How do you feel about your childhood experience of religion?

[nomorespaghetti]

Growing up in the 90s I went to a very white C of E primary, went to church & Sunday school, but we weren’t super religious at home. As a child I didn’t get a lot of comfort from Christianity, my main takeaway from the experience was that god knew everything I thought, and I should be ashamed of basically everything I did/thought, and I would go to hell if I wasn’t “good”.

When I was maybe 8 or 9 my mum mentioned that some people believe different things, and some people don’t believe in god at all. It was an absolute revelation - I never knew that was an option! It took me a while to accept that I didn’t believe (and a lot of guilt/shame), but basically I realised I was an atheist.

My kids are having a very different experience. Me and DH are both atheist. Kids school is not a faith school, and around 75% Muslim children. We’ve talked a lot about why different people observe different festivals, and DD7 knows more about Ramadan, Eid, Diwali than e.g. Easter. I’ve explained that daddy and me don’t believe in god and we don’t have a religion, lots of other people have different religions, and that they can decide when they are grownups if they want to join a religion or not. We celebrate Easter and Christmas as spring and winter festivals, not religious festivals.

I overheard DD saying to her friend last week that she doesn’t have a religion or believe in god (friend was a bit shocked and came to check with me that she’d heard right!) I’m really glad she doesn’t seem to have the guilt/shame hangups that I did as a child.

It made me think a lot about how Christianity being taught as fact to me at school as a child was really not good for me. I’m interested to know other people’s experiences of religion in childhood, and how they’ve influenced them as adults, or how you feel about those early experiences now?

I had a very happy and positive Catholic upbringing.

Loving, warm nuns who always gave us children chocolate treats and a priest who was always kind to us at Sunday school.

I barely had one. My mother’s a lapsed Catholic and my waste-of-space father alternated between Methodism and alcoholism. My godparents (Methodists) gave me a few kids’ books, and in those days RE sessions still took place in State primary schools, but it was all very minor stuff, the Parables and the like. All I remember is being annoyed I never got to put the pictures on the board (those printed figures on a black velvet cloth, anyone remember those?) and wondering why the Catholic kids went off to another room while it was on. Religion played no real part in my life; I would say I was culturally Christian, as were most Australians in the 60s and 70s, but that was about it for me.

I went to a bog standard school that did the usual religious assemblies with lots of hymn singingbut not overly heavy on religion

I started going to Sunday School at what I think was a Pentecostal church and it was such a lovely warm welcoming place when I wasn't happy at home. I ended up going to evening service as well. I went for a few years until we moved away.

I got such a shock when I went to a CofE church and I've never really gone again

I’m content in my religiosity. Catholic by birth, semi practicing attended nice RC schools most of my life.
My mom was also raised RC, and thanks to a love of history explained things in a historical/political perspective which to this day I appreciate.
I’ve found prayer really helpful/therapeutic, and believe my life has been blessed in many ways.

I was raised in a Christian family and was forced to go to church every Sunday until I turned 18. Went to a Christian secondary school. I do have fond memories of the fun church things we did as children but resent my teen years where I started forming my own opinions but had no choice but to comply or be punished. My parents blindly went along with whatever their pastor told them at the time. Every new church they joined contradicted the last and there was just no consistency. I did try church on my own terms in adulthood but it still was not for me. I love my parents and respect their religion, I just wish they had not forced it on us as kids. I encourage my children to respect all religions and explore them as they wish. I would have no problem ferrying them to church of a sunday if that interested them but im staying out of it.

Like a lot of posters on where I went to a very white, c of e village primary school. The secondary school I went to was much more diverse, loads of Muslim kids. My parents weren't particularly religious, we celebrated Christmas, but more from a cultural perspective than a religious one.

I do remember thinking around the age of ten that I just didn't believe all the religious stuff and basically have been an atheist ever since. It's just a cushion for a lot of people.

I do judge people who are religious. But I understand the benefits: community etc. But I do think they are minor to the trouble it generally causes. Specially for women

Hard core Roman Catholic with church most Sundays where I was not allowed to go to Sunday school with the other kids - I had to sit and listen to the mass - and every Friday with my Roman Catholic school with hymn practice the day or so prior to that.

And then there was my dad who told me it was all bollocks and joked he would be struck by lightening if he went near a church.

Catholic -saved my life 🤗

Brought up in a non practising Christian family, mother was Irish, father English and dad not very religious but mum was. To the point she would attend holy communion and worship pictures and statues which is actually not allowed in the bible. They were alcoholics so not like stretch following religious folk but still kept a belief. I always believed in God but something didn't sit right with me with Christianity. As I grew up, I attended a different church on my own as a teenager and got quite fed up of every single Sunday is worship Jesus, Jesus is god/king/saviour and son of God. I had people telling me they would pray for me in tongues and then scream into my face.
I then stopped attending church and decided just to keep up faith and prayer at home. I was also wanting to meet someone and settle down and I prayed God, let me find a good and religious man and settle down. A week later I met the most handsome man in the world. He said he is Muslim, no problem I am Christian and open minded, I have friends who are Muslim and so on.
He then taught me about Islam which made so much sense to me. I preferred the quran teaching of Jesus and that he IS NOT SON OF GOD OR GOD. how can he be both. How can Jesus be God when the Bible clearly says you will not have any other God's besides me. Also, the bible says God cannot be a man. Also the Bible says Jesus said DO NOT WORSHIP ME, DO NOT PUT ME HIGHER THAN MY FATHER.
the bible also says Jesus was tempted by the devil and that he referred to woman as dogs and said he will split families up. To me, reading in the quran Jesus was a prophet and messenger made more sense and that the bible has several inconsistencies .
I also liked the quran says to treat animals like humans and be kind to them, and be kind to your Muslim and non Muslim neighbour. The quran says give charity and help the poor. Be kind to your wife, don't backbite, gossip or slander. Eat good and feed the needy. The quran talks about how the man's money is his wife money too but her money she makes is only for her.

I also couldn't believe the amount of science and scientific miracles in the quran that was written 1400 years ago that is being discovered today.

It hasn't been an easy road I get asked if i am part of the taliban which is so stupid. I have my hijab laughed and stared at. I lost a lot of friends when I became Muslim but oh well,I say they weren't true friends in the first place.....

So I married young, converted to Islam and here I am almost 20 years later with 6 kids and a very happy life. Islam helped me and changed my life.

Raised Catholic. Enjoyed the ritual, peace, tradition, music and quiet reflection of church. Christened my children so they could have a choice whether to follow or not. I take it all with a massive pinch of salt and only go to mass occasionally, but still enjoy the spirituality and chance to reflect and feel gratitude.

I went to a CofE primary school that was fairly progressive; I have quite fond memories for that school, lots of song and rejoicing. I was, however, raised Catholic and don’t have such fond memories of that. We attended church every Sunday, very intensely from about 8 through to 12/13. I think before I was 8 there was a priest my dad didn’t like so that was how we got out of it - but whilst the new priest was absolutely awesome (and very definitely had a crush on one of the checkout staff at the local supermarket- she found her way into many of his sermons), the woman who ran the Sunday school was a witch.

by the time I reached my teens I had a keen interest in any hobby which took place on a Sunday morning, and eventually got a weekend job on Sundays. But not before the whole confirmation shebang. I remember being taught about the transubstantiation and thinking ‘utter nonsense’ - and also remember being told a forced confirmation was wrongly and thinking ‘wtf are we all doing here then?’.

I’ve been atheist since my teens I think - certainly once I had discovered science and especially evolution. I did a science degree at uni and so was surrounded by atheists (though not exclusively).

my DH was raised culturally Muslim and despite not much in the way of religious practice that I can tell probably has a bit more faith than I do, though I would say it’s more superstition than anything else.

My father went to Catholic boarding school, and one that is fairly notorious for covering up child abuse - and I really don’t know how he has kept his faith after that. As far as I know he wasn’t personally abused, but still. He was educated by abusers who were likely targeting his peers.

my children are at a CofE school which is a little more intense than I would like. I don’t like the control the church has over the school (and I’ve seen it first hand as a governor). As a VA school 75% of the governing board is related to the church in some way. It’s a problem. That said, their classmates are really diverse and after a change of leadership at school we are seeing much more emphasis in school time on the other religions present. My children have a much greater understanding of other religions than I did at that age.

I wasn’t brought up religious, not been Christened. My mum was I’d say agnostic she used to take me to church sometimes on Easter and Christmas but never really talked about religion. My nan (her mum) was very poor as a youngster and I know the church and Salvation Army in particular really helped her , they fed her and looked out for her so I do think a lot of religious people have good morals and are generally kind. I would say the older I get the more spiritual I am becoming. I certainly believe in an afterlife perhaps not god and a heaven and hell but I do believe life goes on after death and the consciousness leave for some other realm. My partner is baptised Catholic and went to a Catholic school. He doesn’t have any negatives like other posters to say about it, he said they were strict and wanted kids to try their best, not a bad thing. My daughter has chosen to go to the same school even though she is not Catholic but looking at that school and others in our area it was so much nicer , the children were polite and they were really good with my son who is 4 and was running around the teachers took time to play games with him and made him welcome rather than feeling like he was being a menace. We all had good vibes from it. We left the choice of schools as completely up to her. Children there do pray once a day but children who aren’t Catholic don’t have to do confession or mass if they don’t want to. I know there have been some horrible history within abuse in the church but in my opinion it’s not religion it’s power that corrupts people. There are evil people in all walks of life and those people when given positions of power exploit it. They are not really followers of god as what they have done is evil. I have Hindu friends ,lots of atheist friends and Christian family (other half’s side) good people are good people.