In this thread I asked about how much you’ve rebelled against your parents. This offshoot thread will be specifically about your current religion (or stance regarding same, which yes will allow atheism et al.) vs. that of your parents when you were a child (below age 18)-i.e. not necessarily their current beliefs, but what you grew up with.
This will be a 3-part poll-thus multiple choices are allowed, but please put them in the correct category. There will be two dummy categories which will function as separators.
First category: Do you still have the same religious beliefs that your parents had when you were young? [Y/N/other]
Second category: What were the religious beliefs of your parents?
Third category: What are your current religious beliefs? For those who answered “yes” to question one, feel free to log your current choice here as well as in the “parents” section.
I tried to include as many options as I could think of while still considering practicality (w/ help from Wikipedia-for example they had no entry for Wicca on their master religion list page(for “Magick” they did, but apparently that isn’t quite the same thing), so if I missed something important, blame them).
Leave the snark and such to any GD auxilary thread(s) that you might wish to start.
And dontcha know it, I futzed up my own poll with my choices. Any way for a mod to reset the cookies for my choice?
In any event, grew up Catholic, forsook that when I was c. 13-14 (right after my confirmation-the Catholic Church sure knows the optimal age to have you go thru that), currently practice something in an Eastern vein, with some other things mixed in. Used to be much more neo-pagan than I am now (still retain some of it), but couldn’t find anything which truly fostered authentic spiritual growth (what I did find seemed more like the Society of Creative Anachronism with more serious presumptions, but still basically an excuse to play dress up).
My parents were a mixed marriage - one Papist Catholic and one Eastern in a manner of speaking. I was raised basically Original Ritualist but did attend the Roman Catholic Church as well sometimes just to make sure I didn’t burn eternally in Hell. Never bought into it. I tried several things as an adult and looked at a lot of options and found my best place to be the ELCA. I may or may not die there ------ but I’m really happy there now.
(Neither parent was against my joining the ELCA. Dad said he was surprised I hadn’t moved there earlier ----- my brain worked more like Martin Luthers than anything else as far as he was concerned. My mother always figured I was going to burn so where I did it didn’t bother her at all.)
Um…my mom grew up backwoods Catholic, and therefore hated it <had to pay to kneel, had to kneel or be ostracised>, so when it came to the kids, she didn’t push anything. She did spend an outrageous amount of money for the full set of Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories, and when a Baptist minister came knocking on the door to see if anyone wanted to attend church, I jumped up and down and wanted to go cause a friend of mine talked about magical ‘Sunday School’, and I wanted to go too. <and get free snowcones!>
The only caveat she had was that if we wanted to go, we had to go every Sunday until we were 13, at which point we could choose not to go anymore.
So we did, and we went, and we stopped going regularly at 13, though as a social outlet we still enjoyed it <as long as we didn’t HAVE to go>.
My dad thinks a church would blow up if he entered, and I don’t recall him ever going. His mother went occasionally but I have absolutely no idea what church she went to; I think she was more faithful to the Moose Club. =P
We grew up knowing about ‘god’ in general, but none of us kids <4 of us, the youngest is now 35> ever got real interested. One brother somehow married a Catholic girl, and I hesitate to think what strings were pulled to allow them a full Latin ceremony; I was completely lost during it. The other brother married a <now-ex> Mormon, and they tend to attend ‘Vineyard’ services, but socially and for the kids more than anything, I think. My sister attends another Vineyard type <by that, I mean basically Christian Wiccan, ie ‘anything goes, God loves ya even in blue jeans,honey!’ kind of thing. Very broad-based, again more social than anything.
I like aspects of most religions, and take a bit here and there as I agree with them. There is none I agree with 100 percent, and that’s fine with me. So…I voted agnostic and agnostic, as I don’t think my folks have any real strong beliefs either way. I just know that if I ever meet a God with a capital G, we’re gonna have some words about the way things are done.
I never had the religion my parents did when I was young.
My father is (and was, I’m fairly certain) Christian (presumably Protestant). My mother is Vaguely Monotheistic; I have no idea how that relates to her beliefs then. I am, and have always been, agnostic.
My dad is from long line (well, he’s the third generation) of communist, atheist Jews. My mom was raised hard core Catholic, but lost her faith long, long before I was born. Since I’m an atheist too, I guess I still have the same religion of my parents.
Mom is “other”. She was raised Roman Catholic. She turned 18, moved out, moved away, didn’t identify as any religion for a short while, became Quaker for a while, met Dad, discovered Judaism, years passed, she rediscovered Buddhism. She never “officially” converted to anything, but she predominately identifies as Jewish, though she also holds some beliefs borrowed from her time as a Quaker, and also attends some manner of Buddhist meditation class thing. Practically speaking, she’s kind of Jewish+, because ‘Quajewdhist’ sounds silly.
I very much had a Jewish upbringing. Around age 11 or so (in retrospect, probably when my oldest friends started preparing for bar/bat mitzvah), I realized I was an atheist, and “came out” as such to my parents when I was about 15. They were displeased, and it remained a point of conflict pretty much until I moved out. If asked my religion, I will respond “none”. My dad will still respond that I’m a Jew. My mom would likely respond that the questioner would have to ask me. Up until a few years ago she probably would have called me an atheist Jew, and then during a religious discussion one day I asked her if she was a lapsed Catholic. She agreed it was fair that if she didn’t have to be a lapsed Catholic, I didn’t have to be an atheist Jew.
At that my grandparents were at most culturally religious ( one grandmother did actually get baptized on her deathbed, but the pressure there was obvious ). Southern Baptist on the one side and Eastern Orthodox on the other.
We all work under the “Catholic” label, but my father’s God was the God of Punishment, my mother’s God is the Goddess of Greed wielding the Whip of Guilt and I’m more into the God of Freedom (except for Pasta, which must be Al Dente), Love and Creation.
My family grew up with a Church of England mother, and an agnostic but compliant father who grudgingly attended church. I was sent to Sunday School, church services when I was old enough, then confirmation classes, communion, followed immediately afterwards by “hang on, this is a load of bullshit”. Took another 10 years and a lot of world travel before I realised I wasn’t just agnostic, but a full-blown atheist.
Meanwhile my agnostic father became increasingly involved in the church while living in the Bible Belt, got confirmed when he retired, has apparently become a believer and is a big cheese in the local church. I also recently found a book he’d been reading called “Christian Investment Strategies” or something.
One sister has always been Church of England and has never deviated from the path my mother wanted us to follow. My formerly agnostic/new-age brother realised his atheism about three years ago and is now quite militant about it - despite having had a “mystical” experience or two while meditating. My other sister doesn’t go to church, and we never discuss religion.
I was raised in a type of conservative, Armageddon-is-right-around-the-corner Christianity. I was scared the world was going to end any day as a kid and stopped being a believer by 18. The kids, we all hate that church. My mom is the only one who is still a member and she’s not particularity accepting of who I am now. My family’s adherence began waning when my parents’ marriage began to fall apart. We went from attending church to three days a week to my younger brother having his girlfriend spend the night when he was in high school. I am still proud of him for that.
My converting to Neopaganism was more difficult for my dad and gave rise to much more conflict than my coming out as gay. He was a very believing United Churchman.
I was raised by my mother who’s Catholic. I’m Catholic too, but not a very good one. My mother is a self described “fundamentalist Catholic” and for a while was part of an Internet group of fundamentalist Catholics (until they had a falling out for some reason). I didn’t even know fundamentalist Catholics existed, but judging from what she’s like, they’re just as annoying as any other fundamentalist group.
I have some disagreements with the Church, and only go to Mass on Sundays out of obligation, but I believe in God and believe more of what the Catholic church teaches than I do what most Protestant denominations teach.
My parents never married and although my grandma talked with pride about my dad going to Christian Brothers School I never noticed anything religious about him when he was alive, although I think he believed in God but just wasn’t a practicing Christian.
Born and raised Catholic, and while I went though a big doubting phase, I ultimately returned with a more intellectual understanding of the faith (I ended up with a Theology minor in college and I will admit, I’m a rather devout Thomist).
I was raised in a Presby home. We went to church every Sunday and I think Wednesdays as well. My father stopped going when I was maybe 9 or 10. Then my brother stopped going. Then my sister and I stopped going. Eventually my mother kicked the habit as well. From that point on, we lived a more or less agnostic life.
Everyone in my family but me has returned to the church. My mother is a deacon at hers. My father goes, but he gets into arguments with the minister about if gays are really condemned to Hell. My brother has preached a few times. My sister married into a somewhat fundy family. They are all OK with my being an open atheist. I think that secretly they all want to be atheists too, but they live in strongly Christian communities.
Any way for a mod to reset the cookies for my choice?