Before Atheism...

[Achtundachtzig]

Actually, my mom's an atheist too, so she basically brought me up not teaching me anything, one way or the other- just letting me make up my own mind about stuff. I'm sure having an atheist mom probably influenced me a little, but if I'd started believing in god I doubt there would've been a problem or anything. biggrin  

[[x] Natasha [x]]

i hate pie1111

Yes, I know no one's posted here for a week but I just joined.
-_-;

i check the forum every day....no-one ever posts crying  

[nicky250]

I was brought up as a Jew. I had my bat mitzvah and everything and I went to temple every now and then. To me, religion was a nuisance. It was a waste of time, and it wasted my parents money. I'm 13 right now and I changed my belief near the begining of last year. We were reading the book Life of Pi. It's about a kid who tries out a bunch of different religions. His teacher was atheist and our teacher was explaining to us what atheism was. The next day I started joking around saying I was athiest. I think it was mostly for attention. Then I started to really think about it and how stupid I was to believe in "God". Recently I've become a really strong atheist and for once I am proud of my belief, and I understand now how other kids got so obssesive over thier belief or religion.  

[dark_water_priestess]

My mom is a catholic and my dad is methodist, but I was raised catholic. If I was raised any other way, my mom's adoptive father would go berzerk and probably disown me. Anyhoo, ever since I was little, going to church was such a nuisance. I suppose I believed in god because I was never aware of any other point of view; I just assumed it was another fact like George Washington being the first U.S. president. About two years ago, the idea of atheism was somehow introduced to me, sometime in school probably. So I started thinking more about it and realized that religions are just different creation myths created by societies to answer that ever-present questions of "how did i get here??" and "what is my purpose??" I agree with marx's little thing "religion is the opiate of the masses" (or something like that). It's just some made-up thing so that people's minds could be at ease. It gave them something for them to look forward to and threatened eternal damnation for those who did not behave/conform. Unfortunately, i was forced to be confirmed in the catholic faith, or face the wrath of my grandpa. None of my family members know that i'm an atheist; i'm afraid of the consequences if i do. At one point before my confirmation i was complaining about it to my mom, probably about the amount of work or something. She said that I needed to get confirmed for my grandpa, and that after that she didn't care what i did. So, im thinking, great!! maybe i can finally tell her that i'm an atheist!! biggrin But no. Like 2 seconds later, she says, "as long as you have god in your life. I don't care if you become Jewish, Buddhists, Hindu, whatever, as long as you have god in your life." haha. great.

What I really hate are the christians who always try to convert you!! When you tell them you're not interested, they're always like, "I'll pray for you!!" I just want to knock them upside the head right then and there!! And they're so hypocritical!!!! Many of them seem to be fairweather believers, too. They suddenly decide to pray right before a big test, when at any other time they show no sign of any belief. I was in class right before this little quiz, and the guy sitting in front of me hadn't studied at all. We had like 10 min in class to study, but he spent it talking about how he hadn't studied and "couldn't study." Then when he got the quiz, he said, "please jesus let me do well on this quiz!! Please baby jesus!!" I was just like wtf.

Ok so I've probably gone off the prompt or whatever, because I forget what it was. ^^ O well, this works too.  

[Mind Asylum Inc]

I was raised on Christianity...  

[[x] Natasha [x]]

Mind Asylum Inc

I was raised on Christianity...

me too, my gran's dad was a methodist minister and that side of the family is quite relgious  

[Status Quo Joe]

My parents are Non-practicing non denominational Christians.....so yea...  

[Mind Asylum Inc]

Yeah. My family isn't that religious. I rarely hear my dad say anything and it usually consist of "If god is real..." kinda thing. I know my mom belives but I never hear her talk about it.

So there isn't much influence to me.  

[RockerSince1992]

My Mother Was a Strong christian so i was of course raised as one
when i was about ten i started thinking for myself did some reserch
and Found Atheism
When i was christian i never really beleived it so i wasnt a 'happy christian'
i didnt think that 'god' was so great if you had to fear him to get into 'heaven' and not 'hell' so yeah and i thought about all the wars and mass killings taken place just because of religion...its just terrible
but ughhhh....i was the First Atheist in my middle school... but i find more Atheists all the time... i think theres about 8 of us that is known (im in middle school)
so now were a happy little group debating political and religion stuff
And we love to make christians doubt their own religion smile
Ughhhhh i think thats pretty much it....
smile  

[Xia Momo Capernicus]

I hated God; that felt wrong. I loved God, that felt wrong too. Then I stopped believing in that crap altogether and I felt perfectly right.

And then you get intolerant fools like my parents who are like "convert to make us happy" and you say no, "i won't hate myself to be loved by you"  

[Dathu]

I was non denominational christian.  

[CrazyCatExtreme]

I wasn't exactly religous before atheism. I celebrated christmas (ok still do) I believed in God and Heaven and Hell but I nver went to church. My parents never talked about religion. I actualy thought that protestant, catholic and christian where all seperate religions (don't laugh!!!) anywho I was pretty happy thinking I would go to heaven when I died and more so thinking my loved ones when watching over me. But I wasn't gonna keep on believing something just cause it was easyer. What converted me? well, my friend once asked me if I believed in God and why, and I told her well how else could we have come to be. But then I started to think that wasn't a real reason. And I stoped believing around the same time I stoped believing in Santa. I sorta saw Santa as a metaphore for god. He's watching you to see if your good or bad, he rewards you for being good and punishes you for being bad.And I justed started to think "God didn't create man, man created God."  

[Cannibal Joe]

I was raised as a Deist, incase you don't know that, that's some sort of privitive Atheism in a way. Basically, they belive god exists, but doesn't interfere in human lives or nature. They Reject religions based on books, they don't take anything that is supernatural seriously, and the whole genises and original sin, is purely bullshit. They believe in a god who created the world and wants people to behave morally.  

[Anti_Halifax]

my mother was very wishy-washily a christian, and my dad was insane. between the two, i never really had to deal with anything so banal as a parent's religion.  

[Gabrielle Proctor]

I went to a methodist church with my mom for a while, but I was raised agnostic.