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Life-Long Atheists

I can't claim such precocity. I was raised Catholic; attended Catholic elementary school and high school both back when the mass was in Latin and nuns were in black...

Although I was fond of asking pointed questions (even elementary school kids see through such silliness as the Trinity, and are not satisfied with answers like "It's a Mystery Of Faith") I essentially bought it until I left home for the army and broadened my reading horizons.
 
Last of the Fraggles said:
I'm not quite sure. We had Bible study at school and was raised with the idea of 'God' but not sure if it was much different to the idea of Santa and not sure I ever really thought of it as something that was 'real'

Never went to church. Think I've been maybe less than half a dozen times in my life - weddings and funerals.
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This is approximately my experience. I recall reading some edited-for-children Bible stories, attending something called Whirlybirds for a short period of time, and getting baptized, but I don't know that I really believed in any of that stuff. I was really young and don't think I had the mental faculties to make such a decision, so I just went along with what I was supposed to do.

Once I started critically analyzing the god concept, I entered what I called a "spiritual phase" and preferred to identify as an agnostic. During this time, I was open to supernatural/spiritual experiences, even attempting to communicate with any intelligent entities that could possibly exist. It wasn't until a friend recommended The God Delusion and we got to arguing about probabilities of a god's existence that I realized I was an atheist as well.

tl;dr version: I don't think I ever really believed in a god, but because I went along with some Christian practices in my early youth, I don't count myself as a life-long atheist.
 
Bikewer said:
I can't claim such precocity. I was raised Catholic; attended Catholic elementary school and high school both back when the mass was in Latin and nuns were in black...

Although I was fond of asking pointed questions (even elementary school kids see through such silliness as the Trinity, and are not satisfied with answers like "It's a Mystery Of Faith") I essentially bought it until I left home for the army and broadened my reading horizons.
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This is similar to my experience except I'm a bit too young to remember the Latin mass, and for me it was college instead of the army.
 
My parents are not religious, so I was not raised into believing any religion, and the subject rarely came up at home. When I was a kid I sometimes believed in God and/or in an afterlife because I wanted to, not in any particularly orderly or coherent fashion. But when I became able to think in a more structured manner, in my early teens or so, I rejected such beliefs.

I remember that Medieval: Total War (the first one) and Age of Mythology did raise my interest in religion and mythology, even though I didn't believe in it.
 
Dave Rogers said:
+1. My mother was brought up religious but it didn't stick, and my father's parents were Northern working class atheists and socialists. I don't think that's particularly uncommon over here.
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Wow, interesting. In my experience here in the USA, third-generation atheists are scarce. I only know one, and he's quite proud of the fact because it's such a rarity. He's also the music director for an Episcopal church.
 
I'm a lifelong atheist, but I cheated by having Australian parents.

I guess that means my kid is a third-generation lifelong atheist, but who knows what would have happened if my girlfriend hadn't had an abortion.
 
Maybe you should do a poll & compare numbers of life-long with number of converted atheists here on this board (not sure what that'll tell you).

I'm life-long, raised by atheist/Unitarian parents with at least one atheist grandparent (so-third generation). My uncle is an atheist & my father & brother are agnostics. I explored religion in my early teens - middle teens & then pretty much just forgot about it since it was unsatisfactory.
 
No idea what the stats would be on former believers/life-long atheists but I'm a life-long atheist myself. We did go to church a few times when I was a kid but I don't remember ever really believing. My parents were not strong believers either, despite these occasional visits to church.
 
Somehow I grew up oblivious to the fact that adults actually believed the fairy tales. I went to a Sunday school because the girl I played doctor with went. Sometime around fifth or sixth grade the Sunday school teachers tried to talk me in to accepting Christ. I assumed it was a test and told them I wasn't stupid enough to fall for their trick. I seem to remember it took a couple weeks for it to sink in that they were serious.
 
I was brought up Catholic and prayed as I was told to, but it soon became clear that for some reason I wasn't talking to anyone or having a 'special relationship' with God, so from my early teens I only went through the motions. Up to then I'd thought there was something wrong, because so many adults said that God talked to them, but he just blanked me. I then realised there was no evidence at all of any of the stuff they claimed, so I guess that's when I became a sceptic, and thought they were a pretty odd lot.
 
My parents never cared about religion or gods and all that pointless ********. We never went to church (except for school things). Naturally their callous attitude to the divine spread to their first born...

The fact that religion was only ever discussed in a descriptive sense in school or practically everywhere else probably also helped.
 
Our family was a mix. Dad was a devout believer who refused to go to church. Mom was a church-goer who had serious doubts about a lot of the stuff that was being said.

My older brother and I were both confirmend into the Episcopalean Church at age 13. We received identical bibles as confirmation gifts. A few years ago, when we were cleaning out the family home to be sold after our parents died, we came across those bibles. My brother's was dog-eared and careworn, with bookmarks and highlighted parts. Mine looked like had never been opened, which was very close to true, for it was at Confirmation Classes that I first realized I was an atheist.
 
Born an atheist, and suspect I will die as one. I was very interested in religion when I was young, and went to sunday school of my own free will, but never believed any of the stuff.
 
Ethan Thane Athen said:
Stopped believing in god at the same time as I stopped believing in Father Xmas, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy etc
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This. Had a vague "belief" when I was very young, but at that age a child will believe anything adults tell them. I never saw a difference between gods and Santa, and stopped believing in them at the same time. From what I've heard, this is common.
 
Lifelong Atheist here. But that isn't that unusual growing up in Australia.
Made moving to North Carolina interesting though.
 
Lifelong atheist as well. My mother was a French Catholic who lost faith in the church while in Catholic school after watching the nuns beat a boy deaf over a period of time. They would wallop him on the ear with a cupped hand for various reasons. When his ears were so badly damaged he couldn't hear, and they couldn't be repaired, he dropped out of school. My mother left and enrolled in public school.

My father never had much religion growing up which was probably a good thing. His family, minus his father whom I am told was a wonderful person, were nasty enough without religion. Except for my father, 100% alcoholism rate in the family.

My parents had 7 children, 2 believers and 5 atheists. Of the believers, one belongs to a cult, The Way Foundation, and is an ultra-right wing wacka-doodle. The other attends church of Friday evenings because it makes her feel better.

The wacka-doodle has three kids, all raised in wacka-doodle fashion. Now that they are grown, at least two are atheist. :D
 
I'm at least pretty close to a life-long atheist. My parents aren't religious, and while we had fairly traditional Easter and Christmas dinners and stuff, it was just out of habit. We did have mandatory religious instruction in school, but I distinctly remember being amazed at about age 9 or 10 to find out that one kid in my class -- a product of a rigidly religious family -- actually took Bible stories and all that Jesus stuff as true.
 
Always been an atheist. I never found any reason to divert.
My dad was brought up Catholic in Dublin, Physicaly abused by catholic teachers but left for England on his own at the age of 13 and shed all the nonsense they had tried to infect him with.
My Mum (died last week) refered to all religion as "Silly nonsense" sometimes as "Bollocks," depending on her mood.
I can't say that they actively steered me away from religion, it just never played a part in my life or those around me other than the immigrants.
 
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