How religious were you before departing

Undergod

I was very religious as a child. I would pray every day, served as an altar boy for two years. Right up into my teens I had a strong faith. I began to question around 15 or so. My main issues were

- If I had been born in some other part of the world or in another family, I would have been given another faith and told to trust in that. I couldn't find anything objective to hold onto in Catholicism.
- St. Paul was a horrible person, some of his readings disgusted me
- I realized a lot of my faith was based in fear- I was scared of being punished for disbelief. As a young child I got a lovely Doring Kindersley Illustrated Children's Bible for my First Communion. The bit in the book of revelations about the lake of fire where sinners would be kept for all eternity flat-out terrified me.

I kept going to Mass till I was about 18 for its sort of ritual signfigance. I think it can be good for people to have that sort of reflective downtime, and I think it can be good in a community sort of way. The trouble begins when people actually listen to the readings and think about what they mean.
I don't feel angry at the church or at any of my religious educators for that fear I felt as a child, either. It wasn't a deliberate attempt to scare the God into me, it was just I read something that I was a bit too young to fully understand.

1sittingduck

Undergod wrote: »

I was very religious as a child. I would pray every day, served as an altar boy for two years. Right up into my teens I had a strong faith. I began to question around 15 or so. My main issues were

- If I had been born in some other part of the world or in another family, I would have been given another faith and told to trust in that. I couldn't find anything objective to hold onto in Catholicism.
- St. Paul was a horrible person, some of his readings disgusted me
- I realized a lot of my faith was based in fear- I was scared of being punished for disbelief. As a young child I got a lovely Doring Kindersley Illustrated Children's Bible for my First Communion. The bit in the book of revelations about the lake of fire where sinners would be kept for all eternity flat-out terrified me.

I kept going to Mass till I was about 18 for its sort of ritual signfigance. I think it can be good for people to have that sort of reflective downtime, and I think it can be good in a community sort of way. The trouble begins when people actually listen to the readings and think about what they mean.
I don't feel angry at the church or at any of my religious educators for that fear I felt as a child, either. It wasn't a deliberate attempt to scare the God into me, it was just I read something that I was a bit too young to fully understand.

Heya Undergod, I can identify with a little of what you said...

Some differences: practicing Catholic, struggling with scruples at times but quite happy to be where I am.

But, particularly in relation to your childhood fears about the visions of hell in the Book of Revelations, I'm quite similar. Mind you, I came across the more heavy duty material later than you (aged 11 or 12)...or, at least, that was when I started focusing on it. To be honest, it's hard to ignore those descriptions. I'm really surprised, though, that they were in your children's Bible - as far as I can remember, only the happy parts about the New Jerusalem and Heaven were included in the Bible at school. And I had a look at another children's Bible recently enough and no mention of a lake of fire there either. I personally think that's fine...sure, small kids learn about both Heaven and hell, but there's a different dosage for children and adults.

About St. Paul...may I ask what was it that he said that annoyed you? Admittedly, I've had issues with bits of what he said as well. Researching and asking people about it has helped, and while I can't say that I know all of his writings quite well, I do know that context is an important part of understanding it (i.e., who was he writing to and how does it apply today).

As for being born to another family in a different location...another thing that crossed my mind on occasion when I was twelvish. I probably didn't give as much thought as you! But what religion we're born into doesn't really matter if we grow up enough to start examining our faith continuing beyond the context of what we know as kids. And we must examine it. Otherwise, in the line of another poster, we don't really know what we really "believe". And if we don't know what we "believe", do we really believe it?

However, I'm sure that what I propose in terms of "examination" differs from other posters' understanding of it in this case; namely, I believe that examination of the teachings of the Church is best done with the aid of writings by people who have a grasp of what the teachings mean and where they come from. It's important to look at things from this angle because it provides answers from those who have committed a large part of their lives to studying the Bible, tradition, and how Church teaching relates to them. Even more intriguing are the writings of people like (Cardinal) John Henry Newman, an Anglican minister who became a Catholic. You have an explanation of why they changed their former beliefs.

Anyway, that's enough from me for now. I hope I didn't come across as arrogant or the like. I know I don't meet the "criteria" for posting here but, meh, I thought I had something semi-relevant to say.

Flamed Diving

Unless you count a child of 5-10 believing in God as something that you do once a week and are kinda scared of in case you get sent to hell, but then grow out of it, literally like a belief in Santa... then no, I never really believed at all.

token56

I'm not exactly sure I was ever a very strong believer in that catholic faith. I was fairly strongly influenced as a child but never felt an urge to actively take part in more than was necessary such as alter service etc. Up until I was about 13 probably our family were relatively strong practicing catholics. Went to mass every week, went to confession, said prayers every night all the usual. My father did after all initially go to train to become a priest after he left school, but left this, the reason for this was not because of his lack of faith but for a whole other story which is not important really. But I really just went along with all really, I was never that impressed by the idea and just did all the religious things because it was what the family did. As a child you dont have to authority to say I'm not going to mass etc. All schools I went to were also very religious being run by religious orders.

But around when I was 13 several events happened within the family which lead to a change in circumstances really. The relevance to this is that it meant the family stopped going to church every week, stopped saying prayers at night etc. And anyway as we the children grew up we were becoming more independent, felt the whole saying prayers thing together as a bit childish etc. This is not to say though that the rest of family did and does not still have strong faith in god and the catholic church.

But around this age when I didn't have the same religious influence I was also learning more and more in school, and becoming more and more inquisitive. I am very inquisitive by nature and never like to just accept the things I'm told, I'm always asking questions, whether it is in work, school, college etc. This was developing more and more during my early-mid teens but I never really thought properly about religion or questioned it etc because religion was no longer such a big part of my family life.

Thinking about it now, it wasn't until I began to suffer from depression in my late teens that I began to think about and question the sort of stuff religion teaches you about your origin, your purpose etc. My depression was not because of these issues but I did begin to think about them a lot more during this time. I came to the conclusion that I never really did believe in any deity or afterlife etc and not just the catholic opinion of these. And it took a while but I made peace with the idea that this life is all there is. This did eventually also help with my depression but was not a defining moment with it. (This might sound like some teenager angry with world decides he hates everything and there is no God, but trust me it was nothing like that at all).

After making that conclusion myself I have in the past few years took a much greater interest in the subject of religion, our origins, life etc (I guess I have a particular interest in the catholic side of it because it is what I was raised as). I have been actively researching all sides of this learning more and more and becoming happier in the conclusion I have made and I enjoy thinking about it and learning more about all aspects of it.

My only regret is that my family probably think I believe in God etc as I have never discussed this with them. Why, well partly because it has never been an issue so far, but I know it eventually will be. Also because I dont think they could understand the conclusion I have come to, but I would hope they would respect my decision, although I'm sure they would not be happy about it. My parents are strong believers, my two sisters have not thought about it I can imagine and are happy to continue believing. The rest of my family aunts, uncles, etc would probably be even stronger believers. Our wider family dynamics are such that we are all close, we interact and see each other quite a lot. I'm probably wrong in thinking they wouldn't understand it, but I would be hopefully they could.

Anyway thats my story

smokingman

I was also an altar boy back in the day. I remembered the bible stories quite well in primary school but I treated them the same as the ones about Fionn McCool etc. i.e. never put much thought into thinking they were in any way real stories but my imagination loved playing them through with loads of special effects. :rolleyes:
In secondary school I was always avoided by the nuns running the place 'cause I asked "silly" questions too much; questions like "surely no one could last that long inside a whale and live" and "if these are not exact accounts of what happened then surely they're classed as fairy-tales?", etc etc.

In college I read a lot of philosophy and got very interested in all religions, their belief structures, what was sacred, what wasn't. I enjoyed reading about them because well, they're stories that have been honed to produce a specific moral tale over thousands of years and they'd want to be good yarns after all that tweaking.

I don't have anything against religion or religious people as it does seem to be a pillar of strength for those that do believe and if it helps them through tough times, I'm all for it. What I do have issue with though is where a religion tries to lie outright about something (like creation/passing off fables as fact etc).

I will never believe in any kind of spaghetti monster myself though as I feel I'm even more of a spiritual person without it. Funny thing is, I'm the middle son and we middle sons have traditionally been the ones that go into priesthood back in the day.

So looking back, I don't think I was ever really religious - it was just a hobby forced on me by society at large really.

doctoremma

Catholic mother, Anglican father, both non-practicising except in times of need. Baptised Catholic. A few bedtime stories about Jesus. Secular primary schooling. Rushed through communion at 10 years when my parents realised that all the secondary schools in my area were rubbish apart from the Catholic one. One of the few who refused confirmation ("If I'm old enough to make a full commitment to god, I'm old enough to know I don't want to") and was proud to be named in a school assembly as a heathen. Fair to say, parents less proud although always supportive, even deflecting the priests who regularly visited our house to talk me into it. Often booted out of RE for asking contrary questions ("But HOW could Mary have conceived without sperm?").

In short, I never believed. At school, I was deemed a lost cause at an early age. To be completely fair, once the teachers realised that I wasn't haven't any of it, they stopped trying. I liked them better after that and became "friends" with a few when I was bit older and could go to pubs and stuff.

ChemOC

The most religious I ever was was wen my ex skipped a period and we thought she was pregnant. I prayed fairly F-ing hard. She wasn't pregnant, just stress or something like that.

Even back then I realized that there was no God but on the off chance that there was one I prayed. I now think that I was quite sick to ask God to kill an embryo that as it turns out wasn't there. But hey!

Dades

That's like the suburban version of the "No Atheists in Foxholes" claim. :pac:

Pushtrak

For me, the family had the saturday mass thing, and thinking back, I can not recall a time where I would not be asking questions during it. "But that doesn't make sense..." and other such questions. This extended to any encounters with religion I had even at a very young age.

In primary school, the nearby school had a thing to get people to be altar boys. The priests gave us a sign up thing or something we had to bring home. Once my parents found out, well if there was an equation, choice wasn't in it. I think the parents convinced me under threat of taking the vidja games. I'm guessing I was 10 then, though I can't be sure. If memory serves, I managed to get out of it pretty quickly. Perhaps I even questioned the priests on things they didn't want to answer, but my memory isn't what it ever was.

I remember though, not wanting to go to mass, and trying to come up with schemes to avoid having to go. Again, unsure on age, but friends in my area and I would pretend we'd go on the sunday, but instead we just hid somewhere and smoked. On however many years now, they aren't exactly religious, but they probably have an "acceptance" on the idea of there being a God.

I think my problem with religion was not liking being shown it at such a young age. I'm not the most religiously knowledgeable person out there, but I have looked more in depth into things like Catholicism, Buddhism, Wicca, Har Krishna... Though, no matter what I was looking into, I had an awareness that religion oughtn't be, "Oh, I can live my life closest to this" it should come from an actual belief that said deity exists. And I really don't think I'll ever get to that point.

The more I learn about things that are unrelated even to religion on any basis, trying to insert the existence of God, it just feels a disjointed concept. Its like putting something square shaped into a circular hole. Maybe I should have gone the other way around, and have given the religious circular argument another frame of reference.

rubensni

I was an altar boy and made a small fortune from weddings. I became a Deist in secondary school, then agnostic. Finally "came out" as an atheist when I was 22 and realised that what I was going around calling agnosticism was known as atheism to the lay man. Credit due to Bertrand Russel for clearing that up for me.