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What religion does/did your immediate family identify with?

I wonder how much family religiosity has to do with our Atheist/Agnostic religious viewpoint. I'm curious what our backgrounds look like in this regard.

As far as your immediate family goes (those who are actually close to you and deeply connected to your upbringing and daily living throughout your young life-- parents, siblings, grandparents, etc.)-- how religious are/were they overall?

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silvereyes 8 Oct 20
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13 comments

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My husband and I are quite literally the only atheists in our respective families. We're the black sheep and wear it strong.

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Grew up in the Church of Christ in Oklahoma. We went to Sunday School and Church services on Sunday morning and to the evening worships that night, plus prayer meeting on Wednesday evening. My dad would arrange his vacation so the whole family could take part in Vacation Bible School. I got baptized on a Sunday evening when I was 13, only because a cute classmate had been baptized that morning and I wanted to get her attention. I graduated from a Christian College, had led singing at church, was a substitute preacher a few times, chaired a mission study group, and was a big hypocrite most of the time... using religion as a social crutch to help me fulfill other wants and needs. I married a girl who had grown up in the Baptist church. The five or six times we went to church (except for funerals or weddings) during our 30-year marriage, were attending a Methodist congregation. Our daughter had peer pressure in middle school to get active in the Baptist church, but she wasn't interested and is happily agnostic-atheist now and my 11-year-old granddaughter seems to be following in her mom's footsteps.

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My mother was a Jehovah’s Witness. My dad, I don’t know but probably agnostic. Dad never gave my mom any problem with religion and mom didn’t push religion on him. I was raised a JW by my mom and it took till I was almost forty years to get out.

gearl Level 8 Oct 30, 2017
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Looks like I'm the first one to vote for "Completely and openly non-theist". Not surprised though. In school, we were sort of instructed to worship our government and their ideology instead of a god. I used to think that's worse than worship a god involuntarily. Now I'm not sure.

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I was raised Presbyterian by devout but liberal parents. My father was a minister in church administration until his retirement. My elder brother stopped believing in God around age 12 or maybe earlier; one of my sisters has been quite devout (but liberal) Prebyterian all her life. My other two sisters were non-religious for a good chunk of their lives, but I believe that they're both Presbyterians now. I became devout around age 12 under the influence of my closest sister, but I left the faith at age 22. For a little while there, four out of five of us were non-believers, but the two sisters went back. Oh well. We all accept one another. I'm closest to my devout sister and my atheist brother, so, you see, religious affiliation is of little consequence in our family.

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My father had no time for religion. My mother was trying to find herself and save me from who knows what so she tried out different churches like it was an ongoing trend or sorts. Drove me nuts. I finally got away from it all after my dad passed at a very young age.

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My family is a mix. While both my sister and I were raised Catholic by our parents we became non-believers. I am a pretty strong atheist and skeptic while my sister still believes in some supernatural hooey but doesn't believe in a god/s. Both of our parents identify as Catholic. My dad is a very strong Catholic but my mom is actually more of a liberal, New-age Christian who only calls herself Catholic because that is how she was raised and to "keep the calm" with my dad. Surprisingly, I think my dad's beliefs are more as to why I am an atheist while I know my mom's beliefs are why my sister still believes in some supernatural things.

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The public schools were not very good in NY and my non practicing parents sent me to Catholic school. I became an atheist and my parents and two sisters followed.

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I grew up in a Seventh Day Adventist minister's family,. It was the daily dose of BS, that gave me my
healthy Scepticism.

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I am the luckiest person I know. My parents are deeply religious with unwavering faith in Hinduism. Growing up I was taught “this is what we believe” and not “this is how it is”.

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We were hard core Roman Catholics who went to church every Sunday, sometimes as a family, and would celebrate religious holidays together.

SamL Level 7 Oct 20, 2017
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Both of my parents would have identified as religious/Christian, but growing up, neither of my parents went to church, and luckily I was never forced into it. My extended family however, are all practicing Christians, and attend church regularly. I'm pretty lucky in that I'm from the bible belt, with an extended family who are all practicing, and none of my relationships with them have been majorly effected. A few of them pushed pretty hard to convince me I was wrong, when they first learned I was an atheist. But eventually they gave up on trying, thankfully. It's so annoying being invited to church weekly, and being told I just haven't been introduced to god by the right church... as if I just haven't given religion any thought. I'd say it's completely the other way around, but whatever.

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I grew up in an extremely theistic family. And they continue to be to this day. It's rare for a week to go by that my mother doesn't try to convert me back over to Christianity. (I was theistic for 32 years myself)

My family was mixed: Mormon and apostate. I was the last in my family, besides my mom, to leave. I had hoped that i could convert the rest of my family, if i majored in Religious Studies. I lost my faith in the first semester of my Masters Program. She is the best kind of Mormon. I understand why she still stays... but i am thankful that she has negotiated her belief with some of the views the rest of my family has shared with her. I am most proud that she is pro-LGBTQ. None of my direct family members have been LGBTQ... but the rest of us have been activist allies for their rights. My mother has marched in Pride, along with my atheist ex-mo dad, for the past two years. She is a maverick, and I love her for it. I lost my faith, but tried to do my part and stay, and change the church from the inside. When the LDS CHurch announced their policy, to forbid children to advance in the LDS CHurch, if they had gay parents... this was too much for me. I didn't believe it before then, but i still identified with the culture and was optimistic. I essentially excommunicated myself by formally resigning from the church.

My story is pretty standard. I grew up with a love of science. Many people would like to claim that science and religion are compatible. But at the end of the day they're just not. Is it possible there is a God? Sure. But there's no good reason to believe that. I don't want to change my entire way of living and in some cases actually harm people on the basis of the fairytale.

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