I didnt have that pressure irreligious family I had a friend when I was in my forties who told me that she was part of the 'We free's' and on Sunday they went 3 times to church adn at home had to sit in their best starchy frocks and read the bible all day - Sounds hellish!

Sunday school seems like a unique punishment. School on a Sunday is punishment enough, and then to fill your head full of things that are completely and obviously illogical and fantastical. Ugh! Insults children’s intelligence and wastes their valuable playtime.

Sounds familiar.

I figured church was just a mind game some adults invented to try to control children.
At the time, I assumed all adults grew up and figured out religion was not based on reality. Sadly, I was wrong assuming all adults grew up.

My most pressing memories of mandatory church was having to sit, my head not hight enough to see above the silver and gray ocean of hair and wigs of the elderly masses that filled the pews, and trying to find pockets of air not totally saturated with a combination of cheap perfume, rank deodorant, and the putrid stench of ill-kept hygiene of the masses who, long ago, had lost their sense of smell.

My dad and mom went to church sporadically. But, being practical people, they realized that church took time away from running my dad's newspaper delivery business. That, and that it cost money to become church members.

My family was unique. My grandfather was an atheist. My dad was an agnostic. My mother was a nebulous type who, when she wasn't passed out from drinking, called herself a christian. My sister was hindu. My aunt converted from lutheranism to catholicism because the man she married was catholic. My cousin was a catholic priest. My other uncle was a diehard the devil in Rome protestant.

When we got together for the holidays, my cousin would deliver his standard anti abortion lecture, which, when my other uncle wasn't there, we would just sit and act like it hadn't happened.

But when my other uncle was there, then the magic happened. Picture two seven years olds arguing over which was less disgusting: vomit or feces, and you have a good idea what their arguments were like. I'd sit back, relax, and enjoy myself immensely. The arguments always ended in a draw, with ruffled feathers on both sides.

Wait you had to go with you siblings - but did you parent(s) attend?

This seems even worse than usual to me.

Or a plot by your parents to get you all out of the house at once - under supervision. (I think I just explained why religion is a "thing"?

I was made to go so hated it at 4 years old.

I was brought up by one intellectual spiritual type and one atheist. Mum is the atheist and I am so pleased neither of them were into doctrinal institutional religion.

I’m sorry.

My parents kep t threatening "god would punish me" when I was five-that did it till I denounced god at my confirmation from Sunday School.