture. In fact I don't think my mom has given a single thought about religious belief in and of itself, she is a liberal Theist who believes that (quoting her) "God loves everybody", but doesn't seem to reflect much about it. She is "concerned" that I don't go to church, but that has to do with said social propriety and nothing to do with any fear that I will go to hell (because she thinks only "bad people" go to Hell, not non-believers).

My Dad and his side of the family (all Lutherans as well) are somewhat more religious than my mom, but they are very tolerant and have the same "God loves everybody and only sends bad people to Hell" attitude at odds with the bigotry of the doctrine they adhere to.

There was never an exact moment that I "became" an Atheist, I slowly just fell away from religion in my late teens after I was confirmed.

[wyldwolf]

18. My 'first love' broke my heart because I wasn't a 'dedicated Christian.'

9th grade. Sigh.

Then she got into all kinds of trouble with a church boy. Forever changed the way I view religious people and sent me on my way to agnosticism (I say I'm agnostic just to leave a little wiggle room.)

[Iggo]

19. There's nothing there to "practice".

And my hostility towards Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular has nothing to do with my atheism. I'm an atheist because I came to realize that I had no belief that there exists a god or gods, not because the catholic church treats my friends like shit.

[Kennah]

20. Wow, that leads to yet another circuitous story in my life

My parents think of themselves as moderate, but I would say they are very liberal/progressive.

We attended a Baptist Church that, I believe at that time, belonged to both the Southern Baptist and American Baptist conventions. It was very different with a number of factions and groups within that ran the gamut, from very conservative to very liberal.

There was some sorta falling out, and my parents switched to a Methodist Church for a few years. I think it was a social falling out. The Methodist Church was very liberal, even compared to a moderate Baptist Church. I was probably 11 or 12, but even then I knew my place in the Baptist Church--you shut up and do as you are told. Not so at the Methodist Church. I was free to ask questions, including difficult questions.

After a few more years, we went back to the original Baptist Church. That's the place where I "got saved", and it felt more like the socially expected thing to do.

For me, Church was always more of a social experience than a religious experience. If anything, the religion got in the way.

Wife nudging and I finally to "keep the peace" went to Church with her while not kicking, screaming, shouting, speaking up, and just generally "kept in my place" while there. Drifted back in deeper and deeper in Southern Baptism. Last two Churches were VERY fundamentalist.

While going along to get along, I think I let myself believe I believed what they believed. After a few years, and strategically raising issues with just the wife when I could--meaning NOT at the Church--she began to fold and concede she didn't buy into the fundamentalist hatred. It was then I set about more actively resisting--by not attended. Never told her she could not go. Even offered to drive her and take care of the kids while she went.

Haven't been back to a Church since 2007, and I don't plan to go.

[AlbertCat]

21. Lordy....

.... My parents.... my mother was head of nursing and my father was a surgeon....only went to church on Christmas and Easter, reluctantly. They used to drop me and my sister off at church on Sundays but not go themselves. What's a kid supposed to think? I always knew it was just a social thing with little substance. It wasn't until I was about 8 I realized adults actually BELIEVED that baloney. I thought it was just theatre to everyone before then.

To this day, I still see it as a social thing. Real truly true believers seem to have trouble functioning. Most people are part of what Daniel Dennett calls "belief in belief". They believe it's good for them socially to believe. But they still go to the doctor and trust science.

[Lucy Goosey]

22. "It wasn't until I was about 8 I realized adults actually BELIEVED that baloney"

I had the same type of realization when I was around that age, too!

I only went to one religious service as a child, and it was when I had slept over at a friend's house on a Saturday night - my parents were not religious at all. I remember telling my mom about my friend's book of Bible stories that I thought was really cool - she had to explain to me that my friend and her family believed these stories were true because of their religion, and I shouldn't say anything to offend them. I think I understood, at least enough to avoid offending my religious friends, but I was really kind of incredulous - even as an 8-year-old, I thought the stories were so obviously untrue that I really didn't know how people could believe them.

[HopeHoops]

24. Yes. In elementary school...

I volunteered to help with the kindergarten/pre-school room and walked about a mile each way to the church and back. It was quite rewarding until one day. I was playing "Greensleeves" on the organ in the room and some woman came in and bitched me out because she could hear it in the balcony. First of all, it wasn't that loud. Secondly, why have an organ in the room if it isn't there to be played? I left and never returned.