Your upbringing?

Discussion in 'Religion Archives' started by James R, Aug 23, 2003.

?

Which option best describes you?

  1. I had a religious upbringing and I believe in God.

    5 vote(s)
    20.0%
  2. I had a religious upbringing but I am an atheist or agnostic.

    11 vote(s)
    44.0%
  3. I had a non-religious upbringing but I believe in God.

    4 vote(s)
    16.0%
  4. I had a non-religious upbringing and I am and atheist or agnostic

    5 vote(s)
    20.0%
  1. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Another poll. Just interested to know.

    By "religious upbringing" I mean one or more of these kinds of things, for example:

    * you were educated in religion by your parents (who were
    religious).
    * you attended a relgious school
    * you regularly attended church and/or Sunday school.
    * you were given the bible or religious stories to read as a child, or you watched religious TV.

    These examples are not intended to be exclusive.
     
    Last edited: Aug 23, 2003
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  3. Jade Squirrel Impassioned Atheist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    394
    I was raised as a Catholic, so naturally I became an atheist.

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  5. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,346
    From Catholic to Atheist

    I converted to Catholicism as an adult from a not particularly religious upbringing. Now I like to think of it as being a recovering Catholic. Religion, especially Catholicism, is like an addiction. We became co-dependent with the RCC. We've been traumatized by all their lies! Furthermore, our souls have been "molested" by the repetitive brainwashing that we endured.
     
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  7. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Here & there

    My mother was a "holiday" Lutheran, I'm confirmed in one or another of the Lutheran churches in this country, and spent three years at Catholic school.

    While I accept God as a general notion in an anthropsychosociological somethingoranother context, you don't need an anthropomorphic invisible spirit in the sky in order to appreciate, for instance, "God Only Knows".

    The end result is that God is essentially a communal convention, a collective gestalt, and an idea which by human necessity bears practical consequences.

    It is enough to deal with God on this level, and there's no need to paint suicide as a feel-good redemption tale.
     
  8. Medicine*Woman Jesus: Mythstory--Not History! Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    8,346
    Re: Here & there

    Originally posted by tiassa
    ----------
    While I accept God as a general notion...you don't need an... invisible spirit in the sky in order to appreciate, for instance, "God Only Knows".

    The end result is that God is essentially a communal convention, a collective gestalt, and an idea which by human necessity bears practical consequences.

    It is enough to deal with God on this level, and there's no need to paint suicide as a feel-good redemption tale.
    ----------
    (I could still hum the tune, but what beautiful words I had forgotten since the 60s. This song tells me that, ultimately, our innermost soul knows what is good and right for us. It is God's One Spirit that creates us, and we innately know what God has given us. I never really thought that deeply about this song, but it has more meaning to me now than in the 60s.)
    ----------
    (I'm sorry, but I do not understand what you meant when you said..."there's no need to paint suicide as a feel-good redemption tale." Please explain. Thanks.)
     
  9. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    37,884
    Medicine Woman

    One of the symptoms of redemptive religion is that in the end, everybody's rushing toward apocalypse. Only in redemptive religions or else the kind of evil described in Lovecraftian dark fantasy does one look forward to the end of life and the end of the Universe with gleeful anticipation.

    I came across a phrase that hasn't been used much since hyphenated psychospeak went out of vogue, but Christianity, for instance, was described during the Bishop Robinson debate (I so wish I remembered that reference) by a commentator as not being "life-affirming". And it's kind of true; everything that, in and of itself, makes life fun is bad. And while much of this has logical reason, logic was a symptomatic accident of the moral structure. In the end, one trades earthly pleasures--I admit that there is an issue with "life-affirming" versus "life-preserving/extending/prolonging" here--for the benefits that come after death. In other words, this life is a utility to be exchanged for something greater.

    Suicide? That's just me being severe in my depiction of the rush to the grave in order to be risen anew in His Glory.

    (Did you notice the "institutional apocalypse" timed to year 2000? How could you not? We spent over a trillion dollars on it in the US. A computer bug? What an impotent devil .... I guess it beats a nuclear war. But thankfully we don't have to hear from millenarians or premillenarians again for another several hundred years, and nobody takes postmillenarianism seriously; that last is actually a functional definition for the phrase "waiting for God".)

    At any rate, it has more to do with my distaste for the aspirations of redemptionists than it does not drinking the Kool-Aid.
     
  10. James R Just this guy, you know? Staff Member

    Messages:
    39,397
    Again, I think we're seeing a skewed demographic here, but the poll results so far seem to suggest that having a religious upbringing tends to turn people off religion and the whole God idea.

    Hmm...
     
  11. coolsoldier Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    166
    I think the results of this poll represent the demographics of sciforums more than the demographics of religious/nonreligious people. I personally think that people who have had negative experiences with the church are inclined to become nonreligious without giving it much thought, while people who have had positive experiences with the church are inclined to become religious without giving it much thought. Each person should really experiment with both sides of the religious/nonreligious argument, and then really sit down and decide for themselves. I did, and I eventually chose religion, but I think that experimenting with both gave me more respect for the various points of view.
     
  12. Jade Squirrel Impassioned Atheist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    394
    I think that those who grew up with religion and have since rejected it tend to be more impassioned about their infidelity (I am no exception to this, a fact that my sciforums biography will attest to). I also find that those who did not grow up with religion tend to be more passionate about their new-found faith.

    In sciforums, I think the higher proportion in the former category can be explained by the idea that those who have rejected their previous religious background as superstition may have more of a craving to learn about how the universe really does work, which leads them to science. This does, at the very least, explain my individual statistic.
     
  13. coolsoldier Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    166

    This is probably true, but I think that often people change there beliefs solely because of experiences, rather than from objective thought.
    You imply that religion and science are mutually exclusive. IMO you can believe in God and still believe in the principles of science. Science explains "How", Religion explains "Why", and as such, they complement each other if you can get past the belief that the two contradict each other.
     
  14. Jade Squirrel Impassioned Atheist Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    394
    Also probably true, but in my case, a lot of thought went into it.

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    I didn't mean to imply that religion and science must be contradictory. In some cases, however, they are. This was the case in my own personal situation.
     

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