• Welcome to Autism Forums, a friendly forum to discuss Aspergers Syndrome, Autism, High Functioning Autism and related conditions.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
    • Private Member only forums for more serious discussions that you may wish to not have guests or search engines access to.
    • Your very own blog. Write about anything you like on your own individual blog.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon! Please also check us out @ https://www.twitter.com/aspiescentral

Did you like going to church as a kid?

My experience was a bit limited - I went to Sunday School in maybe 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. Around 5th grade I was considered old enough to be allowed to attend the service. And after that my parents stopped attending church altogether.

At first, I didn't think much of church - I did it because it was expected of me. As I got older though it seemed to me like a funny thing. I said that I believed in god, but in reality I was skeptical. And the rituals seemed very odd to me. And seemingly odd to no one else, I might add. Everyone else just seemed like they went along with it and enjoyed it. So I could not help but wonder what was wrong with me.

One thing I do remember is one Sunday I could not go to Sunday School because I was ill. The pastor of the church came to the house to bless the house and drive out the demons. Even though I was young I still found that strange. Getting a cold doesn't have anything to do with evil spirts!

Anyway when I got older - maybe my late teens - I came out an an atheist, although I do mostly keep it to myself, as it's still not something that is widely accepted.
 
Masked Man said:
My experience was a bit limited - I went to Sunday School in maybe 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades. Around 5th grade I was considered old enough to be allowed to attend the service. And after that my parents stopped attending church altogether.

At first, I didn't think much of church - I did it because it was expected of me. As I got older though it seemed to me like a funny thing. I said that I believed in god, but in reality I was skeptical. And the rituals seemed very odd to me. And seemingly odd to no one else, I might add. Everyone else just seemed like they went along with it and enjoyed it. So I could not help but wonder what was wrong with me.

One thing I do remember is one Sunday I could not go to Sunday School because I was ill. The pastor of the church came to the house to bless the house and drive out the demons. Even though I was young I still found that strange. Getting a cold doesn't have anything to do with evil spirts!

Anyway when I got older - maybe my late teens - I came out an an atheist, although I do mostly keep it to myself, as it's still not something that is widely accepted.
Click to expand...
I can relate to feeling like there was something wrong with me for never believing fully. Every one in my family was smiling in the picture except for me. I don’t think any of them had any doubts. My brother starting doubting as an adult, and we are both atheists now. We don’t tell people because it wouldn’t go over well.

My religion believed in demons. I found that stuff scary as a kid. Even though I never was a real believer in my heart, I often thought that I was wrong, so I still experienced a lot of inner turmoil over stuff.
 
No. At the age of fifteen my parents came to the conclusion that I was getting nothing from attending mass and they allowed me to opt out. I never looked back.

Later I came to the conclusion that the sanctity of my soul is primarily between God and myself. That religion itself plays no real part in my spiritual enlightenment on this temporary plane of existence.
 
I was neutral and my catechism was taught by Jesuits. Then I learned the philisophical underpinnings of catholicism and read the disgusting tripe from Thomas Aquinus and was done. What put the nail in the coffin of any residual faith was understanding Bertrand Russell's Why I am Not a Christian, the beginning of my thoughts upon ethics.
 
Last edited:
It’s strange to me that people still find Aquinas’s arguments for the existence of God convincing.
 
I grew up in a Catholic church. I enjoyed the repetition of the services and being in the church every Sunday. As I grew and really started to listen and think about it all, I stopped being able to enjoy it. When I was a teenager, I stopped attending mass with my parents but was expected to go on my own. I did start lying about actually going, but I was learning the value of mini adventures and driving to beautiful natural places to enjoy the outdoors.
 
Twilight said:
I can relate to feeling like there was something wrong with me for never believing fully. Every one in my family was smiling in the picture except for me. I don’t think any of them had any doubts. My brother starting doubting as an adult, and we are both atheists now. We don’t tell people because it wouldn’t go over well.
Click to expand...
It does make me wonder how many people actually feel the same way we do - but they're just too scared to admit it and go their own way.

In many ways, it's similar to a cult, where if you choose to leave, your are ousted by everyone that remains in the group. It's a very real risk to those who may have limited resources to begin with. Even if you don't have money, you still have family and community to help support you. Once you exit the confines of that group, you are essentially on your own.
 
Masked Man said:
It does make me wonder how many people actually feel the same way we do - but they're just too scared to admit it and go their own way.

In many ways, it's similar to a cult, where if you choose to leave, your are ousted by everyone that remains in the group. It's a very real risk to those who may have limited resources to begin with. Even if you don't have money, you still have family and community to help support you. Once you exit the confines of that group, you are essentially on your own.
Click to expand...
We were raised in a cult but my area in general is too religious to be accepting of atheists. I told a person that I was an atheist once, and they were shocked and appalled.
 
Masked Man said:
It does make me wonder how many people actually feel the same way we do - but they're just too scared to admit it and go their own way.

In many ways, it's similar to a cult, where if you choose to leave, your are ousted by everyone that remains in the group. It's a very real risk to those who may have limited resources to begin with. Even if you don't have money, you still have family and community to help support you. Once you exit the confines of that group, you are essentially on your own.
Click to expand...
I am no longer afraid of being an athiest. I proudly am trained in the sciences and require evidence. I no longer blink at the breathtaking stupidity of W. Paley's watchmaker anology, knowing as I do, evolution, and the contingency, again, and again, through 3.75 billion years of life on earth.

I am humbled and agree with Darwin when he wrote; "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved."
 
Midnights11 said:
Why even bring this question up? Don’t most people find it controversial to talk about this kind of thing?
Click to expand...
It seems appropriate for a section dedicated to religion. If you don’t like it, you aren’t obligated to read or post.

Some of us have had abusive experiences with religion and find it helpful to talk about it. Of course, people are free to share whatever they want to that pertains to the overall topic.
 
Twilight said:
It seems appropriate for a section dedicated to religion. If you don’t like it, you aren’t obligated to read or post.

Some of us have had abusive experiences with religion and find it helpful to talk about it. Of course, people are free to share whatever they want to that pertains to the overall topic.
Click to expand...
It’s not just me, a lot of forums have rules against bringing up religion and politics.
 
Parents brought us every Sunday during a several years span. The only thing I liked about it was the stained glass patterns on the windows and the towering cathedral ceilings. Everything else I disliked then. The sermons, the music, the hard benches, the cold environment, etc. And then there was the severe anxiety of others sitting next to me, the collection plates passed down the aisles and the forced greetings and handshakes with stranger others during the services.

All that I saw as either boring, too structured or anxiety producing those years. We were forced to get dressed up formally at home prior to going and were told we had to be polite and could not move an inch at church. For those who benefitted from such services, great! For me, I rather have vacuumed the floors, cleaned the walls then than be told how to think, act and feel for something I did not believe in. I resorted to daydreaming to get me through those things my mind said I could not focus on without getting really upset.
 
The only time I visited NYC when I was a kid happened when I was 6. My family went to visit the cult compound in Brooklyn. It was a day trip, and that’s ALL that we were going to do. After riding in a bus for hours in uncomfortable clothes and seeing a magical wonderland through the bus windows that I couldn’t explore in any meaningful way, I did the only thing that any sensible person would do under the circumstances: I had a massive meltdown for the first 20 minutes of the tour.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

New Threads

Top Bottom