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Being raised religiously

How religiously were you raised?

  • I was raised irreligiously

    Votes: 22 34.9%
  • My family identified nominally with a religion but didn't practice it

    Votes: 6 9.5%
  • My family was slightly religious (eg, church attendance only on holidays)

    Votes: 8 12.7%
  • My family was moderately religious (eg, regular church attendance)

    Votes: 17 27.0%
  • My family was strongly religious

    Votes: 5 7.9%
  • My family was extremely religious

    Votes: 5 7.9%

  • Total voters
    63
I was raised in a home devoid of any religion.

The only action that happened was when I got a children's bible for a Christmas present after I asked for it once because a singer I idolised was a Christian. I think my grandparents were sort of like normal old-fashioned Christians who just took the faith for granted and never really bothered to pass it down to their children. And my parents thought it was boring and uncool, although they lived like "good Christians" in many ways, or at least good people.

While I have quite a strong rebellious streak, so if it wasn't for that I might possibly have turned into a Materialist. But I had to work for it and find it all for myself. It's mine, so I love it.
 
Originally, my great grandparents on my Dad's side were Mormon. They followed Brigham Young to Utah but became disillusioned with the powerful hierarchy and finally fled one night when the church issued an edict to my great grandfather that he needed to take a second wife (or so the family mythology goes). They became a part of a small off-shoot of the Mormon Church--the only one out of hundreds to actually survive to this day. You know how the real name of the Mormon Church is The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints? That's a mouthful but my family's church was even more ridiculous: The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints.

Both of my grandmothers lived and breathed this church. They raised flowers for the Sunday pulpit, volunteered for church business, baked and cooked, knitted and sewed for church functions and raised their children with the church doctrine even though they had each married men that not only were not RLDS but were not even Christian afaik. My own parents met at a small junior college run by the church and so I was raised not only with bible stories but there was always a Book Of Mormon lying around. Since my family was always getting transferred ever couple of years to a new location by my Dad's company they rarely could find an RLDS church. RLDS is sort of the antithesis of LDS with their massive gleaming white cathedrals--the RLDS met in other church's basements before their services in the small town in Iowa where my Dad's family lived and had a very modest and small congregation in Detroit where my mom's family is from. Eventually they just became presbyterians and then my mom got pushed out of the church in Texas because she appealed to the women to integrate in 1962. That was pretty much the end of Christianity in my family and I was all of 8 years old. I kept going with my sister (delivered by my Dad in his pyjamas) mostly because I wanted to see the kid I had a crush on.

I was always amazed that my parents were raised as they were--with almost fanatically religious mothers who were married to men that simply didn't participate. I can't imagine having that gulf in my marriage. But it does make me wonder if people were more likely to accept differences before we became the highly image driven culture that we now are and before we saw everything in such black and white terms.
 
I was raised in a Catholic family and attended Catholic school from kindergarten to sixth grade, plus one year in high school. I was a strong believer in God as a kid, although had many questions as I was confused by many concepts and beliefs. I have always been one to question things, and though I believed what my parents told ke to, it bothered me that they never had any real answers to my questions. I found it troubling that we were expected to go by faith and faith alone. Later found organized religion to be poisonous and hazardous. The discrimination is despicable and unimaginable.

I do not follow any specific belief systems now. I believe higher power lies within, and that we achieve that power by staying true to ourselves and doing good. The golden rule. Treat others how you would like to be treated by spreading love and good karma.
 
"I am not the Jesus who was presented in the Bible as mild, mind-lessly sweet-tempered, and disconnected from family and loved ones" - Jesus rocks
 
I, too, was raised as a catholic. My father was devout, but also a violent hyprocrite. My mother is less devout now, and has drifted into some more born-again style beliefs over the years but is now a more complete human, having shrugged off the weight of my fathers cruelty and lies and is currently non-religious.

I must say, it was an experience I will never repeat with my own (for now hypothetical) children. I think the catholic church is a decadent, irreligious and irrelevant organisation. I owe some gratitude to the church for its stark hypocrisy and its setting me on the path towards agnostic/atheistic freedom.

I have little but disinterest for the church and its followers now.
 
During my younger years my mother wasn't devout but believed in god.

Toward the end of me living with her she was a religious fanatic.
 
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