Childhood Experiences with atheists?

[abaris]

Other than religion not being part of my upbringing, I have no experiences. My parents weren't atheists, but my father found it much more important to get me into reading books and make me interested in science than the bible.

But I remember when having a jewish and a muslim classmate at primary school, that I was pitying them, for not going to heaven. And most of all, for not getting christmas gifts.

[Pat Mustard]

I was taught to eat babies from a very young age, and have thus been an atheist my entire life.

It's a toddler eat baby kind of world all right.

[Cecelia]

When I was a kid, I didn't even know there was such thing as Atheists. I thought there were only Jews and Christians, and that Jews were bad and hated Christmas.

[Mr Greene]

I have been atheist since at least age 7.
Despite going to Catholic primary school I doubt anyone in my class was a believer, we merely went through the motions as it were.
Towards the end of secondary school a couple of classmates started going to church having been co-opted by a youth club run by the same, however that doesn't seem to have stuck and they abandoned it again after going to Uni/work.
It's quite rare to see anyone other than OAPs going to church here and most are closing.

[robvalue]

I didn't even know what an "atheist" was until I was in my teens. We had a load of religious bullshit at our schools, but none of the kids seemed to take any of it seriously. We all seemed to view it as some weird mad ritual adults like doing.

[brewer]

As far as I know I never ran into an adult atheist. Several of my classmates probably were but we never talked religion. The ones that did the "god speak" were ostracized, at least from the crowd I hung out with. The god kids didn't drink, have sex or do mind altering chemicals. They just weren't fun.

[Whateverist]

My mother's only brother was an atheist. We loved him a lot growing up. When I first heard he was godless I thought "what an ingrate". I imagine theists have a similar reaction. Hard to say what if any influence that had on my exodus. But it was definitely useful to know one. Even in high school I felt like I was the only one. Once I started picking my own company that changed.

[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.

[Excited Penguin]

Rarely heard about or met any atheists, and only as I got in my teens. I remember once being in a cemetery near a church on a school expedition and one guy from my class saying it was all bullshit, talking about the church, religion or God, I'm not so sure. I was a little shocked but found him more intriguing for it. Later I found out he wasn't actually an atheist, if my memory serves correctly. Other than that, not much, except the atheist who kick-started my deconversion, also a classmate of mine, this time a girl. Her I found fascinating for it too, even before I became an atheist myself.

[Excited Penguin]

I still find atheists to be cooler than the average believer, for some reason. I'm not sure how "politically correct" that is, not that I give a fuck.