A tough one to answer.
I was brought up as a Jehovah's witness, but I remember as far back as being 6 years old and thinking 'this isn't for me, I'll leave when I'm old enough'; which is exactly what I did, so I don't think so?

Yeah. My family were street preachers, and we travelled and preached throughout my childhood. They told me I was a prophet. Good times.

Edit: am now an atheist

It's difficult to say what was just conforming or if there was at any point genuine belief in the child form of me.

I remember that as a small child I was already confused. I kept asking question like how genesis and the big bang fit together, and how we could know god was listening to any prayers, how it could be true that someone dead was not dead afterwards etc. My parents are religious in a passive European way, but they are okay with playing god of the gaps, so they never lied about the world to me for the benefit of religion.

I did have my first communion event at the age of 8 or 9. I don't think there was any choice by me involved. The ceremony was terribly and embarrassing as hell. But it was just something that we did.

Then came the religious classes that happened after normal classes in secondary school (starting grade 7, age 12) once a week. I remember we had to fill out a worksheet on the topic of the period between the protagonist rising from the dead and ascending and how he visited people in between. One question at the end asked if we believed in this account. I wrote something with a childlike sense of diplomacy. Something like I believed in god but not that a dead person can come back to life as reported here. Nobody ever said anything about that to me though.

Not too long after my mother allowed me to withdraw from the rest of those classes, recognising they were fairly pointless, and not even well done for their goal. A few years later, I think when I was 14 or so, we were invited to begin the "road to our confirmation", which meant attending church a certain number of times and maybe helping out with church activities. I never participated, it was clear to me at this time that I simply wasn't buying any of it.

Around 16 or so I started calling myself an atheist, having become aware of that term. Only at the age of 20 did I finally do the paperwork for formally leaving the catholic church so those child fuckers and their defenders wouldn't get any taxes from me.

Overall I'm leaning to "no"

I mean, I cannot remember how past me has felt about it, but as a child I always went to church ( Christian family ) because my parents made me. Was more of a tradition than anything else, to me. Never had any bad experiences in any church I ever attended, but never felt a spark, as far as I can remember. No connection to any higher being other than man itself.

Damn almost of you seem non-religious. I'd be curious to see lemmy-verse wide census numbers.

I was growing up. I really thought I believed, but never heard a response while praying like others did. Felt unworthy or that something was wrong with me. Later I was held down and had a demon exorcized out of me and that really started the break with my faith. I eventually couldn't deal with the awfulness of the world and how my own life developed despite my faith. Now I suffer from cptsd with strong links to my religious upbringing.

I was raised very Catholic. Old school Roman Catholicism.

I remember praying as a child and I remember what it feels to believe in a deity. It's one of the reasons why I can talk to religious people and build a sense of commonality. I don't try to destroy what they believe in. I know that gives them a sense of safety and company that staves off the loneliness and fear that comes with roaming through this world.

If you had a magical entity that is always with you and you believed that could grant you wishes and keep you safe, would you give that up? If you would is still not easily so.

And that is why attacking the belief itself is a bad idea, because it reinforces the need for it.

I found myself unable to support the logic for it from a very young age and moved on from it.

But in talking to a pantheist, I have a harder time disproving that logic, as it fits with the nature of reality. While I don't consider myself a pantheist, pantheism itself leads me more to agnosticism than atheism.

I find the conversation in relation to theism utterly frustrating because both sides find the absence of proof to be proof itself.

I rather not commit to any logic such as this. As I was once thought to believe in something without proof. Never again.

I even find comfort in saying "I don't know". Not only when I didn't get around to learning something that others did, but in the not knowing.

The universe exists in a contraction of two impossibilities. Nothing and Infinity. As the most fun thing to ruin our brains is trying to imagine an edge of the universe expanding. Expanding? Where to? Nothing? If there's nothing, how is there space for it to expand into? Just as terrible as... it came out of Nothing. Nothing? If there's nothing how can there be cause for something to be? Nothing and Infinity. Probably the same and no way for us to verify any of it.

We're monkey cousins roaming on a geoid trapped in a vacuum lit by a fire bomb that has us circling it until it explodes.

Bringing the idea of a deity into this only makes it weirder not simpler.

And pretending like we really know what the hell is going on, only makes us less sane not more.

No, but my parents insisted on visiting church when I was little. I barfed at a priest after eucharist (it was very hot and their shitty wine just didn't sit well with me), after that incident I never returned there.

Similar to others. Later I realized I don't really care for the theatrical aspects of it and didn't need that baggage to be a good person. Ironically learning about being good to others is part of why I left and why leaving the church is one of the most Christian things to do.

Not really. My mom and step dad were Bahí for a big part of my childhood and I think that the teachings are really nice and I liked the community but I can't say I ever actually belived it. We ended up no longs continuing after we moved.

I tried. I really tried. I could just never "get the Spirit". There are clearly people in church who are feeling something that I just... don't.

So I'll go to church sometimes, but it always feels like I'm faking it.

Eh ... no. Raised lightly Catholic. We went to church on Sundays, none of it made any sense to me, and my parents never talked about it. I never really bought it. I skipped a grade early on, so when all the other kids were seven and I was six, and the class was doing all sorts of magical "getting ready for First Communion" shit, the teacher (an old Sister), made sure to point out every day that I wouldn't be participating.

Six year old me had a real strong sense of justice, and I knew that was wholly unfair, not to mention unkind, calling me out as "different" every single day. The contradiction between that and an "all-loving god" was obvious.

We went to an Anglican church. I was 6-7 and asked where is the god person. I was told you have to believe. I said I will believe when I see it. Never went back. Parents stopped then too, my dad was only an obligatory follower. My mom I found out later was to say the least not impressed with religion. I remain the same over 50 years later.

Early in life. Pulled in by parents, I was forced to attend church but my favorite part about it was eating breakfast after.

Around 15 years old. It was all bullshit and has been ever since. Religion is straight cancer and the biggest grift in history.

Once because of the local culture. Then I said to myself "why do my parents force me to believe when they don't believe themselves?" And later I said "why are christians right and everyone else is wrong?" Fuck culture, make your own, it will be better.

Hmm. I was raised Presbyterian for awhile because I thought my comment of "that's a pretty church" made us go.

Turns out my mother's father was Presbyterian so she heard that, felt guilty, and we went. The...pastor (?) knew mother was Jewish (reclaimed Jewish long story) and she was bringing us to make her father happy. Nice guy. Sprinkled my mother with holy water. Not a euphemism.

Once her father passed she sat us down and explained we were Jewish and we were now going to synagogue and we had to catch up and have a bat mitzvah post haste.

I was never very religious because all that made it feel very silly to me. I think of my self as culturally American Jewish though. I celebrate the food eating holidays lmfao

I had the perfect environment for indoctrination with a monoculture conservative town before the internet, a mother who co-founded her own Baptist church attended every sunday, summer bible camps, voluntold extras like feeding homeless via Mustard Seed, or doing bottle drives for youth groups which I also attended on some weekends.

Never believed at any point. Did keep an open mind to Abrahamic faiths until I was 16 years old when I stopped hiding my atheism and had learned enough to reject any lingering fears of being mistaken. I never learned anything that swayed me towards theism at any point. I'm one of those troublemakers who read the bible on my own with a critical eye and took my notes to the libraries and the internet once it was more accessible especially once I had my own computer and early cable internet in 2004 from paper route money.

Key things in my opinion:

Despite their active faith, my parents weren't helicopter generally besides a few hang-ups. Small town I was out and about on my own with my bicycle most days outside of school to roam the town and river valley entirely unsupervised. I loved building (snow)forts in the woods....and going to the library by myself as a child.

I'm naturally reclusive so I didn't feel social pressures to conform as strongly. I hung out and still do hang out with social outcasts who usually made efforts to befriend me first.

Didn't believe adults at face value even single digit years old, not even my parents.

Natural born critical thinking ability that only sharpened over time.

Parents didn't monitor my personal computer once I bought my own.

A fun memory from when I was 8 years old: Public school assembly first of the new school year. Principal leads a Christian prayer and then everyone sings the national anthem. My new class has a girl who doesn't stand up for prayer. Every single other person in the school assembly of hundreds is standing. I decide to sit down next to her and she smiles at me. The adults don't react outwardly (and never snitched to my parents clearly) so I stay seated from then on. The new girl decides to draw on my back with her fingers and we become friends briefly until she moves away next year :(

😁

Not really. Growing up we always went to church on Sundays because it was my mom who was religious. But to me, I was just going through the motions of routine. Go to church at 9, grocery shopping at 10, go home for family lunch. What I was looking forward to was the occasional eating out for lunch instead of going home immediately.

No.

Religion goes in hansld with dogma. I have a serious conflict with imposition.

In an orthodox fashion, you can fit me under the category "atheist" but I prefer "laic". It is not about if I believe in gods or superior being but that the entire notion is completely irrelevant to me, in my daily life and world view.

I do, however, like to think and often come to the conclusion that I have a fair dose of misticism or spirituality in how I lead my life. I like to think there is a human dimension where we are all equal, where we are able to understand and emphatize with each other and where we transcend our bloated egos and connect with each other on a deeper level.

It may not exist but I feel better when I try to find it and get glimps of it.

No, I don't think that I have.

once… as a treat

My mom sent me to Sunday school and I liked the cookies and lemonade