Growing up in an irreligious household

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

My wife and I were discussing religion in regards to our 3 year-old daughter (involving a question her grandmother asked) and, well, we have a dilemma:

We aren’t really religious. At all.

We both were raised Catholic (her family was more devout than mine, but then, most families are more devout than mine) and, like many kids, drifted away as we got older. I can’t speak for her, but for me, even as a kid being “good” wasn’t something I did because I was concerned that God or Jesus or Allah was going to punish me, I was “good” because it made my life easier, that chosing “right” tended to always be the more long-term pragmatic decision. I have never been concerned with my afterlife - if it exists, it does, if it doesn’t, it doesn’t.

My wife went through a few years soul searching before she pretty much came to the same conclusions. We still feel it’s important to teach Sophie about the Bible in order for her to learn about one of the pillars of Western Civilization, and its crucial role in the development of modern morals, history, and behaviour. But as the basis of an entire belief system in a supernatural diety, punishing us for disobedience? Uh, no, not interested. Thanks!

FWIW, Sophie is a baptised Catholic (we got that out of the way when she was 7 months - precious!), which was done more in the spirit of Pascal and “the whole family is waiting/watching!” than out of any need on our part to have it done (though Mom did admit to feeling “relief”… just in case). She has a childrens Bible and we do read about all the major holidays that come around each year, but we don’t do church, and we don’t talk about God/Jesus/Allah/Buddha/Zoroaster, and we approach manners and dealing with people on the basis that being polite and well-mannered is good for Sophie, not on because the Bible told us so.

Therefore, we were wondering what it’s like being raised in an irreligious environment. And by “irreligious” I’m not “Dad was actively atheist and would go on and on about the horrors of religion” (though tell your tales too!), but more like “my parents didn’t really care about all that so we never went to church, and acted a little embarrassed when asked.”

2

This describes my parents attitude perfectly. Both of them went to church when they were growing up, but had no inclination to go once they were on their own. We celebrated christmas (gift giving) and easter (chocolate giving), and never went to church. Occasionally I’d ask my mom questions about God, and after one or two questions she’d get frustrated and refuse to talk about it anymore. When I was 10 or so, my mom decided I needed some religion and joined an unitarian-universalist church. Looking back, I can’t really remember if I learned anything from going- a lot of moral and ethical blah blah blah, but not much about god, per se. Mostly I was bored silly and glad when my mom finally stopped making me go a few years later.

I don’t think that being raised in a non-religious environment has effected me too detrimentally. I do wish that my parents had been more willing to talk about God, heaven/hell, ect. I didn’t understand why people worshiped him- he just seemed to be the go-to guy when you needed something. I think that taking the time to answer all of your daughter’s questions about God is the most important thing.

3

I’m Jewish. My mother grew up in an irreligous family (my grandfather had no problem with my aunt marrying a Catholic, quite radical in the '30s) and while my father’s mother was religious, it didn’t seem to take. We only went to Hebrew School since it was required to get a big bar mitzvah, which was a social thing for both him and me. He never went except to High Holy day services. But hardly anyone in my neighborhood was very religious.

Both my kids are atheists, as am I. (My wife is a weak Deist, who never goes to church except at Christmas to hear carols.) When they were 13 or 14, I made it a point to go through Genesis pointing out the illogicalities and contradictions. It was an exercise in critical thinking more than anything else.

The younger one went to church youth group things, but it never took, happily. She has lots of Mormon friends, and used to go to Mormon dances, but she found them overly restrictive and sometimes a bit obnoxious. No ill effects that I can see.

The most important thing is honesty. If you don’t believe it will show, and your kid will come back from church wondering why. It is also important for them to know that those who do not go to church are every bit as good and moral as those who do. We’ve never had a problem, (the town I live in now is very diverse,) but anyone who would have tried to make one of my kids bad for not believing would have gotten a talking to from me.

4

I didn’t hear about religion until I was maybe 7 years old and when I did it was because my mother decided that I should take religious education classes at school so I could make up my own mind. I was confused about why, if there was a God who loved us and who we should all love, my parents had never mentioned Him and I asked questions, and my mother’s answer boiled down to “Some people believe in God. I don’t believe in God. Your father doesn’t believe in God. You should learn what you can and decide for yourself”. I wavered for a couple of years but I’m pretty much set in my ways as an agnostic now.

Many religious types seem to wonder how atheists deal with the subject of death as it inevitably comes up. I’ve talked about this here before. My mother told me that we die so we can have children. If we all lived forever, the world would fill up and so we wouldn’t be able to have children. She told me that having kids was worth giving up immortality.

We still did Christmas but it was just a family lunch or dinner with presents and fun and no religion - my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins are all atheists too. I’ve been to church - the first time would have been for a Christening when I was about 9. I thought it was the most boring thing ever. I’ve been to church several times since then, including with the Catholic family of a guy I was dating for a while until I decided that I wasn’t going to pretend to be something I’m not. I went to Youth Group in my teens until they decided that the group wasn’t focused enough on religion and made one meeting in four a bible study - at that point I figured it would be hypocritical to only attend the “fun” meetings and skip the bible ones so I stopped going all together.

I read a lot of “old” children’s literature as a child (Anne of Green Gables, Pollyanna, that sort of thing) and religion was often a big important part of the lives of the characters in those sorts of books which made me feel like I ought to give religion a chance but I just never felt it, I simply do not and can not believe.

5

My family was just exactly that - dad an ex-Catholic and devout member of the Church of Science and Reason and mom a resentful and angry ex-Lutheran. They decided early on to leave religion entirely out of my life and “let her choose what she believes when she’s older.”

Which wasn’t a bad notion, except that I really, really wanted religion. I’ve always, even as a little girl, felt the pull of the spiritual and the ritual of organized religion. I was resentful for many years that my parents had given me no information on which to make my “choice” from.

So I’d say pay attention to your child, and try to meet her needs in this like you do her needs for food and shelter. If she’s like most people I know, having no religion won’t bother her. But if she’s like me, it will be a hole in her heart for years. I gave no end of “hints” growing up that I was craving religion. How many 5 year olds play “nuns” instead of “school”? Beg to go with their best friend to Sunday School? Spend all afternoon Sunday grilling them on what they learned there? Pray the Hail Mary to trees? Read voraciously anything about Jewish, Amish or early Christian people? I did all that and more, and while my parents never stopped me, they never encouraged me or gave me more information, either.

What would I have liked? Going to church with my friends who had to go anyway. A trip to a synogauge or mosque. Books about various religions, as opposed to ones merely populated by religious folks. A mentor who was a religious person, as my parents were not. These things would have enabled me to better explore and understand myself, and given me more information from which to make that “choice” my parents valued so much.

As it turns out, after many years of searching Christian denominations, I became a neo-pagan, as the belief system so much more accurately reflects the conclusions about the universe I came up with on my own. I’ve been an Ordained Minister (to legally perform marriages) for three years and a very active religious leader in my community and Priestess for about 7. But it took a whole lot of time and anguish to get here, and I’d rather have started my studies much earlier.

6

My parents were like that, and I’m now an atheist, but I went through a short Wiccan phase. I don’t feel the worse for it, while my parents aren’t religous , other more distant family and neighbours were (of various stripes from Seventh Day Adventists to Muslim), so I got exposed to the stuff anyway. All home provided was a safe environment to explore options.
I’m atheist, one brother is Buddhist, one Anglican, one sister married a Catholic and took up the faith, the other is Anglican and the other two brothers are kinda like my parents.

I have noticed that my mother’s become a little more churchgoing in the last few years, but since we’re all out of the house, this hasn’t had an impact.

Does that help at all?

7

This was pretty much my and my sister’s childhood. And, come to think of it, my parents’ upbringings weren’t religious to any degree, as far as I know. (And my Dad’s from a Texas military family, and my grandfather’s an Irish former altar boy who doesn’t like Catholicism. Or much of human society.)

In my family, we didn’t get any religious education, but we weren’t discouraged, either. Whatever we did or didn’t want to believe in was fine, and there was always the open offer to take us to a church or to get religious education if we wanted.

My sister, who’d always been a bit more spiritually inclined, converted to generic American protestantism in her midteens. That actually kind of worried the rest of us—too many stories about religious nutjobs over the years, I suppose—but we figured that being discouraging or trying to hinder her, besides being unfair, would just increase the “forbidden fruit” appeal, so we’ve been supportive. And, luckily, my sister didn’t develop a blind, unquestioning, even kinda creepy approach to religious matters. (There are a couple of people like that, including a family friend, in my sister’s church. That’s a bit of a sobering eyeopener for anyone.)

I, myself, am an atheist. And not too warped for the experience, I’d like to think. :smiley:

8

My father was an avowed atheist and my mother was a ‘kinda-sorta’ Protestant who hasn’t been to church in over 40 years. I heard about God and Jesus, but they were on the same level as Little Red Riding Hood and Hercules; just figures in stories. I study various religions a lot (and along the way got ordained as a minister and performed a few hundred weddings), but the idea of actually believing in one completely mystifies me.

9

Utter and Complete incoherent Rambling Alert. Now with a Minty Fresh RANT!
I/we are in the same boat.

I am a happily escaped Catholic. Mr. Ujest is a twice a year Lutheran.

I find all the religious stuff complete and utter nonsense and cannot beleive that people that I know and respect actually beleive in it. It is just illogical. I went through a phase of “You’re stupid if you believe”, which fortunately did not last very long. I now realize that people believe because it gives them comfort. Which is really sad if you think about it as they do have the strength inside of them to get through whatever shit they got themselves into but would rather cop out.

I have beloved cousins who are really fun and decent people to be around, but when it comes to church and religion it is like their brains stop and they go on autopilot. My brother’s mentality is that of being in the 60’s in an uptight conservative religious kinda way. It’s like they have all stopped evolving. I am the only member of my Irish Catholic family that doesn’t go to church.

Ironically, our kids are baptised, but Lutheran. Too appease the grandparents.
My son asked me “Why are there two churches on such and such a street?” they are right next to each other.

" Because church is good business."

Mr. Ujest even smirked and he is more into such things. At one point he wanted to start going to church on a regular basis after we had our children. I explained to him that he had to get the kids up, fed, dressed and take them there and then after they were contaminated by the Ebola Twins and the Antrax Sisters in the nursery by the children of parents who thought it more important to Go To Church than stay home with a sick kid, then he had to take the kids to the doctor and what not. After one foray and seeing the green snot nosed, phlegmy coughed rosed cheeked kid that was required in the nursery every week, he turned around and came home. It also doesn’t help that instead of finding a church in our area which I was more than willing to do, he has to go to the one right around the corner from his parent’s home. Which means, after church, we would go there and just fcuking suffer from eternal hellfires of boredom for hours.

I think the biggest clincher of it all is the fact that his sister is a born again and deeply involved in Evangelicalism. Now, you would have to know this person to know that she is a very nice and decent person and I have learned a great deal from her in a good way and in other ways, but she has to be in charge and the center of attention. Her husband’s family founded the church that the originally went too and that instantly catapulted her into the Biggest Fucking Fish in the pond. It also didn’t hurt that the people who attend this church are lower income-brain dead mouth breathers. I know, we use to attend occaisionally. Her and her husband are Very Uber Yuppie and she worships Martha Stewart at the altar of Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware. So not only is she the nicest dresser but her house is to fcuking die for and I know, my husband built it.

He is a lawyer and because he handles cases in court where his opponent is always in the wrong -it’s bancruptcy stuff and the people are pretty low brow - and she is a school teacher - they are never fucking wrong. In essence, they are each other’s trophy spouses. He is very charming but completely useless. If my sil didn’t have her brother living four houses away they wouldn’t be able to screw in a lightbulb. So, when you have someone tell you that the reason why they are taking a 5 week old infant on a three week international trip with 10 other people and not staying more than two nights any place ( it was so fucking stupid that I still have spazms over it all.) is because " We prayed on it and Jesus said it would be ok."

Uh huh.

My mouth dropped and my exact words through clenched teeth where, " Well, no fucking wonder my brothers cannot get any miracles. You are tying up the line to God with Travel Reservations!" I have always been proud of that line.

In contusion, as no one has read this far, I do miss the singing and sense of community, but those days are over. Long gone. We go at easter and Xmas just so the kids can be exposed so a variety of new and stronger strains of germs and I can say to my husband, " I told you so."

I would rather have my kids watch Spongebob and teach them the Life Lessons imparted there that are more coherent and not contradictory with no guilt whatsoever.

10

If you are concerned about the kids being aware and knowledgable about religion’s place in the world, you might consider checking out a local Unitarian Universalist church. They (and when I say they I mean we, 'cause I am one) have, IMO, a really wonderful religious education program that is well worth it. Of course, the religious/political atmosphere might not be your thing, but it might be worth looking into.

My dad’s Jewish and my mom was raised Lutheran, and they ended up at a UU church so my sister and I could go through the RE program (the rabbi around here at the time wasn’t too keen on mixed marriage couples), and I stuck with it. FTR I consider myself a Unitarian Universalist Jewish Athiest. :slight_smile:

11

My father and most of his brothers and sisters (7 in all) were indifferent. My mother was raised as a Baptist and became a Methodist later on. I went to Sunday school at her insistance even though my sister didn’t. As I have mentioned elsewhere, I decided at age 10 or 11 that there was a screw loose somewhere in the system and dropped out but kept the knowledge to myself. I was forced to continue Sunday school for some time but I don’t remember how long because I paid no attention to it and could stand losing the time because there wasn’t anything else to do on Sunday anyway.

As a result I grew up to be a liar, a thief, a rapist and a serial killer.

12

Wasn’t a big deal for me. Mom and Dad were rabid atheists, but never said a word about it until I was in my teens. When we were kids, they just said, “We don’t believe in God, but if you’re interested, we’ll take you to church.” Naturally, we weren’t interested in sitting on a hard pew listening to a boring lecture early on a Sunday morning, so we took a pass.

The surprising thing is, we grew up with more so-called “Christian” values than most of my “Christian” schoolmates. We followed the 10 Commandments because they’re darned good ideas for a society to follow. Once we got older, we all began doing volunteer work for the less fortunate. We didn’t have sex as teenagers, not because “God would be mad”, but because Mom and Dad discussed sex, emotions, and consequences rationally with us starting at a young age, and we decided it was a good idea to wait. We didn’t cheat in school or become juvenile delinquents.

We celebrated Christmas anyway, for a number of reasons. First, it’s a tradition in our family and for most of our society. Second, it embodies nice values apart from “Christ is Lord”–giving, goodwill toward our fellow man, thankfulness, and enjoyment of friends and family.

I grew up in New Jersey from birth to age 11. There, most of my schoolmates went to church or synagogue, but it was not discussed at all. Then we moved to Iowa, where it’s about 99% Christian and 25% fundamentalist Christian. I got a lot of questions about “where do you go to church?” I was honest and said that I didn’t. More than once, I had a friend tell me they were praying for me not to go to hell, because that was where I was headed. I learned to ignore it.

In some ways, I think there were distinct advantages to having a non-religious upbringing. Mom and Dad couldn’t rely on “the Bible says so,” so they ended up explaining the rationale behind how to make good choices and why we should avoid bad ones. I think it made us better people.

13

My husband and I are going to start working on passing on our DNA this year, and so this comes at a perfect time. Amidst all the other “how we will rase our kid to be a reasonable human being” bull sessions we’ve come upon the topic of religion, and it’s a damn sticky issue.

*Warning: lengthy background babble ahead! Read at you own risk, or just skip ahead to the bit after the quote from John T where I get back on topic again. *

Neither of us are currently religious.
I was raised Catholic (my mom was raised Church of Christ and converted to Catholicism in college, my dad was raised Southern Baptist and converted to his own agnostic rationalism as soon as he could but agreed to allow mom to raise us Catholic), with Catholic elementary school and CCD/CYO–basically hard-core Sunday school, but not on Sunday–when we later went to public schools. I was an altar girl and really hoped that the Vatican would get its collective head out of its collective ass soon so I could become a preist. After countless head-on collisions with the walls of sexism, I finally gave up on it in high school. After a short period of sour-grapes “all religion sucks” attitude, I actively practiced a somewhat diluted version of Wiccan (“The Church of D-. Members: 1”) for several years. I would cite “semi-agnostic independent Wiccan” as my religious preference if asked now. I don’t do much in the way of religious activity except on the occasional holiday.
My husband was raised without much emphasis on religion–basic non-denom. Christian–until he was in his early teens and his dad remarried a born-again, which resulted in enforced bible study classes and Sunday church, mostly Baptist or some close variation. He never cared much one way or the other about it. He is fairly agnostic as well, but is very untrusting of any organized religion.
The problem is that we both see the benefits that belonging to a church can provide, like the heightened sense of community and the comforting support of ritual and community in times of stress. While niether of us feel the need personally to have any religious influence in our lives, we’d like that to be available to our kids. We certainly don’t want to just ship them off to church alone on Sundays to be told who knows what by strangers, however, so anything we choose has to also be palatable to us, not only in general but also something we can deal with sitting through every week without making loud snide comments during sermons. I lean towards the admittedly imperfect church of my childhood (because I think that the ritual of Mass is something that is easier for kids to deal with than a non-stop serious lecture about right and wrong, while still providing the opportunity for the child to delve deeper if he or she wishes), but my husband has an even greater dislike of the Catholic church than of most other organized religion. So the real choices seem to be between either little to no religious practice in the house or bouncing around sporadically between churches.

In addition to JohnT’s request, I’d like to know what it’s like being raised with religion, but without much consistency. Do you feel that church-hopping did you any good? Did it make you insecure about religion? Do you think that it made you more or less religious now than you would have been if raised differently?

14

My parents didn’t have a religious upbringing, as I don’t remember my grandparents on either side ever going to church, outside of weddings and funerals. None of my relatives that I can think of were religious or went to church. I have no idea what my father believed; he never mentioned it. At one point, my mother decided that we would go to church - she and the kids. The old man stayed home. First, she took us to the United church, but we left it shortly. Later she told me that she found the people snobbish, and it was more like a beauty pageant and hob-nob fest than a spiritual thing.

So she switched to the Anglican church. Somehow, I got roped into being an altar boy, and/or to sing in the choir. That went on for a few years, then one day, at last, I didn’t have to do it anymore. I never felt anything spiritual during this time, it was just something my mom said I had to do. Over time, we had to move away from each other, and my mom stopped going to church. We never actually discussed religion, although when she was in her last days, she spent some time reading the bible.

Now, I don’t practice any religion at all, even atheism, which could be said to be the religion of not believing in god. My wife is agnostic. It doesn’t have an impact on me, except for these people in the white van, who have been coming to our house for three years, to try to convert us. I haven’t answered the door to them yet. We are the only house on the street that they come to. They must want us pretty bad, eh?

Anyway, whatever kind of deal religion is, based upon what I’ve read, seen and experienced, I can’t get into it, and I really, really don’t care one way or the other. In jest, I like to call myself an apatheist.

15

Both my parents were raised, pretty much, as nothing in particular. My dad spent a lot of his Sundays biking to every church in town to see what it was like. My mom went to a Protestant Sunday School on her own but was dissatisfied. Both converted to the LDS Church at college age, and have been faithful ever since. Of their siblings, two are athiest, a couple don’t care, and one spent some time as a Rajneeshi before settling down to vague New-Ageism.

Shirley, comfort may be one aspect for many people, but not all and not for everyone, and it certainly isn’t a cop-out for everyone. I really like you, and I’m sorry to see such a blanket stereotype from you. In the friendliest possible way, however. :slight_smile:

16

My dad and mom were raised Catholic, Mom more rabidly so. They left the church after I was born, they had had serious problems with getting married and getting me baptized, so much so that I was never actually baptized. Dad kept the values, Mom kept the guilt.

Whenever I had questions about God or religion or death or whatever, I talked to Dad. He told me what Christians believed, what he believed, what scientists said, and asked what I thought I believed. We had serious discussions about all sorts of stuff. It was great! I think I was agnostic by age 8, atheist by age 12, experimented with paganism and Wicca in high school, and back to atheist by college.

Of course, I understand where Q.N. Jones is coming from, living in Iowa. After the deep philosophical discussions I had with my dad at home, I expected to find my friends in school just as accepting. Not so much. I was called a devil worshipper and heathen in elementary school, my best friends’ parents wouldn’t let them sleep over at my house or trick or treat with me, etc. One guy thought agnostic was a kind of pasta. Not a haven of religious freedom, that Iowa.

But I turned out ok. Eventually I will be having kids with an ex Lutheran atheist, and I think they will be ok too. Just try to give kids a straight answer when they ask what you believe in. Tell them the stories of the bible, but tell them as stories. They will come to believe what makes sense to them.

17

Dubuque seems to be a special case. A friend of mine grew up in a not religious family in Dubuque. He has said that when he was little sitting on his front steps on Sunday the neighborhood kids would go past on the way to church shouting at him that he was going to burn in hell. He wondered how his parents could be so cruel as to do this to him.

18

While it’s always nice to have Jesus take time out of his busy day to help with these things, I doubt the kid was done any sort of damage, or even particularly put out at that age by the travel. They pretty much just eat, sleep and poop at that age, and it’s easier to travel long distances with them then than when they are more fully functioning. Not that I agree with the “why”, but the end result as not that bad,was it?

As to the OP, we are pretty much in the same boat. I was raised Catholic before I opted out at about 16 years old. Mrs. Shibb was raised Buddhist, which she doesn’t really see as a religion and is firmly atheist. Religion is going to infiltrate your young’uns lives at some point, even when we lived in Thailand we had Chinese baptists living above us who taught our daughter about god. This had some fairly amusing unintended consequences, since we’d never discussed the topic with her. Now days I think god is sort of like the toothfairy, Santa Claus or the Easter bunny to her. She’s pretty sure there’s no one there or it’s mommy and daddy, but hasn’t come right out and asked. We celebrate some holidays like Christmas and Easter, but just for fun, not for any religious ramification. We also occassionally celebrate Thai holidays like Songkran and Loy Krathong, which can be fun but are also reflective, maybe more like Thanksgiving. We don’t push atheism/agnosticism on them, since we think they should reach their own decisions. Sometimes I tell them about religion and what other people believe in and I do insist that they respect other people’s beliefs, since it’s not likely that they’re going to change anyone and living in the south it could be dangerous to openly ridicule someone else’s religion.

19

I grew up in an non-religious household. My father was raised lapsed catholic, my mother was sent to a baptist church (with neighbors or random passersby) by her parents who told her she’d go to hell if she didn’t go to church, while they slept off hangovers on Sunday morning.

My mother didn’t become such an outspoken athiest until I was older, she wanted my brother and I to make our own decisions regarding faith. My father doesn’t talk about religion, it’s a non-subject with him. We talked about religion and god and spirituality a lot growing up, but never went to church.

I went to sunday school a few times with my best friend when I was very young, and other than being forcefed sweets for three hours and then told to sit quietly while the preacher talked, I didn’t get much out of it.

Other than being actively recruited by my friend’s church (I believe the word heathen was sallied forth more than a few times) I don’t remember ever being asked if I went to church, etc. My closest friends were jealous that I got to sleep in on Sunday mornings, and I though it was awesome that my half-jewish friend got TWO present holidays instead of just one. :slight_smile:

20

In Spain (oh-so-Catholic-Spain), there are more and more people who aren’t practising Catholics but miss the… folklore. The cute flowers at the wedding, etc. etc.

So some city halls now offer “civilian baptisms”, and some people are holding “civilian communions” (that is, the kid gets to dress as a princess/admiral and have a banquet and lots of presents, but without one year of catechism, confession or a Mass).

Some governments are forcing Catholic schools to take in immigrant kids who are not Catholic, so they have to set up an alternate class for when the Catholic kids are having Religious Studies (sigh), even in the years where the syllabus is Comparative Religion (where having a Buddhist or a Muslim in class would be neat).

Personally, I think you have to be consequent… your beliefs should inform your whole life, and to hell with “what the neighbors think”