No, I had to pray but I was allowed to pray however I wanted. I used to be really scared that my family would die so I used to pray for them and it would comfort me. Foolish child.

My father's family was Southern Baptist and I were raised in that tradition as a small child. But his alcoholism led to divorce and my mother, being non-religious, ceased that practice. I do not recall ever taking prayer literally. It was more a "may I be excused" before leaving the dinner table sort of thing, i.e. just the rules of the house, a chant that marked the end of the day.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
And if I die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my toys will break.
So none of the other kids can use 'em....
Amen.”

Oh, I had a litany of prayers I said at night, including "now I lay me down to sleep," and my mother terrorized me with tales of the devil lurking in the shadows, ready to pounce and steal my soul during the night if I failed to say my prayers and take them seriously. Fun times.

What scared me was God wasn't listening. My dad was abusive and I prayed for years for him to stop yelling at me and stop hitting me, and I wanted him to just go away or die. I told my grandparents how he was (they were the ones who took us to church every week) and all I would get was a lecture on how I had to honor my parents because that is what God wanted. I told anybody that would listen, but it was the 70's and nobody cared. Heck, Grandpa was a pedophile and a deacon in our church. Finally I decided it was God's will for monsters to do their thing, and then everything made a bit more sense - God was listening, he just felt whatever purpose his monsters served was more important than a child's pleas. And so it remains in Trump's concentration camps, although I'm sure there are some conservative Christians who will try to "save" those children by telling them that shit is God's will too.

For me it was just words

I was raised Lutheran, our nightly prayer was the Lord's Prayer, so no, not really. We didn't have much religious art around our house, but my grandparents did, and I was never comfortable with that imagery, something about it seemed morbid and depressing.

I was taught this prayer. Didn't really scare me more than the other scary shit thats in the Bible. I mean, I heard all the bible stories they don't suger coat that stuff much because they want you to be scared and repent. After all, I was always told that children are much faster to commit to God than adults are. If you were scared. That was probably the point.

thank god my parents never mentioned god ,

Yes! We were taught that same prayer as children. What were parents thinking, putting children to sleep with "if I die before I wake" as the last thought before climbing into bed.

Terrified the hell out of me