Atheists, were/are your parents religious?

Question

If they were, how did you come about being an atheist? Because whether we want to admit it or not, most of us are what we were raised up to be (catholic, baptist, muslim...)

The reason why I'm asking is that I'm just curious. Thanks for the answers!

Answer 1

My dad's a Methodist minister, and I am also the grandson, cousin, and nephew of Methodist ministers.

On my own, I was a "Jesus Freak" during high school (in the 1970s), majored in Religion in a Methodist college, and spent one year in seminary.

When it became clear being gay would render me ineligible for ordination, I left seminary and divorced the Methodists, refused to return the Baptists' calls, fled abuse from the Catholics, & engaged in heavy petting with the Episcopalians & eventually the Unitarians. Each step led me closer to agnosto-atheism.

But then I became drawn to secular Buddhism because when following a Buddhist spiritual path, belief in God is unnecessary.

Answer 2

1. My parents couldn't answer my questions, not even when I was five. When a parent's answer is "There's a place in hell for people who ask questions like that," it tells you two things: one, that they are lousy and abusive parents, and two, that they don't have any knowledge about anything. If a five year old can out-argue an adult's position, you know the adult's don't have much of one. (Their usual response was "go to your room" or to hit me.) And then they wonder why I won't call them anymore.

2. Their hypocrisy was constant and everywhere, talking about "love" while saying non-catholics weren't as good as us" or about "loving all people" while calling blacks "darkies", about "honesty" while they were anything but (my father taking items from work to keep or my mother taking food (that should have gone to the poor) from the St. Vincent De Paul that she "volunteered" at. I went to school with kids that they said were "not our kind" and I didn't see any difference.

3. I started reading heavy science books (eg. Asimov non-fiction) at a young age and realized the natural was far more interesting than things you couldn't see. (Which would interest you more? A dog or a flea circus?) I also started studying the whats and whens of religion (not the whys) and saw nothing but power grabs and greed. This was their morality?

As long as I've been able to think I've been a questioner or an atheist. To me, religion has always been like the "Wizard of Oz", except that I didn't need to open the curtain to know what was going on. I keep challenging the religious to show me, and all they want to do is talk about the superficial and the supernatural.

I got my atheism from personal experience, from first hand knowledge. Chances are you, the questioner, got your religion from your family and second hand tellings by people who never saw a "god" themselves.


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Answer 3

Yup, especially my father's side of the family. They're all Lutheran and more devout than my mother's side. Her side isn't very religious, nor was she raised to be like my Dad, although she was Methodist during her teen years and up until she and my Dad married. She's not devout and pretty relaxed about going to church and accepts that I'm an atheist. My father's stricter and I haven't told him as he'd likely disown me.

As far as how I came to this point, it was a lot of things that I'll try to keep short.

Bible contradictions for starters. We have "love your neighbor" in one passage, yet "hate your enemies" in another and "those who cannot hate their parents, siblings, etc cannot be a follower" in yet another. We also have "thou shalt not kill" in the ten commandments, yet all through the Old Testament, it's nothing but wanton killing and conquest in the name of God.

Scientific contradictions. There are things in the Bible that have been proven incorrect by science. Adam and Eve is a favorite arguement of mine that science has proven that a single couple cannot sustain, let alone birth, a given species without giving in to predators, disease, and genetic problems that come about from inbreeding.

Then there's religious and emotional abuse from my family. I was treated from a young age as "not good enough" in my faith, regardless of what I did. I could do things that my cousins could, exactly like them, but it wasn't enough. I've endured harassment for not choosing a religious college, even though my decision wasn't on religion, but based on what I was looking to get a degree for. At the age of six, when I was bullied on the bus coming home from school, my own grandmother told me that I was miserable and always would be because it was "God's plan" for me. The list goes on.

I also, when I went to college, went to a bigger city. My hometown is less than 1500 people. Everyone knows each other, they're all the same ethnic background, same religion, same jobs, it's same, same, same. Then I go to a bigger city where I meet people from different backgrounds, even kids who were from other countries going to school at the university. I learned that where I was from was not the only opinion to be had in the world. I was exposed to different views than what I'd grown up with.

The mistreatment at home got me to questioning things, why a supposedly loving God could let my family get away with some of the things they did. I read through the Bible a few times so nobody could say I didn't know my religion(even though I'd been forced to attend weekly church services for twenty years). I weighed beliefs I'd been taught with science, with other opinions I knew. It eventually just became unfeasable logically and emotionally to continue with the beliefs I'd been taught.

And yes, I know that most people remain the religion they were taught from childhood by their parents. I'm not afraid to admit that most people stay with what they were taught, regardless of what I might think about it. I'm just one of the few who bucked tradition and cast off the beliefs her family taught her. Others might remain Catholic or Muslim or Lutheran or Episcopalian or Jewish or whatever, but can assure you, while I was raised Lutheran, I'm definitely an atheist now of my own choosing and free will.

Answer 4

My mother is Catholic, my father was catholic now alternates between barely catholic and deist. I was raised fairly strictly catholic, and of my own choice had begun serious studies to prepare for the seminary.

For me, knowledge was the nail in the coffin of faith. The more I learned, the more I realized that the whole deific hypothesis was meaningless and that free will was literally nothing but an illusion (choice exists, but the choices we make are predicated on our past and current situations, we can never escape our past, even if we act by rejecting our past, thus, we have no free will).

Without a deity or free will, faith was meaningless, so I just let it go.

It was a long, many year process. But that sums it up.

Answer 5

My mother is a Roman Catholic and had me baptized, and I believed that stuff for a while. I've ended up an atheist because of many serious questions where the only logical answer, to me, is: there is no god.

Oh, and my precious, late father was Lutheran, but not devout.

Answer 6

My parents where not relgious at all , (allthough technically im of the church of england) , I came to be a athiest by reading many relgious texts and realiseing that not all of them could be the "true world " and also the history of them .
Also I think the idea of a afterlife is bunk , you die end of story , I think some people find that idea scary so they go for a "out" as in some place that we go when we die . I think relgion is somewhat based on population control useing the stick and carrot approach ..that is ..u do what it says in the book and go too heaven (carrot) ..dont do what it says and go to hell (stick ) ..

Answer 7

I easily agree that maximum individuals only take the religion they have been raised in. This bothers me slightly, with the aid of fact that's such an significant area of one's existence and needs to receive some thought. My father wasn't non secular, yet he and my mom, who became into greater non secular, agreed to strengthen me and my 2 sisters as Catholics. I had to pass to non secular practise as quickly as each and every week after college, made my first communion and affirmation, and we've been despatched to church extraordinarily much each and every Sunday. i assume i became into in my late young ones while i began out thinking approximately issues, and thinking, and the greater i assumed and examine, the greater I only wasn't paying for the God element. My father is an agnostic, yet i did no longer recognize that once i became right into a baby: he did no longer prefer to impression us. My youngest sister became a Buddhist; the midsection one stayed Catholic and does pass to church now and returned. Our living house wasn't exceedingly non secular, yet i might say we've been raised in a faith. i think of you're asking a reliable question, and mutually as I even have chosen to no longer have faith in a god, I very plenty recognize people who question and attempt to understand diverse factors of view. Then, in the event that they go with to proceed to be of their faith, a minimum of that's finished out of wakeful decision extremely than heredity or habit. And, whats up, cornmuffin, maximum atheists do no longer pass away their faith to insurrection against their mom and dad. What an insulting point of view.

Answer 8

Yes, every single person in my family is a Christian *shakes head* they're still in their little fairy-tale world, I don't know how I made it out, but I'm glad I did. Honestly, I like my life much better now that I'm an atheist

Answer 9

Virtually my entire family is nonreligious, and I was raised to be that way as well. I honestly can't think of a single member of my family, from my dad's side or my mom's side, who was a church-goer or a member of organized religion. I'm sure one of my relatives is, but this still isn't a very religious family.

Answer 10

My parents are both Christian...my father much more so than my mother.I became an atheist as a child because Christianity just wasn't working for me. I am not a Christian and I find it ridiculous that because I was raised one, you would still label me one. Simply put, I am my own person.