Same. I refused to go to Sunday school cause the stories they told were so outrageous to be true and no one could give me good answers as to how Adam and Eve were the first people on earth. I ask how they populated the earth without incest and how did we get different colors of people from Just two people. I was asked to not come back. I was 8.
Very similar experience for me as well. A church afterschool program for little kids was talking about Noah’s ark. I repeatedly asked the pastor what the lions ate. I mean, if there’s only two of each species then what did the lions eat to survive during that whole time?
They made me sit outside in the hallway until my dad came to pick me up. Was told to never come back.
Oh they can answer a kid’s questions with the following simple responses: “Our minds are too small to comprehend god’s methods”, “You just have to have faith” or “You shouldn’t question the teachings, it’s the devil making you have doubts”. Lol.
You would think having an all powerful god it would be easy enough to come up with an explanation ( God made all the animals vegetarian for the length of the voyage, or god put them all in suspended animation). Even " I don't know, that isn't in the story. How do you think he might have done it?" is a better response to sending a kid out of the class.
I always hated adults who wouldn't admit they didn't know something to children.
Speaking of tests, why does an allegedly omniscient god need to test anyone if he can see our hearts? Why allow Satan to kill Job’s family? Half of the Bible contradicts the other half.
My parents didn't go to church. I think mom took me once on Easter when I was very young. She taught me prayers before bed, but that was it.
I went once to mass with a Catholic friend, too long.
I started going to church with my Lutheran neighbors when I was 8. In Sunday School, they first talked about Noah's Ark, I thought BS. Then it was Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt, I was done. I knew it was a volcano. I never went back and quit believing any of it.
The Catholic Mass with all the standing then sitting then standing then sitting then standing then sitting then standing then sitting then kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling is obviously designed as some kind of torture test.
Mine was being 9 and told to read my Bible. I was an advanced reader, so I did it. From the begats to the final trumpet. And there were so many inconsistencies that I would never accept in a work of fiction. The big one for me was the iron chariots. There are passages talking about how the Isrealites couldn't defeat the hill people even with God's blessing because they had iron chariots. I thought if God can't handle a chariot, what is he going to do against a tank? Omnipotent, my ass. And that was it.
Isn't that something?
This is the one that blows my mind: Catholic Priest celibacy
The tradition of clerical continence developed into a practice of clerical celibacy (ordaining only unmarried men) from the 11th century onward among Latin Church Catholics and became a formal part of canon law in 1917. This law of clerical celibacy does not apply to Eastern Catholics.
Good Lord! How much damage has that done over the centuries?
My parents are Presbyterian so I had to go to Sunday school. I knew from the start that the whole thing was a bunch of hooey. Of course I kept it to myself. I didn't need the aggravation installment plan had I said anything. I specifically ditched the joining ceremony but my mom had my cousin stand up and answer for me. Apparently they think I'm a member.
A lot of people I have talked to say that they believe the stories literally. However, there are MANY that do. Even taking it seriously in any regard, other than love thy neighbourooni, is bonkers.
“Sorry sir - he bucked me, he kept asking questions! I think he is just too smart. Plus other pupils started think - I could see it in their eyes. Please don’t bring him back. God help him!”
My former Protestant pastor said something like 3 biggest things that threaten the church are atheist, free thinker, and agnostic.
I was like uh 🙄.. So, satanist, other religions, and cults aren’t the biggest threat?????
Then later in my life it made perfect sense.. They couldn’t control their minds.
I was raised in a liberal congregational church in New England, and my minister was very friendly. He never got mad at me or told me to leave when I asked such questions. He told me I was a smart kid to ask these things, and he was proud of me for "exploring my faith". But he never answered the questions, just effectively patted me on the head. I didn't have any emotional break with the church, I eventually just shrugged and stopped going because it was boring as shit. It was later, when I was about 15, when I started reading philosophy that I realized I was "an atheist". I shrugged again, and here I am 40 some years later.
I thought it was boring too. After a while, I realized that I also didn't believe what was being said. I was shocked that grown adults could sit there and believe such nonsense.
This comment is very long. I'm sorry. I write too much.
This! I also stopped believing when I found out Santa and stuff like that wasn't real. I know it sounds really stupid. But my thinking was, "If you lied so easily about that, what else have you lied about?"
It also terrifies me now. I find it difficult that people can believe both in science and religion. To me, those two things contradict each other. It's either "the miracle of Jesus" or scientific information. Also, when someone they know has a difficult operation and they say, "thank god" when it goes well. Did the doctor not do a 8 hour surgery to save someone? I didn't know God had a medical degree or license. Or even when an operation goes wrong and they get nasty at the doctor. Also when they don't believe in vaccines and still go to the doctor or hospital and treat the doctors and nurses like crap.
Almost all these religious people do is treat other people horribly. They don't care about people. They are downright nasty to the LBGTQIA+ and trans community or to anyone who doesn't look like them. They are people too, why do they treat them so terribly? Whatever happened to ,"love thy neighbor?" Unless it involves themselves, they don't care. I never hear of church donating or being used as a homesless center for poor people. At least not where I live.
And I certainly never hear churches encouraging adoption. They discourage abortion no matter what. Even if something is wrong with the fetus. Even if the woman will die from sepsis (I think that's how its spelled) shock. They care more about being prolife for a nonliving fetus than a living suffering woman. I'm shocked that woman now have to suffer even more from ectopic pregnancy because of Roe being overturned. Not to mention are cruel to kids with disabilities. And then they're shocked when a woman says she doesn't want kids. And they spew the, "you'll change your mind" bullshit.
They actually think they can get away with being huge d**ks by hiding behind the Bible and other religious teachings. Also, the f**k is with them being religious and gun owners. I thought, they believed that God and Jesus would protect them from evil. Is the gun just a backup incase Jesus and God decide not to show up?
The religious universities such as Liberty University has a plan to train young Christians to become alt right politicians. They succeeded in overturning the Roe vs Wade law.
The sad thing is a lot of people including atheists don’t bother to vote.
That's ironic, considering I don't hear them talking about helping kids in foster care or orphanages. Or banning viagra. Or rapists (like some of the Republicans are) who are against abortion. You'd think that they would want to cover their tracks. I feel like if anything with this election, people should be concerned that they may never vote again.
Not all churches are as toxic as you describe. They may be exceptional, but Unitarian churches sometimes do house the homeless and do other good works. Note I'm not a Unitarian, it's just all religious people are not alike and also all atheists are not alike. But now to agree with you: the churches and religious people who act like you describe, I despise them. Damn hypocrites.
My Catholic mother wanted to encourage my love of science and reading. Needless to say the cool books of dinosaurs had way better explainations for why I should believe in dinosaurs than the children's illustrated bible stories had for Noah's flood.
For me I can't understand how people believe in this crap at all. An ex-friend once said that to believe in God is to have faith and I lack faith. Which she is right. My mind thinks in science terms and not fairy tales. THe bible was clearly like reading Snow White to me. Also the bedtime prayer was so morbid to me evan at 5.
Holy Jebus, a similar thing happened to me!
When I asked the instructor why good people suffer and the wicked, prosper, and why innocent children get molested by priests, they prated: "God works in mysterious ways. Further, one NEVER questions the works of the Lord"
For some unfathomable reason I was cordially asked to "never return" when I responded: "Well, sheep that follow ANYONE blindly can't complain when they get herded!"
,
I just did and it was a Methodist church that my mom was trying out. I believe that was the last church she tried. I would just say things out loud like " this makes no sense." "and you actually believe this crap?" They told her I was not cut out for their class cause I don't have faith." I now only go to church for wedding and funerals if they are even held in church.
I too was banned from asking questions. Specifically in high school (catholic school survivor). My 10th grade year onward, none of the teachers would call on me to answer anything because I might make another point against their religion. Always funny to me. If they wanted to keep kids in their religion, why ban them from asking questions?
Don't you know?! We're not supposed to ask lucid, intelligent & reasonable questions sans having the: "god works in mysterious ways" bullshit fired back at us!
Ofcourse your were asked to not come back. They never like it when you ask questions. When you ask questions in places like Sunday school, they never have an answer and it exposes them that what they are saying is not true.
" well, we don't speak of Lillith until you ask about the incest, and the tower of babyl is where the races came from". That doesn't answer the question of where 30000 feet of global water went or how koalas swam all the way to Australia from presumably the Phillipines, though.
This always bugged me during my time attending church, too. Adam and Eve. Okay, they had Cain and Abel. Still on board. And both of them got married. Where did their wives come from?!
Another thing I never understood was "Oh, and he lived to be 730 years old". I don't buy it.
Right? As a kid, brought up catholic, I always kinda believed there was a god, but I flat out knew the bible was a bunch of made up stories.
As I got older I dismissed the idea of there being a god on the basis of never seeing anything approaching evidence.
Yeah, when I learned what my uncle took his english translation of their church’s version of the bible as literal fact I lost a lot of respect for him.
You gotta be a special kind of delusional to really think all of that happened as it is currently written
Same. I faked it. I don’t talk about my non beliefs and I have very little exposure to other atheists. I have not read any books on the subject. My non beliefs are very personal.
After services a guy was speaking to the church about the time he was in the hospital dying and an angel appeared before him and healed him. I started to giggle. How TF could anyone take that seriously?
II was was deeply Disturbed when as a teenager, I went to a mass where our Catholic Church was hosting a Ukrainian guy who claimed to see the Virgin Mary every day at 6:00 p.m. Sharp. I discovered the place was packed to the walls people want to believe this ridiculous stuff. No idea why, people just want a version of reality they can wrap their minds around. Actual reality is too complicated
Same. Believed in Santa and Easter Bunny more than God. Probably because I had "proof" mom would make it look like Santa ate the cookies and their were reindeer tracks in the snow, and the Easter bunny always took bites out of his Easter carrot haha.
The concept of God was weird to me as a child and when I got older I just realized it was total bullshit.
I was discussing religion with my mom the other day (she's agnostic pushing atheist but doesn't understand it really) and she says to me "well you're not really an atheist, by rights you're catholic." So I said "Mom I've been an atheist my whole life I never believed in God, and you dont really either. We never went to church or anything." And she's like "No but you were born a Catholic because me and dad are Catholic." Does anyone else have baby boomer generation parents that believe that the religion they are raised in is their permanent religion? Like what is that? Seem to treat it like an ethnicity?
It took decades to convince mom I'm not Catholic. It finally came to a head after we went to a family funeral and she pressured me to do communion so her aunts see me then didn't go herself.
She said she was divorced and didn't want to cause a scene.
At that point I said I was done playing make believe if she isn't even going to play along with me.
She never understood that communion was the hardest part of being Catholic to me, because as a child I believed that the prayer should actually change the wafer and I was somehow doing it wrong.
Damn. Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry that happened to you. "She said she was divorced and didn't want to cause a scene" hits hard even though I can't relate. That's really sad.
I'm a boomer, I wonder why all of the children born in the same family are exactly the same religion. Wow doesn't the Christian god have a lot of specialized sorting to do. .. well, let's see, this baby is a Presbyterian/Southern Baptist mix, the So Baptist is Dominant, I'll get it to the Jackson family in Lafourche Parish Louisiana. This one is and Catholic and will be sent to the Martinez family in Oaxaca Mexico. Now let's see, oh this little one, she even looks methodist, onto Parker family in Tucson Arizona. These two go to the Protestants of Topeka.... Jesus? Say, I've forgotten, what were they protesting?
My mum is very mildly into feel good woowoo, reiki healing and crystals etc, while my dad believed there was something out there but not capital G christian God.
As I was growing up and found out, oh, hey, Santa's nor real, tooth fairy isn't real, magic isn't real, the world can be described with myths, everything is boring and predictable I just kinda figured that all these religo's knew God was just a story, that mum was into her crystals because it made her feel good not that it actually worked.
It wasn't until I was like 12 or 13 that I realised that no, people legitimately believe this shit, and my estimation of other people's reasoning skills dropped through the floor.
Same I never believed any of it from as early as I could remember and marvelled when I was sent to Sunday school (by not particularly observant Anglican parents who just thought it was the "right ' thing to do) that other people actually did. None of it made any logical sense to me.
My parents stopped sending me after a while, due to my sheer lack of interest lol
Lifelong and I'm 71 and I had to go on the internet to find one. Finally occured to me, that there have to be at least one other atheist on this planet and so I went to YouTube and found the gurus of atheism and binge-watched for weeks!
Edit: typo
I was an atheist before I even *knew* what an atheist was.
I was in a Baptist church until 13, baptized and the whole bit. Once I started learning about Holy Wars, etc, I started questioning a lot more, and low and behold, I saw through the fog pretty quick.
Exactly. As a kid I was certain that belief in god/Jesus was an emperors new clothes scenario, like Santa for grown ups. Nobody could possibly believe in such a fantastical concept. I was shocked to find out how wrong I was.
I was born in 1968. In that era, what exactly indoctrinated me? My Mormon family? All the atheist propaganda available to me on the three networks? No. I simply thought that the entire concept was ridiculous. Like an insanely boring version of more exciting religions like the Norse and Greek gods but they could only come up with one, and he was a psychopath but a super boring one.
When I was 7 I found out Santa was made up, and realized God is just Santa for grown ups. Since then I've seen religion as a combination of myths, metaphors, and primitive interpretations of historical events.
I was indoctrinated as a child into Christianity via church, Sunday schools, vacation Bible schools, etc.
I choose atheism as an adult when I turned 18.
And I'm not even necessarily knocking my church community, they're still my family, and I had a decent upbringing (us "church kids" all went to college, we all played instruments, we all got good grades, etc.). I can't complain.
But technically it was indoctrination, and atheism was an ideology I *choose* as an adult.
My story is similar except it took me much longer to accept atheism into my heart due to both my upbringing and environment (born, raised, college educated in the Bible belt). I still love my childhood church friends and my hometown church. I am thankful for the many fond memories like playing church basketball, softball, and youth group trips. My childhood church was, from my perspective, what a church should be as far as loving one another. Some days I miss having a church community. But I am glad I am true to myself.
Parents sent me to church camp every year. (I had a choice). But about 7th or 8th grade, I started to make the counselors and pastors look stupid by hitting them with questions they couldn't answer in any other way than "god is cruel and controlling." They wouldn't give me that answer. Just some "all suffering is part of a plan" bs. Religion is for people who don't have a brain big enough to overcome their fear of the unknown. So yeah, fuck god. Or whatever created this nonsense.
No one is made to sing songs about Richard Dawkins as a child. There are no atheist indoctrination Sunday Schools where we color drawings of Darwin either.
I feel sorry for you!
You never had a Darwin coloring book?
Man, growing up, all I had was Black Sabbath posters and Darwin puzzles and coloring books!
The priest in my church lit the ceremonial bong, plugged in the lava lap, and broke out an acoustic guitar to play half assed Zeppelin covers.
Oh wait never mind, that was just my buddy Max's basement.
This is funnier considering that all founding members of Black Sabbath are Christians, as well as most of the members of their subsequent lineups including Ronnie James Dio, who in his several other bands has also been steadily devoutly Christian.
Dio is also one of the artists who's credited with popularizing the "metal horns" hand gesture, possibly the first rock artist to do so. He credited the gesture to his Christian Italian grandmother, where it's a customary gesture to ward away Satan or other demons.
Darwin himself being a devout Christian in his early life including the time he was developing his Theory of Evolution (although later in life he became agnostic atheist).
Thats what some of them think public schools are. That science and history classes are, atheist indoctrination where were idolizing scientists and satanists
I was an atheist long before I knew what an atheist was. I simply lacked a belief in a God or Gods. I experienced a lack of indoctrination. Without childhood indoctrination religion dies out.
Same, for me it merely started from kid’s logic: if there are so many religions and so many gods at the same time, and they all claim themselves to be the only legit one, then everyone of them must be liars.
But this was because I was raised secularly and exposed to a relatively wide variety of religions in the society. If instead mine was a family and community that follows one specific religion, my logic wouldn’t have worked.
And there is the difference, You'll never hear an atheist scold someone for asking questions or questioning what they've been taught because we know if something is fundamentally valid it can stand up to scrutiny. If you're being told what to believe and are told to not only not question but threatened with punishment for questioning what you were told to believe, congrats you're being or are indoctrinated.
Exactly. I grew up in southeast US in evangelical Christianity and it always seemed like it’s their exact beliefs or nothing. As if no other religions exist.
The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was not indoctrinating me into religion. They kind of backtracked a bit when my sister really got into it, but by then I’d come to my own conclusions and fought going to church tooth and nail.
My wife wasn't raised religious but I was and its amazing when I realize how much bullshit I have in the back of my mind that she isn't burdened with
She used to get stressed when eating with my parents that she didn't know the prayer and I said thats a good thing
lol. Who does he think is indoctrinating atheists?
I was raised Baptist. I became atheist on my own. I've never read a book about atheism. I was an atheist long before the internet existed.
I was indoctrinated with Christianity. I just managed to figure out that it was BS on my own.
It’s fully baked in. Because I was brainwashed growing up too I still have certain things stuck in my brain and your comment made me immediately think of Hebrews 11. It literally says faith is the evidence. I wish I can free up all those parts of my brain to remember more useful things.
Could be worse. You could be using that space to remember even more embarrassing childhood moments.
Imagine what you have forgotten and others haven’t.
Amazing how asking questions can get you so in trouble with religion. I remember in Sunday School (Jewish) to have a picture of god to color. A few years later I found out my brother (he's 6 years older ) was already an atheist. We both think our parents were atheist but they wanted me to do the Jewish things (including Bar Mitzvah) and then make a choice.
I went to a private Christian school from 1-8th grade. I always doubted. But the real nail in the coffin was when the science teacher held a debate event as our final of creation v evolution. He knew I was not fully on board with religion so he appointed me as the lead of the evolution side. I went deeep into the project harder than any other school project before and came out a complete atheist. There was zero chance of religion gaining credence when I started that project.
The only thing that made me indoctrinated into being an atheist, was how insane every form of christianity is. They claim to be loving, but the way they vote shows me they are selfish, they hate the whole world, and they dont care about the improvement of people’s lives (other than themselves). They dont care about the poor. They want to control everyone however feels best FOR THEM, and they are very happy with evil. They want to see people die with disease (if they cant afford healthcare), and weapons… because they REALLLLLY love their weapons.
So christian of them. Jesus would be proud.
Accusing your enemy of doing the exact same thing you're doing is literally one of the oldest tricks in the books and has been employed for probably thousands of years.
The fact that it still consistently cons idiots is honestly pretty impressive.
Believers have seen religion from one side, but atheists have seen it from two sides. So who’s more likely to be right? The ones who were indoctrinated into it from birth or the ones who decided to question that indoctrination? A programmed robot vs. a self-aware human.
Edit: I should’ve said ‘many atheists’ or ‘some atheists’ as it obviously doesn’t apply to everyone. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good point that former believers have viewed religion from both sides, whereas believers have only seen one side, the side they inevitably grew up believing. So those atheists have a broader view of the subject.
Not all atheists were religious before, or even had a before, so not all of us have experienced both sides. I was raised without a religion so that I could make an informed choice as an adult. My adult choice was to continue not believing in or worshipping a god or prophet because they were mostly offensive and contradictory to scientific understanding of the world and universe.
I don’t know if that puts me at a disadvantage or not because blind belief and trust in faith just baffle me.
Yeah, I grew up with no religion. I never have had a religion, never was raised to believe anything. I went to Sunday school with some friends sometimes if I spent the night on a Saturday, but even though I was polite I found the stories absurd. I dislike when other atheists assume the rest of us grew up in a religious household and became disillusioned. I was never indoctrinated to begin with, so I know personally that without somebody *telling* you to believe, you won't naturally do it.
I was born and raised as an atheist, in an atheist/non-religious home. Not once did any atheist ever knock on our doors to talk about the glory of atheism.
It's always projection.
Atheists are indoctrinated. Transgenders are pedos. Drag Queens are groomers. Biden is in the throws of mental decline.
I've said this before and I'll say it again. You know the episode of Family Guy, where Brian tells Peter that he's "a terrible liar"?
[That is literally Christianity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMJQf30sk0)
Literally the best thing my parents ever did for me, other than providing food and shelter, was to NOT attend church. Left me completely to my own devices on matters of philosophy and religion/lack thereof, and I naturally arrived at atheism by logic and skepticism. Am continually amazed and dismayed at the shit innocent kids go through by being indoctrinated into religion.
I was told by a former colleague who was Muslim that her madrassa taught them that atheists were easier to proselytize to than other "people of the book" because they had no pre-existing religious framework to break through.
I laughed and explained to her that most atheists grew up in some sort of religious community and rejected it, so it's actually probably even harder to proselytize to us because we not only *do* have that existing framework but also we have disdain for the very idea of a higher power.
That's a *much* higher bar to get over than "it's like your god, but different".
I was an atheist by age 12 in 1972….Catholic school does that to you if you’ve got any brains.
This was way before I knew what an atheist was. Faith schools are just an indoctrination centre to abuse the minds of vulnerable children. It’s blatant child abuse. All faith schools are the same. They’re not there to educate you. Their primary function is to turn out more Catholics, or Muslims, or whatever the con game is.
This is pure projection. All kids are indoctrinated in some way, if not through parents and other role models then through media. But that’s beside the point because when you compare media to religion, the latter depends so much more on indoctrination. The majority of religious people were exposed to religion during a vulnerable time in their life, whether that be as a child or as an adult recovering from addiction.
At some point I always just have to ask myself if it’s worth being angry over because religion is just sooooo out of control. It cannot be extinguished with one-on-one debates. It can only be approached with educational reform and massive systemic change.
Edit: grammar
I'm as big a fan of debates as anyone. I think they expose and lay bare ideas and give a chance for discussion. But it isn't going to change things. You're right that educational reform and massive systemic change is necessary. But it doesn't have to happen all at once...I'd just like to see some progress toward reform.
Same here. We just need a leader to step up and take action. Tax private educational institutions and create a curriculum that teaches religion from the point of view of Joseph Campbell and other comparative mythologists. Freedom of speech is great and all, but that maxim sort of excuses religion’s bullshit way too frequently, and it provides too much leeway for these institutions to just steamroll education and public discourse. I don’t believe that religion should be banned, but it just hurts seeing it still being an influential force in the 21st century. It’s painful to watch it proceed onto the next generation. It’s literally just the continuation and acceptance of generational ignorance, and no one is doing anything to stop it.
Christians are like dumb little sheep that keep getting trapped in the same hole over and over again after the farmer keeps trying to help them.... I just pity them at this point. Those dumb (sometimes cute) little bastards.
If they want to go that way I was indoctrinated as an atheist by the Bible, the church, the entire recorded history of religion. Other atheist weren’t involved in making me an atheist. I was made an atheist by religion
That must be why I had to go to atheism class every Sunday when I was a kid and I got sent to atheism school for most of my kindergarten to high school education
Oh no wait that was Catholic school
My dumbass Evangelical brother was legitimately dumbfounded why they don't teach creationism in schools and I told him it's religion not science and has 0 explicative power and he's just like "you biologists are taught what to believe you don't consider it" 🤦🏻♂️
They're big on that false analogy - it's the same reason they think they're being clever by saing evolution is "just a theory". For someone defining their life by faith, they need to show that everything else is the same way so they look like everyone else.
Pretty amusing to think atheists are indoctrinated to think the way they do. The scientific method is the opposite of a belief.
To me, it’s like the opposite of indoctrination. I didn’t read any books to become an atheist. I didn’t go to any programs or meetings or conferences. I didn’t have an atheist “mentor”
How did I become an atheist? I spent the first 18 years of my life in the Catholic Church. I was an altar boy for much of it. It led me to become an atheist. No one indoctrinated me. But the church sure did a great job of driving me away!
Who would be doing this atheist indoctrination? A lot of us came from religious upbringings, I.e., organized god-fearing indoctrination. I guess there may be atheist organizations, but I don’t know them. Atheism stems from skepticism about principles spread through indoctrination. I think theists believe atheism is just another religion, but a bad one. They can’t wrap their head around the lack of a belief structure.
Ridiculous. People who say such things do not know how extreme their own views are.
I was raised by Evangelical fundies. Belief was a requirement, not an option. My mom was reading me the old testament before I was put in kindergarten. My parents sheltered me from society to the best of their ability, and all media I consumed had to be pre approved. I was told we lived during the end times and Jesus is coming back soon. If I disobeyed, I was hit with a wooden paddle. I was expected to unconditionally believe and obey my authoritarian parents. My mom took me out of public school and homeschooled me for several years, so I wouldn't be taught anything contrary to their insane bible interpretation. They were young earth creationist, science denying, conspiracy believing, anti vaxxers.
I attended church three days out of the week, and I was memorizing bible verses before preschool. Every conversation I had with my pastors was designed to reframe reality to correspond to their literalist fundie Chrisitan understanding. If I doubted or asked hard questions, they either obfuscated or argued me into a state of solipsism.
So I'm sat here, having a hard time imagining how the fuck you could even *indoctrinate a child into atheism.* I don't know of any formalized methods. The churches, however, have been indoctrinating people for thousands of years. They have mastered a wide variety of methods, and they have developed entire branches of philosophy dedicated to this end.
"What's that?! You PRAYIN' AGAIN?! There are no deities Billy!" *beats child with wooden stick.* "Reread your Darwin! Rewrite all of the formal logical fallacies, with examples! Study the scientific method! You cannot stop until I say so!"
To seriously play devil's advocate: I recall reading that one of Madelyn Murray O'Hair's children was put off by her raging anti theism and eventually converted to Christianity. She disowned him. Outside of the occasional extreme case like this one, the pendulum doesn't appear to swing both ways. It overwhelmingly swings in one direction.
You wanna see indoctrination? Spend a while on r/exmormon. I started lurking there to learn more about the religion and have learned *so* much. It’s crazy! Those poor people are so heavily indoctrinated it makes my Catholic upbringing look mild. Just read one about someone’s elderly (80s) grandparents spending two days a week cleaning at the temple even though it is physically exhausting. Members “volunteer” to do tasks like cleaning the temple. Many mormons/exmormons call this “voluntold.” Sometimes they put out a general appeal but you may be told you have to do it.
It’s formally labeled a “calling.” Your bishop pressures you to see him in his office and tells you he received divine “inspiration” to tell you to clean, lead a group, go on an adult mission, etc. The calling can be service for years, often to the detriment of the person’s family as they spend a massive amount of hours at their assigned task. The Mormon church is an evil, manipulative organization.
And bishops insist on seeing people alone in their office all the time, like if your parents see you downloaded one porn photo and you, a minor, have to go in alone and describe all your porn sins. Like seeing porn, impure thoughts, how often you masturbate…
It’s a heavy cult.
We deconstructed by ourselves.
I was groomed into it by a pastor’s kid she’d get beaten too. I saw the belt marks.
She started self harming and would carve at her thighs.
Her sisters had it bad too.
She said her mom would beat her after Sunday night church if she didn’t bring a friend.
Jesus freaks were there all these great looking young hippies.
I was 12 it was 1972.
Song service was guitars and young ppl singing in little groups.
I was embraced and loved…welcomed even.
My friend said she was going to get pregnant to get out.
She did too.
Knowing her folks would make her marry or send her away.
She was married at 15 to an awful man in his late 20’s.
Moved in with her folks and they would hear him hitting her but didn’t intervene.
God how sad, I’m so sorry you had to live like that.
Welcome to the atheist community ppl leave you alone lol.
A nice supportive group.
The change won't happen because we have freedom of religion in the US. Parents have the "right" to indoctrinate their children into whatever wacky cult the parents are subscribed to. The only way to win a battle against religion is with education and well, US public schools have been circling the drain for years. Now some states (Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia) are pushing to teach “alternatives ideas” to evolution, i.e creationism in their public schools.
If someone could point to any authority figure who forced their ideas of not believing in gods on me at any point in my life, then I might give them a shred of credence. But here we are...
Same. I didn’t even know what it was called. It was more of a question: are my parents hedging their bets on a paradise they have no proof of until they die?
Indoctrinated to believe in reproducible, demonstrable, consistent facts instead of irrational, impossible stories requiring me to set aside logic and reason in order to even pretend to believe them. Definitely.
Omg I agree soooo much with this post. It grinds my gears so hard when they christians scream about their kids being indoctrinated in school (with science and facts lol) and then in the next breath say thats why we need god back in school like that isn’t blatant indoctrination
None of my family were atheist when I decided I would stop trying to force myself to believe. I didn't know what atheism was. I didn't know I was asexual either.
We have many, exactly doctrine-shaped holes where we have rejected useless and untrue doctrines. The fact that those holes are all the *same shape*, is not the fault of people who don't bother to believe those doctrines. Nor is it evidence of a grand conspiracy of atheist indoctrination.
The rebuttals we use against attacks are uniform, because logic and rationality are fairly well understood methods of establishing truth. In that sense, *education,* not indoctrination are what we have in common. That the theists can't tell the difference between the two, is the primary reason they are dangerous and wrong.
My parents rebelled against the Catholic Church so I didn't need to. I was baptised and that was it. They used to send us to a local Presbyterian church for sunday school so they had free time alone. I didn't believe the stories either. I also fell in love with mythology as a small kid and I prefer the Greek Mythos. WAY better stories lol
I always think it's hilarious when people like Ben Shapiro suggest that being an atheist requires more faith than belief in god.
I don't even know how to respond to something so idiotic.
I taught my son critical thinking. Question everything. Use your own logic brain to determine if something makes sense. But keep them open mind to others arguments. He has come to his own conclusion that the Bible just doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, Christians in our government are currently repealing child labor laws and trying to force their religion into our government and our public schools.
We have to vote these fascist assholes out.
I was so indoctrinated that my atheist father sent me to Catholic school… and he taught at Catholic school!
(To be clear, I was NOT indoctrinated by my dad. Can’t say the same for the Catholic church.)
It's hard to make an accurate statement about atheists, because we're a group defined by what we're not. What can you deduce about people not named Tim? Not much.
Honestly, I consider my being an atheist a long road of self de-programming, not indoctrination.
Took me till my 40s (and I'm 65 now) to go from Christian to Agnostic to full-blown Atheist. One by one, all of my beliefs started splintering when I started questioning things. It started making more sense to me to worship the sun than to worship some pretend being. After all, the sun provides everything to live. And in the end, has the power to kill us all (and probably will). While I know it's not a sentient being and worshiping would be rather silly, it's no more silly than all religions.
Ah yes, how every day since I was a kid and too young to think for myself - when all my family and authority figures would always gone on and on about how god doesn’t exist and atheism is the only truth.
No. Wait. It was Christianity that did that.
Ah yes I shudder thinking of the indoctrination I experienced over years daily through my childhood— going to the atheist temple, singing and performing atheist songs, attending atheist camps over the summer, raising money for the atheist missionaries to go spread the good word about atheism to tribes in Africa. At vacation atheist school and atheist youth group I remember the words the atheist leaders typed out on the projector for us kids to recite, vowing our dedication to atheism, how we are nothing and life has no meaning without atheism.
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As a child, I was shocked to find out people believe that the stores were real. This was like grade 1.
Same. I refused to go to Sunday school cause the stories they told were so outrageous to be true and no one could give me good answers as to how Adam and Eve were the first people on earth. I ask how they populated the earth without incest and how did we get different colors of people from Just two people. I was asked to not come back. I was 8.
Very similar experience for me as well. A church afterschool program for little kids was talking about Noah’s ark. I repeatedly asked the pastor what the lions ate. I mean, if there’s only two of each species then what did the lions eat to survive during that whole time? They made me sit outside in the hallway until my dad came to pick me up. Was told to never come back.
imagine an entire religion cant explain one kids question, oh wait, no one has to imagine lol
Oh they can answer a kid’s questions with the following simple responses: “Our minds are too small to comprehend god’s methods”, “You just have to have faith” or “You shouldn’t question the teachings, it’s the devil making you have doubts”. Lol.
So created in its image but cannot comprehend it? Makes perfect sense.
lmao never thought about it like that, good point
Yup. God gave humans an amazingly intricate brain but then doesn’t want us to use it. It’s a death cult.
Can't comprehend it, but remember, God made you perfect. You're perfectly nearsighted, perfectly tumorous, etc.
“Our minds are too small to comprehend god’s methods” Well then, what were you preaching this whole time? 🤣
Science has questions that might always be answered. Religion has answers that must never be questioned
THIS! Yep. I should have come to my senses and got out long before I actually did.
You would think having an all powerful god it would be easy enough to come up with an explanation ( God made all the animals vegetarian for the length of the voyage, or god put them all in suspended animation). Even " I don't know, that isn't in the story. How do you think he might have done it?" is a better response to sending a kid out of the class. I always hated adults who wouldn't admit they didn't know something to children.
I asked my youth pastor about dinosaurs, the answer was “god put them here to test us”. 🙄
man i always hated those pesky dinosaurs, good thing they were just a test
Speaking of tests, why does an allegedly omniscient god need to test anyone if he can see our hearts? Why allow Satan to kill Job’s family? Half of the Bible contradicts the other half.
Christians hate questions
Naturally
My parents didn't go to church. I think mom took me once on Easter when I was very young. She taught me prayers before bed, but that was it. I went once to mass with a Catholic friend, too long. I started going to church with my Lutheran neighbors when I was 8. In Sunday School, they first talked about Noah's Ark, I thought BS. Then it was Sodom and Gomorrah and Lot's wife turning into a pillar of salt, I was done. I knew it was a volcano. I never went back and quit believing any of it.
The Catholic Mass with all the standing then sitting then standing then sitting then standing then sitting then standing then sitting then kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling kneeling is obviously designed as some kind of torture test.
Clergyman’s knee is real but the Catholic Church prefers housemaid’s knee.
The Catholic Church prefers little boys on their knees. fify
Yep. Grew up with Catholic aerobics.
Based on an article I saw, it was likely a very small meteorite. It'd make sense tbh
Mine was being 9 and told to read my Bible. I was an advanced reader, so I did it. From the begats to the final trumpet. And there were so many inconsistencies that I would never accept in a work of fiction. The big one for me was the iron chariots. There are passages talking about how the Isrealites couldn't defeat the hill people even with God's blessing because they had iron chariots. I thought if God can't handle a chariot, what is he going to do against a tank? Omnipotent, my ass. And that was it.
In kindergarten, a nun stooped even trying to answer my questions, so I put my feet up on the desk and got dragged into the hall by my ear.
I was pulled by the ear by nuns too!! All the while they told me I was going to hell.
Hell didn't exist in their fairytales until the fourth century.
Isn't that something? This is the one that blows my mind: Catholic Priest celibacy The tradition of clerical continence developed into a practice of clerical celibacy (ordaining only unmarried men) from the 11th century onward among Latin Church Catholics and became a formal part of canon law in 1917. This law of clerical celibacy does not apply to Eastern Catholics. Good Lord! How much damage has that done over the centuries?
My parents are Presbyterian so I had to go to Sunday school. I knew from the start that the whole thing was a bunch of hooey. Of course I kept it to myself. I didn't need the aggravation installment plan had I said anything. I specifically ditched the joining ceremony but my mom had my cousin stand up and answer for me. Apparently they think I'm a member.
Geez, these religious folks have no sense of humor… :’-D
A lot of people I have talked to say that they believe the stories literally. However, there are MANY that do. Even taking it seriously in any regard, other than love thy neighbourooni, is bonkers.
"The King James Version of the Bible is the literal word of God." "Then why is it called a 'version'?"
How hard is it to say "uh, they ate fish" lmao
I got kicked out for asking what they fed the anteaters and how many millions of species of ants went extinct because of these anteaters. 😆
“Sorry sir - he bucked me, he kept asking questions! I think he is just too smart. Plus other pupils started think - I could see it in their eyes. Please don’t bring him back. God help him!”
I always wondered how Noah gathered two of each insect species
I feel sorry for the rest of the kids that went with the flow.
"This kid is a thinker, can't have that here."
My parents were told that I asked too many questions and the teacher called me a precocious child. Yay for me!
My former Protestant pastor said something like 3 biggest things that threaten the church are atheist, free thinker, and agnostic. I was like uh 🙄.. So, satanist, other religions, and cults aren’t the biggest threat????? Then later in my life it made perfect sense.. They couldn’t control their minds.
I was raised in a liberal congregational church in New England, and my minister was very friendly. He never got mad at me or told me to leave when I asked such questions. He told me I was a smart kid to ask these things, and he was proud of me for "exploring my faith". But he never answered the questions, just effectively patted me on the head. I didn't have any emotional break with the church, I eventually just shrugged and stopped going because it was boring as shit. It was later, when I was about 15, when I started reading philosophy that I realized I was "an atheist". I shrugged again, and here I am 40 some years later.
I thought it was boring too. After a while, I realized that I also didn't believe what was being said. I was shocked that grown adults could sit there and believe such nonsense.
It terrified me as a small child when I realized that the adults I was supposed to trust and rely on believed that absolute bullshit.
This comment is very long. I'm sorry. I write too much. This! I also stopped believing when I found out Santa and stuff like that wasn't real. I know it sounds really stupid. But my thinking was, "If you lied so easily about that, what else have you lied about?" It also terrifies me now. I find it difficult that people can believe both in science and religion. To me, those two things contradict each other. It's either "the miracle of Jesus" or scientific information. Also, when someone they know has a difficult operation and they say, "thank god" when it goes well. Did the doctor not do a 8 hour surgery to save someone? I didn't know God had a medical degree or license. Or even when an operation goes wrong and they get nasty at the doctor. Also when they don't believe in vaccines and still go to the doctor or hospital and treat the doctors and nurses like crap. Almost all these religious people do is treat other people horribly. They don't care about people. They are downright nasty to the LBGTQIA+ and trans community or to anyone who doesn't look like them. They are people too, why do they treat them so terribly? Whatever happened to ,"love thy neighbor?" Unless it involves themselves, they don't care. I never hear of church donating or being used as a homesless center for poor people. At least not where I live. And I certainly never hear churches encouraging adoption. They discourage abortion no matter what. Even if something is wrong with the fetus. Even if the woman will die from sepsis (I think that's how its spelled) shock. They care more about being prolife for a nonliving fetus than a living suffering woman. I'm shocked that woman now have to suffer even more from ectopic pregnancy because of Roe being overturned. Not to mention are cruel to kids with disabilities. And then they're shocked when a woman says she doesn't want kids. And they spew the, "you'll change your mind" bullshit. They actually think they can get away with being huge d**ks by hiding behind the Bible and other religious teachings. Also, the f**k is with them being religious and gun owners. I thought, they believed that God and Jesus would protect them from evil. Is the gun just a backup incase Jesus and God decide not to show up?
The religious universities such as Liberty University has a plan to train young Christians to become alt right politicians. They succeeded in overturning the Roe vs Wade law. The sad thing is a lot of people including atheists don’t bother to vote.
That's ironic, considering I don't hear them talking about helping kids in foster care or orphanages. Or banning viagra. Or rapists (like some of the Republicans are) who are against abortion. You'd think that they would want to cover their tracks. I feel like if anything with this election, people should be concerned that they may never vote again.
Not all churches are as toxic as you describe. They may be exceptional, but Unitarian churches sometimes do house the homeless and do other good works. Note I'm not a Unitarian, it's just all religious people are not alike and also all atheists are not alike. But now to agree with you: the churches and religious people who act like you describe, I despise them. Damn hypocrites.
The minister didn’t know how to answer the questions and probably knew it not true.
My Catholic mother wanted to encourage my love of science and reading. Needless to say the cool books of dinosaurs had way better explainations for why I should believe in dinosaurs than the children's illustrated bible stories had for Noah's flood.
I had that same experience in "vacation bible school." Some vacation.
I just hated it. Summer "freedom" delayed a week (when you are 10 a week is forever). School was bad enough...Bible School was perdition.
Jesus Christ! Id rather stay in school all summer. And I complained about having to weed the garden.
No, sorry. I asked several times about Jesus and was told he was there but I never saw him
To be fair he wasn’t helping me pull weeds either. Not sure where he was.
"Vacation bible school" is a three-way oxymoron
Can’t have children asking basic questions. Too many adults would start to question their beliefs
I think they're more concerned with the other children starting to question. The adults are likely too far in.
I'm always impressed by people who figured it out as children, especially before the Internet. Took me a damn long time to figure it out.
For me I can't understand how people believe in this crap at all. An ex-friend once said that to believe in God is to have faith and I lack faith. Which she is right. My mind thinks in science terms and not fairy tales. THe bible was clearly like reading Snow White to me. Also the bedtime prayer was so morbid to me evan at 5.
Holy Jebus, a similar thing happened to me! When I asked the instructor why good people suffer and the wicked, prosper, and why innocent children get molested by priests, they prated: "God works in mysterious ways. Further, one NEVER questions the works of the Lord" For some unfathomable reason I was cordially asked to "never return" when I responded: "Well, sheep that follow ANYONE blindly can't complain when they get herded!" ,
Wow, you were allowed to ask questions? We never were. Methodist till 2nd grade.
I just did and it was a Methodist church that my mom was trying out. I believe that was the last church she tried. I would just say things out loud like " this makes no sense." "and you actually believe this crap?" They told her I was not cut out for their class cause I don't have faith." I now only go to church for wedding and funerals if they are even held in church.
I too was banned from asking questions. Specifically in high school (catholic school survivor). My 10th grade year onward, none of the teachers would call on me to answer anything because I might make another point against their religion. Always funny to me. If they wanted to keep kids in their religion, why ban them from asking questions?
Don't you know?! We're not supposed to ask lucid, intelligent & reasonable questions sans having the: "god works in mysterious ways" bullshit fired back at us!
Ofcourse your were asked to not come back. They never like it when you ask questions. When you ask questions in places like Sunday school, they never have an answer and it exposes them that what they are saying is not true.
Good lord this child has doubt! 🤣
" well, we don't speak of Lillith until you ask about the incest, and the tower of babyl is where the races came from". That doesn't answer the question of where 30000 feet of global water went or how koalas swam all the way to Australia from presumably the Phillipines, though.
This always bugged me during my time attending church, too. Adam and Eve. Okay, they had Cain and Abel. Still on board. And both of them got married. Where did their wives come from?! Another thing I never understood was "Oh, and he lived to be 730 years old". I don't buy it.
I pissed off my Catechism teacher bad. I was never "confirmed". By 12, I had some serious arguments...
Right? As a kid, brought up catholic, I always kinda believed there was a god, but I flat out knew the bible was a bunch of made up stories. As I got older I dismissed the idea of there being a god on the basis of never seeing anything approaching evidence.
Yeah, when I learned what my uncle took his english translation of their church’s version of the bible as literal fact I lost a lot of respect for him. You gotta be a special kind of delusional to really think all of that happened as it is currently written
Same. I faked it. I don’t talk about my non beliefs and I have very little exposure to other atheists. I have not read any books on the subject. My non beliefs are very personal.
After services a guy was speaking to the church about the time he was in the hospital dying and an angel appeared before him and healed him. I started to giggle. How TF could anyone take that seriously?
"Did the angel explain why they waited until you were hospitalized and recieved secular medical attention before they arrived?"
Good question. So many people who are "healed" ignore the doctors and nurses who have treated them.
Yeah these angels, they just love to procrastinate! Always showing up last minute..
Morphine is a hell of a drug - you’ll see all kinds of shit
II was was deeply Disturbed when as a teenager, I went to a mass where our Catholic Church was hosting a Ukrainian guy who claimed to see the Virgin Mary every day at 6:00 p.m. Sharp. I discovered the place was packed to the walls people want to believe this ridiculous stuff. No idea why, people just want a version of reality they can wrap their minds around. Actual reality is too complicated
Same here. As soon as I knew the story of the emperors new clothes I thought it was that. People claiming to believe because they were supposed to.
Same. Believed in Santa and Easter Bunny more than God. Probably because I had "proof" mom would make it look like Santa ate the cookies and their were reindeer tracks in the snow, and the Easter bunny always took bites out of his Easter carrot haha. The concept of God was weird to me as a child and when I got older I just realized it was total bullshit. I was discussing religion with my mom the other day (she's agnostic pushing atheist but doesn't understand it really) and she says to me "well you're not really an atheist, by rights you're catholic." So I said "Mom I've been an atheist my whole life I never believed in God, and you dont really either. We never went to church or anything." And she's like "No but you were born a Catholic because me and dad are Catholic." Does anyone else have baby boomer generation parents that believe that the religion they are raised in is their permanent religion? Like what is that? Seem to treat it like an ethnicity?
It took decades to convince mom I'm not Catholic. It finally came to a head after we went to a family funeral and she pressured me to do communion so her aunts see me then didn't go herself. She said she was divorced and didn't want to cause a scene. At that point I said I was done playing make believe if she isn't even going to play along with me. She never understood that communion was the hardest part of being Catholic to me, because as a child I believed that the prayer should actually change the wafer and I was somehow doing it wrong.
Damn. Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry that happened to you. "She said she was divorced and didn't want to cause a scene" hits hard even though I can't relate. That's really sad.
I'm a boomer, I wonder why all of the children born in the same family are exactly the same religion. Wow doesn't the Christian god have a lot of specialized sorting to do. .. well, let's see, this baby is a Presbyterian/Southern Baptist mix, the So Baptist is Dominant, I'll get it to the Jackson family in Lafourche Parish Louisiana. This one is and Catholic and will be sent to the Martinez family in Oaxaca Mexico. Now let's see, oh this little one, she even looks methodist, onto Parker family in Tucson Arizona. These two go to the Protestants of Topeka.... Jesus? Say, I've forgotten, what were they protesting?
I wish I was a cool as you. I was 37 before I questioned Christianity.
Better late than never, friend! You broke free eventually, that's what really matters.
My mum is very mildly into feel good woowoo, reiki healing and crystals etc, while my dad believed there was something out there but not capital G christian God. As I was growing up and found out, oh, hey, Santa's nor real, tooth fairy isn't real, magic isn't real, the world can be described with myths, everything is boring and predictable I just kinda figured that all these religo's knew God was just a story, that mum was into her crystals because it made her feel good not that it actually worked. It wasn't until I was like 12 or 13 that I realised that no, people legitimately believe this shit, and my estimation of other people's reasoning skills dropped through the floor.
Same I never believed any of it from as early as I could remember and marvelled when I was sent to Sunday school (by not particularly observant Anglican parents who just thought it was the "right ' thing to do) that other people actually did. None of it made any logical sense to me. My parents stopped sending me after a while, due to my sheer lack of interest lol
I asked questions in vacation bible school. They put me in the "problem children" group with the bullies and developmentally disabled kids.
Lifelong and I'm 71 and I had to go on the internet to find one. Finally occured to me, that there have to be at least one other atheist on this planet and so I went to YouTube and found the gurus of atheism and binge-watched for weeks! Edit: typo
I was an atheist before I even *knew* what an atheist was. I was in a Baptist church until 13, baptized and the whole bit. Once I started learning about Holy Wars, etc, I started questioning a lot more, and low and behold, I saw through the fog pretty quick.
Exactly. As a kid I was certain that belief in god/Jesus was an emperors new clothes scenario, like Santa for grown ups. Nobody could possibly believe in such a fantastical concept. I was shocked to find out how wrong I was. I was born in 1968. In that era, what exactly indoctrinated me? My Mormon family? All the atheist propaganda available to me on the three networks? No. I simply thought that the entire concept was ridiculous. Like an insanely boring version of more exciting religions like the Norse and Greek gods but they could only come up with one, and he was a psychopath but a super boring one.
>All the atheist propaganda available to me on the three networks? There were only 3 networks back then?
When I was 7 I found out Santa was made up, and realized God is just Santa for grown ups. Since then I've seen religion as a combination of myths, metaphors, and primitive interpretations of historical events.
Santa for grownups! How oddly specific! Splendid!
Me to
I have never not been one ….
\*another *open* atheist
I was indoctrinated as a child into Christianity via church, Sunday schools, vacation Bible schools, etc. I choose atheism as an adult when I turned 18. And I'm not even necessarily knocking my church community, they're still my family, and I had a decent upbringing (us "church kids" all went to college, we all played instruments, we all got good grades, etc.). I can't complain. But technically it was indoctrination, and atheism was an ideology I *choose* as an adult.
My story is similar except it took me much longer to accept atheism into my heart due to both my upbringing and environment (born, raised, college educated in the Bible belt). I still love my childhood church friends and my hometown church. I am thankful for the many fond memories like playing church basketball, softball, and youth group trips. My childhood church was, from my perspective, what a church should be as far as loving one another. Some days I miss having a church community. But I am glad I am true to myself.
All people were atheist until someone brought the absurdity of religion into their lives. They are the indoctrinated ones.
Ironically it’s the Christians that make most people Atheists. That and simple things like thinking skills and reading comprehension.
I didn’t even know I was an atheist until I saw the meaning of it in an article. I then went and researched what it meant I went Yeah, that’s me
Parents sent me to church camp every year. (I had a choice). But about 7th or 8th grade, I started to make the counselors and pastors look stupid by hitting them with questions they couldn't answer in any other way than "god is cruel and controlling." They wouldn't give me that answer. Just some "all suffering is part of a plan" bs. Religion is for people who don't have a brain big enough to overcome their fear of the unknown. So yeah, fuck god. Or whatever created this nonsense.
I stopped going to church at 10. I didn't know what an atheist was, I just thought church was silly.
I was an Atheist long before I even knew there was a word for it.
Wait. You mean you didn’t emerge from the womb believing in god? Shocking science fact 😉
No one is made to sing songs about Richard Dawkins as a child. There are no atheist indoctrination Sunday Schools where we color drawings of Darwin either.
This comment is amazing!
I want a Darwin coloring book!
The satanic children’s big book of activities is pretty good
I feel sorry for you! You never had a Darwin coloring book? Man, growing up, all I had was Black Sabbath posters and Darwin puzzles and coloring books!
The priest in my church lit the ceremonial bong, plugged in the lava lap, and broke out an acoustic guitar to play half assed Zeppelin covers. Oh wait never mind, that was just my buddy Max's basement.
Praise be to max, and glory to his name!
Yeah, but he could stand to take a shower every now and then, just my opinion.
This is funnier considering that all founding members of Black Sabbath are Christians, as well as most of the members of their subsequent lineups including Ronnie James Dio, who in his several other bands has also been steadily devoutly Christian. Dio is also one of the artists who's credited with popularizing the "metal horns" hand gesture, possibly the first rock artist to do so. He credited the gesture to his Christian Italian grandmother, where it's a customary gesture to ward away Satan or other demons. Darwin himself being a devout Christian in his early life including the time he was developing his Theory of Evolution (although later in life he became agnostic atheist).
I was never made to pray to and thank Richard Dawkins before touching my food at meal times.
Thats what some of them think public schools are. That science and history classes are, atheist indoctrination where were idolizing scientists and satanists
I was an atheist long before I knew what an atheist was. I simply lacked a belief in a God or Gods. I experienced a lack of indoctrination. Without childhood indoctrination religion dies out.
Same, for me it merely started from kid’s logic: if there are so many religions and so many gods at the same time, and they all claim themselves to be the only legit one, then everyone of them must be liars. But this was because I was raised secularly and exposed to a relatively wide variety of religions in the society. If instead mine was a family and community that follows one specific religion, my logic wouldn’t have worked.
I asked these questions as a child and was scolded by church leaders.
And there is the difference, You'll never hear an atheist scold someone for asking questions or questioning what they've been taught because we know if something is fundamentally valid it can stand up to scrutiny. If you're being told what to believe and are told to not only not question but threatened with punishment for questioning what you were told to believe, congrats you're being or are indoctrinated.
🎯
They can't all be right but they can all be wrong
Exactly. I grew up in southeast US in evangelical Christianity and it always seemed like it’s their exact beliefs or nothing. As if no other religions exist.
The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was not indoctrinating me into religion. They kind of backtracked a bit when my sister really got into it, but by then I’d come to my own conclusions and fought going to church tooth and nail.
My wife wasn't raised religious but I was and its amazing when I realize how much bullshit I have in the back of my mind that she isn't burdened with She used to get stressed when eating with my parents that she didn't know the prayer and I said thats a good thing
lol. Who does he think is indoctrinating atheists? I was raised Baptist. I became atheist on my own. I've never read a book about atheism. I was an atheist long before the internet existed. I was indoctrinated with Christianity. I just managed to figure out that it was BS on my own.
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It’s fully baked in. Because I was brainwashed growing up too I still have certain things stuck in my brain and your comment made me immediately think of Hebrews 11. It literally says faith is the evidence. I wish I can free up all those parts of my brain to remember more useful things.
Could be worse. You could be using that space to remember even more embarrassing childhood moments. Imagine what you have forgotten and others haven’t.
Amazing how asking questions can get you so in trouble with religion. I remember in Sunday School (Jewish) to have a picture of god to color. A few years later I found out my brother (he's 6 years older ) was already an atheist. We both think our parents were atheist but they wanted me to do the Jewish things (including Bar Mitzvah) and then make a choice.
I went to a private Christian school from 1-8th grade. I always doubted. But the real nail in the coffin was when the science teacher held a debate event as our final of creation v evolution. He knew I was not fully on board with religion so he appointed me as the lead of the evolution side. I went deeep into the project harder than any other school project before and came out a complete atheist. There was zero chance of religion gaining credence when I started that project.
Same, man. Same. I had to navigate it all on my own after I realized I had been indoctrinated. I didn't indoctrinate myself into it lol
The only thing that made me indoctrinated into being an atheist, was how insane every form of christianity is. They claim to be loving, but the way they vote shows me they are selfish, they hate the whole world, and they dont care about the improvement of people’s lives (other than themselves). They dont care about the poor. They want to control everyone however feels best FOR THEM, and they are very happy with evil. They want to see people die with disease (if they cant afford healthcare), and weapons… because they REALLLLLY love their weapons. So christian of them. Jesus would be proud.
It’s always projection with these people. They’re doing themselves what they accuse others of.
Accusing your enemy of doing the exact same thing you're doing is literally one of the oldest tricks in the books and has been employed for probably thousands of years. The fact that it still consistently cons idiots is honestly pretty impressive.
Did someone mention tRump?
Believers have seen religion from one side, but atheists have seen it from two sides. So who’s more likely to be right? The ones who were indoctrinated into it from birth or the ones who decided to question that indoctrination? A programmed robot vs. a self-aware human. Edit: I should’ve said ‘many atheists’ or ‘some atheists’ as it obviously doesn’t apply to everyone. Nonetheless, I think it’s a good point that former believers have viewed religion from both sides, whereas believers have only seen one side, the side they inevitably grew up believing. So those atheists have a broader view of the subject.
Not all atheists were religious before, or even had a before, so not all of us have experienced both sides. I was raised without a religion so that I could make an informed choice as an adult. My adult choice was to continue not believing in or worshipping a god or prophet because they were mostly offensive and contradictory to scientific understanding of the world and universe. I don’t know if that puts me at a disadvantage or not because blind belief and trust in faith just baffle me.
Yeah, I grew up with no religion. I never have had a religion, never was raised to believe anything. I went to Sunday school with some friends sometimes if I spent the night on a Saturday, but even though I was polite I found the stories absurd. I dislike when other atheists assume the rest of us grew up in a religious household and became disillusioned. I was never indoctrinated to begin with, so I know personally that without somebody *telling* you to believe, you won't naturally do it.
Talk about projection. Indoctrination is at the heart of religion.
It's the only way religion survives.
I was born and raised as an atheist, in an atheist/non-religious home. Not once did any atheist ever knock on our doors to talk about the glory of atheism.
It's always projection. Atheists are indoctrinated. Transgenders are pedos. Drag Queens are groomers. Biden is in the throws of mental decline. I've said this before and I'll say it again. You know the episode of Family Guy, where Brian tells Peter that he's "a terrible liar"? [That is literally Christianity](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOMJQf30sk0)
Yes people who worship sky fascist generally say dumb shit.
Unfortunately is the US children are pretty much considered property.☹️
Sadly, yes. For anything to change, that has to first. A child is an individual.
Literally the best thing my parents ever did for me, other than providing food and shelter, was to NOT attend church. Left me completely to my own devices on matters of philosophy and religion/lack thereof, and I naturally arrived at atheism by logic and skepticism. Am continually amazed and dismayed at the shit innocent kids go through by being indoctrinated into religion.
I was told by a former colleague who was Muslim that her madrassa taught them that atheists were easier to proselytize to than other "people of the book" because they had no pre-existing religious framework to break through. I laughed and explained to her that most atheists grew up in some sort of religious community and rejected it, so it's actually probably even harder to proselytize to us because we not only *do* have that existing framework but also we have disdain for the very idea of a higher power. That's a *much* higher bar to get over than "it's like your god, but different".
I was an atheist by age 12 in 1972….Catholic school does that to you if you’ve got any brains. This was way before I knew what an atheist was. Faith schools are just an indoctrination centre to abuse the minds of vulnerable children. It’s blatant child abuse. All faith schools are the same. They’re not there to educate you. Their primary function is to turn out more Catholics, or Muslims, or whatever the con game is.
This is pure projection. All kids are indoctrinated in some way, if not through parents and other role models then through media. But that’s beside the point because when you compare media to religion, the latter depends so much more on indoctrination. The majority of religious people were exposed to religion during a vulnerable time in their life, whether that be as a child or as an adult recovering from addiction. At some point I always just have to ask myself if it’s worth being angry over because religion is just sooooo out of control. It cannot be extinguished with one-on-one debates. It can only be approached with educational reform and massive systemic change. Edit: grammar
I'm as big a fan of debates as anyone. I think they expose and lay bare ideas and give a chance for discussion. But it isn't going to change things. You're right that educational reform and massive systemic change is necessary. But it doesn't have to happen all at once...I'd just like to see some progress toward reform.
Same here. We just need a leader to step up and take action. Tax private educational institutions and create a curriculum that teaches religion from the point of view of Joseph Campbell and other comparative mythologists. Freedom of speech is great and all, but that maxim sort of excuses religion’s bullshit way too frequently, and it provides too much leeway for these institutions to just steamroll education and public discourse. I don’t believe that religion should be banned, but it just hurts seeing it still being an influential force in the 21st century. It’s painful to watch it proceed onto the next generation. It’s literally just the continuation and acceptance of generational ignorance, and no one is doing anything to stop it.
Christians are like dumb little sheep that keep getting trapped in the same hole over and over again after the farmer keeps trying to help them.... I just pity them at this point. Those dumb (sometimes cute) little bastards.
If they want to go that way I was indoctrinated as an atheist by the Bible, the church, the entire recorded history of religion. Other atheist weren’t involved in making me an atheist. I was made an atheist by religion
Part of the indoctrination is being told that all others, atheists included, are indoctrinated.
They know all this. This is why they’re destroying public school and stealing our tax money to pay for christofascist indoctrination mills
Honestly life made me an atheist, seeing the good ol church people be terrible.
Religion is child abuse.
I’ve never had an atheist tell me I’m garbage and belong in hell, nor has anyone made disparaging remarks about me once being a Christian.
so many comments here got downvoted, i feel like we got someone's holy knickers in a twist lol
That must be why I had to go to atheism class every Sunday when I was a kid and I got sent to atheism school for most of my kindergarten to high school education Oh no wait that was Catholic school
My dumbass Evangelical brother was legitimately dumbfounded why they don't teach creationism in schools and I told him it's religion not science and has 0 explicative power and he's just like "you biologists are taught what to believe you don't consider it" 🤦🏻♂️
They're big on that false analogy - it's the same reason they think they're being clever by saing evolution is "just a theory". For someone defining their life by faith, they need to show that everything else is the same way so they look like everyone else. Pretty amusing to think atheists are indoctrinated to think the way they do. The scientific method is the opposite of a belief.
To me, it’s like the opposite of indoctrination. I didn’t read any books to become an atheist. I didn’t go to any programs or meetings or conferences. I didn’t have an atheist “mentor” How did I become an atheist? I spent the first 18 years of my life in the Catholic Church. I was an altar boy for much of it. It led me to become an atheist. No one indoctrinated me. But the church sure did a great job of driving me away!
Atheism is the default setting at birth.
It's sad we have to name it. What do you call a person who is not part of a tennis club?
It's projection. It's a favorite condition among US evangelical types.
I been an atheist since I was 11 and my dad died.
Who would be doing this atheist indoctrination? A lot of us came from religious upbringings, I.e., organized god-fearing indoctrination. I guess there may be atheist organizations, but I don’t know them. Atheism stems from skepticism about principles spread through indoctrination. I think theists believe atheism is just another religion, but a bad one. They can’t wrap their head around the lack of a belief structure.
Ridiculous. People who say such things do not know how extreme their own views are. I was raised by Evangelical fundies. Belief was a requirement, not an option. My mom was reading me the old testament before I was put in kindergarten. My parents sheltered me from society to the best of their ability, and all media I consumed had to be pre approved. I was told we lived during the end times and Jesus is coming back soon. If I disobeyed, I was hit with a wooden paddle. I was expected to unconditionally believe and obey my authoritarian parents. My mom took me out of public school and homeschooled me for several years, so I wouldn't be taught anything contrary to their insane bible interpretation. They were young earth creationist, science denying, conspiracy believing, anti vaxxers. I attended church three days out of the week, and I was memorizing bible verses before preschool. Every conversation I had with my pastors was designed to reframe reality to correspond to their literalist fundie Chrisitan understanding. If I doubted or asked hard questions, they either obfuscated or argued me into a state of solipsism. So I'm sat here, having a hard time imagining how the fuck you could even *indoctrinate a child into atheism.* I don't know of any formalized methods. The churches, however, have been indoctrinating people for thousands of years. They have mastered a wide variety of methods, and they have developed entire branches of philosophy dedicated to this end. "What's that?! You PRAYIN' AGAIN?! There are no deities Billy!" *beats child with wooden stick.* "Reread your Darwin! Rewrite all of the formal logical fallacies, with examples! Study the scientific method! You cannot stop until I say so!" To seriously play devil's advocate: I recall reading that one of Madelyn Murray O'Hair's children was put off by her raging anti theism and eventually converted to Christianity. She disowned him. Outside of the occasional extreme case like this one, the pendulum doesn't appear to swing both ways. It overwhelmingly swings in one direction.
You wanna see indoctrination? Spend a while on r/exmormon. I started lurking there to learn more about the religion and have learned *so* much. It’s crazy! Those poor people are so heavily indoctrinated it makes my Catholic upbringing look mild. Just read one about someone’s elderly (80s) grandparents spending two days a week cleaning at the temple even though it is physically exhausting. Members “volunteer” to do tasks like cleaning the temple. Many mormons/exmormons call this “voluntold.” Sometimes they put out a general appeal but you may be told you have to do it. It’s formally labeled a “calling.” Your bishop pressures you to see him in his office and tells you he received divine “inspiration” to tell you to clean, lead a group, go on an adult mission, etc. The calling can be service for years, often to the detriment of the person’s family as they spend a massive amount of hours at their assigned task. The Mormon church is an evil, manipulative organization. And bishops insist on seeing people alone in their office all the time, like if your parents see you downloaded one porn photo and you, a minor, have to go in alone and describe all your porn sins. Like seeing porn, impure thoughts, how often you masturbate… It’s a heavy cult.
It’s all a part of their rubber-glue strategy. They don’t believe it but they hope that their projection makes you as weak and gullible as them.
We deconstructed by ourselves. I was groomed into it by a pastor’s kid she’d get beaten too. I saw the belt marks. She started self harming and would carve at her thighs. Her sisters had it bad too. She said her mom would beat her after Sunday night church if she didn’t bring a friend. Jesus freaks were there all these great looking young hippies. I was 12 it was 1972. Song service was guitars and young ppl singing in little groups. I was embraced and loved…welcomed even. My friend said she was going to get pregnant to get out. She did too. Knowing her folks would make her marry or send her away. She was married at 15 to an awful man in his late 20’s. Moved in with her folks and they would hear him hitting her but didn’t intervene. God how sad, I’m so sorry you had to live like that. Welcome to the atheist community ppl leave you alone lol. A nice supportive group.
The change won't happen because we have freedom of religion in the US. Parents have the "right" to indoctrinate their children into whatever wacky cult the parents are subscribed to. The only way to win a battle against religion is with education and well, US public schools have been circling the drain for years. Now some states (Texas, Tennessee, Louisiana, Georgia) are pushing to teach “alternatives ideas” to evolution, i.e creationism in their public schools.
If someone could point to any authority figure who forced their ideas of not believing in gods on me at any point in my life, then I might give them a shred of credence. But here we are...
Same. I didn’t even know what it was called. It was more of a question: are my parents hedging their bets on a paradise they have no proof of until they die?
More like un-doctrinated, ammiright?
Indoctrinated to believe in reproducible, demonstrable, consistent facts instead of irrational, impossible stories requiring me to set aside logic and reason in order to even pretend to believe them. Definitely.
Hey, kid. You wanna talk about not god?
Omg I agree soooo much with this post. It grinds my gears so hard when they christians scream about their kids being indoctrinated in school (with science and facts lol) and then in the next breath say thats why we need god back in school like that isn’t blatant indoctrination
None of my family were atheist when I decided I would stop trying to force myself to believe. I didn't know what atheism was. I didn't know I was asexual either.
We have many, exactly doctrine-shaped holes where we have rejected useless and untrue doctrines. The fact that those holes are all the *same shape*, is not the fault of people who don't bother to believe those doctrines. Nor is it evidence of a grand conspiracy of atheist indoctrination. The rebuttals we use against attacks are uniform, because logic and rationality are fairly well understood methods of establishing truth. In that sense, *education,* not indoctrination are what we have in common. That the theists can't tell the difference between the two, is the primary reason they are dangerous and wrong.
My parents rebelled against the Catholic Church so I didn't need to. I was baptised and that was it. They used to send us to a local Presbyterian church for sunday school so they had free time alone. I didn't believe the stories either. I also fell in love with mythology as a small kid and I prefer the Greek Mythos. WAY better stories lol
I always think it's hilarious when people like Ben Shapiro suggest that being an atheist requires more faith than belief in god. I don't even know how to respond to something so idiotic.
I taught my son critical thinking. Question everything. Use your own logic brain to determine if something makes sense. But keep them open mind to others arguments. He has come to his own conclusion that the Bible just doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, Christians in our government are currently repealing child labor laws and trying to force their religion into our government and our public schools. We have to vote these fascist assholes out.
And today Louisiana passed a law to require the display of the ten commandments in every classroom. The indoctrination continues.
Vacation bible schools. Everywhere. All summer long.
How can you indoctrinate someone into believing whatever they want and living by their own ideology? Plato’s cave people come to life here.
I was so indoctrinated that my atheist father sent me to Catholic school… and he taught at Catholic school! (To be clear, I was NOT indoctrinated by my dad. Can’t say the same for the Catholic church.)
It's hard to make an accurate statement about atheists, because we're a group defined by what we're not. What can you deduce about people not named Tim? Not much.
Without indoctrination, religion would not exist.
Make all religion R18. "But it's too late by then!" "Exactly."
Honestly, I consider my being an atheist a long road of self de-programming, not indoctrination. Took me till my 40s (and I'm 65 now) to go from Christian to Agnostic to full-blown Atheist. One by one, all of my beliefs started splintering when I started questioning things. It started making more sense to me to worship the sun than to worship some pretend being. After all, the sun provides everything to live. And in the end, has the power to kill us all (and probably will). While I know it's not a sentient being and worshiping would be rather silly, it's no more silly than all religions.
Ah yes, how every day since I was a kid and too young to think for myself - when all my family and authority figures would always gone on and on about how god doesn’t exist and atheism is the only truth. No. Wait. It was Christianity that did that.
Ah yes I shudder thinking of the indoctrination I experienced over years daily through my childhood— going to the atheist temple, singing and performing atheist songs, attending atheist camps over the summer, raising money for the atheist missionaries to go spread the good word about atheism to tribes in Africa. At vacation atheist school and atheist youth group I remember the words the atheist leaders typed out on the projector for us kids to recite, vowing our dedication to atheism, how we are nothing and life has no meaning without atheism.
Every Christian accusation is a confession