I went through the Methodist Sunday school, up to catechism then a few bible camps. That hardly qualifies as “theology” training though. Got a good bit of Martin Luther and John Wesley of course but I never got much about any other religion or branch of Christianity until I took some religion in college. By then I was already becoming a nonbeliever.
My husband went to Catholic high school, where they were required to pick one religion based class per semester. He’s agnostic.
Very extensively informally educated in theology as a young Christian lad, and I now think that almost every proposition uttered by a Christian in his capacity as expresser of Christian views is false–up to and including almost every utterance of “God exists.” That makes me basically an atheist.
Sunday school, confirmation classes, and two years at a Lutheran seminary. Believer.
Regards,
Shodan
As a wee little one, I had Sunday School, then old school catechism leading up to my Holy Communion. By old school, imagine the whole one room with wooden desks and cranky old nuns thing. The only modern thing about it was that they weren’t allowed to hit you any more. Then I spent my last two years of high school in a Catholic school. I had already decided my beliefs (atheist) before then, though.
I had the devil beat out of me quite a bit, so i learned everything god hated.
Regular church/Sunday School for whole life.
Daily religion classes at 6:30am through all of high school (except for that year abroad)–which was fun because my friends were there, but strange because quite frankly my teachers were usually loopy. However, my whole hometown is wildly overpopulated with loopy people; it wasn’t just my church. A remarkable number of them are just crazy. I don’t know quite why I found it so easy to separate and shrug off the loopy stuff from the actual religious parts. Certainly my teachers did their best to blur the line.
In college, there were religion classes at the church next to campus. Apparently at other colleges the courses are more formal and actually result in credit (within the church’s school system) and grades. Ours, not so much; we had a wonderful director who would just talk and encourage everyone else to as well. It was great.
I’ve never taken formal theology courses that resulted in a grade, or anything like that, though. That would be fun. Yes, I am a believer.
Some might say that I was raised as a godless heathen, but I was given the freedom to read anything that struck my fancy, ask any questions that came to mind, and attend any services I wanted to. Considering that I grew up way out in the sticks with only a couple of churches in the area, both very small and of the Christian ilk, my opportunities for attending services were few and far between.
I remember driving ‘into town’ to attend Sunday School once with the neighbor’s kids out of curiosity. I believe they were Christian Scientists, but I don’t know that the Sunday School session that we attended was specifically Christian Scientist. Anyway, I remember being bored and feeling a bit awkward because I had only a vague familiarity with the passages and stories from the bible that were being discussed.
I also attended one Sunday service at one of the area churches after spending a Saturday night at the house of a playmate whose family attended the church. I don’t remember much about that aside from finding a really old Easter egg that had apparently been hidden and forgotten in the bible-holder of the pew in front of me.
During the holidays, we’d travel to my mom’s hometown to stay with my grandmother and my mom and I would often attend the holiday services with my grandmother. For us it was just an excuse to sing and stay connected to grandma’s community, and the community of my mom’s youth.
If my parents didn’t know how to answer my questions they’d either find material for me to read or a friend/acquaintance who was better prepared to have a theological conversation with me. I dipped often into those wells out of mostly academic curiosity.
I’ve considered myself agnostic from the time I learned what the term meant.
I’m now married to a recovering Catholic who is very spiritual and active in a local Unity church. She plays piano for their services and occasionally leads the services. She also works as the admin for a local Unitarian Universalist church. She is considering taking some classes and trying to decide if she wants to become a deacon/minister of some kind.
We often have great discussions and debates, and it is extremely handy to be able to pepper her with questions about various details and holes in my understanding of scripture and the religious world.
One recent debate swirled around some generalizations I had made about religious dogma. From my perspective, religious/spiritual beliefs seem to be about as individual as finger prints, brain chemistry, or genetics. I think we are all churches of 1, so to speak, and I tend to balk at most theological claims of any single right way/perspective/prohibition that applies to anything and everything. “All you need is love” is about as close as I can come to embracing dogma.
I also think that a significant amount of moral/social/environmental/political destruction has ensued due to people playing King of the Hill with all of their 'One Right Way’s, and I really don’t think it is the most constructive way for us to figure out how to live our lives.
When trying to explain myself on this particular topic, I tend to make some pretty broad statements like, “Here’s what bugs me about religion [insert random dogma jambalaya here]…” which my better half takes umbrage with because she’s approaching “All you need is love” from the congregational/community Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup perspective, and don’t happen to think they are two great tastes that taste great together, opting instead to approach it from the perspective of preferring my community to be secular and my spirituality to be just between me, myself, and I.
Fascinating article, and one which I think shoots down the opinion that prompted the OP.
Sunday School from 4 years to 8 years
Church with my father (a church warden) most Sundays from 6 to 15 years.
School, a church school so 15 min service in a Cathedral 6 days a week during term.
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Plus religious education as part of the curriculum. 8 to 18 years.
Formal instruction for 12 months prior to confirmation at age 13.
Been an atheist since I was 15 years old because development of deductive reasoning.
I grew up a religious mutt. My parents didn’t go to church, but I was always free to go to bible school and services with my friends. As I developed an interest in music, I began to spend more time in churches. I’ve certainly never been formally educated in theology, although I’ve read a few textbooks that are commonly used in undergraduate religion courses.
I’m a believer and currently attend a local Episcopal church.
I attended catholic school starting in the 4th grade, and even then I remember doubting the teachers even really believed what they were teaching us. As I recall I always lumped together Jesus & God with Santa, the Easter Bunny, and Never-Never Land. Great stories that adults told to kids that just didn’t seem true. Now, I wasn’t one to buck the system - after all, if you confess not believing in Santa, you risk not getting presents! No way! So I went along with it like I went along with everything else.
I think Ian Anderson said it best:
Regular Sunday school & church attendance with family from age nine on. Personally fascinated by mythology, folklore, SciFi, spookiness & then religion. Took three-four theology classes as my comparatively-liberal mainline Christian college. Personally well-read in Judeo-Christian & neo-Pagan faiths. Definite believer. And been fortunate enough to know lots of knowledgeable & faithful believers along with some not nearly as well-informed but very few outright hypocrites & scoundrels.
It’s difficult for me to imagine anyone more religious than my grandparents, both sets in two different churches.
My parents both rejected their upbringing and did nothing in the way of church, religious or spiritual education for my sister or me.
My mother went so far as to forbid our grandparents to take us to Sunday School or church with them.
When I was 15 I thought spirituality might be what I was lacking and (after much wailing and gnashing of teeth from Mom) began attending Sunday School at my grandparents’ (mom’s parents) church.
I am a believer. I believe in evolution, but believe God instigated it. When I plant a morning glory seed, that looks like an eyelash and see what it turns into I just feel as if there has to be some encompassing intelligence that engineered that. That’s what God is to me.
I have a masters degree from a seminary (not an MDiv) so I think that counts as “formally” educated. 
And yes, I am a believer.
Catechism classes throughout grade school and elementary with church every Sunday is formally indoctrinated. It took very well when I was a little kid, but eventually it just made no sense and I drifted away. Now I resent all the waste of time.
Minor in theology in an evangelical college. Atheist bordering on anti-theist.
13 years of Catholic school, k-12, plus vacation bible school in the summer.
I am not religious, and would generally put myself on an agnostic/atheist line, with slightly more leaning toward the atheist side.
Twice-a-week Hebrew school ages 6-12, once a week from 13-15, spent a good chunk of my sophomore year of college studying the Bible, Aquinas, Augustine, Maimonides, and various other Judeo-Christian writers as part of a philosophy(ish) degree. Spent even more time engaged in recreational discussion with professors on similar topics, and currently living vicariously through a friend who is at a Lutheran seminary.
Areligious atheist who finds religion fascinating the same way I find other academic pursuits fascinating.
Atheist.
Education:
18 years of church w/ sunday school
3 religion classes in high school
4 religion classes in university
Most of the classes I took focused on religion as a whole rather than a specific one. I became an atheist mostly because of sunday school, ironically. In one class we had a debate of god v. no god. I was to take the side of no god. I won.
Incidentally, thanks to relgion classes in high school, I was a buddist/atheist for about a decade and am now just an atheist.