I and my siblings were also forced to go to church and it was awful. My older brother and I are both Atheists but my younger brother claims to be a Christian though I don't think he has ever read the Bible, I don't think he has ever given it any real thought.

Former evangelical. Left because religious faith did not predict or explain experienced reality. Also to avoid becoming a bitter old man. No god = no god to be mad at / disappointed / confused by. No conflicting claims to resolve. No cognitive dissonance between promised largesse and personal tragedy.

I didn't particularly mind the demands of my religion, so I don't have tales of being "forced" into it. I was actually quite the goody two-shoes, in a way. Even went to a Bible Institute my first year out of high school. The BS just didn't hold true.

Yep. I think my mom just gave up on me going around 16 when I started asking questions that passed her off

My mom decided she needed religion to quit being a mean person, so everyone else had to go with her. It was horrible. Most of the people were nice but completely full of shit. I knew they were feeding me a line of bull at 8. I actually lost a lot of respect for my parents for buying into what I considered stupidity.

I had to go but they didn't care which church. I started refusing to go at age 16 and they dropped it eventually.

I grew up in the South during the 50s and 60s and was forced to attend church. It's just what parents did in that region at that time. I never bought into it and felt like an ass having to kneel down and pray to an Invisible But Omnipresent Sky-Daddy at the same time I was hearing that I was being ridiculous to speculate that there might be life on other planets. My Sunday School teachers hated having me in class because I asked too many questions they couldn't answer. "You have to have faith" never cut it as an explanation to me.

But when I graduated from high school and left for college, I never set foot in a church again, except as a tourist or a wedding/funeral visitor. When my parents asked me if I was still going, they were surprised to hear that I never believed in any of it. I told them they hadn't been listening or paying attention--politely, of course, using "sir" and "ma'am" as I had been raised.

I was a fast learner. I hardly listened to people unless I was reading their phonetics and body language at the same time. When I wasn't allowed to wear what I wanted, when I was dictated how to act, when I was just told to have blind faith, 6-year old me just flipped the switch because I was emotiomally abused. Why listen or follow abusers, right?

I was also made to go.

I just wrote about It yesterday. I hope you enjoy it.How I became a Fundamentalist extremist in my childhood, its affects, and how I got out.

Most of us who grew up in a religious household, were force marched to church. I volunteered to be an usher as a teenager. We would pass the collection plate and then sneak off after the offertory to have a soda and smoke at the local drug store down the street from me church. Sometimes, the sodas were paid for with money gleaned from the plate. We were such angels!