What kills me is how much hypocrisy I see around the whole issue, my mother never did more than say, "I was raised in the 7th Day Adventist church - she never went, never Attempted to live by the purity-principles - until she started feeling her mortality, around 60 or so. My cousin, at 18 - 27, biggest pot-head you could know, got married, had kids, now he's a 'youth minister' and big tRump-ster (which I guess he doesn't realize, his mixed-kids - half-mexican, half-white, have to be seeing this political self-immolation as a little damaging to their relationship - they're almost adults, 15-16, and must know how DonnieRacist-Dirtbag describes Mexicans, do you think that would be a strain in your family??) Accckkk, Religion, stricltly for the logically weak and curiosity-stunted..

My childhood was HORRIBLE....beatings, verbal abuse, etc, although my mother could convince you that sugar was under her tongue! SHE is the one who forced me to attend the local Southern Baptist Church (where I was vilified because I had put my bibble on the floor!) I was about 8 years old and had no idea what I'd done to be picked out of a large group for humiliation.
As you said...my childhood experience didn't really effect my theism/lack of faith in any way. As a "battered child," I learned to rely on my wits to survive and.....that's how it happened. Haven't you noticed that "THE GODLY" always try to "blame" our atheism on something other than pure intelligence?

From someone who had a difficult childhood as well, I never seem to get that kind of question. Of course I keep my religious or rather lack of religious beliefs to myself. I will add that my difficulties were more of a familial type. Nothing related to religion. I will also add that I was never religious and my dad never pushed it. He was also atheists. So that helped I suppose.

In most cases we represent the step they're afraid to take. In the back of their minds there's doubt and those questions but questioning the holy word is a sin We're the rebels they really want to be but are scared to admit it... well there's a lot of Jesus freaks too...

It's different in England, most people look at religious people with a distrusting eye, but in general the folk could not care less what you believe or don't for that matter. But I have been in a position when working with a Lady from Africa she asked me if I attended church and when I explained where I stood on that particulour matter she was to say the least perplexed and was in shock, she had never met anybody like me, you know "A bloody Heathen". Needless to say she has given me a wide berth ever since, her loss !

It is often assumed that I am still searching for what to believe, and that I will eventually "come around" to believe what they do.

As for freaking people out, consider that for centuries, the church had the power to torture and kill nonbelievers, as well as take their land and leave their families with nothing, just on the mere suspicion that they might be nonbelievers. Because of this, it is deeply ingrained in Western culture that you have to believe, or you could be in grave danger. Of course, today, people usually dont' think back that far to realize that this is what drives their fear for you and your soul. They do it because they care, whether that care is misguided or not.