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Southern Baptist when I was very young, then as a teenager my dad took us to a Presbyterian church (Church of Scottland).
My mother allowed us to visit any church with our friends that we wanted to and I sometimes went to the saturday mass for the high schoolers and I sometimes went to mass with my mother's friend at the old town church, which I think is the oldest church in the U.S.
Another Lutheran Church Missouri Synod kid here. We had a school K-6 (now K-8) directly across from the church.
My parents got charismatic when I was about 13. It was right after I got confirmed. They left the church and we went to every kind of church out there in an attempt to find one that they liked. They finally settled on one of the first generation non denominational churches that we see today. It was called Metrochurch in Edmond, OK.
If anyone ever drives I-35, you can see where Metrochurch was located. I went off to college about that time. They quit Metrochurch shortly thereafter. I guess they go to the Presbyterian Church now. I am afraid to ask.
I appreciated the exposure to all the different doctrines I was exposed to during that sojourn as made it easier to reject the whole thing as being untrue as I got older.
Another Missouri Synod Lutheran here. Fortunately, our church did not have a school attached until I was well into high school. My younger sisters spent a few years going there though. Had no effect whatever on them, they turned out as atheistic as I did, for much the same reasons.
Quote:
Originally Posted by eddie gein
Another Lutheran Church Missouri Synod kid here. We had a school K-6 (now K-8) directly across from the church.
You have my condolences. Thankfully you were able to escape.
I was raised a catholic, and was educated in catholic schools. I became an atheist and quit school the day a priest (teacher) hit me with a right cross and knocked me down in front of my class.
I was raised a catholic, and was educated in catholic schools. I became an atheist and quit school the day a priest (teacher) hit me with a right cross and knocked me down in front of my class.
Wow that's unbelievable. That's certainly enough to at least make you start questioning everything and what you were being taught. That's traumatic.
Unfortunately, even that didn't work with me. Everyone has their breaking point, though. Or I should say 'breakthrough'.
You have my condolences. Thankfully you were able to escape.
I escaped in the fourth grade when my sister was starting school and they didn't think they could afford to send both of us to private school.
They asked me if I would be "willing" to go to the neighborhood public school. Heck yes I would.
Our neighborhood public school (for my grade) had the best football team in town. We won every game in the three years I played. At the Lutheran school, we never won any games.
In basketball, we had the best team in town of the public schools and had epic battles with the Catholic school. They beat us by one point one year and the next year we "tied"... I can still remember the scores of those two games 14-13 and 24-24.
And again, the Lutheran school never won any games.
I was raised in three different churches, two different sects.
Early on, my family went to a Methodist church. I have no memory of the place, as I was really young, but apparently I was baptized as a baby there.
The church I associate the most with my childhood was a Disciples of Christ church. We went there all of elementary school that I can remember and into my early teens.
After that, we returned to Methodism, but a different Methodist church. A very big one. We went there for a couple of years or so, and then my parents and I collectively stopped going to church services altogether, something that I was very grateful for because I found church to be soooo boring. I remember trying to join the youth group at this church, but meh.
I learned recently that my parents stopped going there because the church was too conservative, and they even brought up being too conservative on gay people... My parents did not fully accept me until a few years ago, so I was very confused that they left the church for that reason well over a decade ago. Lol. I have no recollection of the church teaching that, guess I was daydreaming too much.
All in all, I feel lucky that I was raised in more liberal churches, even though the last one was apparently more conservative than I remember it being. I've learned recently that Pentecostalism was very close to me in terms of my family relations. Thankfully, not in my parents, but one of my parents could have fallen into it based off of what I know and that scares the ever loving heck out of me, having recently learned a heck of a lot about Pentecostals, Charismatics, Televangelists. I'm so grateful my parents and I didn't fall into that. Seriously dodged a bullet there.
Greek Orthodox, though never more than nominally. Which was my mom's church. (Not anymore.) We never attended much more than a handful of times a year, then we just kind of stopped. And fast forward a bit, and now I've been a conscious atheist for most of the adult portion of my life.
I'm quite thankful that my parents never pushed religion on me, and that neither of them were ever very serious about it. I'm glad that I was mostly always free to think about everything on my own. What little Sunday school I was forced to participate in as a kid, didn't do anything but weird me out.
And to the extent that I did have a former religion, I'm at least glad it wasn't Protestantism. Especially since I was born and raised in the Deep South, where that was prevalent. Definitely could have been worse.
Location: East of Seattle since 1992, 615' Elevation, Zone 8b - originally from SF Bay Area
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My parents tried to raise us as Catholics. With 9 kids, there is only one that still goes to church today. Our father went until he was too old and sick, our Mom who was always very active in the church stopped going at about age 50. I stopped going at age 16 when I got my driver's license, and was able to "go to the 6:00 mass" by myself, but instead would go for a drive, have breakfast at a 24 hr. restaurant, or go for a jog on a local trail.
We only a went a few times a year because the nearest ones where in Fort Wayne, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan, or Youngstown, Ohio.
More often than not, we went to the Greek Orthodox Church about an hour away from us in Finneytown on the other side of Cincinnati.
We did go to a Catholic Church once that had mass entirely in Italian before my mom found another Catholic Church that did mass entirely in Latin. We went to that one a couple of times and once my grandmother even came with us.
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Wow that's unbelievable. That's certainly enough to at least make you start questioning everything and what you were being taught. That's traumatic. 
