Atheists raised by Christians

I was raised a Catholic, but am now an agnostic leaning toward atheism. I strongly regret all those wasted hours listening to uneducated twats telling me how to behave, what to believe and what to think. I deprecate ANY philosophy that requires people to believe without questioning, and I am angry for all the times I was belted by priests and nuns for daring to challenge them.

I am angry at the thrashings delivered by my mother because I dared to talk back to a priest.

And please don't tell me that the Church wasnt responsible for the beatings. They were and always will be.

I am grateful that my daughter will make up her OWN mind. I don't care if she becomes a Flying Spaghetti Monsterist: she won't have to listen to me tell her what to think.

 

I'm atheist but kind of transitioning to humanist eclectic.... or something.... going through changes....
I was raised in a very screwed up abusive Mormon family.
I think the point I began to doubt was when I didn't get the difference (still don't) between God and say, the Tooth Fairy.
Also, when I asked my mom,
"if heaven is in the clouds, but space is above the clouds, and we travel in space, why don't we haven't we found heaven?"
She replied, "um..... there's clouds in space."
Yeah. It was at that point I learned to doubt that kind of BS.

 

The difference is, kids like the Tooth Fairy. As a kid in a Catholic family I was scared shitless by God, who always seemd to be majorly pissed off, smiting some poor bastard or casting a plague on others who had the misfortune to be born in the wrong city. And requiring me to worship Him (the sexism gave me the shits too) when he'd made me ugly and short.

I hate hierachical religions for the narrowness of the perspective they try to cram their kids heads into.

 

i'm an agnostic atheist. i was raised christian, although i doubt that the way in which my upbringing was "christian" really counts compared to others who recieved more orthodox or strict religious upbringings or educations.

i was raised church of england, which is sometimes called (mockingly, although i think it shouldn't be seen as so much of an insult) "religion for people who don't really wanna get involved", church of enlgand churches (in my experience, although i admit that mine is not a representative sample.) are really more like community hubs, your not gonna find any fire and brimstone there, just a cup of tea and a biscuit on a sunday, and something about god to ponder over your coming week. To be fair, when your entire church is based around a guy wanting to get rid of one wife and shag another, its difficult to take yourselves too seriously.

i resented it for a while (i had an angry atheist stage, like many, lasted a few years) but looking back, i think it probably did me pretty well. the fact is that (although 16 year old me used to claim this vehemently), while very young, i wasn't really "indoctrinated". it was the start of my moral education, true, but the bible stories in sunday school were read to me alongside greek myths, the works of roahl dahl, the stories of robin hood and king arthur etc by my parents, and a host of other moralistic tales, and never was one presented as being of more importance than another. i certainly never remember being encouraged, or believing that i was supposed, to take them literally. they were just things to think about.

my nan was upset i didn't get confirmed, but what can you do?

plus, what i said about the community hub still stands. as a young kid, the only other kids i knew were kids i met at school and kids i met at church. and kids i met at school could come from all over london, kids from church always lived nearby. there's such a limited sense of community whee i grew up and its only gonna get worse, IMO, so the church served and serves an important non-religious function in maintaining tenuous links between people who live in the area.

i was very lucky in this regard. i have a close friend who struggles with serious anxiety and guilt as a result of his strict catholic upbringing.