Atheists, if religion is something that you are taught?

Question

Atheists, if religion is something that you are taught
does that mean you would have been religious if you were raised differently?

Answer 1

There are no generalizations you can make about anyone, there are people who grow up in drug-infested, abusive environments and become great people, some people are born with incredible genes that guide certain personality traits that give them a head start above others, even if their parents were losers, that is what is so amazing about genetics, we don't quite understand how they work completely at this point.


But yes, if I was born into a fundamentalist family I would most likely be a fundie. Child indoctrination is highly psychological,and the further it goes, the less likely the child will ever fight against it. It's a sad psychological truth, and nothing less than child abuse. Believe what you want, but the let the child become emotionally and intellectually developed enough to make such a personal decision that will affect the rest of their lives.

Answer 2

How could religion be anything else than a learned belief? You aren't born knowing about religion and as a child, you aren't automatically savvy in the ways of all faiths.

Just some of us are raised in a religious environment, and when we leave home, we choose from that time on whether or not we want to accept the concept of a god nobody has ever seen ever since the beginning of recorded history, but that everyone who is religious claims they have a sort of "ESP awareness" of.

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Answer 3

No. I was taught to believe in Christianity, but I chose atheism. Yes religion is taught, but that doesn't mean you have to be religious. The fact that you were taught a certain religion doesn't mean you have to follow that religion. For example many people study different types of religion like Hinduism, or Buddhism that doesn't mean they are religious people.

Answer 4

I became an atheist after fifteen years as a Christian.
It wasn't something I was raised to, but investigated while I was at university.
(though I was raised to a weak form of social Christianity...
Harvest suppers, summer fetes, church-going and a village social life that could just as well have centred on a cricket team or a pub.)

The sociological studies are quite clear though. Whatever the minority who change their beliefs decide, most people stay with what they were raised with, whatever was the norm for their ethnicity, culture or locality.

Answer 5

I grew up in a country where religious education is compulsory subject from grade 1-10!! I was raised in a religious family, and look at me, i'm still an atheist!

Answer 6

Nope, it comes with the actual person's feelings about it. You could be raised in a non religious home and find yourself to be wanting a religion join it and depending how much you get it to it you can be religious.

Answer 7

But, I was raised as a Protestant. The problem was logic and reason can't be squared with the paradoxes and confusion of Biblical mythology. You can only try to make sense out of nonsense for so long before you just give up. Rather than force my mind to do unnatural things, I abandoned orthodox religion.

Answer 8

I've found that many atheists were raised to be religious, myself included. So the answer to your question is "No".

Answer 9

I was raised Jewish & tried Christianity & Paganism. All of them were just too full of superstition for me. So no, I wouldn't have been religious had I been raised differently.

Answer 10

Actually, I *was* raised to be religious. Then I started asking too many questions.