Current Events > Did your parents force you to attend religious service/instruction as a kid?

(+) Yeah! (+)

How did you feel about it?

I remember going to church many times in the 90s and going to a "baptist temple" for summer school. We also had to say our prayers every night. This all stopped sometime in 2000. I also recall accompanying my grandmother to her Catholic church and participating in the services, though I did it more sporadically in the 2000s.

It's odd since my father and his brothers are vehemently anti-religion.
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I've never been to church except for weddings and funerals

and that one when I was a kid when my friend took me and we had a coloring book, then just kinda chilled behind the stage
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no.

my dad was an East African guy who went to Catholic School because it offered the best education, but besides that, he was never religious, as far as I know.

so he let me and my siblings make our own choices, but I think that he was secretly happy that we ended up not being religious, either.

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My family is atheist, but growing up I wasn't aware of this nor was religion ever a subject at home. My exposure to religion at a young age came from movies like Sister Act, The Sound of Music, and Nuns on the Run which are all catholic, and The Simpsons through the Flanders family who are christians.

When I was 9 we moved to a location that was near a catholic elementary school. At the time I didn't understand why they needed their own school and something didn't seem quite right.

Then at age 11 I had a friend whose family was religious. They didn't even have a TV. He watched shows at his grandma's. I remember being there one day with him and we had Simpsons on. During a scene Chief Wiggum said ass and his mom shouted at us from the kitchen to turn it off.

From there I observed religion at a distance and have remained an atheist ever since. I'm 36 now. As for churches I have only ever been inside two. The first for my grandmother's memorial service, and the second up to 5 times now for flea markets. This one is about 400ft from my house.

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Yes. My uncle is the pastor of a church, aunt, mother, and a few other members in my family were ministers. Had to do this Sunday school thing every summer that I hated doing with a passion because this group of boys for whatever reason used to love to try picking fights with me and a friend.

By the time I was 15 in 1998 I was pretty much putting my foot down and saying the hardcore church life isn't for me. The sunday service (which there was 2 back then...one like 10 am to 2 pm. and again from 6 pm to 10 pm), Wednesday service, then Friday service got to be a bit much. Haven't been to many services since then.

My mother herself was pretty much done somewhere around 2004 or so. There was a shitton of drama in that church, and damn near every single minister was hypocrites/used to be judgemental about other people and their family when they had a ton of ol' skeletons in the closet theirselves. There was this huge thing none of us real young kids back then knew about where there was an affair going on between this one minister and another's wife.....said dude used to get on my older brother and the kids his age about premarital sex, =/

My dad was never about this church, lol. His religion. whatever it is, was way more laid back. For him, saying a mini prayer before new years day was enough.
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Nope, my mom barely made an effort to attend herself. Im pretty sure she doesnt anymore at all, and my dad never gave a shit/is an atheist.
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Yep, until I was 16 and left the faith, which surprised me that my parents were cool with that. My dad was a former pastor, and strict military man.

Now he's a chill stoner.

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Nope
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I was raised Catholic and went to church every sunday. Around the age of 11 I realized the whole concept of God was a laughable farce.

In my later years, I've come to realize now that a lot of more Americans are becoming Agnostic or Atheist, America has become worse off and I long for a time where more people believed in God. Despite being liberal (not leftist), I prefer to be in the company of religious people instead of cynical leftists. Leftists are the worst.
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Airhammy posted...

My family is atheist, but growing up I wasn't aware of this nor was religion ever a subject at home. My exposure to religion at a young age came from movies like Sister Act, The Sound of Music, and Nuns on the Run which are all catholic, and The Simpsons through the Flanders family who are christians.

When I was 9 we moved to a location that was near a catholic elementary school. At the time I didn't understand why they needed their own school and something didn't seem quite right.

Then at age 11 I had a friend whose family was religious. They didn't even have a TV. He watched shows at his grandma's. I remember being there one day with him and we had Simpsons on. During a scene Chief Wiggum said ass and his mom shouted at us from the kitchen to turn it off.

From there I observed religion at a distance and have remained an atheist ever since. I'm 36 now. As for churches I have only ever been inside two. The first for my grandmother's memorial service, and the second up to 5 times now for flea markets. This one is about 400ft from my house.

Very interesting.
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aki_sora posted...

Nope

I mean "force" is a strong word, but I was raised Catholic and it was just part of life to go to church. Some weeks I might not have felt like it, but my parents never did worse than coax me.

Agnostic these days.

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Yeah, my mom and I would go to church every Sunday. Shed have me sit down with her and watch sermons on t.v as well. Occasionally shed read from a childrens bible shed gotten for me. All this kinda fell off around 4th grade. She still watches sermons on t.v, but nobody in my household attends church anymore.

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Yep until 18. Then I stopped
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I don't know about force, but I was way into church stuff when I was little. We went all the time and I went up to the point where I did the affirmation ceremony. Ironically that was where I started to question it and realized it was silly and I wasn't into it anymore. I told my parents the same expecting to get bitched at but instead they told me they didn't care and had only been going to church because I seemed into it. I don't regret it, though, my pastor was an awesome dude who I was glad to spend time with and continuing seeing around and playing soccer with afterward. He never got mad at me for dropping church, rather telling me to remember that the church was always there for me and the important thing was treating people with kindness. He had a very positive influence in my life and I'll always remember him despite dropping all the religious bullshit.
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Yes. I went to Catholic school, church on Sunday, and received every sacrament you can get as a kid.

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Airhammy posted...

Then at age 11 I had a friend whose family was religious. They didn't even have a TV. He watched shows at his grandma's. I remember being there one day with him and we had Simpsons on. During a scene Chief Wiggum said ass and his mom shouted at us from the kitchen to turn it off.

not sure that was about religion
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Yep

Had to go to ccd until I got confirmed. Haven't been inside a church since
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No. I became religious in my 20s after a string of events, belong to a medium sized congregation now, ~650 people, and am very close with my church family.
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When I was little little it was more or less coaxing but they honestly wanted me to think for myself, I believe.
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Went to Christian junior high and high schools but was able to escape Sunday services. The reasoning was because we had chapel in school.

As an adult I've been to maybe 4 or 5 services since then, outside of weddings and funerals.
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No. My parents aren't religious, but my mom has said she kind of wishes she'd gotten me into it for the community aspect of it. I'm glad she didn't force me to go. I didn't really understand people took that stuff seriously until my early teens, when I learned the term atheist and had a conversation with my cousin about religion.

Anyway, I went to church (or sunday school maybe?) a few times with friends when i was in elementary school, but the only thing i remember is watching veggie tales and getting into that for awhile. I never took it seriously, I just thought it was funny and liked the songs.
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aki_sora posted...

Nope

Same here. My parents weren't religious.

My parents were both Christian but my mom was the one that actively dragged me to church for the first few years of my life. I clearly remember going to Saddleback Church (that huge megachurch, kind of surreal I "got" to go there) and I remember a few activities we did at the Sunday School. I was also attended a private religious school for at least pre-school and maybe part of kindergarten. Went to public for kindergarten and on, though.

After my parents got divorced and we moved, my mom stopped going to church, but she did make me go to a couple services a year (at least the Christmas service every year).

And my mom was a wedding coordinator so of course I went to way too many weddings as a kid.

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no my family was never super religious
i went to church for a few months myself when i was a kid but that was just because afterwards they had free sandwiches and i liked that
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was raised in the church, and Christian jokes are my go-to
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