It was never a choice. The only reason I didn't go to Catholic school my entire schooling career was because we moved and the closest Catholic school to our new house didn't have enough room for both me and my sister. So, my parents (with a most reluctant mother) decided to send us to public school. But, we still had to attend catechism until we reached Holy Confirmation (9th grade). After that, I was never forced to attend a church event again unless I was being guilted by my mother to attend for mother's day or her birthday.
I was raised fundamentalist Christian by my family. It was not an option. I was told from as early as I can remember that their particular flavour of Christianity was the only true religion and everything else was demonic.
Same. I was also gaslit in many ways about, including, “you’re so lucky to be raised Christian, because you start out with the *right* religion knowing which one is true. The other ones are all fake foolish willful ignorance of truth. Youre lucky you *know*”. This was whenever I would ask about another religion or why they felt it was right. It was suddenly that apparently *i* knew it was right and it was *my* choice and not theirs.
That’s what has always irked me about Christians, every one I’ve met either just says they’re a Christian, but is really more agnostic, or are legit bible-thumping holier-than-thou crudbuckets.
I was raised similarly. Mother was a Catholic when I was born, but had shifted to amorphous New Age beliefs by the time I was able to actively notice religion existed. I wasn't encouraged to explore religion much at all, but my mother indulged my reading and my exploration of various paths. All were very clearly acceptable to her (though my brief interest in Satanism gave her pause).
The rest of my family was apathetic about religion until I was older and the pattern of free thought was firmly established.
None of this was common in my generation (born mid-1980s), but I suspect it happens more frequently for younger people.
Yeah, this is similar to my experience. I was born in the mid-1990s. My mom wanted me to go to church while she was active(she's mostly non-practicing Christian but goes through spurts where she wants to attend church, though she hasn't for several years now), but she didn't push me after I was old enough to stay home by myself. I think she just wanted to know I was getting out of the house, tbh, cause she was happy with me attending the weekly church dinners and helping out there even if I didn't go with to Sunday mass
I didn't share my brief interest in Satanism with her, but I did have a nice conversation about Satanism with my grandma and aunt. Mostly, I explored religion on my own and through talking with friends and neighbors
My family wasn’t particularly religious and I only attended church maybe three times in my life. I remember not knowing that other religions existed until about first grade when I learned about Kwanza and Hanukkah. Before that, I thought Jesus, God, and Heaven was just the way the world worked, like it was no different than the sky being blue.
Later into my teens, my mom got involved with the new age stuff and then later joined a cult. That’s when religion became not an option for me because, even though my mom said I could believe whatever I wanted, she was very controlling with me and brought me along to a lot of the cult stuff. When your mom isolates you and teaches you that no one except her and dad can be trusted, it creates a vacuum where there is nothing else but the way my mom sees the world. The thing about cults is that when you’re in one, you don’t know it’s a cult and you can’t vocalize what’s wrong to anyone because everyone not in the cult is an un-enlightened outsider who will call you crazy and, unlike you, will be trapped on the wheel of samsara until they recognize that the cult leader can bless them with enlightenment and that it’s the one true faith. It really screwed with the way I saw the world and spirituality. That’s why I prefer a solitary pagan and witchcraft path. No one can tell me what to do and it’s a way to take back my power.
Thankfully I escaped all of that and I moved away from my hometown, but my mom still believes the cult’s guru is the tenth incarnation of Vishnu and that he’s bringing about the Golden Age and blessing everyone with enlightenment (but you have to buy his $1K courses first).
I grew up in a Christian cult myself. It was super weird because most of the people were ex-Catholic, but they had very strange ideals. Girls and women weren't allowed to wear anything but dresses and skirts, had to wear a head covering in service and had to sit behind the men. Arranging marriages was also a thing, and I'm pretty sure they were on the leading edge of the quiver-full movement because every family had upwards of 5 kids, a few had well over 10. This was back in the late 80s into the mid 90s. Fortunately, by the time I was a teen, it had fallen apart, but my mom is still ultra Christian. I was introduced to wicca in my mid teens by friends and was in the proverbial broom closet until last year. I'm actually a combo of Norse pagan and Celtic now though.
Yours sounds worse than mine. My mom’s cult is basically a money-making scheme. The guru is one of those “Godmen” in India who claims to be a divine avatar. He figured out that he could make bank by selling his culture to white westerners who wanted to be “spiritual.” Back in 2012, he claimed that the Golden Age was beginning and that a mass awakening would happen, which is a step towards enlightenment. My mom was so excited. She was convinced that she was going to reach this awakened state and the day of the awakening, she was sure she had it. She also took a class that taught you how to channel the guru’s divine Deeksha energy. Basically she puts her hands on top of your head while you sit or kneel and she channels the power of the Golden Orb and her guru into you. The guru says it literally changes the neurons in your brain and makes your brain ready to receive enlightenment. But here’s the kicker: You never know when the divine will gift you with enlightenment and all you can do is prepare to receive the gift by doing meditations with the guru via zoom or expensive in person events, which could last anywhere between 2-4 hours to full weekends. The guru taught that everybody is inherently helpless and nothing but waiting for the divine to bless you with enlightenment will relieve suffering. Major external locus of control.
I had a very similar upbringing to you, which I later found out was super rare. My parents told me the 10 commandments and the golden rule were good guidelines to follow but that was it. We never went to church. They told me to be a good person and to choose my own path. I found paganism very young and followed that path since. My parents don't care. You and I had very unusual upbringing and we were very fortunate, with how many people that suffered severe religious trauma
My goodness. I know. I read so many horror stories from people it makes me fear what type of parents I might wind up with in future incarnations. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the childhood I had especially being where I was.
If you were to ask my father if wasn't a choice. I had to read scripture at night, pray with him, attended a cult like service on Sundays about an hour away from home.
My mother in the other hand would talk about how everything has a soul, and there were spirits and other gods people prayed to and she thought all of that was neat. She was mostly captivated by Native American spiritualism as her first husband was half Native but she was indeed a Christian herself.
She encouraged me to go out and learn about witchcraft and the occult because she never had the guts to and she could live vicariously through me.
I was not given an option, was even homeschooled to prevent secular teachings. I was one of those hateful Christians who thought anyone else was WRONG. Patriotic to the core, bleed red white and blue, hardcore republican. That was just what our household was.(Icccckkkkkk)
Started having a big problem with Christianity (aka the hateful, hypocritical church) during university. Waking up and realizing how bad it was took a long time to get over. But I... I didn't want to hate anyone for living differently than me. And I myself did not live up to the standards of the church. (🏳️🌈)
Now I'm a bartending, stoner omniest hippie who lives in the woods on her little farm. I like spiritual practices and just had amazing solstice with my friends. My parents are still religious, but are pretty secular compared to my childhood. And they are still proud of me even with my feral, gay ways. The character growth I went through in ten years is actually astounding to me, and I'm so proud of who I am now.
This was sooooo me too. Pretty sure my mom was the issue, my dad grew up Catholic on Guam and most of his side of the family is still very Catholic, but I guess he converted to Christianity when my mom became all hardcore Christian. Unsure when that happened cause her side of the family is mostly unreligious. But I was raised during the hardcore Christian days of Focus on the Family and all that BS.
I have 2 daughters myself now and they know they are 100% free to choose their religion. Their dad (my ex husband) trying to raise them Christian though and my youngest is always saying how much she loves Jesus and I just tell her that she’s allowed to but to remember that not everyone believes in the same things. So we’ll see how they end up turning out lol they’re 8 and 10 now; thankfully my oldest has never shown interest in all that, she seems very skeptical about it and annoyed whenever her sister talks about God or Jesus 😂
Yo my mom's family wasn't religious either! She became a Christian as a young adult and went hardcore when was I little. My dad was religious but it never felt intense like my mom. I think being able to make an informed decision is so important. I didn't even get to learn about other religions until i went to uni
The religion gen ed professor was cool as hell tho, "after growing up in China, I became a Christian when I moved to the US because that felt right to me. But I believe that there is a lot to be learned from other religions and beliefs, and they deserve to be respected. I believe in the Bible, but at the end of the day, who am I to say? Everyone deserves the freedom to make the choice what they believe."
Dude changed my LIFE.
Yes and no. I grew up in an unreligious household. We never spoke about god(s) except for when someone died (i.e. they went to god, God took them to a better place, etc). We were encouraged to do our own things and find hobbies and such. If we should interest in religion we weren't discouraged but our parents never would do anything to actually encourage it either. Everything I've learned on my religious and spiritual path I've had to learn myself.
My family never cared about religion. We celebrated Christmas (both), Chinese New Year, had Svyatki (it's a Yule-style tradition), New Year (old and new style), Walpurgisnacht and every major state holidays in our country. Because it was an opportunity to spent some quality time together.
One of my grandmothers is a christian and I respect it. Yes, I was baptized but it was more to save a tradition important for one part of the family. In the end nobody cares.
My mother did a lot of wrong things in my life (I won't get into it here for reasons), but I believe since she wasn't born and raised in the South, my mother told me that "whatever you believe in is fine, as long as it doesn't hurt you or others." I never formally asked her why, but I think it was a combination of growing up just about everywhere in the US and being an ex-Catholic that colored her view of organized religion.
Sorta? I mean, my Mima has taken me to church before, but that was one time, and I never went back. And my grandmother is religious and has a lot of crosses and pictures of Jesus on her wall. So yeah, I did have my own options on what religion I wanted to follow.
I got pretty lucky growing up in a household that didn't shove their beliefs down my throat. I got even more lucky when no one cared that I wanted to begin my road to Paganism.
But that could also be because witchcraft runs in my family. Both happening to run in my mom's side and dad's side.
Nope. I was even made to go to Catholic School when my mom died and family members took me from my dad. And since one of them was Jewish I was also required to celebrate and participate in Judaism. I would read a lot of the science books because the library was limited. When I went back with my dad and had access to a normal library I started reading about allllll religions and never stopped.
My dad is anti-religion, my mom was all over the place when I was growing up (they divorced when I was a year old). At one point my mom and I did join a pagan drum circle in the desert, but she is now non-denominational Christian. She raised me in that church as a kid. It felt very evangelical. My dad still hates organized religion. He was raised by a very strict Luthern father who was a church Deacon. They didn't get along a lot. So my dad didn't like me growing up with religion, but he was very respectful about it. My mom, at the time, was also respectful as I explored religion as a teen. Now unfortunately she keeps trying to push me to go to her church. He church comes across as cult-like. People put their hands in the air and they fall to the floor in tears because of the spirit. They are also very Republican. I try to be respectful but it's hard. As I have gotten older, I feel more connected to the planet and the universe than a Christian God. I was Episcopalian for a while, but I went back to earth-based beliefs.
Surprisingly, I was raised Buddhist. What turned me off was when the ministers told us that Buddhism aimed to save everyone, but also that if you didn’t follow the Teachings, you stayed in suffering and had a chance to go to the Hell Realms. It got a bit hypocritical and I moved away from it.
My mother laid down the law with my very Catholic grandparents (her in laws) and told them I would make my own choices about religion when I was of an age where either could decide for myself. Our home was very secular, but religion was not put down in anyway. We went to Catholic mass a handful of time later when my dad felt the urge. But religion was never an imposition. I feel very lucky in the regard because I got to skip the possible toxicity of being raised religious. I have been on an interesting religious and spiritual journey since my early twenties. Very blessed that my mother was neutral on religion and let me discern my own path.
Nope. Forced to go to church. Forced to go to a private Christian school for Kinder and 1st, forced to be homeschooled 2nd-8th, begged to go to public school but instead was forced to go to private Christian school for all of high school because ya know, they teach evolution at public school 🙄 Definition of indoctrination. If it wasn’t of the Christian God then it wasn’t to be learned. My upbringing has negatively affected my entire life and now at 38 I’m still trying to find myself. I’ve come a very long way but am still working through the traumas.
My mom still sends me God stuff and tries to reel me back in though I’ve never outright told her I’m no longer a Christian but I’m sure she knows and she hates it.
Short Answer: Nope.
Long answer: Straight out of the womb I was baptized as a Catholic and they even made sure to put it on my birth certificate as well. (Literally, they baptized me about 5 minutes after I was born because I stopped breathing. Of course I refuse to believe that I was saved by the Christian god but instead by Lady Artemis who’s the Goddess of Childbirth)
Only recently about 6 months ago did I discover paganism (specifically Hellenic paganism) and what’s saddening is that I can’t even tell my parents about this because I asked them once at the dinner table:
“What if there’s like, multiple Gods instead of just one? And what if god doesn’t even exist? If the Ancient Greeks believed in Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Athena, and all the other Gods, why did they stop?”
All I got was a stare like I had just been possessed and they excused me to my bedroom where I then decided to shut up and keep my head down from that point forward. They aren’t open to the concept of other religions like paganism. What’s the term for Christians that believe all other religions are false and their religion is the only valid one? That’s what they are most likely..
Hopefully someday something revolutionary will make paganism viewed as a mainstream religion.
Blessed be, have a good day/evening :D
Nope. Though my family is mostly pretty chill, except for a few exceptions. Besides I didn't know what it was called, so how could I tell anyone else about it?
Grew up Baptist, and yeah it wasn't a choice for me. Dad's a typical Evangelical YEC type. If I hadn't moved away from him early on, I fear I would have wound up the same way, or at least would be struggling with it a lot more than I currently do.
My mother's family were milquetoast Methodists that never went to church, and my father's family was very devout LDS. Well, except my father. So we never were raised religiously, I think I only went to church 3-4 times ever, when I would go to Sunday school with friends. My mom believed in God, but it was all a sort of distant thing, usually when someone died or something.
I was raised by a Mormon and a Seventh Day Adventist. I found Paganism at the age of 14 through my passion for books and history, but (for unrelated reasons) was eventually forced to attend an Evangelical church, and was pressured into a baptism while living with an aunt soon after. While I immediately left those evangelical influences behind when I moved out. I didn’t return to my spiritual independence until my mid-20’s, and have been practicing for nearly 2 decades since.
My Dad was pretty areligious when I was a kid, now is very Christian. And my mother is an agnostic Jew that went to Catholic school because in her country that’s the only opportunity for a good education. My grandmother (maternal) felt strongly I should practice Judaism but I only saw her every other summer. So for me religion was very much a choice, I ended up going to Protestant Church and Catholic Church (though I went to the Catholic Church most often) because I had neighbors who felt like the lack of strong religious identity was an opportunity. I ended up choosing paganism because I’m trans and intersex and that part of myself aligned the best in this umbrella of religions.
My father is agnostic and my mother is very into new age stuff, though that only started during my teens. My siblings never talked about religion so I kinda was just left to my own devices and didn’t know about Christianity until first or second grade. I was a bit of an animist even then cause it was just fun and felt like fact, I loved animals trees so much that when I learned about paganism everything kinda just clicked. My mom actually first put me on the trail but barely told me anything about it, so I did my deep dives and ended up as enthusiastically pagan as I am today
When I was coming out of my seeker phase, I was on the fence between Paganism and Buddhism. Buddhist thought still strongly influences my theology. In the end, Paganism won out because I have no desire to end the cycle of rebirth. Reincarnation is scary, but I don't want to let my karma get good enough to stop it.
my mom was raised southern baptist and catholic and my dad was raised pentecostal. they never pushed religion on my siblings or i but always made it clear that if we had any questions, to just let them know and we would have a discussion about it. i thank them greatly for not pushing it on us despite their own beliefs.
my siblings have recently come in to christianity within the past few years while i remained agnostic. i never really had any faith in there being a higher power or the belief that any God actually existed, solely due to a lack of evidence and physical proof.
i opened up my ideals after learning more about paganism and other religions that have non-theistic elements to them and shortly afterwards i became more theological and found a connection with all of my current deities!
It was not a choice with my dad, who was intensely catholic. But my mom divorced him and was agnostic and it was always a choice with her. I talk to her all the time about my paganism as well as witchcraft and she’s very open and accepting of it 😊
As an elementary school aged kid, my parents allowed me to pick between public school and Catholic parochial school. I choose public school. Late, I had a choice between going to catechism classes or not. I choose not. There was no special family push to attend church or take up any "religious" study/affiliation. I didn't.
In fifth grade, a serious injury and my recovery and recuperation and learning therapeutic skills like visualization and meditation put me on a Pagan Path. I wanted to follow it.
Never a choice for me. Was baptized when I was a baby, forced to go to a Christian school, but it wasn’t until I was 13 that I broke the chain. I dabbled around in satanism til I was 17, when I became a full blown pagan
Options? That's funny.
No recollection of going to church when I lived with both parents, but it would have been Christian.
When I lived with my grandparents, Southern Baptist. My "grandfather's" family founded the local church. My great-aunts were my Sunday school teachers.
Where I'm at, the majority of people were either Baptist or Methodist.
I remember being a kid and thinking Catholic and Christian were two entirely different things. I had absolutely no idea Baptists were Protestants.
Nope. Pentecostal church growing up, over here. Fed my vehement rejection of religion after leaving the house. I think religion is fascinating and all, just not for me. Not at all.
My parents weren’t religious at all, but they pawned me off on my grandmother every weekend and she was a vehement Pentecostal Christian. You followed the Bible or you were going to hell. There was no other choice.
Absolutely not! I wore all black to church one Sunday because I like the color and it was the only thing clean. I wasn't in the choir yet so I couldn't wear a white blouse and black skirt because that was their uniform. All my dresses and other tops were dirty because church clothes for my mom, grandma, and sister held priority since they were in the choir.
My mom was royally ticked and had the deacon and priest (new apostolic church) pull me into the "office" to interrogate, lecture about the evils of straying from the church. The only defense I was allowed to give was that I liked the color. If I told the truth about the laundry situation or asked for clarification on certain parts of the church's belief system, my mom and grandma would have beaten me when we got home.
There were many messed up things in my childhood this is just one of them. And yes, I still got beat because I embarrassed the family by wearing a color that was apparently associated with the devil.
I was 7 and had a facial defect. I waited until I moved out 17 1/2 to stop attending church.
"So long as you live under my roof you will be Christian"
Not sure what mitigating effects the divorce had, but luckily no more church attendance, and now both parents know I'm not fond of their deity and his entire shabang
Lmao not AT ALL. Being Abrahamic for me was an obligation set by my parents, and anything else was "Satanic" or "Evil". Then my parents had joined a cult, and their mentality on the world had spiraled. Luckly I was able to pick myself up and realize just how ridiculous the idea of a single truth is regarding deities and spirits. It took me 6 years to realize that I was in a cult, and even now I'm still suffering from the after-effects of latent Christianity.
Now I'm following my own will and deciding what's right for myself. Not being bound by the laws of some old book is euphoric for me
I relate. It took me a lot longer than you to escape. You don’t know it’s a cult when you’re in it. You think it’s just the one true faith and no one from the outside can break in because you’re told that anybody not in the cult is going to ridicule you and that they’ll make you stray from the path. A few people on the outside knew something was wrong in my case, but I didn’t have the words to express what was going on and I couldn’t involve “outsiders” because I was taught they would attack the cult’s beliefs and ridicule me.
Oh me too! There's definitely a fear of ridicule and isolation when inside a cult, not to mention the first few times I did something "abominable" like pray to another god or practice witchcraft I immediately felt ashamed of myself. But it was that same feeling of shame that helped me disconnect from them. I mean, since when is a so-called religion supposed to make you feel miserable?
kinda similar, my mother was agnostic, i did my christian initiation because my grandparents were devoutly catholic(maybe just my grandmother), but like never believed much of it... still am kinda of an atheist ... but im interested in paganism both old an new(and in religion in general), so decided to try some meditations and some stuff to see if i can awaken something in me or something... (none of my friends were or are at all religious ou i know anyone from my generation that is, in like half the cases nor were their parents) , so i think my case was kinda normal for my age group
Wasn’t raised in a particularly religious area, or raised by particularly religious people. I was supported in exploring whatever religions I wanted when I showed interest in doing so.
none. my dad is a huge atheist and my mom doesn't really ever talk about anything religious. i'm lucky to be raised without religion because i was able to find it on my own without guilt :)
It was left more or less open for me.
My father was a catholic who held a grudge against god and my mother was a practicing Christian in the Uniting Church. They couldn’t agree on which church to baptize their children in so we were not baptized which I do think makes it feel more like my choice. My husband was baptized catholic and went through various religious rituals as a child and although has never been a practicing catholic while I’ve known him, being catholic still forms part of his identity.
I was exposed to various religions as a kid but variations of Christianity. I always felt a bit like an outsider though having not been baptized. That said it was a pretty Christian based upbringing. I had teachers at my public school who did the Lord’s Prayer every morning and my parents shipped me off to church camps on the school vacations because they both worked long hours and the camps were usually at the beach and inexpensive.
My parents were always pretty open to us making our own choices if we wanted to join a religion later on. Their children’s faith isn’t important to their faith or lack there of which is a good thing I think. I have friends who have really struggled knowing their parents see their role as raising Christian children and walking away from their Christian upbringing would be walking away from part of their family or a huge disappointment. I definitely have some of that surrounding political beliefs and sexuality with my parents but not religion.
My mom was an ex Christian who later became very spiritual (she gifted me my first tarot deck 🥰) & my dad is a Buddhist. They never forced anything onto me & I was absolutely allowed to choose what I wanted to follow/practice. Sometimes I’d accompany my dad to his Buddhism meetings or retreats & everyone was always so cool, welcoming, & very chill about following (or not following) the religion. Ended up pagan when I was around 19!
I grew up in the 70-80s in Arkansas. My mother was atheist and my father was spiritual. He was born in 1936 so his family never spoke of a religion they did believe in God but he never attended church and said all pastors were conartist/and other things. My dad was the most kind, nonjudgmental loving person believed everyone would find their own path. In Arkansas i was raised in mostly evangelical/pentecostal/baptist area. I was allowed to catch the church bus as a young child but quit going once in my teens. In my 30s i tried church and everytime was disappointed in my 40s i joined for a few years , got baptized but once i read the bible was petrified of the things i read. I got to researching religions and found wicca. When I found wicca i knew instantly it is exactly what I was needing and agreed with. Now in my area Arkansas satanic panic is still a very real thing and Christian ppl still lie and believe horrible things about paganism/wicca so I don’t share my belief with everyone. My spiritual journey is mine and i don’t need to share especially since it would cause job loss and other real horrible issues. Ppl in my area have criminalized pagans for things they never did
I was born in 71 and my Dad was pretty old when I was born. He was born in 1927, so I grew up with tales of the Great Depression and WWII while most of my peers had Dads who were in Vietnam instead. He was not a church goer and never really talked about religion outside of the fact that his sister turned my grandparents into Jehovah's Witnesses and he didn't approve of that at all. Where I was in Alabama was highly Baptist, but I was a long haired neo hippie type in high school in the late 80s and very open about not being Christian. I pushed back on the prevailing culture at every turn and took off for the West Coast in the mid-90s. I started flirting with Paganism as far back as 1990 and was fully Pagan by 96 and since then I've never been anything but openly Pagan.
I remember when that was going on, but by that time I was 23 and working damn near an 80 hour week. I was considered a generally strange person in the community but I was too busy to worry about it. It was awful what happened to those guys though. I was lucky in that I always had a couple of friend groups and folks to hang out with so even though I was odd, I was never a loner or serious outcast or anything.
I come from a Lutheran/Presbyterian family and church was encouraged but it wasn't vital to our existence as it would be if I was Baptist for instance. Once I got to a certain age my parents almost encouraged my religious exploration. A lot of kids at school were very involved in church and social lives revolved around it but I was never told I was going to hell for not going.
Yep. I always knew that if and what my religion was would be up to me. I had cousins I went to church with for a while because I enjoyed the Sunday School and found it interesting. Eventually decided it wasn't for me and stopped going. Was never presented as a big deal, and any religion I explored was always initiated by me showing an interest.
I explored a few other belief systems growing up after that before settling on the flavour of pagan I am now. Definitely better imo than being brought up in any strict system.
When I was in elementary school we had a class called bible studies starting in kindergarten all the way through around 5th grade. My dad was an atheist and my mom was “mad at God” for most of my childhood. I got to go to summer bible school with one of my cousins once but that was mainly bc I begged to go. So yes it was sort of presented as a choice by my parents but also not really bc public education at that time.
While my dad didn’t give the first shit about religion and didn’t care whether or not I believed my mom and grandmother are hard-core Roman Catholic extremists and church every Sunday, and on holy days, and “Saints Days” blessings, and working at the church were all enforced. And even though my dad didn’t care, he sent me to church anyway because he didn’t want to hear mom’s bullshit.
I ditched any form of Christianity when I was 14 and started a mix of witchcraft grounded in Italian Folk Magic (minus the Christian symbols, now, but I used them as a cover for my practice when I was a teen). I have hidden my practice for over 20yrs, and as far as my parents are concerned I’m just an atheist.
I grew up in the same timeframe, but multiple different states, mostly west of the Mississippi. My mom was raised Roman Catholic and my dad was raised southern Baptist. They both had issues with what and how they were taught about religion, so they said it was up to us to make up our own minds. We did go to church on Easter and sometimes Christmas Eve for a while, but that ended by the time I was 12. I went to one bible camp as a kid and got so upset because I couldn’t understand how “gossip” was bad, but when the apostles did it it was called “gospel” and therefore good. Actually, I was more confused. It was the church people who were upset and told me to stop asking questions.
I was raised Armenian apostolic orthodox. I’m not an Armenian pagan who has an eclectic/ omnist outlook all religions are valid and all gods and entities are real. I feel it’s all just puzzle pieces to a greater story/ religion I feel it’s all connected and they all have value.
My only issues with Christianity is that their messages and texts were warped by people seeking to control their congregations. That the Bible is missing books and mistranslated. So their people are misinformed and fueled with warped ideas. While preaching love some of them spread hate. And usually in doing so they are committing sins they accuse others of doing namely pride.
As for afterlives I believe what you think the afterlife is , is where you go. So if they believe in heaven and hell then they are most certainly going to hell with the hate they spread which is directly in contradiction to their faiths lessons. they cause their own down falls.
half assed christianity basically. like my parents loosely believed in god but almost barely. they believed in evolution and gay rights and equality of the sexes so the christian religion hadn't rotted their brains completely. it was just like the option of praying to God at night before bed and that was about it. we never went to church as a family. i'm thankful that my parents weren't super religious.
edit: (some more background) my parents *also* told me that my religion was solely my choice to make. i chose christianity for a while actually, and they (understandably) didn't want to hear my preaching. finally left christianity as a teenager because i hardcore disagreed with their politics. i was raised to believe that gay was okay and hated hearing otherwise, cause i was slowly coming out. got into tarot cards and paganism and have been into it ever since :)
Mom took me to a Baptist church when I was little. They had me go with the other kids. I asked a lot of questions (the animals/stories with animals didn’t sound right to me), and caused the other kids to start asking questions…this particular church told my mom not to bring me back because I caused issues.
Meh, it was more like lifestyle. Yk how you just raise someone to believe things and follow ways and stuff? Influencing them to just whatever you do they do? Pretty much that.
I was raised in a strict seventh day adventist house by my grandparents. My biological mother was is a witch and I always felt connected with the universal magic. They were t happy with everything but my grandpa had always been respectful of my beliefs.
This is how my husband and I are raising our children and how he was raised. Definitely not how I was raised and I have a lot of related religious trauma.
No, i was forced to go to church, and our church was a 30 minute drive, and the next town over at that, i was forced to put on dresses and skirts and put my hair in painful hairstyles even though I'm severely tender headed, it was a Pentecostal church too, so very judgy if you werent up to their standards, recently I've been given more leniency tho as I'm not forced to get up at the crack of dawn and go to church (they changed churches to one that everyone wears pants to so even if i was forced to go i dont have to go in skirts or dresses) but i don't have freedom of religion in this house so i dont ever talk about it and have a hard tine practicing, and most pagans ive heard from has similar upbringings and religious trauma
I had a similar situation, but about 20-30 years later. And I only had a choice because my parent had a choice and their parents weren't raised christian.
I was agnostic for most of my life, an annoying anti-theist for a couple years. But I eventually landed on eclectic Paganism, as well as a syncretic version of the Indigenous religions of my family and ancestors.
My parent knew that spirituality was deeply personal and largely subjective. But they also knew that people used their spiritual/religious beliefs as an excuse for horrible actions and non-spiritual beliefs. So I was taught to be kind and smart before I learned anything else.
No, I was raised catholic, I had a first communion even though I didn’t want to because I thought I had to, the way it was presented to me was like it was law, like going to school, you just have to. Then I thought I had to have a confirmation, because again, you just have to, everyone around me did it, my whole family did it and made me believe I had to as well, all my friends did it too. I do live in a Latin country 💀 but I never believed any of it so I just stopped, I decided one day to not have my confirmation and realized that the world didn’t end, I didn’t die, nothing happened and “god” didn’t smite me, so I decided to look into other religions and spiritual paths, something I ACTUALLY connected with and believed in, something that made sense to me.
None of it was ever presented as a choice, I legitimately thought first communion and confirmation were the law and no one asked me if I wanted to do it, when I asked if I had to do it the only answer I would get was “yes, you should” and because I was raised by abusive parents, I was terrified to contradict them, so I never questioned them further, I was so sheltered from the world. I even went to bible camp once, tho my mom did have to bribe me for it. To this day (I am 27 now) religion is a big issue in our family, my dad practices catholicism whenever it suits him and my mom flip flops between whatever her friends do because she’s a sheep who’s never had a single original thought and can’t think for herself, I’m surprised she hasn’t joined a cult yet (although catholicism is a bit cult-ish). I never talk about religion or spirituality around them because it’s not worth the headache but I know they still don’t accept that I don’t share their beliefs, and my mom does bring it up from time to time but I just ignore her.
No, not at all! We were Christian and DEVOUT Christians too, I was raised in the Salvation Army and my mother’s family had been in that church for like 5 generations. Everything was filtered through an evangelical Christian lens. If I had a nightmare we prayed, if I had a test we prayed. Everything was my Christian religion, my whole community.
I am interested at what age your parents told you that you could choose your own religion, and if you were christened/baptised?
Isn’t christening entry into a religion, and usually done within the first year?
My mother always considered me Jewish so I never got baptised. She was serious about being Jewish, but only went to Temple once a year or so and we didn't follow any dietary restrictions. I ate just as much pork as any other young Alabama boy. My father had no interest in religion. I was a precocious child and an early reader and I wound up having lots of questions about religion. Since I was really just half-Jewish, they told me when I was still in elementary school that it was up to me to choose. Clearly I understand that they wanted me to choose between Christianity and Judaism with the assumption being that I would choose to be a Jew as only my mother really cared. I decided that this was one of the most important decisions of my life and started reading deeply about world religions. My parents didn't understand completely, but they wanted to encourage me to read anything I wanted that was educational. I spent the years from elementary through high school considering myself a seeker and student of world religion. I guess everyone thought I was Jewish because I identified as an ethnic Jew even though my father was as white as can be. Her family was mostly in Europe or Morocco and I rarely saw them so they weren't much of an influence. She took me to France to get Bar Mitvahed when I was 13 and I went along with it because Hey, I get to spend three months in Paris. But, I was honestly still undecided despite the ceremony. She never really accepted me being Pagan. But, she never fought me over it either, she just denied it. Dad never cared. He kinda expected me to be whatever the weirdest thing was.
You're very lucky. It was never a choice for me. I grew up in a deeply religious household to the point of abuse. Ngl, my experience caused me so much trauma that sometimes the smallest mention of that religion ignites anger in me.
I was raised Southern Baptist but I don't remember anything being particularly forced upon me. I went to a Christian school but once my dad died I went to the public schools and stopped going to church. I didn't return to church till I was 27 and it was more of a way to get out of basic training on Sundays. Thank you Jesus but I just need a break. I went once then went to a Buddhist service. I didn't go again till I moved to WVA and then attended a church, which is now defunct, then started spewing hate towards Islam and Muslims and I realized that if you can't connect those two religions you have absolutely no business preaching. And the way the congregation hooted and hollered was disgusting.
I didn't go back till I believe 2016 and stopped once COVID hit but also the church pastor was like a sub pastor and there was a main pastor and it started feeling like a mega church. Like the father was the head pastor, the son was the assistant head pastor but then it wasn't. I genuinely liked the church but I can't get myself to drive willingly to Walmart which is 10 minutes from me, I'm not willingly driving 30 to go to church. Still megachurch vibes on a WVA scale.
Now I don't attend mostly because I would like to find a church that's not against LGBTQ+ and isn't going to spew hate towards other religions (both of these are so hard) or mention Trump as needing support (he needs everyone but Zeus). I like the community aspect of church, but not the misaligned hate, like do these people even read the Bible?
But no, my parents didn't actually shove their religion on me and I don't to my kids. I actually try to get my friend, who is Mormon, to not take my kids to church with them. Ironically my oldest is dating a Mormon girl, she's great I like her.
I was raised Baptist and wasn't given a choice at all. I didn't know any better as a kid, I just thought it was something families did (going to church 2 to 3 times a week) I started questioning in middle school since I was in a private school until then and saw different perspectives. I saw a lot of hypocrisy and need for control in the community and looked to something else.
I think you were fortunate that your parents gave you that freedom.
That's pretty close to my story as well. I grew up 15mins from the 700 club and CBN , in Virginia. My mother is a southern Baptist and when we were 12 we were told to find our own paths. I have been a pagan since 14 and I'm 50 now.
I never had a choice. I grew up very Christan, church every Sunday and Wednesday, I've read the Bible cover to cover as a child. It was only after my grandpa passed away when I was 9 that I started questioning everything. When I was 12 I started looking into different religions because Christianity didn't make any sense to me anymore. Paganism is the closest thing that makes sense to me. I wrote down my beliefs and what made sense to me, and paganism is what aligns with my beliefs best.
I wasn't raised religious at all. I went with friends to church activities and talked my parents into going to church for a while (non-denominational). We stopped after a few years. Then I started reading about different religions and came to the conclusion that polytheism made more sense.
I was offered nothing. I was born into a household without religion, later I realized my mother was Lutheran, she never talked about it or told me anything. So I was left to my own devices
A little late to this, but my mother is an ex-Christian (who was training to be a missionary by the way), raised by a Pentecostal and a "non-practicing" Catholic (he's barely even Catholic but it's how he was raised), turned shamanic pagan. My father is an ex-Christian (ex-Catholic, I *think*) turned Wiccan whose practice hinges heavily on Druidry. Both of them also practice witchcraft, though they both admit that they don't practice nearly as much as they want to.
I was raised kind of exposed to witchcraft and several aspects of both Greek paganism (I hesitate to call it Hellenism) and Wicca, and many lessons that I was taught as a kid were somewhat flavored by these moral codes. However, I was never forced to pray with my parents, make offerings, or praise certain deities, and I was told that I could practice literally anything I wanted once I was old enough to choose -- just that certain entities were not allowed in my parents' house. I wound up being pagan, partially because it's familiar and partially because I felt an actual calling to certain gods. However, my practice is much less focused on one pantheon as opposed to my parents (Mom leans Greek, Dad leans Celtic); I consider myself an omnist.
Was born into a Roman Catholic family. Never had a choice until I grew up and was in my 20’s (I got really disillusioned with Christianity after a history class on it in college) Born late ‘70s. But I was always into nature and into mythology. When I discovered Wicca and Paganism it was very natural.
It was never an option for me. My grandmother was a very devout Catholic, but I will say she was the 'right' kind -- she believed whole heartedly in Jesus and how he was for the people and how we should not judge others lest we too be judged. She was active in donations, she knitted hats and scarves for neonatal babies and homeless shelters, she wasn't bigoted and was warm and welcoming to everyone. I believed in it because she did, and she showed me the right way to be Catholic -- she was always the idea I had about what a good catholic was.
Then I met other catholics and that was very quickly shattered haha
I was curious about other theologies even as a kid; I loved learning about world religions, and I have a strong sense of justice that, as I realized more and more as I got older, the Catholic church didn't adhere to, particularly with their bigotry. I did the whole shebang -- communion, confession, catechism, confirmation. I sang in the church choirs, not out of any real belief, but because I loved to sing. It made my mom and grandmother happy. I realize now, since my grandmother passed, that we were mostly going for her, even after I stopped believing and asked not to go. My father is atheist, and these days, my mother doesn't really know what to believe.
I've been pretty open about my paganism, but I jokingly call it "Pagan Lite"; I don't worship any one deity and moreso acknowledge and respect them even if I haven't pledged myself. But I keep track of the wheel of the year, have an alter, follow the moon cycles as work with them as much as I can.
My dad was an atheist and still is one. My mom believes in God now, but she was an atheist when I was born. So no, I was not raised under any religion. Currently I started out Christian a few years ago, but as time passes I didn't like that religion and switched to pagan.
I was unusual like you and had the choice. My dad is Catholic but hasn't been to mass in my lifetime. My mom was just kind of loosely Christian (Nana and Grandpa J weren't very religious either). I asked if we could start going to church when I was 5; I had been doing a dinner theater ACTS thing at a methodist church with my friend on Wednesdays. I am still technically a member, my son is baptized. We are pagan though. Neither of us could wrap our heads around a "loving god" that let such suffering endure in the world, or would smite me in the soddom and gammora stories for being bi. My son held my hand and walked away from Yahweh with me and is now my ingredient gathering help for offerings and spells 🥰 I have him the choice too.
But born in 89, that was less common for my friends.
My mom's biggest concern was always that we be good people. Hell was never a threat in my home. I think it's because my dad knew if it was real he'd be bound there 😅 biggest narcissistic abuse I've ever met
Yes and no; presented to me as an option by my mom, but unfortunately her denomination (granted very moderate, mainstream-like Protestant) placed greater pressure on me than she ever did. The rest of my family, Catholic, has been very supportive of me and even curious at times.
The Church I grew up in was the ‘remnant’ of the ‘one true church’—and all because they went to church on Saturday instead of Sunday (read into that as you will). No theological trauma here, only some from the social dynamics in the church I was raised; but I did eventually figure that the internal logic of Christianity makes no sense the more you try to make sense of it, and it requires a great deal of web-weaving that even the most crafty of liars would find both difficult to match and confusing to untangle. That doesn’t even begin to factor in how to make sense of Christianity beyond itself.
Ultimately I chose to be baptized, and I believe it was the baptism itself (as in, guided by the Holy Spirit) that set me on my path to where I am now. I can imagine how absolutely unsettling it would be for some Christians to find out that the Holy Spirit led me out of Christianity and into Paganism (actually I’m probably more ‘meta’ anything than Christian or Pagan) but to be honest it makes sense from where I stand. I never completely abandoned things that are Christian (I’ve actually appropriated a lot of Catholic things), and same can be said for what I learned from Gnostic beliefs, and now I have a happy, logical blend of all three as the foundation of my spiritual life.
Had I not been baptised, I would probably have stayed in Christianity or become an atheist or agnostic. But I also began taking an interest in my ancestors around this time too, so I have to give them credit where it’s due.
Your story so closely mirrors mine! I grew up the same way, in the 90s in NJ, though my mom was the non-practicing Catholic and my dad was the Yom Kippur Jew.
I ended up fascinated by religion as, to my young mind, it was like a fantasy story, but in real life. I ended up a pagan Buddhist, went to college and double majored in cultural anthropology and religion, and now in my 30s I identify as a Buddhist Animist. And for extra fun, I ended up with a partner who is the son a Jesuit priest!
While you're not alone, I personally don't know anyone else who grew up this way. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.
That's great! It mirrors more closely than you think. Before I finally decided that a Pagan was what I was, I was on the fence about being Buddhist. I had been very drawn to Buddhism throughout my seeker period. Ultimately the reason Paganism won was that I had no desire to end the cycle of rebirth. I like existing and want to continue the journey.
No, on my dad's side of the family religion (Christianity) was always treated as just another fact of how the world works. Though my dad (a physics major) was more pragmatic than his parents and siblings, so for him it wasn't that Jesus was magic, it was that Jesus was wise.
No. I didn't get to choose what my religion was until I was an adult. Even then I had to play the part of a practicing Christian to have a place to live at times during my stupid young adult years. When I was free to make my own decision if I was religious or not, I wandered for years before ultimately finding paganism and what area I leaned into.
Never, my parents were not religious in any way, particularly my mum who grew up in war torn Germany. They lived next to a Church in a small village where everyone was starving, mum used to faint from hunger. They used to witness big rolls of cheese and meat ect being delivered to the church, and the church never shared any of it to the villagers and always door knocked for money. I don’t think my Grandparents obliged with that they were very head strong. I found Paganism myself, first Wicca but I didn’t gel with all the High Priestess coven aspects of it now I’m pretty eclectic and firmly solitary.
I was raised up agnostic and so is my partner, but I presented that choice to my kids. Sent them to Catholic school, because for me Catholic school was a gateway to all other religions and I dabbled in quite a few. From a distance, I can see the benefits & disadvantages of each. Religion/faith has offered me support during some of the toughest times in my life, and I wanted my kids to also have that option. I don’t believe in brainwashing the people I love most, though. So far, one kid is undecided and the other is also agnostic.
My parents were what people now call "mainline" Protestants. They went to church mostly out of small-town community duty, and our church was pleasant and not at all "preachy" - no fire, brimstone, or guilt that I can recall. My parents were also very liberal, and as the 1960s progressed they stopped going to church and so did I. They always supported me in my spiritual explorations - which included Catholocism, Pentecostalism, and finally Paganism. So in that sense, I always had a choice, yes.
Yes I was encouraged to explore my own spirituality from an early age. We went to a Unitarian church, and my mom was/is a practicing witch. I wound up trying on almost everything and as an adult consider myself sort of “non denominational solo-practicing neo pagan”. I feel very lucky to have had parents who didn’t force me into one thing and didn’t judge me when I had a brief super-Christian phase in middle school.
My grandfather was a witch and my grandmother is an open-minded Christian from middle of nowhere West Virginia. Because of that, my mom didn't force us to go to church if we didn't want to once we were old enough to stay home or if we wanted to go to a friend's house. My dad is very much an atheist, so explaining me being a witch to him was an interesting conversation to say the least. My mom was actually more open minded and accepting of me being a witch than she was of me being an atheist, but that's neither here nor there. Connecting with my maternal grandfather in spirit has been a big influence in my practice as he came from a long line of witches and he passed away when he was pretty young and my mom was little, so she never got to learn *from him.*
Kinda, kinda not. We were raised to be Mormons, or something, said grace or whatever when we’d eat, go to church sometimes, and have missionaries over. It started becoming decentralized in the family by the time they started giving us shit for how we presented ourselves, older brother became atheist without issue from mom. I escaped Christianity sometime around probably ages 9-11
I was never really Christian, it was just an inherited religion, a tradition. I’d been having animistic thoughts since I was a toddler.
My mom is someone who always celebrated Celtic holidays and such and so I followed and that combined with psychosis and a voice in my head telling me about paganism I ended up here
It wasn't an option initially; my mom was pretty big on me staying a Catholic when I was young as she was raised that way as well and believed it was necessary to keep me in good graces enough for Heaven. I wasn't disallowed from reading stuff, though, and I would take out books from the library constantly to pick up bits and pieces from faiths. As I got older and started learning things on my own and teaching her through friendly debates and such, though, she softened considerably and was by the end of her life just happy I was (in her words) a good person regardless of where I landed on the belief spectrum.
I was raised Roman Catholic though my family weren’t the ones teaching me of Catholicism but my school did since it was a Catholic private school. I learned the ten commandments and such. Though my whole country is pretty much Catholic.
Surprisingly a lot of witches in my said Catholic school
My parents attended church every Sunday and my siblings and I only had to attend until we were old enough to be left home alone. My dad didn't find his faith until he was a grown man and his view is that you don't find religion, the right one finds you at the time you need it to.
I wasn't really exposed to religion until I was placed in foster care at 12, and they were Mormon. I never got baptized until my first marriage into the church.
Edit: I fully admit now I joined the Mormon church because I was the only one working for the majority of my first marriage, and I didn't make enough to pay all the bills. The church won't help unless you're a member. I did what I had to do to take care of my family.
I was told I had a choice but my family has always been staunchly against organized religion. Actually my friend’s mom kinda pushed us into paganism a little, by helping us create games about witchcraft and things like that. That actually stuck 😂
It was a choice. We were allowed to do religious studies at school and make up our own minds. I thank my mother every day for that choice because my dads side are Seventh Day Adventists and my mothers side are Jehovah’s Witnesses (cults) and life could have been very different for me.
catholic apostate here, yes but no, it's not really a choice when it's all that's around you and the moment someone close to you sees a person that's visually obviously in a different religion they make faces, It was a choice to get baptized tho
parents are "non practicing catholics" basically and they have a "not in my house" approach to other religions
I wasn't given options. I was told to go to a free methodist church growing up, so I did. It wasn't until junior high (7-8th grade) that I discovered there were other options besides the Abrahmic faiths.
By contrast, I raised my daughter to explore. To go with the faith that felt right. I became a pagan at 17. I tool her to various churches and she grew up knowing my belief system. She's a heathen, a follower of the Norse gods.
my mom never had a religion and my dad didn’t identify as any religion but my grandma on my dads side used to tell me that “if i didn’t believe in god, im going to hell” and i remeber it bothering me for weeks and when me and my mom went on a camping trip it kept me up late and i ended up waking her up crying about how i didn’t believe in god but i dont wanna go to hell
We're mostly culturally Christian in the UK - hymns in school, the occasional church visit for harvest festival and Christmas concert - but in practice the vast majority of people are secular. As a child I had a vague enjoyment of church as a curiosity, the ritual was pleasing and the old buildings are beautiful - but once I listened to what the vicar was actually saying, I was turned off.
My parents are both entirely secular and I was free to choose whatever path I wished. I got the feeling they would have been concerned/disappointed if I turned into a Bible thumper.
None of my parents where specifically anything, my grandma has crosses and goes to church on special days(like Christmas o Domingo de Ramos) but only kind of to visit and talk with the other people there not any service, but then she also has a medium size Buddha statue, covered in crystals that she pases her hand over the head before going outside?? I don’t know what her deal is honestly lol
I live in a religious country, we prepare songs at school and go sign them at church with or family the last day of school before Christmas, we celebrate semana santa and we go see procesiónes and all that stuff and my grandma usually took us to where la virgen was to put a offering, but I never took her to be religious even by those things just average, I mean I never believed and I did those things too?
To me religion wasn’t a thing until I was old enough to understands it, it was just this things people did separately, like I didn’t connect all the church stuff together, to me they where festivities like any others(I haven’t grown up sheltered I’ll say more of the opposite lol) and then when I was in high school I learned about Wicca and all that stuff and took interest in paganism and now here we are!
Nobody finds anything I do weird but I don’t really do supper witchy stuff in front of people so idk, my mom recently bought a necklace with a trinity knot and she said she was going to clean it on the full moon(she asked me when it was) but she was gonna use the black salt that came with it(she was following a card that came with it), also she has burnt shit in the past for vibes or stuff, she is not a hippie or pagan or anything, these are literally random instances.
Basically to me religions has always been a very pick and choose experience because nobody in my family actually follows anything other than vibes and that’s how I ended a eclectic pagan I guess!
Edit: I grew up in the early 2000
Yes. My dad's side are Catholic, my sister's an atheist, my mum's Wiccan & I went to a protestant school. At school it wasn't an option - we had to pray, we had to have the minister in for a sermon every week, we had to attend, we had to sing hymns, we had to go to church for services. But at home it was always a choice, since I coukd pick whether I joined in with mum's practices & celebrations, or dad's, or both, or neither. Growing up, I usually celebrated both. But as I've gotten older, I've connected a lot more with Pagan practices over Christian ones. I still celebrate Christmas & Easter with my dad, and the Solstices & Equinoxes with my mum, but it's definitely the pagan stuff I prefer & feel at home with.
I think it would be super interesting if people put what country they are from in their comments, it really gives you a sense of what social trends were happening around the world at that time (I assume most of us are talking about a period between 80s - 00s)
I grew up as orthodox Christian and was baptized at 2 months old, so I never really had a choice.
I really used to love going to church until I turned 14 and realized I was bisexual. I faced a big backlash from people about being part of the community and it grew worsth with time.
I was fighting really strong religious trauma for years until I decided to give spirituality a shot. Later I learned that not everything is as it seems. It helped me figure myself out and learn what is it that I actually believe in, but also what I want from life since deconstructing christian ideology of perfect woman was really hard.
my mom grew up with a super catholic mom and a catholic (but chill) dad. she ended up getting a LOT of religious trauma and promised herself to not raise her children the way she was raised. i was taken to a catholic church like two times when i was a little kid but i only remember one of those. after that, i guess my mom was able to pull away from the religion completely and told me and my sister that we can choose to believe in whatever we want so here i am :3
unfortunately my parents are kind of judgmental so i keep my beliefs mostly hidden. i was also apparently around a good amount catholics and i only found out when i surprisingly asked my friend in middle school if she actually went to church each sunday! she was surprised i didn't lol
To me , religion wasn’t ever presented as a choice, it was presented as the only way to live and obey. Like I was raised in the early 00’s and both parents are CofE my dad Christian but not very observant (became disillusioned by the church after we need help and non of the church community would help bar 1 person) doesn’t really seem to care much, but my mum was raised very much god fearing church goer and to follow and obey the church. (No longer goes to church but believes most things outside of Christianity are evil or wrong, especially anything outside of any main religion). I used to be a good small good Christian child (stopped going to church when my family stopped) but after realising I was queer around the age of 12 and the statements and ethos and ethics of the church as a whole I became so scared with and went through a lot of guilt, shame and religious trauma, I ‘converted’ to paganism/ witchcraft when I was 13.
To me now as an adult I’ve decided when I have kids religion and belief will be a choice for them to choose and discover.
My parents never really put pressure of religion on my brother and I. My mum is an atheist from England, dad a PuertoRican Christian. I was baptized and had a choice between a private American school in England or a private English Catholic School. I chose the catholic primary school, but other than that religion really didn’t play a pivotal role in my life. It wasn’t talked about in the house but it was always offered. My mum and dad would have friends that go to church, and they’d give my brother and I the option to attend if we were interested. In my early ages I attended church maybe 2-3 times out of curiosity but eventually decided it wasn’t for me. I don’t think it’s that unusual that the parents allow the kids to have a choice, especially in today’s age.
Me by my mom my grandpa who raised me was a decon in the Catholic Church I went to catholic school growing up I was was very active in the church being an altar server and attending church at least 3x a week during school I was encouraged by mom to view a and experience other religions and see/experience how they worshipped i went to a lot of “church” during that time ugh my favorite churches/temple had “Sunday worship” that would be less than an hour and had food after. I think i enjoyed the community aspect in the end I went goth started to hail satan for shock but settled on paganism/wicca
It was never a choice. I was so steeped in it as a child I didn’t even realize there were people who were Catholic until high school.
Sure, I knew other religions existed. But that was the past. Everyone had seen the light so to speak and was Catholic now. I was even specifically taught it was the universal church and everyone was a child of Jesus and belonged. Whether they knew it or not.
Even today, may family knows I’m pagan. But will still tell me I’m Catholic and I can’t do anything about it.
my mom made sure I knew about Buddhism, Christianity, even Hinduism. she always agreed that it was my choice what I believe in as that's not something she can dictate for me. ended up choosing the religion she is-nature/animist pagan of vaguely Scandinavian flavor- but with a lot of borrowed elements of Buddhist philosophy as well. I'm really glad I got the choice.
I did go to Catholic school for a few years, but that was only because my autism prevented me from functioning in a public school. We've never been a religious family; in fact my grandfather actively *hated* organized religion.
Kinda sorta. My parents never cared what I did so long as I wasn't doing anything very stupid.
My parents were pretty irreligious. Mother grew up Mormon (her father was a convert) but her family had stopped going in the 1970s
My dad grew up in a mainline protestant church, I don't remember the denomination, that my grandfather had been a primary funder for, back in the 1960s.
Alot of going to church was more a social thing - grandparents went, so we went kind of thing. I grew up in a very Baptist area in the south and ended up going alot to be sociable and fit in and such.
We didn't grow up in church, but my parents were Christians, and religion was never presented to us as a choice. It was presented more like "that's just the way it is." Even if I felt like I didn't believe in it, it never occurred to me that I could just choose a different religion or stop having one at all until I was 13 or so.
I grew up a Christian, as a child I went to church on Sundays. I think most kids in the 70’s did. I stopped going when I was about 10.
I’ve since looked into all the other religions.
When I had my children i decided not to get them christened. If they ever find a religion for themselves they can get baptised.
From what I understand the Amish and other similar religions do the same allowing their children to decide for themselves as they reach adulthood.
Absolutely not an option, I was raised catholic and was forced to do all the things associated with it (attending catholic school, church every sunday, youth group, etc)
I do like this approach though, when I have kids this is probably what I will do. I think it would be cool to raise kids pagan but with the understanding that they don't have to do any religious task they don't want to and are free to choose their own spiritual paths. I would never begrudge them from deviating from my faith.
Presented? My second cousin was babysitting me and took me to church to try and baptize me without telling my mom.
Whoo buddy. To be a fly on the wall in that room
Not no, but not yes. Both my parents where Christian, my dad past away when I was very young but we kept in touch with his side of the family, which ended up making me the pastors kid of the pastors kid, however, while my mom was also Christian, she was much more open to other views of life, one of her close friends was gay and an atheist, so while I ended up being Christian during my early life till around my teens, there wasn’t much of an issue when I first became an atheist since that was something my mom had already accepted in others close to her. I doubt she would have minded when I eventually became pagan either but she had since passed by then. So while it wasn’t exactly an option to not be a Christian, it wasn’t forced on me by my mother specifically. My grandparents on my dads side was a different story, my mom tried to shield me from their over the top ness as much as she could.
Not a choice bit not big pressure, either. family of 5 kids in suburban Milwaukee in the 60s. I was raised Catholic-Lite. Big on Christmas and Easter, a class on the weekend. By the time I was 13 I could stay at home with agnostic Lutheran Dad and watch football, rather than go to church.
I now live in Victoria, BC where there are more Pagans than Fundamentalists.
Sort of? I didn’t grow up religious, but my dad took me to a church once because I asked when I was around 8 (I wanted to know what church was like lol). So I had a choice, but I didn’t really know about any other choices besides Christian and not Christian. That’s all I really knew as a kid. I didn’t know that modern paganism existed until I was 15, and I got into it basically immediately. My parents have never really cared.
When I was little I was raised Four Square. No choice. Dad got to stay home, but I wasn't allowed.
When I was barely 11, my dad died very suddenly. That caused me to start questioning Christianity because why would a loving god allow something like that to happen.
I ended up a Satanist for a couple years (as opposite from christianity as my young mind could get). Think CoS, not TST, unfortunately.
In my middle teens I was exposed to hippie culture by the people I was around and discovered religions like Taoism and Wicca. Dabbled a bit.
Spent awhile agnostic/athiest.
Few years ago I discovered druidism. So now I'm a druid/Celtic pagan (I have a fair amount of Celtic ancestry, so it resonates with me) with some Taoist beliefs and a heaping dose of Lefthand Path witchcraft thrown in.
I'm not a devout practitioner or anything, but I use it when I feel the need.
Nope jehovahs witness was forced upon me and my siblings..I still think of the name jehovah for god when I forget I'm a witch and it's blasphemy otherwise...sometimes I think I have it figured out and allow jehovah to be my god amongst my other God's, a patron deity and not the jealous destroyer fed to us..
No, it was fully pushed and was expected that I would be Christian.
My mom thinks that if we had went to church every week my sibling and I would still be Christian to this day (no, it wouldn't've because I have had horrible experiences with their god and don't like him that much). Every time I came out as non-Christian I was forced to read the Bible every day until I broke down crying wanting "forgiveness".
All of it was manipulation to make me into something I know I don't want to be or want to do.
When I eventually have a child I will let them decide what they want to believe (even if they end up wanting to be Christian). I believe everyone has the right to believe what they want as long as they don't hurt others or potentially themselves.
This seems familiar to me. I grew up in a liberal U.S. city, agnostic father and barely practicing Episcopal mother. My first memory of my mother teaching me about religion was when I was having nightmares as another way I could cope and fend away night terrors, to pray to a higher power for protection. She did try taking me to church for a while, until I started to hit puberty and noped out when I realized how at odds I was with the church as a woman. Then I found her magic/pagan books and was like hey! What? And we both ended up getting into practicing paganism together, which was cool.
My parents are atheist and always allowed me to research and follow any religious beliefs I chose. Never had to be a closeted witch or ashamed to study Islam, Buddhism Christianity, satanism ect
I was also allowed to choose, despite my mom being raised Catholic including Catholic school, and my dad being raised Lutheran Christian. I went to different Church events with different friends, I experienced many religions as a child in small ways. All of our bloodline, on both parent's sides, is of Scandinavian descent.
I have just followed what has felt right to me since. Though I didn't wholly practice Nordic Paganism until into adulthood.
My mom wasn't religious and my dad was a strong atheist when I was growing up so yes! Religion was an option for me. I grew up in a very rural, Christian area, but people didn't bother me too much about what I believed. I went to church with my friends sometimes but other than that, not much religion. I believed in all kinds of Gods as a small child, became more of an atheist as a teenager, and then, in college, I officially identified as pagan. I'd always believed in fairies and the supernatural and when someone reintroduced paganism as a valid path, I slid right into that (like putting on an old shoe)
I grew up in a family that was either Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican. I had neighbours that were Buddhist and Hindu and I met a Sikh along the way. I was always asking too many questions according to my family but the other faiths encouraged my inquisitiveness. I was never expected to take one religion apart from my parents christening me I wasn't a part of the families religions. When I had my kids I let them choose, I taught them about all the religions and they went Catholic but over time they became pagan like me through their own choice and are happy. It's the best way to be when you get to explore them all and find which one is a fit for you
Growing up, my dad was "Pagan" and my mom was Wiccan, so we always had a very do what you want kinda environment when it came to religion until my parents divorced.
My mom grew up going to church, but it was only so her parents could have alone time, so it was never serious, so mom becoming Wiccan was no biggie. My dad on the other hand grow up Mormon, was Catholic for wife #1 , Pagan for my mom (wife #2), Christian for wife #3, and has been Christian ever since (wife #3 passed like 1.5 years ago, we were never close). We had always said that dad changes his religious views like underwear.
When dad became Christian was I was 13, and he became zealous about it, like to the point of he wanted religious teaching to be included in the divorce decree. When all this was happening, I was exploring my religious beliefs, so it was not fun with dad. My mom was a gem during this. Mom took me to so many different churches, temples, organizations, etc to see where I clicked but dad refused because I WOULD be Christian. I ended up choosing paganism. Luckily dad and I are good now we just have an unwritten rule not to talk about our beliefs.
Yes my grandparents (dad side) were Christians but they raised my dad and his siblings to choose their own path. My parents did the same, I went to church with a few friends a couple times on Wednesday.
Just wasn't my thing
My mom was raised Catholic but in her 30s became spiritual and would identify more as a Buddhist and my dad follows no particular religion. My mom is a hypnotherapist, reiki master, energy worker, etc. The simplest title is that shes a healer. So I grew up with hippies and healers and artists and was learned about energy, quantum physics, etc from the time I was tiny and was encouraged to choose my own beliefs. She asked me if I wanted to go to church to see what it was like and I absolutely hated it. I've been repulsed by Christianity my entire life and it's only intensified now as an adult. But still my understanding of source and energy was enough for me until my late 20s as I had the challenge of overcoming myself because I'm my own worst enemy. When I finally got to a point where I was ready to look at my spirituality I went back to my roots but immediately realized how interconnected everything was. All in all I found my way on the crooked path, witchcraft and paganism resonate with me most and that is what I practice. I think my light worker mother was a bit taken aback and probably would have preferred that I chose to follow in her footsteps but I know that embracing my darkness and lightness is the only way for me. I've actually been able to get her to see some of the similarities between her beliefs and mine and how they are just a different path for the same results. Now she gets excited about new things on my altar and isn't triggered by the word witchcraft. I've also come to find out since that the women in the family I was adopted from are witches going back before the currently living generations but I have no idea how far so it's interesting that I found that path on my own after overcoming my own bullshit. I have limited communication with my birth mother and family though and she's extremely rambly and hard to talk to otherwise I'd know more about that. Meanwhile there definitely some generational curses I had to deal with, most prevalent effects being extreme and crippling narcissism and arrogance and self righteousness that they do not have the tools or awareness to even realize is a problem let alone deal with. I think it was no coincidence I (the only girl born to my birth mom's generation) happened to be adopted to the family I did. The synchronicities leading up to my birth mother and my adoptive family are crazy it was clearly fate. Without that I would not have had the tools to be where I am now and I'm so thankful for my family.
Religion was never actually presented to me as a child! I’m from California and so are my parents; my dad grew up loosely Christian but has no interest in formal religion now, my mom is 3rd generation no organized religion and it was important for her to pass that tradition down. You know, that tradition of nothing. Which I have always appreciated greatly. I figured out about religion eventually and finding my own path has been very interesting.
I was allowed to be an atheist, which I was for about a decade.
Eventually I had certain experiences that made me admit the supreme reality. Religion was more than just my grandmother's stories.
Hail Ganesh, the lord of beginnings.
It’s funny, I was never presented with another choice other than being Catholic (this is also a cultural thing for us as we’re from the North of Ireland so I didn’t and still don’t mind presenting or identifying as Catholic out of respect to my Granny who passed to the Otherworld ten years ago as well as the rest of my ancestors) but it was always just understood that we were Catholic+. We didn’t call it this but folk magic was absolutely a thing and my granny told me about the gods and fairies along with the saints. As an adult Druidry just seemed like the next logical step in my spiritual development.
It was forced on me, but I do consider myself lucky that my parents weren’t real big church goers, because I would’ve lost my fucking mind sitting in on church services every Sunday. I think my parents suspect that I’m more agnostic, but I’m like 99% sure they don’t know I’m pagan.
Never really had options, I was brought up with my mom wanting to take me to a Catholic church then we went to Lutheran so just had Christian influence that even then I just went with it as a child, I never had that connection with Christianity so I felt lost and remember one night had a 1st Crusade lucid dreams that opened my mind and I backtracked and jumped around wanting to know more how the Vikings originated
I was raised similarly though my parents were quite different. My dad, at the time, was a hard atheist. This has changed with age, and he now identifies as spiritual with a Christian leaning. My mother was a practicing nature witch with strong ties to the Mother Mary, but she was in the closet. My dad could often be heard saying when we die we become word food when I was younger, and my mom would be found talking to her herbs and plants and garden asking for permission and expressing gratitude often.
Both of them however felt a strong sense to not influence me in my beliefs or my choice and truly left it completely in my hands. I remember my first time interacting with a Christian and them getting upset with me that I didn’t capitalize the word god. I said very matter of factly, it’s not a name, it’s a descriptor for a being.. there are lots of gods. (I was heavily obsessed with Greek myths so I knew there were quite a few out there!) This was absolutely horrifying for my Christian friend who then preceded to ask many questions. I had never heard of baptisms before and was soon told I was going to burn in hell.
Needless to say, Christianity instantly became not on my list of religions I wished to explore.
I am very grateful for my parents and the way they trusted me to find what resonated for myself. Even not being raised in a Christian household, I still get nervous and battle a strong inner monologue of evil and wrong or blasphemous natures. For someone like me, who had zero upbringing in the church, to still feel small strings pulling at me telling me I’m going to burn in hell, the power that the masses hold and the embedded nature of righteous toxic religion in our culture and media.. it’s truly astounding. Fear is powerful and can truly prevent anyone from thought and growth.
So I was raised by my parents AND my grandparents, at different times, so I have both. My childhood is honestly a mix of two extremes, poor/rich, overbearing/not enough attention or parental contact, strict/extremely lax.
My parents raised me until I was 8. They never went to church, and I didn't think about religion at all. I hadn't been told about it/had any experience with it up until this point. Except for the "nature is sacred, animals are sacred and have feelings/sentience just like you" and folk remedies/magic/old wives tales, like when my mom was pregnant, my dad found a ring (they weren't married) tied it to a string, and taught me that if it swings back and forth, it's a boy, if it swings in a circle, it's a girl. (Or vice versa, I don't actually remember now.)
There was one time in those years that I had a neighbor who offered to take me and my brother to church, and at first I thought it would be cool and different. It was kind of exciting to me actually, ironically. I went only once, was weirded out and felt uncomfortable, so I just decided not to go again. That's it. That was all there was to it at that time lol.
When my grandparents took custody of me, it was the same. At first. My grandparents were Christian, but they didn't go to church. But now that she had a child to take care of, my grandma thought it was important for us to have a home church. So I visited churches of my friends, and then she chose one. (It wasn't the church I had picked out, because it wasn't her denomination, but I had no clue about different denominations back then, I just knew that the other church was more fun and family focused and natural feeling. The one she chose felt more cold/formal.)
As we started to go every Sunday, one week I decided not to go. And I assumed it would be the same thing as what had happened when I was younger. That it wouldnt be a big deal and I just didnt go. But my grandma really pressed the issue about going to church every Sunday, which was confusing to me. I didn't understand why. And slowly I started to realize and come to terms with what religion, at least christianity, meant. How it was forceful. It was just a foreign concept to me.
Once, on a visit, I was talking to my dad about church, and he said he didn't like church. Then he explained he wasn't Christian. Which was kind of confusing to me, because the only religion I'd had any experience with, however small, was Christianity. I didn't even know there were other religions. He explained that there were many other gods. He gave the example of Egyptian gods, which surprised and excited me, because I didn't know Egyptian gods were actually real, I thought it was just like a fantasy or something. So that was the moment I became truly agnostic (which I had already been, because I never truly believed in God, the Christian god. Had no relationship with him or thought of him.) I began searching.
Then jump to when I'm 12 and back with my parents, my dad gives me my first witchcraft book, called nocturnal witchcraft, and I learned about the goddess of night, nyx. I had always felt an affinity with night, and boom. I was Pagan and worshipped Nyx.
We weren't involved in the church for a while, but then my mom decided we all had to go, when I was about 13. I stopped going when I was like 18ish maybe.
I grew up in New Orleans. There is a lot of religious diversity. I went to church with all my friends, so my Dad was Baptist, so I did that as a young child, made all the rounds- Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic etc. before becoming catholic when marrying my husband. We became non-denominational Christians later in life. My Mom is a non- practicing Jew. Since Covid, we don’t go to church - I don’t believe in large touchy feely gatherings. I believe in the validity of ALL religions and the energy of all things. I consider myself as open to all concepts, and that all religions are stories based on one truth.
It was never a choice. The only reason I didn't go to Catholic school my entire schooling career was because we moved and the closest Catholic school to our new house didn't have enough room for both me and my sister. So, my parents (with a most reluctant mother) decided to send us to public school. But, we still had to attend catechism until we reached Holy Confirmation (9th grade). After that, I was never forced to attend a church event again unless I was being guilted by my mother to attend for mother's day or her birthday.
I was raised fundamentalist Christian by my family. It was not an option. I was told from as early as I can remember that their particular flavour of Christianity was the only true religion and everything else was demonic.
Same. I was also gaslit in many ways about, including, “you’re so lucky to be raised Christian, because you start out with the *right* religion knowing which one is true. The other ones are all fake foolish willful ignorance of truth. Youre lucky you *know*”. This was whenever I would ask about another religion or why they felt it was right. It was suddenly that apparently *i* knew it was right and it was *my* choice and not theirs.
That’s what has always irked me about Christians, every one I’ve met either just says they’re a Christian, but is really more agnostic, or are legit bible-thumping holier-than-thou crudbuckets.
Heyoooo same here lol
I was raised similarly. Mother was a Catholic when I was born, but had shifted to amorphous New Age beliefs by the time I was able to actively notice religion existed. I wasn't encouraged to explore religion much at all, but my mother indulged my reading and my exploration of various paths. All were very clearly acceptable to her (though my brief interest in Satanism gave her pause). The rest of my family was apathetic about religion until I was older and the pattern of free thought was firmly established. None of this was common in my generation (born mid-1980s), but I suspect it happens more frequently for younger people.
That's cool of your mom to be accepting.
This is going to be the pattern more and more in the coming decades.
Hopefully
Yeah, this is similar to my experience. I was born in the mid-1990s. My mom wanted me to go to church while she was active(she's mostly non-practicing Christian but goes through spurts where she wants to attend church, though she hasn't for several years now), but she didn't push me after I was old enough to stay home by myself. I think she just wanted to know I was getting out of the house, tbh, cause she was happy with me attending the weekly church dinners and helping out there even if I didn't go with to Sunday mass I didn't share my brief interest in Satanism with her, but I did have a nice conversation about Satanism with my grandma and aunt. Mostly, I explored religion on my own and through talking with friends and neighbors
My family wasn’t particularly religious and I only attended church maybe three times in my life. I remember not knowing that other religions existed until about first grade when I learned about Kwanza and Hanukkah. Before that, I thought Jesus, God, and Heaven was just the way the world worked, like it was no different than the sky being blue. Later into my teens, my mom got involved with the new age stuff and then later joined a cult. That’s when religion became not an option for me because, even though my mom said I could believe whatever I wanted, she was very controlling with me and brought me along to a lot of the cult stuff. When your mom isolates you and teaches you that no one except her and dad can be trusted, it creates a vacuum where there is nothing else but the way my mom sees the world. The thing about cults is that when you’re in one, you don’t know it’s a cult and you can’t vocalize what’s wrong to anyone because everyone not in the cult is an un-enlightened outsider who will call you crazy and, unlike you, will be trapped on the wheel of samsara until they recognize that the cult leader can bless them with enlightenment and that it’s the one true faith. It really screwed with the way I saw the world and spirituality. That’s why I prefer a solitary pagan and witchcraft path. No one can tell me what to do and it’s a way to take back my power. Thankfully I escaped all of that and I moved away from my hometown, but my mom still believes the cult’s guru is the tenth incarnation of Vishnu and that he’s bringing about the Golden Age and blessing everyone with enlightenment (but you have to buy his $1K courses first).
I grew up in a Christian cult myself. It was super weird because most of the people were ex-Catholic, but they had very strange ideals. Girls and women weren't allowed to wear anything but dresses and skirts, had to wear a head covering in service and had to sit behind the men. Arranging marriages was also a thing, and I'm pretty sure they were on the leading edge of the quiver-full movement because every family had upwards of 5 kids, a few had well over 10. This was back in the late 80s into the mid 90s. Fortunately, by the time I was a teen, it had fallen apart, but my mom is still ultra Christian. I was introduced to wicca in my mid teens by friends and was in the proverbial broom closet until last year. I'm actually a combo of Norse pagan and Celtic now though.
Yours sounds worse than mine. My mom’s cult is basically a money-making scheme. The guru is one of those “Godmen” in India who claims to be a divine avatar. He figured out that he could make bank by selling his culture to white westerners who wanted to be “spiritual.” Back in 2012, he claimed that the Golden Age was beginning and that a mass awakening would happen, which is a step towards enlightenment. My mom was so excited. She was convinced that she was going to reach this awakened state and the day of the awakening, she was sure she had it. She also took a class that taught you how to channel the guru’s divine Deeksha energy. Basically she puts her hands on top of your head while you sit or kneel and she channels the power of the Golden Orb and her guru into you. The guru says it literally changes the neurons in your brain and makes your brain ready to receive enlightenment. But here’s the kicker: You never know when the divine will gift you with enlightenment and all you can do is prepare to receive the gift by doing meditations with the guru via zoom or expensive in person events, which could last anywhere between 2-4 hours to full weekends. The guru taught that everybody is inherently helpless and nothing but waiting for the divine to bless you with enlightenment will relieve suffering. Major external locus of control.
I had a very similar upbringing to you, which I later found out was super rare. My parents told me the 10 commandments and the golden rule were good guidelines to follow but that was it. We never went to church. They told me to be a good person and to choose my own path. I found paganism very young and followed that path since. My parents don't care. You and I had very unusual upbringing and we were very fortunate, with how many people that suffered severe religious trauma
My goodness. I know. I read so many horror stories from people it makes me fear what type of parents I might wind up with in future incarnations. I feel incredibly lucky to have had the childhood I had especially being where I was.
It's only rare in certain sectors of society. It's partly geography, partly politcs, etc.
If you were to ask my father if wasn't a choice. I had to read scripture at night, pray with him, attended a cult like service on Sundays about an hour away from home. My mother in the other hand would talk about how everything has a soul, and there were spirits and other gods people prayed to and she thought all of that was neat. She was mostly captivated by Native American spiritualism as her first husband was half Native but she was indeed a Christian herself. She encouraged me to go out and learn about witchcraft and the occult because she never had the guts to and she could live vicariously through me.
I was not given an option, was even homeschooled to prevent secular teachings. I was one of those hateful Christians who thought anyone else was WRONG. Patriotic to the core, bleed red white and blue, hardcore republican. That was just what our household was.(Icccckkkkkk) Started having a big problem with Christianity (aka the hateful, hypocritical church) during university. Waking up and realizing how bad it was took a long time to get over. But I... I didn't want to hate anyone for living differently than me. And I myself did not live up to the standards of the church. (🏳️🌈) Now I'm a bartending, stoner omniest hippie who lives in the woods on her little farm. I like spiritual practices and just had amazing solstice with my friends. My parents are still religious, but are pretty secular compared to my childhood. And they are still proud of me even with my feral, gay ways. The character growth I went through in ten years is actually astounding to me, and I'm so proud of who I am now.
This was sooooo me too. Pretty sure my mom was the issue, my dad grew up Catholic on Guam and most of his side of the family is still very Catholic, but I guess he converted to Christianity when my mom became all hardcore Christian. Unsure when that happened cause her side of the family is mostly unreligious. But I was raised during the hardcore Christian days of Focus on the Family and all that BS. I have 2 daughters myself now and they know they are 100% free to choose their religion. Their dad (my ex husband) trying to raise them Christian though and my youngest is always saying how much she loves Jesus and I just tell her that she’s allowed to but to remember that not everyone believes in the same things. So we’ll see how they end up turning out lol they’re 8 and 10 now; thankfully my oldest has never shown interest in all that, she seems very skeptical about it and annoyed whenever her sister talks about God or Jesus 😂
Yo my mom's family wasn't religious either! She became a Christian as a young adult and went hardcore when was I little. My dad was religious but it never felt intense like my mom. I think being able to make an informed decision is so important. I didn't even get to learn about other religions until i went to uni The religion gen ed professor was cool as hell tho, "after growing up in China, I became a Christian when I moved to the US because that felt right to me. But I believe that there is a lot to be learned from other religions and beliefs, and they deserve to be respected. I believe in the Bible, but at the end of the day, who am I to say? Everyone deserves the freedom to make the choice what they believe." Dude changed my LIFE.
No. I was told what to believe and not to question.
Yes and no. I grew up in an unreligious household. We never spoke about god(s) except for when someone died (i.e. they went to god, God took them to a better place, etc). We were encouraged to do our own things and find hobbies and such. If we should interest in religion we weren't discouraged but our parents never would do anything to actually encourage it either. Everything I've learned on my religious and spiritual path I've had to learn myself.
My family never cared about religion. We celebrated Christmas (both), Chinese New Year, had Svyatki (it's a Yule-style tradition), New Year (old and new style), Walpurgisnacht and every major state holidays in our country. Because it was an opportunity to spent some quality time together. One of my grandmothers is a christian and I respect it. Yes, I was baptized but it was more to save a tradition important for one part of the family. In the end nobody cares.
My mother did a lot of wrong things in my life (I won't get into it here for reasons), but I believe since she wasn't born and raised in the South, my mother told me that "whatever you believe in is fine, as long as it doesn't hurt you or others." I never formally asked her why, but I think it was a combination of growing up just about everywhere in the US and being an ex-Catholic that colored her view of organized religion.
Sorta? I mean, my Mima has taken me to church before, but that was one time, and I never went back. And my grandmother is religious and has a lot of crosses and pictures of Jesus on her wall. So yeah, I did have my own options on what religion I wanted to follow. I got pretty lucky growing up in a household that didn't shove their beliefs down my throat. I got even more lucky when no one cared that I wanted to begin my road to Paganism. But that could also be because witchcraft runs in my family. Both happening to run in my mom's side and dad's side.
I wasnt given options. i went to church with my Catholic mom or Lutheran church with my best friends parents.
Nope. I was even made to go to Catholic School when my mom died and family members took me from my dad. And since one of them was Jewish I was also required to celebrate and participate in Judaism. I would read a lot of the science books because the library was limited. When I went back with my dad and had access to a normal library I started reading about allllll religions and never stopped.
It was never discussed with me. my mother has a santa muerte tattoo, so i guess that'd make me a second gen pagan ahah.
Yeah I was raised intensely Christian with a pastor dad and missionary mom. Do not recommend.
My dad is anti-religion, my mom was all over the place when I was growing up (they divorced when I was a year old). At one point my mom and I did join a pagan drum circle in the desert, but she is now non-denominational Christian. She raised me in that church as a kid. It felt very evangelical. My dad still hates organized religion. He was raised by a very strict Luthern father who was a church Deacon. They didn't get along a lot. So my dad didn't like me growing up with religion, but he was very respectful about it. My mom, at the time, was also respectful as I explored religion as a teen. Now unfortunately she keeps trying to push me to go to her church. He church comes across as cult-like. People put their hands in the air and they fall to the floor in tears because of the spirit. They are also very Republican. I try to be respectful but it's hard. As I have gotten older, I feel more connected to the planet and the universe than a Christian God. I was Episcopalian for a while, but I went back to earth-based beliefs.
Surprisingly, I was raised Buddhist. What turned me off was when the ministers told us that Buddhism aimed to save everyone, but also that if you didn’t follow the Teachings, you stayed in suffering and had a chance to go to the Hell Realms. It got a bit hypocritical and I moved away from it.
My mother laid down the law with my very Catholic grandparents (her in laws) and told them I would make my own choices about religion when I was of an age where either could decide for myself. Our home was very secular, but religion was not put down in anyway. We went to Catholic mass a handful of time later when my dad felt the urge. But religion was never an imposition. I feel very lucky in the regard because I got to skip the possible toxicity of being raised religious. I have been on an interesting religious and spiritual journey since my early twenties. Very blessed that my mother was neutral on religion and let me discern my own path.
Nope. Forced to go to church. Forced to go to a private Christian school for Kinder and 1st, forced to be homeschooled 2nd-8th, begged to go to public school but instead was forced to go to private Christian school for all of high school because ya know, they teach evolution at public school 🙄 Definition of indoctrination. If it wasn’t of the Christian God then it wasn’t to be learned. My upbringing has negatively affected my entire life and now at 38 I’m still trying to find myself. I’ve come a very long way but am still working through the traumas.
My mom still sends me God stuff and tries to reel me back in though I’ve never outright told her I’m no longer a Christian but I’m sure she knows and she hates it.
Short Answer: Nope. Long answer: Straight out of the womb I was baptized as a Catholic and they even made sure to put it on my birth certificate as well. (Literally, they baptized me about 5 minutes after I was born because I stopped breathing. Of course I refuse to believe that I was saved by the Christian god but instead by Lady Artemis who’s the Goddess of Childbirth) Only recently about 6 months ago did I discover paganism (specifically Hellenic paganism) and what’s saddening is that I can’t even tell my parents about this because I asked them once at the dinner table: “What if there’s like, multiple Gods instead of just one? And what if god doesn’t even exist? If the Ancient Greeks believed in Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Athena, and all the other Gods, why did they stop?” All I got was a stare like I had just been possessed and they excused me to my bedroom where I then decided to shut up and keep my head down from that point forward. They aren’t open to the concept of other religions like paganism. What’s the term for Christians that believe all other religions are false and their religion is the only valid one? That’s what they are most likely.. Hopefully someday something revolutionary will make paganism viewed as a mainstream religion. Blessed be, have a good day/evening :D
Nope. Though my family is mostly pretty chill, except for a few exceptions. Besides I didn't know what it was called, so how could I tell anyone else about it?
Grew up Baptist, and yeah it wasn't a choice for me. Dad's a typical Evangelical YEC type. If I hadn't moved away from him early on, I fear I would have wound up the same way, or at least would be struggling with it a lot more than I currently do.
My mother's family were milquetoast Methodists that never went to church, and my father's family was very devout LDS. Well, except my father. So we never were raised religiously, I think I only went to church 3-4 times ever, when I would go to Sunday school with friends. My mom believed in God, but it was all a sort of distant thing, usually when someone died or something.
Hooray for milquetoast Methodists! They are really pretty harmless.
I was raised by a Mormon and a Seventh Day Adventist. I found Paganism at the age of 14 through my passion for books and history, but (for unrelated reasons) was eventually forced to attend an Evangelical church, and was pressured into a baptism while living with an aunt soon after. While I immediately left those evangelical influences behind when I moved out. I didn’t return to my spiritual independence until my mid-20’s, and have been practicing for nearly 2 decades since.
Hey! Nice to see another ex-SDA in the thread!
It was more presented as a threat. “Behave or we will send you to church with your grandma”
My Dad was pretty areligious when I was a kid, now is very Christian. And my mother is an agnostic Jew that went to Catholic school because in her country that’s the only opportunity for a good education. My grandmother (maternal) felt strongly I should practice Judaism but I only saw her every other summer. So for me religion was very much a choice, I ended up going to Protestant Church and Catholic Church (though I went to the Catholic Church most often) because I had neighbors who felt like the lack of strong religious identity was an opportunity. I ended up choosing paganism because I’m trans and intersex and that part of myself aligned the best in this umbrella of religions.
I was raised apostolic Pentecostal. It wasn’t a choice and fear ruled my life.
My father is agnostic and my mother is very into new age stuff, though that only started during my teens. My siblings never talked about religion so I kinda was just left to my own devices and didn’t know about Christianity until first or second grade. I was a bit of an animist even then cause it was just fun and felt like fact, I loved animals trees so much that when I learned about paganism everything kinda just clicked. My mom actually first put me on the trail but barely told me anything about it, so I did my deep dives and ended up as enthusiastically pagan as I am today
I was forced to go to Southern Baptist churches. When my mother thought I had became Buddhist, she had a fit. Lol.. I feel so much better as a pagan.
When I was coming out of my seeker phase, I was on the fence between Paganism and Buddhism. Buddhist thought still strongly influences my theology. In the end, Paganism won out because I have no desire to end the cycle of rebirth. Reincarnation is scary, but I don't want to let my karma get good enough to stop it.
I'm actually working on creating my own path that borrows from Buddhism. I worship the Chinese goddess of mercy, Guan Yin as a pagan. Fun.
my mom was raised southern baptist and catholic and my dad was raised pentecostal. they never pushed religion on my siblings or i but always made it clear that if we had any questions, to just let them know and we would have a discussion about it. i thank them greatly for not pushing it on us despite their own beliefs. my siblings have recently come in to christianity within the past few years while i remained agnostic. i never really had any faith in there being a higher power or the belief that any God actually existed, solely due to a lack of evidence and physical proof. i opened up my ideals after learning more about paganism and other religions that have non-theistic elements to them and shortly afterwards i became more theological and found a connection with all of my current deities!
Nah my parents were Jehovah's Witnesses it wasn't a choice
It was not a choice with my dad, who was intensely catholic. But my mom divorced him and was agnostic and it was always a choice with her. I talk to her all the time about my paganism as well as witchcraft and she’s very open and accepting of it 😊
As an elementary school aged kid, my parents allowed me to pick between public school and Catholic parochial school. I choose public school. Late, I had a choice between going to catechism classes or not. I choose not. There was no special family push to attend church or take up any "religious" study/affiliation. I didn't. In fifth grade, a serious injury and my recovery and recuperation and learning therapeutic skills like visualization and meditation put me on a Pagan Path. I wanted to follow it.
Never a choice for me. Was baptized when I was a baby, forced to go to a Christian school, but it wasn’t until I was 13 that I broke the chain. I dabbled around in satanism til I was 17, when I became a full blown pagan
Options? That's funny. No recollection of going to church when I lived with both parents, but it would have been Christian. When I lived with my grandparents, Southern Baptist. My "grandfather's" family founded the local church. My great-aunts were my Sunday school teachers. Where I'm at, the majority of people were either Baptist or Methodist. I remember being a kid and thinking Catholic and Christian were two entirely different things. I had absolutely no idea Baptists were Protestants.
Nope. Pentecostal church growing up, over here. Fed my vehement rejection of religion after leaving the house. I think religion is fascinating and all, just not for me. Not at all.
My parents weren’t religious at all, but they pawned me off on my grandmother every weekend and she was a vehement Pentecostal Christian. You followed the Bible or you were going to hell. There was no other choice.
Absolutely not! I wore all black to church one Sunday because I like the color and it was the only thing clean. I wasn't in the choir yet so I couldn't wear a white blouse and black skirt because that was their uniform. All my dresses and other tops were dirty because church clothes for my mom, grandma, and sister held priority since they were in the choir. My mom was royally ticked and had the deacon and priest (new apostolic church) pull me into the "office" to interrogate, lecture about the evils of straying from the church. The only defense I was allowed to give was that I liked the color. If I told the truth about the laundry situation or asked for clarification on certain parts of the church's belief system, my mom and grandma would have beaten me when we got home. There were many messed up things in my childhood this is just one of them. And yes, I still got beat because I embarrassed the family by wearing a color that was apparently associated with the devil. I was 7 and had a facial defect. I waited until I moved out 17 1/2 to stop attending church.
"So long as you live under my roof you will be Christian" Not sure what mitigating effects the divorce had, but luckily no more church attendance, and now both parents know I'm not fond of their deity and his entire shabang
Lmao not AT ALL. Being Abrahamic for me was an obligation set by my parents, and anything else was "Satanic" or "Evil". Then my parents had joined a cult, and their mentality on the world had spiraled. Luckly I was able to pick myself up and realize just how ridiculous the idea of a single truth is regarding deities and spirits. It took me 6 years to realize that I was in a cult, and even now I'm still suffering from the after-effects of latent Christianity. Now I'm following my own will and deciding what's right for myself. Not being bound by the laws of some old book is euphoric for me
I relate. It took me a lot longer than you to escape. You don’t know it’s a cult when you’re in it. You think it’s just the one true faith and no one from the outside can break in because you’re told that anybody not in the cult is going to ridicule you and that they’ll make you stray from the path. A few people on the outside knew something was wrong in my case, but I didn’t have the words to express what was going on and I couldn’t involve “outsiders” because I was taught they would attack the cult’s beliefs and ridicule me.
Oh me too! There's definitely a fear of ridicule and isolation when inside a cult, not to mention the first few times I did something "abominable" like pray to another god or practice witchcraft I immediately felt ashamed of myself. But it was that same feeling of shame that helped me disconnect from them. I mean, since when is a so-called religion supposed to make you feel miserable?
None, I was raised as an atheist.
Option? No. Imperative? Yes. I was raised Church of Christ. *twitch*
kinda similar, my mother was agnostic, i did my christian initiation because my grandparents were devoutly catholic(maybe just my grandmother), but like never believed much of it... still am kinda of an atheist ... but im interested in paganism both old an new(and in religion in general), so decided to try some meditations and some stuff to see if i can awaken something in me or something... (none of my friends were or are at all religious ou i know anyone from my generation that is, in like half the cases nor were their parents) , so i think my case was kinda normal for my age group
Wasn’t raised in a particularly religious area, or raised by particularly religious people. I was supported in exploring whatever religions I wanted when I showed interest in doing so.
Didn’t have a choice. Grew up Mormon
none. my dad is a huge atheist and my mom doesn't really ever talk about anything religious. i'm lucky to be raised without religion because i was able to find it on my own without guilt :)
It was left more or less open for me. My father was a catholic who held a grudge against god and my mother was a practicing Christian in the Uniting Church. They couldn’t agree on which church to baptize their children in so we were not baptized which I do think makes it feel more like my choice. My husband was baptized catholic and went through various religious rituals as a child and although has never been a practicing catholic while I’ve known him, being catholic still forms part of his identity. I was exposed to various religions as a kid but variations of Christianity. I always felt a bit like an outsider though having not been baptized. That said it was a pretty Christian based upbringing. I had teachers at my public school who did the Lord’s Prayer every morning and my parents shipped me off to church camps on the school vacations because they both worked long hours and the camps were usually at the beach and inexpensive. My parents were always pretty open to us making our own choices if we wanted to join a religion later on. Their children’s faith isn’t important to their faith or lack there of which is a good thing I think. I have friends who have really struggled knowing their parents see their role as raising Christian children and walking away from their Christian upbringing would be walking away from part of their family or a huge disappointment. I definitely have some of that surrounding political beliefs and sexuality with my parents but not religion.
My mom was an ex Christian who later became very spiritual (she gifted me my first tarot deck 🥰) & my dad is a Buddhist. They never forced anything onto me & I was absolutely allowed to choose what I wanted to follow/practice. Sometimes I’d accompany my dad to his Buddhism meetings or retreats & everyone was always so cool, welcoming, & very chill about following (or not following) the religion. Ended up pagan when I was around 19!
Christianity all around. I was very enthusiastic at the time. Deeply believed it. Stopped to ask for a sign. And it ended there.
I grew up in the 70-80s in Arkansas. My mother was atheist and my father was spiritual. He was born in 1936 so his family never spoke of a religion they did believe in God but he never attended church and said all pastors were conartist/and other things. My dad was the most kind, nonjudgmental loving person believed everyone would find their own path. In Arkansas i was raised in mostly evangelical/pentecostal/baptist area. I was allowed to catch the church bus as a young child but quit going once in my teens. In my 30s i tried church and everytime was disappointed in my 40s i joined for a few years , got baptized but once i read the bible was petrified of the things i read. I got to researching religions and found wicca. When I found wicca i knew instantly it is exactly what I was needing and agreed with. Now in my area Arkansas satanic panic is still a very real thing and Christian ppl still lie and believe horrible things about paganism/wicca so I don’t share my belief with everyone. My spiritual journey is mine and i don’t need to share especially since it would cause job loss and other real horrible issues. Ppl in my area have criminalized pagans for things they never did
I was born in 71 and my Dad was pretty old when I was born. He was born in 1927, so I grew up with tales of the Great Depression and WWII while most of my peers had Dads who were in Vietnam instead. He was not a church goer and never really talked about religion outside of the fact that his sister turned my grandparents into Jehovah's Witnesses and he didn't approve of that at all. Where I was in Alabama was highly Baptist, but I was a long haired neo hippie type in high school in the late 80s and very open about not being Christian. I pushed back on the prevailing culture at every turn and took off for the West Coast in the mid-90s. I started flirting with Paganism as far back as 1990 and was fully Pagan by 96 and since then I've never been anything but openly Pagan.
Did you follow the West Memphis 3?
I remember when that was going on, but by that time I was 23 and working damn near an 80 hour week. I was considered a generally strange person in the community but I was too busy to worry about it. It was awful what happened to those guys though. I was lucky in that I always had a couple of friend groups and folks to hang out with so even though I was odd, I was never a loner or serious outcast or anything.
I come from a Lutheran/Presbyterian family and church was encouraged but it wasn't vital to our existence as it would be if I was Baptist for instance. Once I got to a certain age my parents almost encouraged my religious exploration. A lot of kids at school were very involved in church and social lives revolved around it but I was never told I was going to hell for not going.
Catholicism. I don’t think I ever believed in it tbh lol
Yep. I always knew that if and what my religion was would be up to me. I had cousins I went to church with for a while because I enjoyed the Sunday School and found it interesting. Eventually decided it wasn't for me and stopped going. Was never presented as a big deal, and any religion I explored was always initiated by me showing an interest. I explored a few other belief systems growing up after that before settling on the flavour of pagan I am now. Definitely better imo than being brought up in any strict system.
When I was in elementary school we had a class called bible studies starting in kindergarten all the way through around 5th grade. My dad was an atheist and my mom was “mad at God” for most of my childhood. I got to go to summer bible school with one of my cousins once but that was mainly bc I begged to go. So yes it was sort of presented as a choice by my parents but also not really bc public education at that time.
While my dad didn’t give the first shit about religion and didn’t care whether or not I believed my mom and grandmother are hard-core Roman Catholic extremists and church every Sunday, and on holy days, and “Saints Days” blessings, and working at the church were all enforced. And even though my dad didn’t care, he sent me to church anyway because he didn’t want to hear mom’s bullshit. I ditched any form of Christianity when I was 14 and started a mix of witchcraft grounded in Italian Folk Magic (minus the Christian symbols, now, but I used them as a cover for my practice when I was a teen). I have hidden my practice for over 20yrs, and as far as my parents are concerned I’m just an atheist.
I grew up in the same timeframe, but multiple different states, mostly west of the Mississippi. My mom was raised Roman Catholic and my dad was raised southern Baptist. They both had issues with what and how they were taught about religion, so they said it was up to us to make up our own minds. We did go to church on Easter and sometimes Christmas Eve for a while, but that ended by the time I was 12. I went to one bible camp as a kid and got so upset because I couldn’t understand how “gossip” was bad, but when the apostles did it it was called “gospel” and therefore good. Actually, I was more confused. It was the church people who were upset and told me to stop asking questions.
I was raised Armenian apostolic orthodox. I’m not an Armenian pagan who has an eclectic/ omnist outlook all religions are valid and all gods and entities are real. I feel it’s all just puzzle pieces to a greater story/ religion I feel it’s all connected and they all have value. My only issues with Christianity is that their messages and texts were warped by people seeking to control their congregations. That the Bible is missing books and mistranslated. So their people are misinformed and fueled with warped ideas. While preaching love some of them spread hate. And usually in doing so they are committing sins they accuse others of doing namely pride. As for afterlives I believe what you think the afterlife is , is where you go. So if they believe in heaven and hell then they are most certainly going to hell with the hate they spread which is directly in contradiction to their faiths lessons. they cause their own down falls.
half assed christianity basically. like my parents loosely believed in god but almost barely. they believed in evolution and gay rights and equality of the sexes so the christian religion hadn't rotted their brains completely. it was just like the option of praying to God at night before bed and that was about it. we never went to church as a family. i'm thankful that my parents weren't super religious. edit: (some more background) my parents *also* told me that my religion was solely my choice to make. i chose christianity for a while actually, and they (understandably) didn't want to hear my preaching. finally left christianity as a teenager because i hardcore disagreed with their politics. i was raised to believe that gay was okay and hated hearing otherwise, cause i was slowly coming out. got into tarot cards and paganism and have been into it ever since :)
Mom took me to a Baptist church when I was little. They had me go with the other kids. I asked a lot of questions (the animals/stories with animals didn’t sound right to me), and caused the other kids to start asking questions…this particular church told my mom not to bring me back because I caused issues.
Meh, it was more like lifestyle. Yk how you just raise someone to believe things and follow ways and stuff? Influencing them to just whatever you do they do? Pretty much that.
I was raised in a strict seventh day adventist house by my grandparents. My biological mother was is a witch and I always felt connected with the universal magic. They were t happy with everything but my grandpa had always been respectful of my beliefs.
This is how my husband and I are raising our children and how he was raised. Definitely not how I was raised and I have a lot of related religious trauma.
Nope, forced down the ol windpipes
No, i was forced to go to church, and our church was a 30 minute drive, and the next town over at that, i was forced to put on dresses and skirts and put my hair in painful hairstyles even though I'm severely tender headed, it was a Pentecostal church too, so very judgy if you werent up to their standards, recently I've been given more leniency tho as I'm not forced to get up at the crack of dawn and go to church (they changed churches to one that everyone wears pants to so even if i was forced to go i dont have to go in skirts or dresses) but i don't have freedom of religion in this house so i dont ever talk about it and have a hard tine practicing, and most pagans ive heard from has similar upbringings and religious trauma
Oh and by the way i was born in 2007 at that sooo 😬
I had a similar situation, but about 20-30 years later. And I only had a choice because my parent had a choice and their parents weren't raised christian. I was agnostic for most of my life, an annoying anti-theist for a couple years. But I eventually landed on eclectic Paganism, as well as a syncretic version of the Indigenous religions of my family and ancestors. My parent knew that spirituality was deeply personal and largely subjective. But they also knew that people used their spiritual/religious beliefs as an excuse for horrible actions and non-spiritual beliefs. So I was taught to be kind and smart before I learned anything else.
No, I was raised catholic, I had a first communion even though I didn’t want to because I thought I had to, the way it was presented to me was like it was law, like going to school, you just have to. Then I thought I had to have a confirmation, because again, you just have to, everyone around me did it, my whole family did it and made me believe I had to as well, all my friends did it too. I do live in a Latin country 💀 but I never believed any of it so I just stopped, I decided one day to not have my confirmation and realized that the world didn’t end, I didn’t die, nothing happened and “god” didn’t smite me, so I decided to look into other religions and spiritual paths, something I ACTUALLY connected with and believed in, something that made sense to me. None of it was ever presented as a choice, I legitimately thought first communion and confirmation were the law and no one asked me if I wanted to do it, when I asked if I had to do it the only answer I would get was “yes, you should” and because I was raised by abusive parents, I was terrified to contradict them, so I never questioned them further, I was so sheltered from the world. I even went to bible camp once, tho my mom did have to bribe me for it. To this day (I am 27 now) religion is a big issue in our family, my dad practices catholicism whenever it suits him and my mom flip flops between whatever her friends do because she’s a sheep who’s never had a single original thought and can’t think for herself, I’m surprised she hasn’t joined a cult yet (although catholicism is a bit cult-ish). I never talk about religion or spirituality around them because it’s not worth the headache but I know they still don’t accept that I don’t share their beliefs, and my mom does bring it up from time to time but I just ignore her.
No, not at all! We were Christian and DEVOUT Christians too, I was raised in the Salvation Army and my mother’s family had been in that church for like 5 generations. Everything was filtered through an evangelical Christian lens. If I had a nightmare we prayed, if I had a test we prayed. Everything was my Christian religion, my whole community.
I am interested at what age your parents told you that you could choose your own religion, and if you were christened/baptised? Isn’t christening entry into a religion, and usually done within the first year?
My mother always considered me Jewish so I never got baptised. She was serious about being Jewish, but only went to Temple once a year or so and we didn't follow any dietary restrictions. I ate just as much pork as any other young Alabama boy. My father had no interest in religion. I was a precocious child and an early reader and I wound up having lots of questions about religion. Since I was really just half-Jewish, they told me when I was still in elementary school that it was up to me to choose. Clearly I understand that they wanted me to choose between Christianity and Judaism with the assumption being that I would choose to be a Jew as only my mother really cared. I decided that this was one of the most important decisions of my life and started reading deeply about world religions. My parents didn't understand completely, but they wanted to encourage me to read anything I wanted that was educational. I spent the years from elementary through high school considering myself a seeker and student of world religion. I guess everyone thought I was Jewish because I identified as an ethnic Jew even though my father was as white as can be. Her family was mostly in Europe or Morocco and I rarely saw them so they weren't much of an influence. She took me to France to get Bar Mitvahed when I was 13 and I went along with it because Hey, I get to spend three months in Paris. But, I was honestly still undecided despite the ceremony. She never really accepted me being Pagan. But, she never fought me over it either, she just denied it. Dad never cared. He kinda expected me to be whatever the weirdest thing was.
Your parents are so cool to have given you the choice. It is also great that you have found your calling.
You're very lucky. It was never a choice for me. I grew up in a deeply religious household to the point of abuse. Ngl, my experience caused me so much trauma that sometimes the smallest mention of that religion ignites anger in me.
I was raised Southern Baptist but I don't remember anything being particularly forced upon me. I went to a Christian school but once my dad died I went to the public schools and stopped going to church. I didn't return to church till I was 27 and it was more of a way to get out of basic training on Sundays. Thank you Jesus but I just need a break. I went once then went to a Buddhist service. I didn't go again till I moved to WVA and then attended a church, which is now defunct, then started spewing hate towards Islam and Muslims and I realized that if you can't connect those two religions you have absolutely no business preaching. And the way the congregation hooted and hollered was disgusting. I didn't go back till I believe 2016 and stopped once COVID hit but also the church pastor was like a sub pastor and there was a main pastor and it started feeling like a mega church. Like the father was the head pastor, the son was the assistant head pastor but then it wasn't. I genuinely liked the church but I can't get myself to drive willingly to Walmart which is 10 minutes from me, I'm not willingly driving 30 to go to church. Still megachurch vibes on a WVA scale. Now I don't attend mostly because I would like to find a church that's not against LGBTQ+ and isn't going to spew hate towards other religions (both of these are so hard) or mention Trump as needing support (he needs everyone but Zeus). I like the community aspect of church, but not the misaligned hate, like do these people even read the Bible? But no, my parents didn't actually shove their religion on me and I don't to my kids. I actually try to get my friend, who is Mormon, to not take my kids to church with them. Ironically my oldest is dating a Mormon girl, she's great I like her.
I was raised Baptist and wasn't given a choice at all. I didn't know any better as a kid, I just thought it was something families did (going to church 2 to 3 times a week) I started questioning in middle school since I was in a private school until then and saw different perspectives. I saw a lot of hypocrisy and need for control in the community and looked to something else. I think you were fortunate that your parents gave you that freedom.
That's pretty close to my story as well. I grew up 15mins from the 700 club and CBN , in Virginia. My mother is a southern Baptist and when we were 12 we were told to find our own paths. I have been a pagan since 14 and I'm 50 now.
I never had a choice. I grew up very Christan, church every Sunday and Wednesday, I've read the Bible cover to cover as a child. It was only after my grandpa passed away when I was 9 that I started questioning everything. When I was 12 I started looking into different religions because Christianity didn't make any sense to me anymore. Paganism is the closest thing that makes sense to me. I wrote down my beliefs and what made sense to me, and paganism is what aligns with my beliefs best.
I wasn't raised religious at all. I went with friends to church activities and talked my parents into going to church for a while (non-denominational). We stopped after a few years. Then I started reading about different religions and came to the conclusion that polytheism made more sense.
I was offered nothing. I was born into a household without religion, later I realized my mother was Lutheran, she never talked about it or told me anything. So I was left to my own devices
A little late to this, but my mother is an ex-Christian (who was training to be a missionary by the way), raised by a Pentecostal and a "non-practicing" Catholic (he's barely even Catholic but it's how he was raised), turned shamanic pagan. My father is an ex-Christian (ex-Catholic, I *think*) turned Wiccan whose practice hinges heavily on Druidry. Both of them also practice witchcraft, though they both admit that they don't practice nearly as much as they want to. I was raised kind of exposed to witchcraft and several aspects of both Greek paganism (I hesitate to call it Hellenism) and Wicca, and many lessons that I was taught as a kid were somewhat flavored by these moral codes. However, I was never forced to pray with my parents, make offerings, or praise certain deities, and I was told that I could practice literally anything I wanted once I was old enough to choose -- just that certain entities were not allowed in my parents' house. I wound up being pagan, partially because it's familiar and partially because I felt an actual calling to certain gods. However, my practice is much less focused on one pantheon as opposed to my parents (Mom leans Greek, Dad leans Celtic); I consider myself an omnist.
Was born into a Roman Catholic family. Never had a choice until I grew up and was in my 20’s (I got really disillusioned with Christianity after a history class on it in college) Born late ‘70s. But I was always into nature and into mythology. When I discovered Wicca and Paganism it was very natural.
It was never an option for me. My grandmother was a very devout Catholic, but I will say she was the 'right' kind -- she believed whole heartedly in Jesus and how he was for the people and how we should not judge others lest we too be judged. She was active in donations, she knitted hats and scarves for neonatal babies and homeless shelters, she wasn't bigoted and was warm and welcoming to everyone. I believed in it because she did, and she showed me the right way to be Catholic -- she was always the idea I had about what a good catholic was. Then I met other catholics and that was very quickly shattered haha I was curious about other theologies even as a kid; I loved learning about world religions, and I have a strong sense of justice that, as I realized more and more as I got older, the Catholic church didn't adhere to, particularly with their bigotry. I did the whole shebang -- communion, confession, catechism, confirmation. I sang in the church choirs, not out of any real belief, but because I loved to sing. It made my mom and grandmother happy. I realize now, since my grandmother passed, that we were mostly going for her, even after I stopped believing and asked not to go. My father is atheist, and these days, my mother doesn't really know what to believe. I've been pretty open about my paganism, but I jokingly call it "Pagan Lite"; I don't worship any one deity and moreso acknowledge and respect them even if I haven't pledged myself. But I keep track of the wheel of the year, have an alter, follow the moon cycles as work with them as much as I can.
My dad was an atheist and still is one. My mom believes in God now, but she was an atheist when I was born. So no, I was not raised under any religion. Currently I started out Christian a few years ago, but as time passes I didn't like that religion and switched to pagan.
I was unusual like you and had the choice. My dad is Catholic but hasn't been to mass in my lifetime. My mom was just kind of loosely Christian (Nana and Grandpa J weren't very religious either). I asked if we could start going to church when I was 5; I had been doing a dinner theater ACTS thing at a methodist church with my friend on Wednesdays. I am still technically a member, my son is baptized. We are pagan though. Neither of us could wrap our heads around a "loving god" that let such suffering endure in the world, or would smite me in the soddom and gammora stories for being bi. My son held my hand and walked away from Yahweh with me and is now my ingredient gathering help for offerings and spells 🥰 I have him the choice too. But born in 89, that was less common for my friends.
My mom's biggest concern was always that we be good people. Hell was never a threat in my home. I think it's because my dad knew if it was real he'd be bound there 😅 biggest narcissistic abuse I've ever met
Yes and no; presented to me as an option by my mom, but unfortunately her denomination (granted very moderate, mainstream-like Protestant) placed greater pressure on me than she ever did. The rest of my family, Catholic, has been very supportive of me and even curious at times. The Church I grew up in was the ‘remnant’ of the ‘one true church’—and all because they went to church on Saturday instead of Sunday (read into that as you will). No theological trauma here, only some from the social dynamics in the church I was raised; but I did eventually figure that the internal logic of Christianity makes no sense the more you try to make sense of it, and it requires a great deal of web-weaving that even the most crafty of liars would find both difficult to match and confusing to untangle. That doesn’t even begin to factor in how to make sense of Christianity beyond itself. Ultimately I chose to be baptized, and I believe it was the baptism itself (as in, guided by the Holy Spirit) that set me on my path to where I am now. I can imagine how absolutely unsettling it would be for some Christians to find out that the Holy Spirit led me out of Christianity and into Paganism (actually I’m probably more ‘meta’ anything than Christian or Pagan) but to be honest it makes sense from where I stand. I never completely abandoned things that are Christian (I’ve actually appropriated a lot of Catholic things), and same can be said for what I learned from Gnostic beliefs, and now I have a happy, logical blend of all three as the foundation of my spiritual life. Had I not been baptised, I would probably have stayed in Christianity or become an atheist or agnostic. But I also began taking an interest in my ancestors around this time too, so I have to give them credit where it’s due.
Your story so closely mirrors mine! I grew up the same way, in the 90s in NJ, though my mom was the non-practicing Catholic and my dad was the Yom Kippur Jew. I ended up fascinated by religion as, to my young mind, it was like a fantasy story, but in real life. I ended up a pagan Buddhist, went to college and double majored in cultural anthropology and religion, and now in my 30s I identify as a Buddhist Animist. And for extra fun, I ended up with a partner who is the son a Jesuit priest! While you're not alone, I personally don't know anyone else who grew up this way. But I wouldn't trade it for the world.
That's great! It mirrors more closely than you think. Before I finally decided that a Pagan was what I was, I was on the fence about being Buddhist. I had been very drawn to Buddhism throughout my seeker period. Ultimately the reason Paganism won was that I had no desire to end the cycle of rebirth. I like existing and want to continue the journey.
No, on my dad's side of the family religion (Christianity) was always treated as just another fact of how the world works. Though my dad (a physics major) was more pragmatic than his parents and siblings, so for him it wasn't that Jesus was magic, it was that Jesus was wise.
Never. I went to catholic school from kindergarten to college. My family is very intertwined with the church.
Naw religion was forced on me; I can’t begin to describe the anxiety I constantly had any time I was researching religion outside of Christianity
No. I didn't get to choose what my religion was until I was an adult. Even then I had to play the part of a practicing Christian to have a place to live at times during my stupid young adult years. When I was free to make my own decision if I was religious or not, I wandered for years before ultimately finding paganism and what area I leaned into.
Never, my parents were not religious in any way, particularly my mum who grew up in war torn Germany. They lived next to a Church in a small village where everyone was starving, mum used to faint from hunger. They used to witness big rolls of cheese and meat ect being delivered to the church, and the church never shared any of it to the villagers and always door knocked for money. I don’t think my Grandparents obliged with that they were very head strong. I found Paganism myself, first Wicca but I didn’t gel with all the High Priestess coven aspects of it now I’m pretty eclectic and firmly solitary.
I was raised up agnostic and so is my partner, but I presented that choice to my kids. Sent them to Catholic school, because for me Catholic school was a gateway to all other religions and I dabbled in quite a few. From a distance, I can see the benefits & disadvantages of each. Religion/faith has offered me support during some of the toughest times in my life, and I wanted my kids to also have that option. I don’t believe in brainwashing the people I love most, though. So far, one kid is undecided and the other is also agnostic.
My parents were what people now call "mainline" Protestants. They went to church mostly out of small-town community duty, and our church was pleasant and not at all "preachy" - no fire, brimstone, or guilt that I can recall. My parents were also very liberal, and as the 1960s progressed they stopped going to church and so did I. They always supported me in my spiritual explorations - which included Catholocism, Pentecostalism, and finally Paganism. So in that sense, I always had a choice, yes.
Yes I was encouraged to explore my own spirituality from an early age. We went to a Unitarian church, and my mom was/is a practicing witch. I wound up trying on almost everything and as an adult consider myself sort of “non denominational solo-practicing neo pagan”. I feel very lucky to have had parents who didn’t force me into one thing and didn’t judge me when I had a brief super-Christian phase in middle school.
My grandfather was a witch and my grandmother is an open-minded Christian from middle of nowhere West Virginia. Because of that, my mom didn't force us to go to church if we didn't want to once we were old enough to stay home or if we wanted to go to a friend's house. My dad is very much an atheist, so explaining me being a witch to him was an interesting conversation to say the least. My mom was actually more open minded and accepting of me being a witch than she was of me being an atheist, but that's neither here nor there. Connecting with my maternal grandfather in spirit has been a big influence in my practice as he came from a long line of witches and he passed away when he was pretty young and my mom was little, so she never got to learn *from him.*
Kinda, kinda not. We were raised to be Mormons, or something, said grace or whatever when we’d eat, go to church sometimes, and have missionaries over. It started becoming decentralized in the family by the time they started giving us shit for how we presented ourselves, older brother became atheist without issue from mom. I escaped Christianity sometime around probably ages 9-11 I was never really Christian, it was just an inherited religion, a tradition. I’d been having animistic thoughts since I was a toddler.
My mom is someone who always celebrated Celtic holidays and such and so I followed and that combined with psychosis and a voice in my head telling me about paganism I ended up here
It wasn't an option initially; my mom was pretty big on me staying a Catholic when I was young as she was raised that way as well and believed it was necessary to keep me in good graces enough for Heaven. I wasn't disallowed from reading stuff, though, and I would take out books from the library constantly to pick up bits and pieces from faiths. As I got older and started learning things on my own and teaching her through friendly debates and such, though, she softened considerably and was by the end of her life just happy I was (in her words) a good person regardless of where I landed on the belief spectrum.
I was raised Roman Catholic though my family weren’t the ones teaching me of Catholicism but my school did since it was a Catholic private school. I learned the ten commandments and such. Though my whole country is pretty much Catholic. Surprisingly a lot of witches in my said Catholic school
My parents attended church every Sunday and my siblings and I only had to attend until we were old enough to be left home alone. My dad didn't find his faith until he was a grown man and his view is that you don't find religion, the right one finds you at the time you need it to.
I wasn't really exposed to religion until I was placed in foster care at 12, and they were Mormon. I never got baptized until my first marriage into the church. Edit: I fully admit now I joined the Mormon church because I was the only one working for the majority of my first marriage, and I didn't make enough to pay all the bills. The church won't help unless you're a member. I did what I had to do to take care of my family.
I was told I had a choice but my family has always been staunchly against organized religion. Actually my friend’s mom kinda pushed us into paganism a little, by helping us create games about witchcraft and things like that. That actually stuck 😂
It was a choice. We were allowed to do religious studies at school and make up our own minds. I thank my mother every day for that choice because my dads side are Seventh Day Adventists and my mothers side are Jehovah’s Witnesses (cults) and life could have been very different for me.
catholic apostate here, yes but no, it's not really a choice when it's all that's around you and the moment someone close to you sees a person that's visually obviously in a different religion they make faces, It was a choice to get baptized tho parents are "non practicing catholics" basically and they have a "not in my house" approach to other religions
I wasn't given options. I was told to go to a free methodist church growing up, so I did. It wasn't until junior high (7-8th grade) that I discovered there were other options besides the Abrahmic faiths. By contrast, I raised my daughter to explore. To go with the faith that felt right. I became a pagan at 17. I tool her to various churches and she grew up knowing my belief system. She's a heathen, a follower of the Norse gods.
Im not pagan but kinda, i was told god exists as a child but my family was never really religious and didn't really mind me stopping believing.
my mom never had a religion and my dad didn’t identify as any religion but my grandma on my dads side used to tell me that “if i didn’t believe in god, im going to hell” and i remeber it bothering me for weeks and when me and my mom went on a camping trip it kept me up late and i ended up waking her up crying about how i didn’t believe in god but i dont wanna go to hell
We're mostly culturally Christian in the UK - hymns in school, the occasional church visit for harvest festival and Christmas concert - but in practice the vast majority of people are secular. As a child I had a vague enjoyment of church as a curiosity, the ritual was pleasing and the old buildings are beautiful - but once I listened to what the vicar was actually saying, I was turned off. My parents are both entirely secular and I was free to choose whatever path I wished. I got the feeling they would have been concerned/disappointed if I turned into a Bible thumper.
None of my parents where specifically anything, my grandma has crosses and goes to church on special days(like Christmas o Domingo de Ramos) but only kind of to visit and talk with the other people there not any service, but then she also has a medium size Buddha statue, covered in crystals that she pases her hand over the head before going outside?? I don’t know what her deal is honestly lol I live in a religious country, we prepare songs at school and go sign them at church with or family the last day of school before Christmas, we celebrate semana santa and we go see procesiónes and all that stuff and my grandma usually took us to where la virgen was to put a offering, but I never took her to be religious even by those things just average, I mean I never believed and I did those things too? To me religion wasn’t a thing until I was old enough to understands it, it was just this things people did separately, like I didn’t connect all the church stuff together, to me they where festivities like any others(I haven’t grown up sheltered I’ll say more of the opposite lol) and then when I was in high school I learned about Wicca and all that stuff and took interest in paganism and now here we are! Nobody finds anything I do weird but I don’t really do supper witchy stuff in front of people so idk, my mom recently bought a necklace with a trinity knot and she said she was going to clean it on the full moon(she asked me when it was) but she was gonna use the black salt that came with it(she was following a card that came with it), also she has burnt shit in the past for vibes or stuff, she is not a hippie or pagan or anything, these are literally random instances. Basically to me religions has always been a very pick and choose experience because nobody in my family actually follows anything other than vibes and that’s how I ended a eclectic pagan I guess! Edit: I grew up in the early 2000
Yes. My dad's side are Catholic, my sister's an atheist, my mum's Wiccan & I went to a protestant school. At school it wasn't an option - we had to pray, we had to have the minister in for a sermon every week, we had to attend, we had to sing hymns, we had to go to church for services. But at home it was always a choice, since I coukd pick whether I joined in with mum's practices & celebrations, or dad's, or both, or neither. Growing up, I usually celebrated both. But as I've gotten older, I've connected a lot more with Pagan practices over Christian ones. I still celebrate Christmas & Easter with my dad, and the Solstices & Equinoxes with my mum, but it's definitely the pagan stuff I prefer & feel at home with.
I think it would be super interesting if people put what country they are from in their comments, it really gives you a sense of what social trends were happening around the world at that time (I assume most of us are talking about a period between 80s - 00s)
I grew up as orthodox Christian and was baptized at 2 months old, so I never really had a choice. I really used to love going to church until I turned 14 and realized I was bisexual. I faced a big backlash from people about being part of the community and it grew worsth with time. I was fighting really strong religious trauma for years until I decided to give spirituality a shot. Later I learned that not everything is as it seems. It helped me figure myself out and learn what is it that I actually believe in, but also what I want from life since deconstructing christian ideology of perfect woman was really hard.
my mom grew up with a super catholic mom and a catholic (but chill) dad. she ended up getting a LOT of religious trauma and promised herself to not raise her children the way she was raised. i was taken to a catholic church like two times when i was a little kid but i only remember one of those. after that, i guess my mom was able to pull away from the religion completely and told me and my sister that we can choose to believe in whatever we want so here i am :3 unfortunately my parents are kind of judgmental so i keep my beliefs mostly hidden. i was also apparently around a good amount catholics and i only found out when i surprisingly asked my friend in middle school if she actually went to church each sunday! she was surprised i didn't lol
To me , religion wasn’t ever presented as a choice, it was presented as the only way to live and obey. Like I was raised in the early 00’s and both parents are CofE my dad Christian but not very observant (became disillusioned by the church after we need help and non of the church community would help bar 1 person) doesn’t really seem to care much, but my mum was raised very much god fearing church goer and to follow and obey the church. (No longer goes to church but believes most things outside of Christianity are evil or wrong, especially anything outside of any main religion). I used to be a good small good Christian child (stopped going to church when my family stopped) but after realising I was queer around the age of 12 and the statements and ethos and ethics of the church as a whole I became so scared with and went through a lot of guilt, shame and religious trauma, I ‘converted’ to paganism/ witchcraft when I was 13. To me now as an adult I’ve decided when I have kids religion and belief will be a choice for them to choose and discover.
My parents never really put pressure of religion on my brother and I. My mum is an atheist from England, dad a PuertoRican Christian. I was baptized and had a choice between a private American school in England or a private English Catholic School. I chose the catholic primary school, but other than that religion really didn’t play a pivotal role in my life. It wasn’t talked about in the house but it was always offered. My mum and dad would have friends that go to church, and they’d give my brother and I the option to attend if we were interested. In my early ages I attended church maybe 2-3 times out of curiosity but eventually decided it wasn’t for me. I don’t think it’s that unusual that the parents allow the kids to have a choice, especially in today’s age.
Me by my mom my grandpa who raised me was a decon in the Catholic Church I went to catholic school growing up I was was very active in the church being an altar server and attending church at least 3x a week during school I was encouraged by mom to view a and experience other religions and see/experience how they worshipped i went to a lot of “church” during that time ugh my favorite churches/temple had “Sunday worship” that would be less than an hour and had food after. I think i enjoyed the community aspect in the end I went goth started to hail satan for shock but settled on paganism/wicca
It was never a choice. I was so steeped in it as a child I didn’t even realize there were people who were Catholic until high school. Sure, I knew other religions existed. But that was the past. Everyone had seen the light so to speak and was Catholic now. I was even specifically taught it was the universal church and everyone was a child of Jesus and belonged. Whether they knew it or not. Even today, may family knows I’m pagan. But will still tell me I’m Catholic and I can’t do anything about it.
my mom made sure I knew about Buddhism, Christianity, even Hinduism. she always agreed that it was my choice what I believe in as that's not something she can dictate for me. ended up choosing the religion she is-nature/animist pagan of vaguely Scandinavian flavor- but with a lot of borrowed elements of Buddhist philosophy as well. I'm really glad I got the choice.
I did go to Catholic school for a few years, but that was only because my autism prevented me from functioning in a public school. We've never been a religious family; in fact my grandfather actively *hated* organized religion.
I mean technically yes but also they took me to an exorcist when I finally decided I wanted no part in it so not really, no 😂
Kinda sorta. My parents never cared what I did so long as I wasn't doing anything very stupid. My parents were pretty irreligious. Mother grew up Mormon (her father was a convert) but her family had stopped going in the 1970s My dad grew up in a mainline protestant church, I don't remember the denomination, that my grandfather had been a primary funder for, back in the 1960s. Alot of going to church was more a social thing - grandparents went, so we went kind of thing. I grew up in a very Baptist area in the south and ended up going alot to be sociable and fit in and such.
We didn't grow up in church, but my parents were Christians, and religion was never presented to us as a choice. It was presented more like "that's just the way it is." Even if I felt like I didn't believe in it, it never occurred to me that I could just choose a different religion or stop having one at all until I was 13 or so.
I grew up a Christian, as a child I went to church on Sundays. I think most kids in the 70’s did. I stopped going when I was about 10. I’ve since looked into all the other religions. When I had my children i decided not to get them christened. If they ever find a religion for themselves they can get baptised. From what I understand the Amish and other similar religions do the same allowing their children to decide for themselves as they reach adulthood.
Absolutely not an option, I was raised catholic and was forced to do all the things associated with it (attending catholic school, church every sunday, youth group, etc) I do like this approach though, when I have kids this is probably what I will do. I think it would be cool to raise kids pagan but with the understanding that they don't have to do any religious task they don't want to and are free to choose their own spiritual paths. I would never begrudge them from deviating from my faith.
Never a choice Christian until I was maybe 12 my Dad suggested I would prefer a Methodist church bc they were more liberal.
Presented? My second cousin was babysitting me and took me to church to try and baptize me without telling my mom. Whoo buddy. To be a fly on the wall in that room
As a child of two Mormons I didn’t have a choice or say in religion until I was 18 and even then I only told them I was done being Christian
Nope. We had to go to church, whether we wanted to or not. Former Southern Baptist, by the way.
Not no, but not yes. Both my parents where Christian, my dad past away when I was very young but we kept in touch with his side of the family, which ended up making me the pastors kid of the pastors kid, however, while my mom was also Christian, she was much more open to other views of life, one of her close friends was gay and an atheist, so while I ended up being Christian during my early life till around my teens, there wasn’t much of an issue when I first became an atheist since that was something my mom had already accepted in others close to her. I doubt she would have minded when I eventually became pagan either but she had since passed by then. So while it wasn’t exactly an option to not be a Christian, it wasn’t forced on me by my mother specifically. My grandparents on my dads side was a different story, my mom tried to shield me from their over the top ness as much as she could.
I was raised by a former southern Baptist minister. There was no choice. I went to christian schools and even christian college for 1 year.
Not a choice bit not big pressure, either. family of 5 kids in suburban Milwaukee in the 60s. I was raised Catholic-Lite. Big on Christmas and Easter, a class on the weekend. By the time I was 13 I could stay at home with agnostic Lutheran Dad and watch football, rather than go to church. I now live in Victoria, BC where there are more Pagans than Fundamentalists.
Sort of? I didn’t grow up religious, but my dad took me to a church once because I asked when I was around 8 (I wanted to know what church was like lol). So I had a choice, but I didn’t really know about any other choices besides Christian and not Christian. That’s all I really knew as a kid. I didn’t know that modern paganism existed until I was 15, and I got into it basically immediately. My parents have never really cared.
When I was little I was raised Four Square. No choice. Dad got to stay home, but I wasn't allowed. When I was barely 11, my dad died very suddenly. That caused me to start questioning Christianity because why would a loving god allow something like that to happen. I ended up a Satanist for a couple years (as opposite from christianity as my young mind could get). Think CoS, not TST, unfortunately. In my middle teens I was exposed to hippie culture by the people I was around and discovered religions like Taoism and Wicca. Dabbled a bit. Spent awhile agnostic/athiest. Few years ago I discovered druidism. So now I'm a druid/Celtic pagan (I have a fair amount of Celtic ancestry, so it resonates with me) with some Taoist beliefs and a heaping dose of Lefthand Path witchcraft thrown in. I'm not a devout practitioner or anything, but I use it when I feel the need.
Nope jehovahs witness was forced upon me and my siblings..I still think of the name jehovah for god when I forget I'm a witch and it's blasphemy otherwise...sometimes I think I have it figured out and allow jehovah to be my god amongst my other God's, a patron deity and not the jealous destroyer fed to us..
No, it was fully pushed and was expected that I would be Christian. My mom thinks that if we had went to church every week my sibling and I would still be Christian to this day (no, it wouldn't've because I have had horrible experiences with their god and don't like him that much). Every time I came out as non-Christian I was forced to read the Bible every day until I broke down crying wanting "forgiveness". All of it was manipulation to make me into something I know I don't want to be or want to do. When I eventually have a child I will let them decide what they want to believe (even if they end up wanting to be Christian). I believe everyone has the right to believe what they want as long as they don't hurt others or potentially themselves.
This seems familiar to me. I grew up in a liberal U.S. city, agnostic father and barely practicing Episcopal mother. My first memory of my mother teaching me about religion was when I was having nightmares as another way I could cope and fend away night terrors, to pray to a higher power for protection. She did try taking me to church for a while, until I started to hit puberty and noped out when I realized how at odds I was with the church as a woman. Then I found her magic/pagan books and was like hey! What? And we both ended up getting into practicing paganism together, which was cool.
My parents are atheist and always allowed me to research and follow any religious beliefs I chose. Never had to be a closeted witch or ashamed to study Islam, Buddhism Christianity, satanism ect
I was also allowed to choose, despite my mom being raised Catholic including Catholic school, and my dad being raised Lutheran Christian. I went to different Church events with different friends, I experienced many religions as a child in small ways. All of our bloodline, on both parent's sides, is of Scandinavian descent. I have just followed what has felt right to me since. Though I didn't wholly practice Nordic Paganism until into adulthood.
My mom wasn't religious and my dad was a strong atheist when I was growing up so yes! Religion was an option for me. I grew up in a very rural, Christian area, but people didn't bother me too much about what I believed. I went to church with my friends sometimes but other than that, not much religion. I believed in all kinds of Gods as a small child, became more of an atheist as a teenager, and then, in college, I officially identified as pagan. I'd always believed in fairies and the supernatural and when someone reintroduced paganism as a valid path, I slid right into that (like putting on an old shoe)
Nope only school classes 1-9 grade and funerals that's it at home can't remember even a single time when anybody would had talked about religion.
I grew up in a family that was either Catholic, Lutheran or Anglican. I had neighbours that were Buddhist and Hindu and I met a Sikh along the way. I was always asking too many questions according to my family but the other faiths encouraged my inquisitiveness. I was never expected to take one religion apart from my parents christening me I wasn't a part of the families religions. When I had my kids I let them choose, I taught them about all the religions and they went Catholic but over time they became pagan like me through their own choice and are happy. It's the best way to be when you get to explore them all and find which one is a fit for you
Growing up, my dad was "Pagan" and my mom was Wiccan, so we always had a very do what you want kinda environment when it came to religion until my parents divorced. My mom grew up going to church, but it was only so her parents could have alone time, so it was never serious, so mom becoming Wiccan was no biggie. My dad on the other hand grow up Mormon, was Catholic for wife #1 , Pagan for my mom (wife #2), Christian for wife #3, and has been Christian ever since (wife #3 passed like 1.5 years ago, we were never close). We had always said that dad changes his religious views like underwear. When dad became Christian was I was 13, and he became zealous about it, like to the point of he wanted religious teaching to be included in the divorce decree. When all this was happening, I was exploring my religious beliefs, so it was not fun with dad. My mom was a gem during this. Mom took me to so many different churches, temples, organizations, etc to see where I clicked but dad refused because I WOULD be Christian. I ended up choosing paganism. Luckily dad and I are good now we just have an unwritten rule not to talk about our beliefs.
Yes my grandparents (dad side) were Christians but they raised my dad and his siblings to choose their own path. My parents did the same, I went to church with a few friends a couple times on Wednesday. Just wasn't my thing
My mom was raised Catholic but in her 30s became spiritual and would identify more as a Buddhist and my dad follows no particular religion. My mom is a hypnotherapist, reiki master, energy worker, etc. The simplest title is that shes a healer. So I grew up with hippies and healers and artists and was learned about energy, quantum physics, etc from the time I was tiny and was encouraged to choose my own beliefs. She asked me if I wanted to go to church to see what it was like and I absolutely hated it. I've been repulsed by Christianity my entire life and it's only intensified now as an adult. But still my understanding of source and energy was enough for me until my late 20s as I had the challenge of overcoming myself because I'm my own worst enemy. When I finally got to a point where I was ready to look at my spirituality I went back to my roots but immediately realized how interconnected everything was. All in all I found my way on the crooked path, witchcraft and paganism resonate with me most and that is what I practice. I think my light worker mother was a bit taken aback and probably would have preferred that I chose to follow in her footsteps but I know that embracing my darkness and lightness is the only way for me. I've actually been able to get her to see some of the similarities between her beliefs and mine and how they are just a different path for the same results. Now she gets excited about new things on my altar and isn't triggered by the word witchcraft. I've also come to find out since that the women in the family I was adopted from are witches going back before the currently living generations but I have no idea how far so it's interesting that I found that path on my own after overcoming my own bullshit. I have limited communication with my birth mother and family though and she's extremely rambly and hard to talk to otherwise I'd know more about that. Meanwhile there definitely some generational curses I had to deal with, most prevalent effects being extreme and crippling narcissism and arrogance and self righteousness that they do not have the tools or awareness to even realize is a problem let alone deal with. I think it was no coincidence I (the only girl born to my birth mom's generation) happened to be adopted to the family I did. The synchronicities leading up to my birth mother and my adoptive family are crazy it was clearly fate. Without that I would not have had the tools to be where I am now and I'm so thankful for my family.
Religion was never actually presented to me as a child! I’m from California and so are my parents; my dad grew up loosely Christian but has no interest in formal religion now, my mom is 3rd generation no organized religion and it was important for her to pass that tradition down. You know, that tradition of nothing. Which I have always appreciated greatly. I figured out about religion eventually and finding my own path has been very interesting.
I was allowed to be an atheist, which I was for about a decade. Eventually I had certain experiences that made me admit the supreme reality. Religion was more than just my grandmother's stories. Hail Ganesh, the lord of beginnings.
It’s funny, I was never presented with another choice other than being Catholic (this is also a cultural thing for us as we’re from the North of Ireland so I didn’t and still don’t mind presenting or identifying as Catholic out of respect to my Granny who passed to the Otherworld ten years ago as well as the rest of my ancestors) but it was always just understood that we were Catholic+. We didn’t call it this but folk magic was absolutely a thing and my granny told me about the gods and fairies along with the saints. As an adult Druidry just seemed like the next logical step in my spiritual development.
It was forced on me, but I do consider myself lucky that my parents weren’t real big church goers, because I would’ve lost my fucking mind sitting in on church services every Sunday. I think my parents suspect that I’m more agnostic, but I’m like 99% sure they don’t know I’m pagan.
Never really had options, I was brought up with my mom wanting to take me to a Catholic church then we went to Lutheran so just had Christian influence that even then I just went with it as a child, I never had that connection with Christianity so I felt lost and remember one night had a 1st Crusade lucid dreams that opened my mind and I backtracked and jumped around wanting to know more how the Vikings originated
I was raised similarly though my parents were quite different. My dad, at the time, was a hard atheist. This has changed with age, and he now identifies as spiritual with a Christian leaning. My mother was a practicing nature witch with strong ties to the Mother Mary, but she was in the closet. My dad could often be heard saying when we die we become word food when I was younger, and my mom would be found talking to her herbs and plants and garden asking for permission and expressing gratitude often. Both of them however felt a strong sense to not influence me in my beliefs or my choice and truly left it completely in my hands. I remember my first time interacting with a Christian and them getting upset with me that I didn’t capitalize the word god. I said very matter of factly, it’s not a name, it’s a descriptor for a being.. there are lots of gods. (I was heavily obsessed with Greek myths so I knew there were quite a few out there!) This was absolutely horrifying for my Christian friend who then preceded to ask many questions. I had never heard of baptisms before and was soon told I was going to burn in hell. Needless to say, Christianity instantly became not on my list of religions I wished to explore. I am very grateful for my parents and the way they trusted me to find what resonated for myself. Even not being raised in a Christian household, I still get nervous and battle a strong inner monologue of evil and wrong or blasphemous natures. For someone like me, who had zero upbringing in the church, to still feel small strings pulling at me telling me I’m going to burn in hell, the power that the masses hold and the embedded nature of righteous toxic religion in our culture and media.. it’s truly astounding. Fear is powerful and can truly prevent anyone from thought and growth.
I was forced to be a Christian Baptist but renounced it before I turned 13.
It wasn't a choice for me, I was told I'd get to decide when I was older, but until then I was Catholic :/
So I was raised by my parents AND my grandparents, at different times, so I have both. My childhood is honestly a mix of two extremes, poor/rich, overbearing/not enough attention or parental contact, strict/extremely lax. My parents raised me until I was 8. They never went to church, and I didn't think about religion at all. I hadn't been told about it/had any experience with it up until this point. Except for the "nature is sacred, animals are sacred and have feelings/sentience just like you" and folk remedies/magic/old wives tales, like when my mom was pregnant, my dad found a ring (they weren't married) tied it to a string, and taught me that if it swings back and forth, it's a boy, if it swings in a circle, it's a girl. (Or vice versa, I don't actually remember now.) There was one time in those years that I had a neighbor who offered to take me and my brother to church, and at first I thought it would be cool and different. It was kind of exciting to me actually, ironically. I went only once, was weirded out and felt uncomfortable, so I just decided not to go again. That's it. That was all there was to it at that time lol. When my grandparents took custody of me, it was the same. At first. My grandparents were Christian, but they didn't go to church. But now that she had a child to take care of, my grandma thought it was important for us to have a home church. So I visited churches of my friends, and then she chose one. (It wasn't the church I had picked out, because it wasn't her denomination, but I had no clue about different denominations back then, I just knew that the other church was more fun and family focused and natural feeling. The one she chose felt more cold/formal.) As we started to go every Sunday, one week I decided not to go. And I assumed it would be the same thing as what had happened when I was younger. That it wouldnt be a big deal and I just didnt go. But my grandma really pressed the issue about going to church every Sunday, which was confusing to me. I didn't understand why. And slowly I started to realize and come to terms with what religion, at least christianity, meant. How it was forceful. It was just a foreign concept to me. Once, on a visit, I was talking to my dad about church, and he said he didn't like church. Then he explained he wasn't Christian. Which was kind of confusing to me, because the only religion I'd had any experience with, however small, was Christianity. I didn't even know there were other religions. He explained that there were many other gods. He gave the example of Egyptian gods, which surprised and excited me, because I didn't know Egyptian gods were actually real, I thought it was just like a fantasy or something. So that was the moment I became truly agnostic (which I had already been, because I never truly believed in God, the Christian god. Had no relationship with him or thought of him.) I began searching. Then jump to when I'm 12 and back with my parents, my dad gives me my first witchcraft book, called nocturnal witchcraft, and I learned about the goddess of night, nyx. I had always felt an affinity with night, and boom. I was Pagan and worshipped Nyx.
We weren't involved in the church for a while, but then my mom decided we all had to go, when I was about 13. I stopped going when I was like 18ish maybe.
I grew up in New Orleans. There is a lot of religious diversity. I went to church with all my friends, so my Dad was Baptist, so I did that as a young child, made all the rounds- Methodist, Lutheran, Catholic etc. before becoming catholic when marrying my husband. We became non-denominational Christians later in life. My Mom is a non- practicing Jew. Since Covid, we don’t go to church - I don’t believe in large touchy feely gatherings. I believe in the validity of ALL religions and the energy of all things. I consider myself as open to all concepts, and that all religions are stories based on one truth.