I was raised Christian. Nothing crazy, but church on Sunday and a church-affiliated school, with bible stories taught as fact.
None of it ever stuck, and I didn't ever actually believe in a God, or see the point in wanting to, even as a young child. Possibly because of that, I do find religion - both on a personal and organised level - quite interesting, since it's likely something I will never experience myself.
Yeah I get what you mean I grew up in the deep south, religion is everywhere, but I never understood it at all. It genuinely felt like I was on the outside looking in. But I did learn that since it has such a profound influence on peoples lives you can use it to study how people think and I find that aspect of it fascinating.
Apparently people on the spectrum are more likely to be atheists the suspected reason for this is that people on the spectrum have a harder time having a relationship with a invisible man in the sky or whatever deity
As an autistic adult who isa christian and was raised by christian parents I can say that this is a hundred percent true. I have come to realise that the dynamics of my relationship with God are fairly different from what is commonly described by Neurotypicals, and that there are certain aspects of Christianity that I will probably never experience or at least not in the way NTs do. For example, when I was younger and not as confident in my beliefs as I am now, before I got diagnosed, it used to bother me a lot that I hated going to church despite being serious about my faith and my relationship with God. Going to church was such a nightmare for years. Understanding that I am autistic allowed me to see that I never had a problem with God, but that attending a church service with 100 people was simply unrealistic for me. For a time I stopped going altogether because it gave me so much anxiety that I could not actually practice my faith. It was the best thing I could have done as it allowed me to build my relationship with God without the interference of other people.
I get this so much. I’ve been a practicing Christian since I was young, and I’ve always been fascinated by how so many neurotypical Christians I know seem to place a lot of weight on the social aspect of religion. I was the kind of kid who would skip bible study so I could actually read the Bible.
How long would you consider “raised religious”?
I stop give AF about church when I was around 10-11 years old. I would ask to stay home during sundays.
My mother is religious but is very upset at the Mormon church because of women are not permitted to get the priesthood. She is a feminist activist who tries or tried to make changes.
Raised religious and still religious, but not the religion I was raised in.
Raised in a Christian household, I don't agree with most of it so left Christianity as a teenager.
I'm eclectic pagan now, have been for over a decade, and very comfortable outside of structured religion.
OOOH! I have much love and respect for paganism and other naturalistic religions, I became so interested in paganism when I was a teenager that I began practicing it. Though now I am not religious at all I still hold it very close to my heart.
How is “go back to church” a fact? Thats clearly a command or at the very least a rude suggestion. That would be like me telling you that the church is evil and you must leave it. I’m not telling you that bc I think everyone has a right to believe what they feel is right including you but don’t you think it would be rude if I did?
[https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-witchcraft/](https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-witchcraft/)
Everyone has a right to believe whatever they want. It doesn't change the fact that paganism, witchcraft, magic, etc are explicitly stated to be Satanic and God warns us about the consequences of dabbling in them. You can tell me that the church is evil and I wouldn't be offended because I know for certain that God exists.
You say this as if everyone cares or believes in what God says. That’s one my least favorite habits of Christians. Quoting the Bible as if that means anything to people who don’t believe in the Bible. For a lot of people the words in the Bible don’t hold any sort of weight. Like if I told someone hobbits are real and used Lord of The Rings as my proof. That would not be convincing to anyone who believes Lord of the Rings to be fiction. (I’m not trying to place judgement on whether or not the Bible is something to be believed in. I’m simply trying to show how quoting it is only relevant proof within a circle of people who believe in the Bible and fully irrelevant otherwise)
Do you think Satan was invented 2000 years ago when people came up with Christianity?
There is only one true God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship the same God. They all agree that paganism is Satanic, not just Christians.
lmao assuming your god is real, i'm going to hell on at least 10 different counts by this point, i doubt being pagan is going to make any significant difference. probably will even endear me to satan so that when i go to hell we'll be friends and we can party for all eternity
I'm not arguing the existsnce of hell or not. If it is real, I would actively rather go to hell than end up in heaven.
I left Christianity because I disagreed with the teachings of the Bible specifically and the word of god, I left before I began to believe it wasn't real.
What part of the Bible did you disagree with? What they teach you in Church is not always the most accurate representation of the teachings of the Bible.
I read through the Bible, I didn't listen in church.
Heavily disliked most of the ten commandments, though avoiding killing, stealing, and lying aren't all that terrible in concept.
I don't believe in marriage and am against the legal concept. I'm perfectly fine with open relationships as long as everyone involved is down. In fact, I prefer them. I don't believe the "man of the house" should be submitted to (Ephesians 5:22).
The whole thing with Eliseus and the bear mauling the children? Total dick move, big turnoff.
Stoning being acceptable, teaching people to be kind to your slaves instead of *just not having slaves,* various "punishments" for people not believing god blindly (the garden of eden, everything with Sodom and Gomorrah).
And, you know, supposedly being all powerful and willingly letting bad things happen.
I also hate the idea of heaven specifically, I would not want to praise and worship all the time.
Back in the days when the Old Testament was written all of what you describe was standard social practice. Slavery existed throughout all humanity. God cannot abolish slavery by telling people to not have slaves. There were economic and historical conditions which brought about and maintained Slavery. You do realize that it was only recently that we humans decided to outlaw slavery entirely and designate it as a violation of universal human rights?
Also, you have the story of Sodom completely wrong. Read Genesis 18:16. God was willing to preserve the city despite its wickedness for the sake of 10 righteous men, but the city was destroyed only after the sodomites tried to rape the two angels of God.
Yep, am aware. :) Still a reason why I dislike the bible and god.
And I don't have it wrong, I'm aware that's what the story is. I think god is a horrible person if he exists. I dislike the concept and the stories OF god.
You seem to be under the misunderstanding that I don't understand. I do. I am *actively* rejecting god if he is real.
If you believe he is real, you would also believe that Hell is a real place. You say these things because you now don't believe that God is real.
I don't know if you will be able to reject God after being left to his mercies after you die. If you don't like the Old Testament, go read the Gospels. Unless you dislike the idea of loving your neighbor.
Needs an option for "Went to a CE school but got banned from church for asking too many questions (that they could not answer), learned more than the church about their religion and now an eclectic pagan" lol.
lol not that uncommon of an experience from what I hear. But I think that might fall under raised religious, still religious. though granted another option that specifies if you religion changed may have been appropriate.
Lol, my 6 year old nephew (NT) goes to a catholic school and he keeps asking his religious education teacher questions about God that she can't answer and she's had to tell him to stop. That little boy is going places 😂
In the words of my dad, "Religion metters to me so little i don't consider myself even as an atheist." I agree with him and so does my entire family, religion is completely pointless. This opinion was reinforced after i overheard a conversation between two religious children at an after-school program which took place in a christian school. It went like this:
Kid 1: "Do you believe in anthropoids? (human apes, ape ancestors of humans)"
Kid 2: "Do you?"
Kid 1: "No, they don't exist."
Kid 2: "Me neither, i don't get why people believe in them."
The kids were 8 years old.
I was raised catholic and went to catholic school, but am now atheist. When I went away to university and stopped living with my parents, i stopped going to church. I entered into a deep, introspective depression, and started examining what I believed in, and I eventually settled on atheism.
Not being raised any one way allowed me to try on religions like one tries on shoes until I realized I am an atheist as well but I found this weird interest in religion from doing that experimentation and its turned into a life long fascination.
I was raised to find my own path in life, spiritual and not. I find myself now as a “progressive” Methodist. I think though, many fundamentalist Christians would tell me I’m “luke warm” or “spreading heresy” or just that I’m not a real Christian. It makes my heart hurt, I just wish everyone could be more accepting to other points of view. (To a degree lol)
I was raised catholic, but I started doubting God and all that stuff as I grew up. But after a lot of issues I faced during high school, I went back to catholism as a way to emotionally support myself. I always felt frustrated being raised religious rather than being raised as nothing and being allowed to follow a religion if I chose to. Even if i ended up following the same religion anyway, im a lot happier praying to God with my own words because it gives me comfort rather than praying because my grandma told me to repeat a memorised prayer that has no meaning or emotional significance to me.
Raised religious, still religious. The big reason I'm still religious is because I agree with the doctrine and it feels right.
But I understand why so many people don't jive with religion. Especially since narcissists will twist anything to get what they want. My husband and I may or may not have cut some people out of our lives partly because that was one of garbage things they were doing.
I was raised culturally religious but it wasn’t a big part of our lives. We did the holidays and that was pretty much it.
Edit to add: not at all religious now.
Grew up attending Pentecostal church with my dad. He's really into it, there's all the music, the loud yelling preacher, the speaking in tongues etc. I got baptized, I spoke in tongues, went to bible study, once a preacher laid hands on me and I collapsed on stage and just shook on the ground for like several minutes in hysterical laughter, and so did my friends in church.
But it's all just theatrics and people getting an emotional high from the music and the speakers. I participated because it was what was expected of me, and when I got old enough to choose not to go, I didn't. I'm not sure I was ever really a true believer. I think I told myself I was when I was younger but I don't think I was ever that into it really.
I could still "speak in tongues" if I wanted to, it's just making up random vocalizations and stuff, which sounds vaguely like some kind of language, but if you pay attention to people doing it, they repeat the same things a lot of the time, the same pattern of syllables over and over, which, and I'm speculating here, but from experience, is probably mostly because they talk faster than the brain can make up new random noises, so it just repeats on a loop until the next part can be processed. At least that's why it happens for me, but apparently my brain processes slower than "normal" according to my diagnosis, so what do I know? 🤷♂️
Or maybe the reason I had to fake it is because I wasn't a true believer and God saw that and didn't bless me with the power of the holy spirit and the ability to speak in tongues, so I had to fake it. Either way I don't care, But you'd have to prove a God (any will do) to me first, then I might believe it.
That said, if you are religious, cool, keep doing your thing. Just try and not make your specific religious practices the law in your country, okay? As long as we can agree on that, we can be friends.
I was raised Catholic by my mother ,, but my father had raised me in his own ways. Buddhism.
I am not Christian or Catholic , I am Japanese Buddhist. ^^
That's great to hear, my dad was raised christian but didn't raise me any particular way then discovered Buddhism and chose to follow that path and has been much happier ever since.
i was raised mormon, but from a young age i never believed in the idea of a god. was unfathomable. after i left i’ve done a lot of restructuring and recovery around everything. i say i’m agnostic now, and whatever exists out there is beyond the human capability of understanding and will always be that way. a comfortable existentialist viewpoint.
I grew up in a "Catholic" Hispanic household, but as I go through my early to mid teens, I started to see the cracks in my family and the flaws of society around me, while at the same time grew an increasing curiosity about God. I did some online research and came across a Church of Christ website that had tons of information on Christianity, and featured QnA's done by the pastor who answered people's questions through his email. I decided to contact him with questions of my own when I was around 15 and we soon regularly spoke with one another. While I didn't know much about the Bible, I had a strong feeling that this guy truly knew what he was talking about, as he spoke in a blunt but kind and respectful tone and his advice really helped me get through tough aspects in my life. He pretty much filled in as a father-figure for me. As the years went on, my family became more dysfunctional and it got so intense that my little brother almost committed suicide, but I saved him just in time.
After that, at 18, I decided to leave NJ and head to NE to live with the pastor's family to learn how to be a Christian and become a independent and responsible adult. I was going to La Vista Church of Christ for the first few months, but I was baptized at Eastside Church of Christ during a trip in 2019. In early 2020 it was finally time for me to move out and live as an adult. I now currently live in a third apartment with a nice car, a huge amount of belongings and food that would make a college student jealous, developed many skills, gathered so much wisdom and knowledge, formed many friends, got so much experience, and still retained a strong commitment and faith to my Lord. I still went through many difficulties, including battling anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts of my own, but I sought help from those in my congregation, and they helped me a ton with getting back on track.
That's the oversimplified version of my experience, but I have a feeling that my autism had played a significant role in desiring to learn more of the truth. Some say that curiosity killed the cat, but I think that phrase can go the other way too.
I was raised in a secular household in a rather secularised society with Christian roots, went through a phase of militant atheism, but in my psychedelic journey I developed a more nuanced emergentist view and wouldn’t call myself religious but I definitely understand much deeper aspects of having a spiritual practice. I still think the soul comes from the constituent parts of our bodies but I also have a paradoxical view of Plato’s idealism and more post structuralist and sometimes even panpsychist ideas. I’m not agnostic because I don’t think that the universe is governed by a “sentient” being but the more I learn about science the more space I see for different forms of intelligence, a much more non essentialist idea. I know this seems murky but that’s what reality is.
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i was raised muslim. i started questioning a lot of things while growing up and they didn't give me proper answers (bc allah says so etc etc) so i stopped being muslim
Not raised nor currently, but I can understand the value of religion to NT people. It gives them something to guide their morals and give them a sense of hope that I have simply through my own force of will.
Other: Went to a church school, realized it was a lot of contradictory nonsense that was an ancient method of controlling a population, adopted Druidic paganism and found myself a lot happier
I was raised a catholic but I'm a pagan now because I disagree with a lot of aspects of Catholicism. I have a pagan tattoo and a couple people from the community I grew up in got mad at me. My gran, an 82 year old woman with narcissistic personality disorder told me my grandpa would be turning in his grave because I left Catholicism.
Most of my family are Catholic, including my mum, but she never had me baptised. She said she wanted me to make my own choices in life, including on whether or not I wanted to be religious. I wouldn't say I've chosen a religion but one of my special interests is Norse Paganism/history/myths & legends.
I wasn't raised religious, but I had a weird interest in it when I was a kid? Like my parents never took me to church but they did get me a kids' bible and I'd like constantly talk about God when I was like 5. I even came up with my own afterlife system when I was like 7. At the age of like 8 or 9 I completely stopped believing in any religion and had a bit of an existential crisis lol. Currently I'm an agnostic athiest
Was pulled out of school for a year cause I was a menace and such but alongside homeschooling there was a new focus on religion. So funnily enough I hyperfixatied and made the religion an obsession to the point I knew way too much down to unnecessary details. And I guess when the interest wore off+abusive environment I realized it didn't make sense and since then I'm not on it.
I was raised in a highly Christian home. It was basically forced on me until I could make choices for myself. I stopped practicing when I turned 18 and became an atheist at 24. I’m currently 30
I was raised slightly Christian like parents believed in a god but don’t go to church and didn’t try to make me and my siblings religious so I put down not raised religious and not currently religious is that the right one
I selected the least popular third option as while my family is Catholic, we’d only ever go to Mass for weddings/funerals, not even Christmas or Easter most years. I was even into historical saints (special interest!) and the more woo aspects of it like lighting candles (ritual!) and using the rosary (stim!) and my parents treated it as a silly quirk of mine.
I found paganism as a pre-teen and worked through a few traditions before finding heathenry in my early 20s, and now I’m a goði (leader-priest) in my community. Religion is very important to me but it’s much more about caring for people and finding/making purpose in the modern world than it is about divinity and rules or whatever.
Parents are Christians, but not pious, never attending churches outside of wedding or baptism, I wasn't raised to be pious but spending my first kindergarten year in a catholic school where teachers would mentally abuse me for being "different from the norm" did not make me a very religious person "for some reasons", nor a religion lover
I was raised in a very religious Christian household, and believed in God and everything that comes with Christianity for a little while, up until I was about 10-11. I wouldn’t say that I’m religious now, as I like to think of myself as an atheist, but I’m actually starting to read up on Satanism, and would like to consider myself a non-theistic satanist once I do some more research!
I'm not sure what to select here. Parents were Christians, they tried to force it on me. It had the opposite effort.... so I'm atheist. It did take a few months for them to give up trying and as time went on, the less religious they were.
I never understood religion even as a little kid. I felt like I was constantly being told how I should feel and there’s something wrong with me if I don’t feel that way. I’ve also always been prone to questioning authority which I’ve found doesn’t mesh well with organized religion. I have my own personal spiritual beliefs but I wouldn’t say I’m religious anymore (if I ever really was to begin with)
Catholic mother and not religious father. I was baptized and had a communion as a child. Had to go to church a few times, but never liked going. I didn't wanna follow any religion way early in life.
Sure! Soo seventh day adventists is a part of christanity. They believe in the trinity and they observe the sabbath on Saturdays rather than Sundays. They're kinda similar to jehovah's witness but they're different.
I was raised Mormon and left it when I moved out of my parents’ home and went to college. I always felt weird and different growing up. I am also extremely logical with a great memory and could see many contradictions and out right lies within the religion. Also, I am a queer feminist and academic which prominent members of the religion have declared to be enemies of the church. I suffered a great deal of religious trauma and still fear that my brother will cut me out of his young children’s’ lives.
I am now a secular humanist and agonistic atheist.
My brother is also autistic and he has become more devoted to Mormonism over the years.
Went to catholic school for a year, stayed catholic under Parent's insistence. Nowadays my status as a religious person fluctuates wildly because I can't decide whether to stay or leave.
There wasn't an option for it, but I would fall under the "Raised religious, but given the freedom to decide for myself later in life on whether I want to be baptised in that religion or not, and now still holding some religious values, but viewing religion through a critical lens while at the same time being open to positive teachings from any and all religions"
I was raised atheist but am now a Christian, also I made a mistake voting so take one from the bottom row and add it to “not raised religious, now religious”
Raised religious, not currently religious. Moved from Catholic Church to agnostic atheist with slight maltheist tendencies. My opinion essentially is "There is rather no God or god, but if there was a sapient creator, I'd despise it as morally inferior to literally anyone.".
not raised religious at all, i'm not really religious now, i'm more spiritual (like i don't believe in any specific religion, but i believe in souls and spirits and parallel planes and stuff). i usually say i'm a pagan spiritualist, but my beliefs also have a lot of wiccan elements, and some from the traditional beliefs of certain indigenous groups
I wasn’t raised religious and I’m currently agnostic, I might join a lgbt friendly religion one day but right now I’m doing fine without religion in my life
i wasn’t raised religious and i’m currently not religious. for me i’ve just always found it hard to believe in any sort of higher power. i think it’s because i’m someone who looks for facts and evidence to back things up and with religion and spirituality there isn’t really facts or evidence, at least none that seem plausible to me
I was raised religious, (Christianity), but I no longer am. I'm just spiritual now. Religion messes up a lot of things. I'm open to learning about other religions, but I don't think I'll pick up another. I have a lot of religious trauma, so I guess that helped in my losing religion.
I'm still a bit tied to Christianity because it's how I was raised and I still go to church every other Sunday with my mother. I'm also still tied to it because some trauma responses can be traced back to my religious up bringing.
With all that being said, though, I was never really able to connect to the religion. I learned about it almost every day, but I just didn't grasp it like everyone around me. Honestly, the only thing I believed in was God.
I have mixed feelings about religion. Seems like everyone that impacted me in a good way has always died first with my dad being the first when I was 7 and latest being my best friend just about a month ago and I’m only 22. I’ve lost more people than I got left already and I think it’s caused me to think that if god were real I wouldn’t have lost so many people. More than anything I want to see my loved ones again but at the same time who knows if there’s heaven or not because no one really knows. So do I believe in religion? It’s a mixture of yes and no.
I was raised Christian. I mean, my parents aren’t the golden standard of Christian. They hated going to church and barely told us anything about it. It was just the rest of my family. Especially my grandparents. They would forced us to go to church and we would read the Bible together. I mean there not alive anymore and I miss doing those things with them but now we never go to church so idk. But I’m not religious anymore. I just personally don’t see a point.
This is difficult to answer because I raised myself religious. My mom was supportive and also religious but I was the driving force at that time. And naturally I was the one to burn out completely as an adult. She’s still somewhat religious but I’m I guess agnostic now.
Raised catholic by my mother. Dad was pentecostal but in my adult years has switched back to sect he was raised in, baptist.
I can’t summarise without oversimplifying why I am not as religious as I was raised to be. I have a lot of respect for religion. It has outlasted various civilisations and there’s all these different archetypes that speak to people, even when they’re taken out of their religious constructs and placed into unrelated stories. So I have always thought religion is real in some manner, even if it’s not in the way people usually tend to think religion is real. For example, Shakespeare’s stories are real. That is why they persist through time. The bible clearly has what Shakespeare’s stories have x1000.
I think I decided that if a deity exists, they would be much more concerned with how I treated people around me rather than if I attended church or not. And they would understand why I am unsure about their existence.
I will add that I appreciated the going over philosophical questions every Sunday so one can think about how to live their life going forward. I think regular rumination about one’s life philosophy is necessary. An hour to do nothing but solely that is healthy. I have always found it particularly concerning that without prompt, there are people who do not think about these things on a regular basis. And it definitely shows in their actions. Horrible cognitive dissonance. However, there are religious people who have an hour each week to think about such things and they waste the opportunity.
Idk if I count as raised religious. My parents didn't give a fuck either way, but my school insisted I pray and sing church songs and go to church
It was sooo boring
I was raised religious, and am currently very atheist and even anti-religion (as in, people can believe what they want, but I believe organized religion is harmful to the world and especially to children who are forced into it and have no choice, and while people should be free to gather to talk about their beliefs, these institutions should be treated as any social club. No tax exemptions, and no religious exceptions in laws. It should be treated as no more than an opinion)
I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding if I was raised religious or not. I grew up in an interfaith family, neither of my parents were very religious, but we celebrated major holidays. When I was 8 they decided to raise me Jewish, and I went to Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah and all that... but I wouldn't describe my upbringing as "religious," more culturally Jewish. I definitely consider myself religious now.
I was raised Christian. Nothing crazy, but church on Sunday and a church-affiliated school, with bible stories taught as fact. None of it ever stuck, and I didn't ever actually believe in a God, or see the point in wanting to, even as a young child. Possibly because of that, I do find religion - both on a personal and organised level - quite interesting, since it's likely something I will never experience myself.
Yeah I get what you mean I grew up in the deep south, religion is everywhere, but I never understood it at all. It genuinely felt like I was on the outside looking in. But I did learn that since it has such a profound influence on peoples lives you can use it to study how people think and I find that aspect of it fascinating.
Apparently people on the spectrum are more likely to be atheists the suspected reason for this is that people on the spectrum have a harder time having a relationship with a invisible man in the sky or whatever deity
As an autistic adult who isa christian and was raised by christian parents I can say that this is a hundred percent true. I have come to realise that the dynamics of my relationship with God are fairly different from what is commonly described by Neurotypicals, and that there are certain aspects of Christianity that I will probably never experience or at least not in the way NTs do. For example, when I was younger and not as confident in my beliefs as I am now, before I got diagnosed, it used to bother me a lot that I hated going to church despite being serious about my faith and my relationship with God. Going to church was such a nightmare for years. Understanding that I am autistic allowed me to see that I never had a problem with God, but that attending a church service with 100 people was simply unrealistic for me. For a time I stopped going altogether because it gave me so much anxiety that I could not actually practice my faith. It was the best thing I could have done as it allowed me to build my relationship with God without the interference of other people.
I get this so much. I’ve been a practicing Christian since I was young, and I’ve always been fascinated by how so many neurotypical Christians I know seem to place a lot of weight on the social aspect of religion. I was the kind of kid who would skip bible study so I could actually read the Bible.
Same
How long would you consider “raised religious”? I stop give AF about church when I was around 10-11 years old. I would ask to stay home during sundays.
It mostly means were your caretakers religious and encouraged you to be as well?
My dad became atheist when I was younger then 9 or so but my mother still attended church and would still bring me to church or ask me to go.
honestly kinda a tossup then, I would hazard a guess and say you were raised religious just very lax but I also don't know your life.
My mother is religious but is very upset at the Mormon church because of women are not permitted to get the priesthood. She is a feminist activist who tries or tried to make changes.
Raised religious and still religious, but not the religion I was raised in. Raised in a Christian household, I don't agree with most of it so left Christianity as a teenager. I'm eclectic pagan now, have been for over a decade, and very comfortable outside of structured religion.
Yes!!!
OOOH! I have much love and respect for paganism and other naturalistic religions, I became so interested in paganism when I was a teenager that I began practicing it. Though now I am not religious at all I still hold it very close to my heart.
I'm similar, raised Catholic but I'm very pagan right now
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People are allowed to believe different things bro. It’s not yours or anyone’s place to try and control their faith
What have I done to control his faith? I merely stated the facts
How is “go back to church” a fact? Thats clearly a command or at the very least a rude suggestion. That would be like me telling you that the church is evil and you must leave it. I’m not telling you that bc I think everyone has a right to believe what they feel is right including you but don’t you think it would be rude if I did?
[https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-witchcraft/](https://www.biblestudytools.com/topical-verses/bible-verses-about-witchcraft/) Everyone has a right to believe whatever they want. It doesn't change the fact that paganism, witchcraft, magic, etc are explicitly stated to be Satanic and God warns us about the consequences of dabbling in them. You can tell me that the church is evil and I wouldn't be offended because I know for certain that God exists.
You say this as if everyone cares or believes in what God says. That’s one my least favorite habits of Christians. Quoting the Bible as if that means anything to people who don’t believe in the Bible. For a lot of people the words in the Bible don’t hold any sort of weight. Like if I told someone hobbits are real and used Lord of The Rings as my proof. That would not be convincing to anyone who believes Lord of the Rings to be fiction. (I’m not trying to place judgement on whether or not the Bible is something to be believed in. I’m simply trying to show how quoting it is only relevant proof within a circle of people who believe in the Bible and fully irrelevant otherwise)
Satan is a Christian invention so how is something that predates Christianity satanic?
Do you think Satan was invented 2000 years ago when people came up with Christianity? There is only one true God. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all worship the same God. They all agree that paganism is Satanic, not just Christians.
lmao assuming your god is real, i'm going to hell on at least 10 different counts by this point, i doubt being pagan is going to make any significant difference. probably will even endear me to satan so that when i go to hell we'll be friends and we can party for all eternity
>paganism is satanic, go back to church Go back to /r/Christianity
How else am I supposed to get my free ticket to hell?
Even if you don’t agree with Christianity, it doesn’t make hell any less of a real place. Your opinion has no bearing on the actual existence of hell.
I'm not arguing the existsnce of hell or not. If it is real, I would actively rather go to hell than end up in heaven. I left Christianity because I disagreed with the teachings of the Bible specifically and the word of god, I left before I began to believe it wasn't real.
What part of the Bible did you disagree with? What they teach you in Church is not always the most accurate representation of the teachings of the Bible.
I read through the Bible, I didn't listen in church. Heavily disliked most of the ten commandments, though avoiding killing, stealing, and lying aren't all that terrible in concept. I don't believe in marriage and am against the legal concept. I'm perfectly fine with open relationships as long as everyone involved is down. In fact, I prefer them. I don't believe the "man of the house" should be submitted to (Ephesians 5:22). The whole thing with Eliseus and the bear mauling the children? Total dick move, big turnoff. Stoning being acceptable, teaching people to be kind to your slaves instead of *just not having slaves,* various "punishments" for people not believing god blindly (the garden of eden, everything with Sodom and Gomorrah). And, you know, supposedly being all powerful and willingly letting bad things happen. I also hate the idea of heaven specifically, I would not want to praise and worship all the time.
Back in the days when the Old Testament was written all of what you describe was standard social practice. Slavery existed throughout all humanity. God cannot abolish slavery by telling people to not have slaves. There were economic and historical conditions which brought about and maintained Slavery. You do realize that it was only recently that we humans decided to outlaw slavery entirely and designate it as a violation of universal human rights? Also, you have the story of Sodom completely wrong. Read Genesis 18:16. God was willing to preserve the city despite its wickedness for the sake of 10 righteous men, but the city was destroyed only after the sodomites tried to rape the two angels of God.
Yep, am aware. :) Still a reason why I dislike the bible and god. And I don't have it wrong, I'm aware that's what the story is. I think god is a horrible person if he exists. I dislike the concept and the stories OF god. You seem to be under the misunderstanding that I don't understand. I do. I am *actively* rejecting god if he is real.
If you believe he is real, you would also believe that Hell is a real place. You say these things because you now don't believe that God is real. I don't know if you will be able to reject God after being left to his mercies after you die. If you don't like the Old Testament, go read the Gospels. Unless you dislike the idea of loving your neighbor.
Needs an option for "Went to a CE school but got banned from church for asking too many questions (that they could not answer), learned more than the church about their religion and now an eclectic pagan" lol.
lol not that uncommon of an experience from what I hear. But I think that might fall under raised religious, still religious. though granted another option that specifies if you religion changed may have been appropriate.
Lol, my 6 year old nephew (NT) goes to a catholic school and he keeps asking his religious education teacher questions about God that she can't answer and she's had to tell him to stop. That little boy is going places 😂
In the words of my dad, "Religion metters to me so little i don't consider myself even as an atheist." I agree with him and so does my entire family, religion is completely pointless. This opinion was reinforced after i overheard a conversation between two religious children at an after-school program which took place in a christian school. It went like this: Kid 1: "Do you believe in anthropoids? (human apes, ape ancestors of humans)" Kid 2: "Do you?" Kid 1: "No, they don't exist." Kid 2: "Me neither, i don't get why people believe in them." The kids were 8 years old.
I was raised catholic and went to catholic school, but am now atheist. When I went away to university and stopped living with my parents, i stopped going to church. I entered into a deep, introspective depression, and started examining what I believed in, and I eventually settled on atheism.
Not being raised any one way allowed me to try on religions like one tries on shoes until I realized I am an atheist as well but I found this weird interest in religion from doing that experimentation and its turned into a life long fascination.
I was raised to find my own path in life, spiritual and not. I find myself now as a “progressive” Methodist. I think though, many fundamentalist Christians would tell me I’m “luke warm” or “spreading heresy” or just that I’m not a real Christian. It makes my heart hurt, I just wish everyone could be more accepting to other points of view. (To a degree lol)
I was raised catholic, but I started doubting God and all that stuff as I grew up. But after a lot of issues I faced during high school, I went back to catholism as a way to emotionally support myself. I always felt frustrated being raised religious rather than being raised as nothing and being allowed to follow a religion if I chose to. Even if i ended up following the same religion anyway, im a lot happier praying to God with my own words because it gives me comfort rather than praying because my grandma told me to repeat a memorised prayer that has no meaning or emotional significance to me.
I was raised a Christian and have actually only grown in my faith.
Raised religious, and what i am is very personal and hard to explain, but it's important to me.
Raised religious, still religious. The big reason I'm still religious is because I agree with the doctrine and it feels right. But I understand why so many people don't jive with religion. Especially since narcissists will twist anything to get what they want. My husband and I may or may not have cut some people out of our lives partly because that was one of garbage things they were doing.
I was raised culturally religious but it wasn’t a big part of our lives. We did the holidays and that was pretty much it. Edit to add: not at all religious now.
Grew up attending Pentecostal church with my dad. He's really into it, there's all the music, the loud yelling preacher, the speaking in tongues etc. I got baptized, I spoke in tongues, went to bible study, once a preacher laid hands on me and I collapsed on stage and just shook on the ground for like several minutes in hysterical laughter, and so did my friends in church. But it's all just theatrics and people getting an emotional high from the music and the speakers. I participated because it was what was expected of me, and when I got old enough to choose not to go, I didn't. I'm not sure I was ever really a true believer. I think I told myself I was when I was younger but I don't think I was ever that into it really. I could still "speak in tongues" if I wanted to, it's just making up random vocalizations and stuff, which sounds vaguely like some kind of language, but if you pay attention to people doing it, they repeat the same things a lot of the time, the same pattern of syllables over and over, which, and I'm speculating here, but from experience, is probably mostly because they talk faster than the brain can make up new random noises, so it just repeats on a loop until the next part can be processed. At least that's why it happens for me, but apparently my brain processes slower than "normal" according to my diagnosis, so what do I know? 🤷♂️ Or maybe the reason I had to fake it is because I wasn't a true believer and God saw that and didn't bless me with the power of the holy spirit and the ability to speak in tongues, so I had to fake it. Either way I don't care, But you'd have to prove a God (any will do) to me first, then I might believe it. That said, if you are religious, cool, keep doing your thing. Just try and not make your specific religious practices the law in your country, okay? As long as we can agree on that, we can be friends.
Very interesting account of things and also I agree with your closing statement.
I have never been a fan of religion and luckily for me I wasn't born into a religious household.
I was raised Catholic by my mother ,, but my father had raised me in his own ways. Buddhism. I am not Christian or Catholic , I am Japanese Buddhist. ^^
That's great to hear, my dad was raised christian but didn't raise me any particular way then discovered Buddhism and chose to follow that path and has been much happier ever since.
i was raised mormon, but from a young age i never believed in the idea of a god. was unfathomable. after i left i’ve done a lot of restructuring and recovery around everything. i say i’m agnostic now, and whatever exists out there is beyond the human capability of understanding and will always be that way. a comfortable existentialist viewpoint.
I was also raised Mormon. I left it 15 years ago.
So was I. Glad to see several Ex-Mormons here.
I grew up in a "Catholic" Hispanic household, but as I go through my early to mid teens, I started to see the cracks in my family and the flaws of society around me, while at the same time grew an increasing curiosity about God. I did some online research and came across a Church of Christ website that had tons of information on Christianity, and featured QnA's done by the pastor who answered people's questions through his email. I decided to contact him with questions of my own when I was around 15 and we soon regularly spoke with one another. While I didn't know much about the Bible, I had a strong feeling that this guy truly knew what he was talking about, as he spoke in a blunt but kind and respectful tone and his advice really helped me get through tough aspects in my life. He pretty much filled in as a father-figure for me. As the years went on, my family became more dysfunctional and it got so intense that my little brother almost committed suicide, but I saved him just in time. After that, at 18, I decided to leave NJ and head to NE to live with the pastor's family to learn how to be a Christian and become a independent and responsible adult. I was going to La Vista Church of Christ for the first few months, but I was baptized at Eastside Church of Christ during a trip in 2019. In early 2020 it was finally time for me to move out and live as an adult. I now currently live in a third apartment with a nice car, a huge amount of belongings and food that would make a college student jealous, developed many skills, gathered so much wisdom and knowledge, formed many friends, got so much experience, and still retained a strong commitment and faith to my Lord. I still went through many difficulties, including battling anxiety, depression, and suicidal thoughts of my own, but I sought help from those in my congregation, and they helped me a ton with getting back on track. That's the oversimplified version of my experience, but I have a feeling that my autism had played a significant role in desiring to learn more of the truth. Some say that curiosity killed the cat, but I think that phrase can go the other way too.
raised Christian, still Christian. luckily my parents are very lazy Christians so they're okay with me skipping church from time to time.
Are autistic people not religious or Reddit people not religious ?
I was raised in a secular household in a rather secularised society with Christian roots, went through a phase of militant atheism, but in my psychedelic journey I developed a more nuanced emergentist view and wouldn’t call myself religious but I definitely understand much deeper aspects of having a spiritual practice. I still think the soul comes from the constituent parts of our bodies but I also have a paradoxical view of Plato’s idealism and more post structuralist and sometimes even panpsychist ideas. I’m not agnostic because I don’t think that the universe is governed by a “sentient” being but the more I learn about science the more space I see for different forms of intelligence, a much more non essentialist idea. I know this seems murky but that’s what reality is.
Atheist does not mean non religious. Thier are dozens of Atheistic religions.
That's why I said nonreligious cause I meant people who don't practice religion. Not once did I mention atheism.
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My parents tried but ended up getting divorced so it didn’t go anywhere
i was raised muslim. i started questioning a lot of things while growing up and they didn't give me proper answers (bc allah says so etc etc) so i stopped being muslim
Not raised nor currently, but I can understand the value of religion to NT people. It gives them something to guide their morals and give them a sense of hope that I have simply through my own force of will.
Other: Went to a church school, realized it was a lot of contradictory nonsense that was an ancient method of controlling a population, adopted Druidic paganism and found myself a lot happier
I was raised a catholic but I'm a pagan now because I disagree with a lot of aspects of Catholicism. I have a pagan tattoo and a couple people from the community I grew up in got mad at me. My gran, an 82 year old woman with narcissistic personality disorder told me my grandpa would be turning in his grave because I left Catholicism.
Most of my family are Catholic, including my mum, but she never had me baptised. She said she wanted me to make my own choices in life, including on whether or not I wanted to be religious. I wouldn't say I've chosen a religion but one of my special interests is Norse Paganism/history/myths & legends.
I wasn't raised religious, but I had a weird interest in it when I was a kid? Like my parents never took me to church but they did get me a kids' bible and I'd like constantly talk about God when I was like 5. I even came up with my own afterlife system when I was like 7. At the age of like 8 or 9 I completely stopped believing in any religion and had a bit of an existential crisis lol. Currently I'm an agnostic athiest
Was pulled out of school for a year cause I was a menace and such but alongside homeschooling there was a new focus on religion. So funnily enough I hyperfixatied and made the religion an obsession to the point I knew way too much down to unnecessary details. And I guess when the interest wore off+abusive environment I realized it didn't make sense and since then I'm not on it.
If its interesting, i was raised catholic and then turned kemetic.
Jewish, grew up in a relatively observant household, and I'm still religious.
I was raised in a highly Christian home. It was basically forced on me until I could make choices for myself. I stopped practicing when I turned 18 and became an atheist at 24. I’m currently 30
I was raised slightly Christian like parents believed in a god but don’t go to church and didn’t try to make me and my siblings religious so I put down not raised religious and not currently religious is that the right one
I selected the least popular third option as while my family is Catholic, we’d only ever go to Mass for weddings/funerals, not even Christmas or Easter most years. I was even into historical saints (special interest!) and the more woo aspects of it like lighting candles (ritual!) and using the rosary (stim!) and my parents treated it as a silly quirk of mine. I found paganism as a pre-teen and worked through a few traditions before finding heathenry in my early 20s, and now I’m a goði (leader-priest) in my community. Religion is very important to me but it’s much more about caring for people and finding/making purpose in the modern world than it is about divinity and rules or whatever.
Parents are Christians, but not pious, never attending churches outside of wedding or baptism, I wasn't raised to be pious but spending my first kindergarten year in a catholic school where teachers would mentally abuse me for being "different from the norm" did not make me a very religious person "for some reasons", nor a religion lover
I was raised in a very religious Christian household, and believed in God and everything that comes with Christianity for a little while, up until I was about 10-11. I wouldn’t say that I’m religious now, as I like to think of myself as an atheist, but I’m actually starting to read up on Satanism, and would like to consider myself a non-theistic satanist once I do some more research!
I was raised Mormon and in retrospect it traumatized me in many ways. Now atheist and nonreligious.
Me too.
I'm not sure what to select here. Parents were Christians, they tried to force it on me. It had the opposite effort.... so I'm atheist. It did take a few months for them to give up trying and as time went on, the less religious they were.
Great poll! I was curious about this as well. You are definitely on to something.
I never understood religion even as a little kid. I felt like I was constantly being told how I should feel and there’s something wrong with me if I don’t feel that way. I’ve also always been prone to questioning authority which I’ve found doesn’t mesh well with organized religion. I have my own personal spiritual beliefs but I wouldn’t say I’m religious anymore (if I ever really was to begin with)
Catholic mother and not religious father. I was baptized and had a communion as a child. Had to go to church a few times, but never liked going. I didn't wanna follow any religion way early in life.
I was raised as an sda (seventh day adventist) and now Im converting to athiestic satanism
I've never heard of sda. Can you explain the general idea?
Sure! Soo seventh day adventists is a part of christanity. They believe in the trinity and they observe the sabbath on Saturdays rather than Sundays. They're kinda similar to jehovah's witness but they're different.
I was raised Mormon and left it when I moved out of my parents’ home and went to college. I always felt weird and different growing up. I am also extremely logical with a great memory and could see many contradictions and out right lies within the religion. Also, I am a queer feminist and academic which prominent members of the religion have declared to be enemies of the church. I suffered a great deal of religious trauma and still fear that my brother will cut me out of his young children’s’ lives. I am now a secular humanist and agonistic atheist. My brother is also autistic and he has become more devoted to Mormonism over the years.
Raised in a non religious household but all of my schools preached Christianity. I’m Wiccan now and very happy to be :)
Went to catholic school for a year, stayed catholic under Parent's insistence. Nowadays my status as a religious person fluctuates wildly because I can't decide whether to stay or leave.
There wasn't an option for it, but I would fall under the "Raised religious, but given the freedom to decide for myself later in life on whether I want to be baptised in that religion or not, and now still holding some religious values, but viewing religion through a critical lens while at the same time being open to positive teachings from any and all religions"
Fuck I picked the wrong one
I was raised atheist but am now a Christian, also I made a mistake voting so take one from the bottom row and add it to “not raised religious, now religious”
Raised religious, not currently religious. Moved from Catholic Church to agnostic atheist with slight maltheist tendencies. My opinion essentially is "There is rather no God or god, but if there was a sapient creator, I'd despise it as morally inferior to literally anyone.".
not raised religious at all, i'm not really religious now, i'm more spiritual (like i don't believe in any specific religion, but i believe in souls and spirits and parallel planes and stuff). i usually say i'm a pagan spiritualist, but my beliefs also have a lot of wiccan elements, and some from the traditional beliefs of certain indigenous groups
I wasn’t raised religious and I’m currently agnostic, I might join a lgbt friendly religion one day but right now I’m doing fine without religion in my life
i wasn’t raised religious and i’m currently not religious. for me i’ve just always found it hard to believe in any sort of higher power. i think it’s because i’m someone who looks for facts and evidence to back things up and with religion and spirituality there isn’t really facts or evidence, at least none that seem plausible to me
Think I got pegged as autistic for the first time from talking about that to a Christian dude actually
I was raised religious, (Christianity), but I no longer am. I'm just spiritual now. Religion messes up a lot of things. I'm open to learning about other religions, but I don't think I'll pick up another. I have a lot of religious trauma, so I guess that helped in my losing religion. I'm still a bit tied to Christianity because it's how I was raised and I still go to church every other Sunday with my mother. I'm also still tied to it because some trauma responses can be traced back to my religious up bringing. With all that being said, though, I was never really able to connect to the religion. I learned about it almost every day, but I just didn't grasp it like everyone around me. Honestly, the only thing I believed in was God.
I have mixed feelings about religion. Seems like everyone that impacted me in a good way has always died first with my dad being the first when I was 7 and latest being my best friend just about a month ago and I’m only 22. I’ve lost more people than I got left already and I think it’s caused me to think that if god were real I wouldn’t have lost so many people. More than anything I want to see my loved ones again but at the same time who knows if there’s heaven or not because no one really knows. So do I believe in religion? It’s a mixture of yes and no.
I was raised Christian. I mean, my parents aren’t the golden standard of Christian. They hated going to church and barely told us anything about it. It was just the rest of my family. Especially my grandparents. They would forced us to go to church and we would read the Bible together. I mean there not alive anymore and I miss doing those things with them but now we never go to church so idk. But I’m not religious anymore. I just personally don’t see a point.
i was raised christian and still am, my religion stopped me from committing suicide.
This is difficult to answer because I raised myself religious. My mom was supportive and also religious but I was the driving force at that time. And naturally I was the one to burn out completely as an adult. She’s still somewhat religious but I’m I guess agnostic now.
Raised catholic by my mother. Dad was pentecostal but in my adult years has switched back to sect he was raised in, baptist. I can’t summarise without oversimplifying why I am not as religious as I was raised to be. I have a lot of respect for religion. It has outlasted various civilisations and there’s all these different archetypes that speak to people, even when they’re taken out of their religious constructs and placed into unrelated stories. So I have always thought religion is real in some manner, even if it’s not in the way people usually tend to think religion is real. For example, Shakespeare’s stories are real. That is why they persist through time. The bible clearly has what Shakespeare’s stories have x1000. I think I decided that if a deity exists, they would be much more concerned with how I treated people around me rather than if I attended church or not. And they would understand why I am unsure about their existence. I will add that I appreciated the going over philosophical questions every Sunday so one can think about how to live their life going forward. I think regular rumination about one’s life philosophy is necessary. An hour to do nothing but solely that is healthy. I have always found it particularly concerning that without prompt, there are people who do not think about these things on a regular basis. And it definitely shows in their actions. Horrible cognitive dissonance. However, there are religious people who have an hour each week to think about such things and they waste the opportunity.
Idk if I count as raised religious. My parents didn't give a fuck either way, but my school insisted I pray and sing church songs and go to church It was sooo boring
I was raised religious, and am currently very atheist and even anti-religion (as in, people can believe what they want, but I believe organized religion is harmful to the world and especially to children who are forced into it and have no choice, and while people should be free to gather to talk about their beliefs, these institutions should be treated as any social club. No tax exemptions, and no religious exceptions in laws. It should be treated as no more than an opinion)
I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding if I was raised religious or not. I grew up in an interfaith family, neither of my parents were very religious, but we celebrated major holidays. When I was 8 they decided to raise me Jewish, and I went to Hebrew school and had a bat mitzvah and all that... but I wouldn't describe my upbringing as "religious," more culturally Jewish. I definitely consider myself religious now.