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Do you resent your parents for raising you religious?

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moonbogg said:
I'm in the same boat, except I rarely go with my wife. I will go on special occasions for her, but I usually stay home.
She often takes the boys, and at first I was concerned about it. But like you said, in today's world they will go to school with better informed people who aren't as afraid to ask questions. Plus, they have me to create balance, and balance I will create for sure.
Its kind of a delicate thing when dealing with kids and a religious wife. Its important to respect the wishes of the wife, but also to protect the minds of the young kids from going in too deep and taking things literally.
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Question: when you got married was it a religious ceremony?
 
I was never raised religious. Both my parents stopped going to church when they got old enough to make their own decisions, my grandparents stopped soon after.
 
Nope, I don't think my family has been church goers for at least three generations. (Except for christenings, funerals and weddings)

I'm not even christened.
 
I wonder what it is like for those of you who don't know the feeling of being religious. I know what that's like, and now I am not that way, even though I have more general suspicions about some intelligent "something" that I can't describe from time to time.
You never felt tempted to assume there was a god?
It must have been interesting growing up looking outward at a world filled with odd believers. Did you feel like you were on an alien planet or surrounded by weird people? Did you wonder if your parents were wrong?
 
Additional question - has anyone here done a full 360? It's clear the majority seem to have done the 180 growing up, for one reason or another. And I don't necessarily mean religious nut job when I mean 360. I just mean that yes, you believe without a doubt that God exists.
 
Originally Posted by Insomniator
I'm glad my parents never wasted my time taking me to church, they taught me to make fun of religion from the start.
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JM Aggie08 said:
Whoah ho ho, look at! Got us a badass, fellas.
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hahaha...yeah you can be anything you want on the internet -- even a 90lb bad ass person who makes fun of religion....rofl...
 
Of course not. They raised me according to their own beliefs and I made up my own mind when I was able.
 
I'm glad my parents took me to a church that taught me there's nothing wrong with questioning your beliefs and exploring other religions is a good thing.
 
JulesMaximus said:
Not really. They didn't know any better.
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This, except mine do. They both realize they're committed to extremely implausible ideas exclusively because it makes them feel better. They don't think it's possible to find lasting meaning in life without their religion. Apparently they've also never heard of endorphins.
 
emote_eyerollbill.gif
 
njdevilsfan87 said:
Additional question - has anyone here done a full 360? It's clear the majority seem to have done the 180 growing up, for one reason or another. And I don't necessarily mean religious nut job when I mean 360. I just mean that yes, you believe without a doubt that God exists.
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I'm at about the 270° mark.
 
Nope. My paternal grandparents are pretty much straight-up fundies, which left my dad in this weird place where he can swing from sounding like a Westboro Church member to a stereotypical raging atheist depending on what question you ask him. Even though he's a creationist, he's not afraid to say that the 6,000 year figure is obviously wrong and that the real age of the earth is "probably somewhere in the tens of millions" (don't ask me how he came to this figure). As a result, I was raised into a moral system typical of angry conservative fundamentalist types, yet he kept me away from the churches and rituals which he thought were so full of shit. When I was ~10-11 years old it got to the point that myself or one of my brothers asked something on par with "Jesus who?", which made him grudgingly take us to a comfy upper-middle class suburban church. I got into it probably more seriously than anyone else in my family, but I feared it. Not because of my parents, and certainly not because of Bubba, our jolly youth pastor, but because I really believed it. I never understood how people could read the Bible, take it as truth, and not be concerned with the prospect of the end of our world or neverending misery. Exodus literally terrified me. If we believe we can have everlasting life, but it's still possible for God to harden our heart and make us not believe? I mean, that's almost unfair (but it's Your Creation, God, I accept its fairness, please don't punish me, please don't punish me). Every time I did something sinful I would be reminded of that fact; it made me rethink that Veggietales episode (I forget which book/verse) with the "7 times 70" forgiveness counter. I would literally tally every time I committed a sin that needed to be forgiven. I'd calculate the rate at which I was sinning and give myself a time table by which I needed to die and go to heaven by before I would be condemned to hell. Of course, as I realized the futility it would get to the point of "Well, that one didn't count, it was barely even a passing thought" and similar. When we moved states I was the one that pushed more for a new church, but I was disgusted with the larger megachurch nearby. In a prayer they said something like "And may we vanquish our foes at Halo and enjoy a plentitude of Mountain Dew" or similar, and it was blasphemy to me. I refused to participate in anything with those people and after that I spent most of my time just reading Revelations and listening to conservative AM radio, trying to fit 9/11 and the Iraq War and everything else into the inevitable end. The funny thing is that I don't think my parents were aware of how seriously I took it; I'm sure they'd notice me making quick prayers before every meal (every snack even) and sometimes feeling a random but strong compulsion to get to my knees, but otherwise they probably thought I was just another cultural Christian that did only the obligatory to fit in with my fellows. It was after debating creationism as a 12 year old on internet forums, even getting my name on www.fstdt.com, that I first started encountering doubts. Rapidly dismissed doubts, of course, but they did slowly whittle me down. My the time I was ~14 I had completely given up on trying to confess to others, but it was when my parents gave me free access to the liquor cabinet by ~16 that I really started to have doubts. I think Christianity requires its believers to have an inordinately high degree of self-satisfaction over anything else, and when I realized how pathetic I was, asking forgiveness as I battled my emetophobia and a bad hangover, thinking that I was actually being healed for being a stupid obnoxious drunk teenager, that I admitted it was primarily a vessel to make sacrifice feel a little easier and more satisfying. I was still smart enough to know that nothing good comes for free, so it was much easier to use my piracy of SNES ROMs as a bargaining chip for prolonged health. It was a less bitter placebo than beating myself for bad deeds as well, even though it made me less self-reliant. Sometimes I think that if my dad wasn't so hot-and-cold about religion, that I might have come to it completely independently without any critical thought, and would be even more dependent now than otherwise.

tl;dr parents gave a bit of a nudge, everything else was my own doing and in the grand scheme of things I have no regrets over my development, and will still admit that it is an effective crutch for me when it's convenient.
 
Not really. I was baptized Lutheran and did go to Sunday school and summer bible school, but I had no idea what they were teaching. I was always fasinated in science and living in Nort Dakota at the time I remember my parents answering all my science questions and looking at the Northern Lights. I always look up and wonder in awe. I have an open minid for the most part, but I decided by myself from Biblical archaeology and other things that I believe in a higher power. I made this decision by my self and not by indoctrination.
 
No the opposite i'm glad they did, and glad they have helped grow as a Christian. Even helping me get back into church after turning away for years.. I for one do believe, and will always be thankful for my folks and how they raised me, let alone putting up with me in my teen years. I truly respect them as model parents and couple.
 
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