Who's your daddy?

[IATIA]

I see there is one 'Never' in the poll. Lucky them.

[Longhorn]

I envy people who can say 'never'

[IATIA]

Fortunately my religious environment was benign. Not as good as never by any means but not bad. I know some that have literally had it beat into them and I do not know if they ever can think for themselves again. I was too young to do anything about it then and today would be a lost cause.

[abaris]

I can't vote never, but it never had an influence on my life.

I grew up in a Catholic household, for lack of a better word, where I saw the inside of a church every Easter and Christmas. Both grandfathers were secular jews. The one I knew, since the other one died in 1936, prefered the insides of pubs to those of synagogues. His favorite dish was roast pork and off an on he used to sing me dirty song he learned in the trenches of WWI.

So no big spiritual influence there either.

As for my grans, I couldn't even say what they were. At least they never talked to me about god.

[Dystopia]

I think the answer never fits my experience closer - I did believe for a few years when I was a very small kid but I never strongly believed and always had some kind of inner skepticism. I was also never sent to religious education/school so not believing is a natural result.

[Iroscato]

Never, at least from my parents who were both openly atheist. At my primary school we sang hymns and religious-themed songs in assembly, which makes me think how much more secular the UK seems to be compared to even 10-15 years ago when I was at primary school.
Maybe it's still done in most schools, I wouldn't know. There was also a fairly strong emphasis on teaching about the Jesus myth around Christmas and Easter, but apart from that it was pretty hands-off in regards to religious teaching.

[Cato]

'Other' seemed to be the best choice. I gave up the ghost when I was 8. My mother knew, but always encouraged any intellectual pursuits. She admitted later that for the first couple years she considered it just a phase. My mother was Catholic so I had to attend mass with the rest of the family. I also had to complete catechism through CCD until confirmed. 

This means it is difficult for me to say I was ever Christian; however, I did grow up in a liberal Catholic household. Mom would come unglued if someone suggested the Bible be taken literally (always a good show). 

[Chad32]

I was raised christian. We were kind of a liberal to moderate group, and sometimes I'd switch between the methodist and baptist churches. There weren't many differences, besides the way they baptized you.

I grew up thinking everyone who was good worshiped god. I believe in hell, but only as a place that bad people went, so I wasn't worried about going there. It wasn't until later that I heard of the idea that we all go there by default, and have to beg god not to send us there. I also believed that Jesus and Yahweh were different people entirely, because Jesus acts like they're different people.

In the old testament Yahweh says there is none beside him. Jesus is his son. This heavily implies that Jesus didn't exist before Mary gave birth. He also tells a guy that only god is good, and even explicitly excludes himself from his definition of goodness. he mentions there are things Yahweh knows that he doesn't. He tells Yahweh that he'd rather not be crucified, but he'll do what he's told.

As I grew up I gained a better understanding of right and wrong, and realized that the core belief of christianity is wrong. an innocent person being brutally killed for the crimes of the guilty, to be sent to eternal hellfire if they don't accept that. So now I'm an atheist. I thought about becoming a buddhist because it values actions over words, and believes in reincarnation. Although apparently you're not supposed to want to be reincarnated. Someone also pointed out some problems with that once, and it's not quite the happy feelgood philosophy that I originally thought.

Since my community was so insular, I really didn't have any experience with other beliefs outside the internet, so I just settled on atheism.

[abaris]

My mother knew, but always encouraged any intellectual pursuits.

The encouraging part was part of my upbringing too. Especially when it came to my father, who was a car mechanic by trade and ran a couple of shops and held several patents for motor parts. He couldn't attend university because of the war and emigration interfering, but was greatly interested in everything scientific. Especially cosmology, history and technics. When i was a child, I spent more time at museums and archeological dig sites than in Disney movies. And I loved it. But it also interfered with my potential for believing in supernatural woo. I saw the gigantic dinosaur skeletons at the Vienna museum of natural history and my father explained to me that they lived millions of years ago. So the Adam and Eve story was kind of out of the window before I even went to school.

[Britney blue]

Good thread. I was raised in a Christian family. We went to church, but we weren't hard core church goers. We were strong believers though, and I can't say my fondest memories were in the church but honestly do miss the community, that togetherness. I didn't think for myself until I was around, I don't know, 25 - 28. But the age of 33 is when I realized I was an atheist, and what a relief. No more guilt. A new freedom, I was in heaven LOL. I'll never forget that moment when I did in-fact "realize" I didn't believe in God. I was in bible study of all places... to keep the story short; I kept telling myself "I really really don't believe in God anymore?, over-whelmed". For so long it was everything to me, it was huge. And then all of sudden I got really scared because I didn't know what I was going to do. My heaven came crashing down on me pretty quickly, for a while at least, maybe two months; and then one day like so many others I went searching. I don't remember what I was searching for but I found videos on YouTube. Atheist experience, and as you expect Matt Dillahunty. And a lot of other wonderful atheists too. Now I'm rushing to soak up that knowledge and develop critical thinking skills I was robbed of. I felt like a victim. Religion sucks. So now I talk with Christians online everyday trying to reason with them and it's fun. Oh yeah, I'm the only one in my family who is an atheist.