Did your cultural background and childhood have an influence on the sort of Believer / Atheist you now are?

Answer 1

Perhaps in a way it did. I have always been surrounded by people encouraging me to believe in this religion or that one, this denomination or that.

I grew up Catholic and performed all the required "rituals" to be considered a member of the Catholic Church but I can't say I never fully believed in it. I was taught the fear of God and perhaps it still remains with me to some degree or maybe it's just my conscience.

Maybe subconsciously I somehow rebelled but I never could bring myself to believe in some all powerful being. It just didn't seem logical to me and today it still doesn't. I have read the Bible several times and still refer to it from time to time. There is most certainly a lot of wisdom in there. I don't view it as some Holy Scripture though. I have also read a lot of spiritual writings as well, including the Koran.

I don't presume to impose my beliefs on anyone else as I would prefer others would extend the same courtesy to me.

Answer 2

I was raised by an ordained Presbyterian minister and a mother who is now a lay pastor. All beliefs other than Christianity were considered 'evil' by my parents, and thus by myself. I was mixed up in something I wasn't comfortable with - Evangelical Fundamentalist Christianity - until I was about 29. It was then that someone at my church prompted me to search for something else. So yeah, my childhood and background have something to do with how I believe - if I hadn't been completely fed up with the moralistic and judgemental values expressed by this particular person at my church, I would never have searched until I found a spiritual path I was comfortable with.

Answer 3

This is your best question yet. I starred it.

I'm descended from Presbyterian and Dutch Reformed Church leaders who escaped religious wars (and near death) in Europe. They didn't feel religion was the business of the State; nor was it the business of a Church bureaucracy. It was the sole business, and right, of each individual to determine their own, personal relationship with their conception of God.
This was a very new concept, and it went far beyond the edicts of even the religiously "tolerant" nations of Europe (aka Netherlands).

The New Netherlands Dutch even let the newly arriving Presbyterians share their church buildings --- Big Wigs of the DRC in Amsterdam howled, but the new American colonists ignored them. Everyone got along once they realized that religion need not be a tool of the state; and that people can have their own faiths and still "obey the traffic signals."

As a result, I consider myself a very religious agnostic.

A guaranteed right of religious freedom, whether you are Christian, Muslim, Pagan, Jew, Buddhist, agnostic, or atheist, is important, and should be celebrated.

Answer 4

I was raised mostly as an Atheist. Society was the only authority I had so sure it had influence. My Relationship with Jesus Christ is just that. A relationship. I have learned 90% of what I believe from reading the Bible and praying.

Answer 5

I suppose I'm a catholic atheist in the same way that Richard Dawkins calls himself a Church of England atheist: I still love the music and the pageantry (even though I seldom attend the performances), and I'll always be grateful for the believers who built all those beautiful churches, and I still laugh at the holy rollers for the same reasons I laughed at them in school -- because dressing your daughters in ugly ankle-length skirts and refraining from visiting the liquor store at the same times as your non-pentecostal neighbors doesn't fool anybody into thinking you're a Really Super Good Person.

Answer 6

Probably, but I'm not really sure what the influence was. I was brought up Hindu in a family that didn't practice very strictly. I am now an atheist.

Answer 7

Sure... I think that goes for everyone.

But, let's not forget that at the end of the day everyone still has a choice. Just because you grew up in an Atheist environment does not mean that you can't/won't wind up becoming a Christian - and vice versa.

Answer 8

No and yes. No to cultural background, yes to my childhood. I was brought up Catholic and even went to Catholic school. It was there I learned what this religion was all about and why I LEFT this religion. It is also why I have made it my lifelong ambition to study religions and bring truth to what IS God's will for us, and not all this made for profit literature religions put out.

Answer 9

The only influence I can see is my Quaker ancestry has had an influence on how I view violence and its place in society.

I grew up exposed to baptist beliefs but my parents always encouraged me to read, explore and make my own decision on what was best for me.

Answer 10

Yes, had I not been taught from birth of the existence of God, then most likely I would have been a skeptic and emerged as an Atheist.