I’m either agnostic or atheist depending on my mood and the day you ask me on. My mom’s a Baptist although she was raised Catholic and doesn’t attend church… I’m not sure about my dad, I’d guess he’s a Christian Deist (yeah, I realize I just made that term up… so sue me.)
My older sister’s a big Bible thumper and any time religion comes up, she and I get into it. I’d blame it on her and trying to mold me into a Christian but the truth is I get too involved in arguments so the yelling is probably my fault.
Everyone else in my family, I assume is Christian but no one actually goes to church except for my aforementioned sister and her husband and kids.
On my father’s side, my grandmother is very religous. My father was brought up that way, and he attends church as regularly as possible. On my mother’s side, my grandfather is Jewish and my grandmother is Christian; their kids were told they could choose whichever they prefered and it wasn’t a big deal in their household. My mother never goes to church. Both of my parents believe in God, and I did until I began to doubt a year or so ago. (I’m 16 now) I had always been told by them that there was a God.
I’m agnostic. My father was raised Methodist, but after studying other religions, he became less religious, although still spiritual. My Mom was raised Baptist. We went to church every Sunday and they were both active in the church. It may have been more of a social thing though.
I was raised in a mildly religious family. The church that we attended wasn’t a hellfire-and-brimstone type: more of a “be nice to your neighbor” type. When we moved, church attendance tapered off to Vacation Bible School for the kiddies in the summmer, which was basically making macaroni pictures, and coloring cut-out Jesuses. I was sent to a Christian school, but not for religious reasons, but because of the school’s supposed accademic excellence.
Around age sixteen, my familystarted attending church, and became more religious, as I became less so from exposure to science, anthropology and biology through independent reading. The more I learned, the less I believed.
They generally leave me alone when it comes to religion, keeping it to an occasional invitation to church, and mild interjections such as “It must be God’s plan,” to which I tactfully reply, “Hmm,” and gently change the subject.
Agnostic now, Strict Catholic then. Schools were superb, as mentioned earlier. At one point I even seriously considered becoming a priest, then I discovered girls. Perhaps if I’d been raised Anglican, I’d still believe?
There doesn’t seem to be very much of a pattern emerging here. A very wide variety of religious backgrounds.
I’m an Atheist. Mom was a non-practicing Catholic, and Dad was a non-practicing Presbyterian. Mom says she believes in a higher power, and still uses prayer. Dad became an Atheist, and now he’s found religion in his old age.
Mum Anglican, Dad very anti anything organised, particularly religion.
I was encouraged to work it out for myself, we talked about it a lot. If I wanted to go to any particular church as a child my Mum would take me so I could check it out and research. And where I grew up was very multicultural so we had everything, and my school friends would take me along if I was curious.
End result: Atheist. That’s where the research gets you!
I haven’t any idea what religion my parents were/are. Mom would probably be agnostic if you could get her to be ‘controversial’ enough to admit it. Can’t remember what Dad’s dogtags say he was, but then, if the only way you have of knowing a person’s religion/state of faith is what’s stamped on a piece of metal, it doesn’t really matter which one it is. Religion to us was sort of how the appendix is to the human body. It may have had a function once upon a time, but is now largely irrelevant to our daily lives. I don’t mean that in a snarky way, just saying how it was in the BadBaby residence.
I’ve never attended a sunday-type service, only one church wedding, and went to chapel every week when I attended Catholic school. Everything was in Latin and I didn’t have a clue what was being said, so I’d space out. I remember thinking about the inconsistency of treatment between the priests and nuns at my school. That lead to thinking of other inconsistencies, till I was agnostic (though at eight I doubt I used that term) and finally, atheist. My dad was more concerned with how and why I’d come to my conclusions than the conclusion itself. I’ve done more study since then, but I still come up atheist.
My mom’s family was jewish & methodist; my dad’s family was baptist. My mom & dad divorced when I was really young, so I lived with my mom, who took my sister & I to both services for a while. At that point, she wasn’t very religious at all. Then she wanted us confirmed into the methodist church. Both she & dad have gotten pretty religious in the past few years. I’m not really sure why - neither were that into any religion when we were younger, and now they’re trying to get me to be more religious, too.
I’m not all that interested. That doesn’t mean that I don’t believe there is a possibility that there’s some sort of higher power. I just don’t believe that only one religion encompasses everyone. And I always wondered how people knew, without a doubt, that one religion was better than another. Most major religions claim to be the only way to “salvation.” How in the world do you pick? If you really need something to believe in that badly, it’s a pretty serious, potentially life-altering experience. I can’t imagine telling people they’re going to hell just because they don’t agree with me. If God exists, I can’t imagine it telling people that, either.
I was raised Church of Christ, a hardcore fundamentalist protestant church. I was raised to look down on Baptists because they were too liberal. We were at church every time the doors opened–Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night. At first I went along with it, but about the age of ten or eleven or so I started questioning church dogma by (gasp!) asking difficult questions. Eventually I was hated and feared in Sunday school class. I actually clandestinely overheard two Sunday school teachers arguing over who would have to teach the class I was in.
Now, I just do my best to ignore religion, except when it tries to blow up the world (which is happening with surprising frequency these days).
I’m an atheist that was raised Catholic due to my dad’s family’s German Catholic background. It only amounted to going to Catholic grade school and, as far as I could tell, we only went to church on Sunday because if you didn’t go you got a poor grade in Christian Doctrine. And I got poor grades in that anyway because I never did buy or care about the story.
I’ve never asked her but, having done a bit of genealogy, I assume my mom was raised Methodist. As far as I know, all my siblings are either atheist or agnostic.
At my dad’s memorial service I was surprised to hear my eldest sister say she remembered getting in big trouble once and my dad got out the Bible and read something out of it. And it was kind of embarassing when one of the cousins suggested we all sing some hymn and none of us kids knew the dang thing.
Agnostic, raised in a strictly secular household. Religion was never really an issue. My mother was raised Catholic but not in a particularly strict way (although she went to a Catholic HS), and never went to church or talked about religion unless asked. My father’s never really talked about his religious views, that I can recall.
I had to get confirmed (Catholic) because my parents insisted I would be married in a Church one day. I did all the stuff they made me do but never believed in any of it after about age 10. (For a lot of reasons but it was kind of hard to sit in church with the biggest batch of hypocrites and keep the faith… that and I don’t happen to like the concept of organized religion) I now consider myself agnostic and I’m married (By a jp in hubby’s parents backyard) to an athiest.
Also agnostic from a pretty secular household, although there were attempts at Christianity and Unitarianism. Those attempts just made things worse, though.
As I only had faith when I was a kid. It only lasted a few years(5-8) longer than my belief in Santa.
My Father is a atheist but never really talks about his lack of religion, it really isn’t that important to him. My mother believes in God but that’s about it really, no Church no praying etc. That being said I was brought up in Ireland which is quite a religious place. I was baptised and made my communion and confirmation. I was very happy to do the last two as they were both very profitable days. I was also a altar boy as I was informed I could make a good few quid from weddings and funerals but I couldn’t deal with the shite that went along with it so gave it up quickly.
My Grandmother brought me to Church every Sunday till I was about 11 after that I said I was going to Church but went to the local video game arcade instead. At about 15 I told my Father that I didn’t believe and he said I didn’t need to pretend anymore. I still went to the arcade.
Irish schools have religion classes and my teachers got me ready for both Communion and Confirmation. We were taught Catacism(sp?) and did lots projects on God and the like. I was even a member of the school choir for a while. They also held confession and one of them had a prayer room. Apart from 1 every school I went to was ran by a religious order and if I had of wanted to follow a relgious life I had every chance of doing so. It just didn’t make sense to me. YMMV
I am an atheist, raised in a very ‘in name only’ Presbyterian family, we never went to church, although I was sent to Sunday school until I went on strike at around age 10.
I always though the Presbyterian church was the most moderate of protestant churches until I grew up, did some reading and discovered they were the mob who chained kids swings up on Sundays. I guess my views were coloured by my parents lack of involvement.
I am an atheist. My father is also an atheist, my mother is broadly christian - Church of England type. She used to be a regular churchgoer, but in the last few years has only attended at Easter and Christmas.
I used to get taken to church by my mother, from…as long as i can remember. I went to sunday school until I was eightish, I think, and was an altar boy from about eleven to thirteen, when I decided I didn’t believe in God, Jesus or the rest of it one bit, and quit.
Atheist. Raised by conservative Presbyterians. My parents - Mom especially - seemed more interested in being SEEN in church (sitting near the front despite the better view and all from the balcony) and the social acceptance that goes with that rather than going for spiritual reasons. Mom got spiritual after Dad died.
