Since people are doing their testimony, I'll go ahead.
I was raised entirely without religion. I grew up in a tiny town with a church on every corner, but my parents were indifferent to it. I have never attended a church service, or even a church wedding or funeral. At the first opportunity I left the small town, and after that I was always in the art world or in academic circles, where it is more common to be an atheist. A demonstrative and practicing religious person would be seen as odd in that world.
Since I never had to reject a Christian upbringing, it has allowed me to learn from the best theological thinkers without getting worked up about talking snakes.
On this forum, an atheist is defined as someone who lacks a belief in God. So it's no problem to lack that belief while also not falling into the belief system on the other side, in which religious people are condemned as unthinking followers, judged in contrast to our own group of superior thinkers.
I was raised entirely without religion. I grew up in a tiny town with a church on every corner, but my parents were indifferent to it. I have never attended a church service, or even a church wedding or funeral. At the first opportunity I left the small town, and after that I was always in the art world or in academic circles, where it is more common to be an atheist. A demonstrative and practicing religious person would be seen as odd in that world.
Since I never had to reject a Christian upbringing, it has allowed me to learn from the best theological thinkers without getting worked up about talking snakes.
On this forum, an atheist is defined as someone who lacks a belief in God. So it's no problem to lack that belief while also not falling into the belief system on the other side, in which religious people are condemned as unthinking followers, judged in contrast to our own group of superior thinkers.
