How you were raised vs. your current beliefs...

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Pepe
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20 Feb 2022, 12:03 am

Lost_dragon wrote:
I became an atheist when I was twelve.


I became an atheist when I was about 22. 8O
You win. :mrgreen:

Now I am the most bad ar$ed atheist you will ever meet. 8)

BTW, what are you doing in this godforsaken forum? I have never seen you here before. :twisted:



Mikah
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20 Feb 2022, 3:43 am

I was raised atheist apathetically towards religion and politics. I'm some sort of non-denominational Christian now and politically pretty far to the Right. There was no one moment or even an age in years I can give for a transition, though the change in politics came before the religion. It was a long road to here and it's a road I still travel.


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blazingstar
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20 Feb 2022, 7:04 pm

I was raised and confirmed in the Episcopal church. I spent 10 years or so as an atheist. I began a long road back into the feeling of a god through 12 step programs. I’m now a Hicksite Quaker, and the traveling continues.


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ToughDiamond
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21 Feb 2022, 1:47 am

My parents didn't do God. My schools did, at least during scripture lessons and assembly, and the pressure I got from that made me feel uncomfortable about not believing it, in case I was wrong, but little by little I reached the conclusion that it was safe enough to continue being unchurched and secular. Dad rather resented religious propaganda, Mum never said a word about religion. None of my family were religious AFAIK, nor were the vast majority of the friends I had over my entire life, most work colleagues were secular, and the few who weren't didn't talk about it much at all. A few friends were slightly superstitious or spiritually-minded in one way or another, and when I was younger I thought they might be right, but as time went by I figured they weren't. One wife was a practicing Pentecostal but by then I'd ditched religion and we eventually agreed to differ.

Nothing surprising about how I turned out then. I've long thought that if you don't raise somebody to be religious, they're pretty unlikely to take it up spontaneously. I spent most of my life in my native country - England - and religion isn't particularly common there.



Pepe
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21 Feb 2022, 1:52 am

blazingstar wrote:
I was raised and confirmed in the Episcopal church. I spent 10 years or so as an atheist. I began a long road back into the feeling of a god through 12 step programs. I’m now a Hicksite Quaker, and the traveling continues.


No one is perfect, not even god. :mrgreen:



HeroOfHyrule
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21 Feb 2022, 2:43 am

I was raised as a Christian, and was told that atheists were "evil" when I asked about the existence of people who weren't religious at all.

I started realizing that I didn't believe in God or anything that I was taught about Christianity at 11, and quietly became an atheist around that time. Now most people in my family know that I'm not religious, and even though they don't like it and sometimes still try to make me adopt their beliefs, they mostly leave me alone since they know that I'm already set in my beliefs and have been for years.



cyberdad
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21 Feb 2022, 2:46 am

I was raised high Anglican, but my parents sent me to a private catholic college (go figure?) and now I follow Jedi philosophy



beady
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21 Feb 2022, 3:13 am

I was raised Catholic.
I am agnostic, atheist.
I became agnostic probably ten or more years ago, I don't really remember exactly. It took a couple more years before I stopped believing there is anything beyond this place. There is just way too many nasty people who claim religion is their number one priority.
The facts of this world just down hold up to any religion being real for me.



Pepe
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21 Feb 2022, 4:10 am

beady wrote:
I was raised Catholic.
I am agnostic, atheist.
I became agnostic probably ten or more years ago, I don't really remember exactly. It took a couple more years before I stopped believing there is anything beyond this place. There is just way too many nasty people who claim religion is their number one priority.
The facts of this world just down hold up to any religion being real for me.

Ex Catholics make the best atheists. :mrgreen:



magz
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21 Feb 2022, 5:19 am

I was raised Catholic, grew into something I call "true agnostic" - embracing rather doubt and lack of knowledge than any definitive faith.

Finally feeling true to myself.


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Kerch
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21 Feb 2022, 6:19 am

My family isn't religious in the slightest. But my school when I was a kid was catholic and we went to church on holidays. I never really took it seriously and neither did many of the other kids. They made us sing songs and say prayers but I was always changing the lyrics and all to funny parodies to amuse my mates.

So basicly, religion-wise, I've pretty much always been a through-and-through atheist.



LittleSnowyOne
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21 Feb 2022, 7:05 am

I was raised Catholic, but am very dissatisfied with religious institutions as a whole at this point. I’m embarrassed by the people who claim to love Jesus but who don’t treat others of different races, religions, sexualities, etc. with kindness. So many so-called “Christian’s” are the most hateful people I have known. I know more good people that are atheists or agnostics than are Christians.

I believe that it’s not humanity’s job to judge one another for their perceived “sins” because no human is a perfect being.

I refuse to believe that being the “wrong” (emphasis on quotation marks) religion or being LGBT+ is punishable by an eternity in hell. I believe a loving God wouldn’t do that to His people.


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techstepgenr8tion
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21 Feb 2022, 8:46 am

What worked for me - read the bible cover to cover, find all of the Middleeastern pagan philosophy in it, and understand - personally not by someone telling you - that punishments and prohibitions against leaving where what most organizations did who had to fight for their survival against other organizations. Also see all of the 'synchretism' and where hair-pin turns of hypocracy happen (for example our magic good - your magic baneful or evil). If you can then try looking up someone whose a trustworthy expert on Darwinian game theory and religion and see what they have to say about the Abrahamic religions.

At first we were here to dominate and control each other for the sake of raising armies against other groups, now we're more here to do it to flatten other people's genes and elevate our own. We're in an era now where almost everything seems like it's a trap.

Also - if you want to streamline your current beliefs - check the historic lineage of the various mystery schools of antiquity and Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, and Hermeticism and then the Renaissance revival of such things through books like Manly P Hall's Secret Teachings of All Ages or Lectures on Ancient Philosophy (he effectively did a 'living history' type of thing with these movements although I'm really doubtful of anything he said about things like Atlantis and Lemuria). You'll at least get to see where they come from, what they're rooted in, and in particular you might find the more esoteric alchemical doctrines (like the Masonic 'Great Work') to be useful maps of what that is and where it's going - ie. effectively mystical humanism which was a forerunner to secular humanism.


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Pepe
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21 Feb 2022, 6:47 pm

magz wrote:
I was raised Catholic, grew into something I call "true agnostic" - embracing rather doubt and lack of knowledge than any definitive faith.

Finally feeling true to myself.


Reason, the knowledge of the evolutionary process, anthropology, and human psychology doesn't push you over the edge towards atheism?
Interesting... 8)



Pepe
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21 Feb 2022, 6:53 pm

LittleSnowyOne wrote:
I was raised Catholic, but am very dissatisfied with religious institutions as a whole at this point. I’m embarrassed by the people who claim to love Jesus but who don’t treat others of different races, religions, sexualities, etc. with kindness. So many so-called “Christian’s” are the most hateful people I have known. I know more good people that are atheists or agnostics than are Christians.

I believe that it’s not humanity’s job to judge one another for their perceived “sins” because no human is a perfect being.

I refuse to believe that being the “wrong” (emphasis on quotation marks) religion or being LGBT+ is punishable by an eternity in hell. I believe a loving God wouldn’t do that to His people.


Are you talking about the USA?

Most Christian people I have met here in Australia may be misguided but are very nice people. :wink:



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22 Feb 2022, 1:51 am

My dad is a non-practicing Christian and my mom doesn’t follow any religion. Religion was never a priority in our household and I was never part of one.

But I live in Orange County, a very conservative part of southern California. After experiencing several instances of prejudice for not being a conservative Christian, I declared myself an atheist in high school. I’m still an atheist today, but instead of rejecting all religion, I only reject mainstream religion.

I reject mainstream religion mainly because it doesn’t allow me to be my authentic self. I find TST Satanism, which I’ve been researching lately, to be much more interesting and in line with my core values.


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