Childhood Experiences with atheists?

[paulpablo]

Have any of you had any experiences with atheists as children? If so, what did you think of them?

How many of you have been atheists since childhood?

Personally, I never really did, or at least not atheists who were vocal about it. I grew up Catholic in Minnesota. Many of my friends and family friends were Catholic, Lutheran/mainline protestant with a few jews and (fewer) evangelicals thrown in as well.

To the extent I knew about atheists I thought they were sad,mean and unhappy people who just hated God and were selfish.

I realize that was a mistaken asssumption.

I didn't really get the whole "atheism" thing until college where I met a number of atheist (or at least agnostic) people and began researching the topic more.

Although Im not an actual atheist, Im something of an agnostic with one foot in the RCC and one foot out of it. I don't really get the whole "why would a good God allow suffering" question and the various answers I've received never really were able to explain the really atrocious things that happen to people, and why the "free will" of the victims of the atrocities is rarely honored.

So.. thoughts/experiences?

I'm pretty sure a few of my friends were on the side of disbelief and not taking religion seriously when I was around 10 years old.

I have a memory of some of my friends drawing a picture of Freddy Kruger in school and cellotaping it to a chair getting on their knees and bowing and praying before it and saying they were going to worship him from now on, my thoughts at the time were wow it's crazy they dare to do that, I think I didn't believe in god much but I didn't have the balls to start worshipping freddy kruger either haha, even if it was a joke.