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I don't think you even need to have been in an abusive home to be an anti-theist. Whenever I see a news report of a kid dying because the parents refused medical treatment, It makes me wish that some people would just stop using "faith" as an excuse to be dumb.
My parents were both raised in fundie homes, and I think that made them not want to raise me and my siblings with too much religion. In hindsight, I think they were agnostic, perhaps even atheist, but wouldn't admit it (to themselves) and occasionally went through the motions of being christian. For example, they decided to not get us baptized because they wanted us to choose our own religion when we got older. They did send us to sunday school from time to time, but that was so they could skip out and go out to breakfast by themselves. LOL They also sent us to a catholic high school, because they thought the education was a better quality and that it "wouldn't kill us to learn about (and respect) other people's beliefs". So my lack of faith it was no great surprise to anyone in my family, especially since I started questioning the validity of the bible starting around age 7 or 8.
My SO, on the other hand, was raised in a very fundie household. I truely think his lack of faith has its roots in teenage rebellion (and continued on into adulthood). He is very disparaging and almost angry toward religion, while I am more of the smile and nod type.
I was raised without any religion period. When i came to US in '92, it was very strange to see how big religion was here. I've made few friends, and i lost them, simply because they wanted me to attend their churches, or couldn't stand a thought that i didn't believe in a their god thing. I picked up a bible and wanted to read it, to see what the heck is a big deal. I felt as i was reading another myth, that i used to read back home. And i do love my Greek mythology!
Friends i have now never bring up religion, i don't know if they believe or not, but it's never a subject, and no one really cares.
Anyway, the whole god thing never made sense to me and probably never will. I'm not going to say i'm an extremely educated, my 2 degrees are not on any scientific subject (physics, chemistry, biology), i actually never enjoyed them in school. But i must say that your religious upbringing definitely play role in your world view.
My upbringing didn't have even the slightest influence on my atheism. I think it's just in my nature to question everything and when I questioned the claims that are made by religion in my own mind I came to the conclusion fairly quickly that none of it was true.
I settled on being agnostic after being raised by abusive, selfish Atheist parents, obnoxious and opinionated Christian babysitters, and hearing about all of the horrible things radical Muslim terrorists do around the world. Atheism and organized religions pretty much cancel each other out with their narrowness and lack of real meaning for me. Instinctively, I feel that there should be a supreme creator, but I won't know until I'm dead. I only hope that the creator is not the type of diety that most religious people believe in.
Last edited by Kenneth70; 07-07-2009 at 12:45 AM..
I was brought up by a Seventh Day Adventist family, my Father a retired minister in that faith.
I thought from a very young age that some of the BS they were telling me was the most far-fetched thing I had heard since my last sitting of Sunday morning cartoons. Its only in the last few years that I have owned the fact that I don't believe. I just can't pretend and I can't wait for the lightening to hit me so I will have that religious epiphany people speak of.
Its just not there for me and I am NOT going to pretend anymore. I need a T-shirt so the fundies will leave me alone, I have had an earful over the last couple days and I am so annoyed about it.
I settled on being agnostic after being raised by abusive, selfish Atheist parents, obnoxious and opinionated Christian babysitters, and hearing about all of the horrible things radical Muslim terrorists do around the world. Atheism and organized religions pretty much cancel each other out with their narrowness and lack of real meaning for me. Instinctively, I feel that there should be a supreme creator, but I won't know until I'm dead. I only hope that the creator is not the type of diety that most religious people believe in.
You are the sort of theist i can relate to. i can only hope that I can come across as the sort os atheist you could relate to. Regrettably, atheism does not neccessarily make people into logical, rational, thoughtful, considerate people. I wish it did.
And I only wish I could type I when i mean I!
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 07-07-2009 at 09:14 AM..
Reason: and i only wish...
My parents never sent me to church or anything. My mother was baptized Roman Catholic and my father was never sent to any church either. My parents never raised me with religion. Therefore I naturally became accustomed to science being the way things worked in the world. It was confusing no doubt at first growing up when your parents dont explain religion to you or what its about and I wish they at least explained to me something on it but I ended up learning on my own about it. I guess my parents led me on a path that ultimately led to atheism.
I was brought up by an Atheist Father , surrounded by Catholic, French Hugenot ( Protestant) and Presbyterian members of my family, went to school exclusively to Private Catholic Boarding Schools ( never had a bad experience there , all my schools were quite progressive by Catholic standards and I remember the Nuns and Priests very fondly generally speaking) .
My Father from day one taught me to think for myself and question everything. I was encouraged to learn about many religions and philosophies and taken to Churches, Temples, Mosques ( the Public areas of course) , Buddhist Temples, Quaker's friends meeting houses, and many Archaeological Religious sites around the world as well... etc...
I was encouraged to read books about it and to read various sacred texts as possible as an education . I think he believed it would make me a more balanced and well rounded person.
He never told me his way was "the right one" and "the truth" but instead opened my mind to what was out there and let me make my own mind up. He had his views, they were his, I knew what they were but he never impressed upon me that his way was the only one or even the right one. It was more a question with my Dad of "This is what I believe but you don't have to believe the same thing".
I am still to this day very grateful. Apart from my Father , the rest of my family were all believers in different Christian denominations but nobody ever pressed me or try to coerce me into believing.
I was never Christened as my Father thought it was meaningless unless I fully knew what it meant and was consenting.
My upbringing was one of books and being taught to think my own thoughts after looking at facts, analysing them and coming to a conclusion of my own.
I always felt free to decide and free to explore and chose whichever faith I wanted but it never, ever made sense to me even as a small child.
Atheism has always been the only thing which makes sense to me. I have always looked at religion as something bizarre and interesting at the same time, like Fairy-Tales or Folk Mythology.
I am quite fascinated by it Anthropologically speaking but common sense,reason and logic have always been my preferred path in life. Religion puzzles me to this day and I often see it almost as a kind of socially induced mass hypnosis .
I am glad it brings comfort and succour to people and as long as they do not preach nor do they judge and point the finger self righteously in a bigotted fashion or hurt others then I do respect people's beliefs.
Whatever they maybe whether a belief in Trees, the Sun, Yahweh, Trolls, Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden, Shivah, Cult of the Ancestors, etc...
I was brought up by an Atheist Father , surrounded by Catholic, French Hugenot ( Protestant) and Presbyterian members of my family, went to school exclusively to Private Catholic Boarding Schools ( never had a bad experience there , all my schools were quite progressive by Catholic standards and I remember the Nuns and Priests very fondly generally speaking) .
My Father from day one taught me to think for myself and question everything. I was encouraged to learn about many religions and philosophies and taken to Churches, Temples, Mosques ( the Public areas of course) , Buddhist Temples, Quaker's friends meeting houses, and many Archaeological Religious sites around the world as well... etc...
I was encouraged to read books about it and to read various sacred texts as possible as an education . I think he believed it would make me a more balanced and well rounded person.
He never told me his way was "the right one" and "the truth" but instead opened my mind to what was out there and let me make my own mind up. He had his views, they were his, I knew what they were but he never impressed upon me that his way was the only one or even the right one. It was more a question with my Dad of "This is what I believe but you don't have to believe the same thing".
I am still to this day very grateful. Apart from my Father , the rest of my family were all believers in different Christian denominations but nobody ever pressed me or try to coerce me into believing.
I was never Christened as my Father thought it was meaningless unless I fully knew what it meant and was consenting.
My upbringing was one of books and being taught to think my own thoughts after looking at facts, analysing them and coming to a conclusion of my own.
I always felt free to decide and free to explore and chose whichever faith I wanted but it never, ever made sense to me even as a small child.
Atheism has always been the only thing which makes sense to me. I have always looked at religion as something bizarre and interesting at the same time, like Fairy-Tales or Folk Mythology.
I am quite fascinated by it Anthropologically speaking but common sense,reason and logic have always been my preferred path in life. Religion puzzles me to this day and I often see it almost as a kind of socially induced mass hypnosis .
I am glad it brings comfort and succour to people and as long as they do not preach nor do they judge and point the finger self righteously in a bigotted fashion or hurt others then I do respect people's beliefs.
Whatever they maybe whether a belief in Trees, the Sun, Yahweh, Trolls, Fairies at the Bottom of the Garden, Shivah, Cult of the Ancestors, etc...
This is how I am trying to raise my daughter. If she chooses to be of one religion or another, I want it to be a decision of her own mind, not of what I brainwash her with. She has gone to church with a couple people in our neighborhood but I think at her age she doesn't understand the difference in the churchs.
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