Personal Narrative: Quora's View Of Religion

I grew up in a Hispanic Catholic household. In my younger years my family attended a Catholic church every Sunday, and my sister and I also went to Sunday school right before the service started. As a child, I didn't really think about church and the idea of religion because I mostly just followed the beliefs of the adults around me. To me, church and Sunday school were just things that my parents required me to go to. My older sister on the other hand, did not really appreciate the idea of church and Christianity and I really did not understand why she didn't want to go to church or just listen to my parents. Over time I learned that she considered herself an atheist and she had always questioned religion and most importantly Christianity. About the same time, my family stopped attending church and we disconnected ourselves from religion. I was still use to my mother praying during meals and speaking about God but we never took the time

The results from my summary reveal that my number one personal value is religious. I was not surprised by the outcome at all because I am very much into my religion. I love to have my own time when I can sit back and read my bible in peace and reflect back over what I just read. Leaning on the Bible gives me a sense of peace, and it reassures me that I can face and overcome any obstacles.

  Learning that there were other religions, and that some of my friends were not Christian, I wondered, if they do not believe in God then how will they go to Heaven? That is the question I asked my Dad during one of our walks around the neighborhood. On this occasion, however, I started crying because I felt confused about how other kids, who I thought were the same as me in character and values, would have to spend their afterlife in Hell. My Dad struggled to come up with a sufficient answer that eased my doubts while accounted for the diversity that I was beginning to understand exists, which made me feel even more uneasy. It was at that moment, though, I realized that I did not have to accept an idea if I felt it was incongruent with my own experiences and perception of

I had been a “Christian” for years, being raised in a Christian home it was just the thing to do. However this meant nothing to me at the time I was a Christian because everyone else was. So after a long time and the struggles I went through, I was so far gone and away from what God had planned for my life that it looked like there was no hope. This is when something happened to me something incredible God restored my life and brought me home, out of my sin. Now this didn’t happen over night it was a process which took a matter of months, but it started the night I fell on my knees and realized I had been living a lie and that I was not a Christ follower, I knew the stuff but never applied it to my life and let it change my life.

29% said they came from an unspecified Christian family, 27% said Catholic, 26% were Protestant, 9% said none and a small 6% said they were atheists and their parents were atheists. They asked when they decided to stop their belief and 13% said they never believed, 29% said they did when they were less than fifteen-years-old, 37% said they decided to become atheist between the ages of 15 and 24 and 21% said they did past the age of 25. Finally they asked why they did become atheist. Almost half, 47%, said that it didn’t make logical sense to them, 12% said that it didn’t comply with conventional science, 9% said it was because of a negative experience when they were young, 15% said it was because of the hypocrisy of religion and the church, 3% said that God didn’t meet an expectation they had, and a surprising 6% said they couldn’t remember. Finally 21% gave very specific reasons why, saying that college opened their eyes or that there was a person in the sky watching them but also how patriarchal the church is and its obsession with obedience and punishment. This shows a trend in why most left religion. One is that it didn’t make sense nor does it work with science, or they did liked how the church felt or worked which pushed them away to soon become atheists.

In my youth, I never enjoyed going to church. I found it to be a tedious waste of time, so in an attempt to get out of it, I said I didn’t believe in it and claimed to be an atheist. My parents, of course, either didn’t believe me or simply didn’t care and continued to force me to attend mass every Sunday. In a last ditch effort to procure one extra hour of fun a week, I decided to do a little research into why Catholicism was “wrong” so I would sound more believable and my parents would take my claim seriously. In my innocent quest for ways to disprove an entire religion, I found a lot of lies, a lot of opinion, and absolutely no definitive answers. At first I was completely befuddled by the swamp of lengthy bible passages that could be interpreted

Growing up I was always told religion was false and that I was above my friends who were Christians because I believed in science. My mom was raised by Catholics, but when she graduated High School, she vowed to never be religious again. My father enjoyed feeling more elite over the “religious plebeians” that worked for him. I remember having an argument with Victoria Henderson in 3rd grade because I believed in The Big Bang and she was a creationist. Everyone took Victoria’s side, and I learned it was better to just not talk about religion. In high school, I began reaching out of my comfort zone, and also questioning what my parents had ingrained on me as a person. My first religious experience was dating a boy named Luis who was Catholic, as my mother was raised. He was only allowed to date Catholic girls, so I

In my eyes, God’s existence was as true as the existence of the brain. I have never seen it in real life, but I have seen proof of what it can accomplish. It got me thinking about my friend who was Jehovah’s Witness. She was raised differently compared to me. The difference between my Jehovah Witness friend and my atheist friend was that I was able to relate more with the one who believed in our God. I began to think deeper than just the exterior difference between us. I started thinking about how he pictured my religion. In his eyes, I believed in someone who did not exist. I believed in someone who, in many people’s eyes, had no legitimate proof of existence. The following day, I went to apologize. I told him that he had the same right as me to believe in what he felt was

There just isn't anyway where a transformation like that could happen as the transformation from growing up with no religion to choosing to be an atheist is a oneway street. I don't see myself going to church or following any religious practices and I'm fine with that. I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by choosing to live the life that I do.

I am an atheist, but it wasn't always that way. My entire life there was a constant pressure on me to accept that there was a supreme being that created all. Even at a young age I couldn’t bring myself to fully believe this. I continued grasping for straws because, just like every other religious person, I was scared of the “consequences” that would come with not believing. My Non-Denominational Christian Church promoted telling this to everyone, even children.

As a child I was forced into a religion I knew absolutely nothing about. My mother woke me up early every Sunday and got me ready for mass. I hated it. I didn’t comprehend why I was being forced to attend and listen to some stranger talk for hours, about something I did not understand. This continued for a couple years until I was around 8 years old and my family became inactive. Although we became inactive, our faith still lingered and we continued to pray every night, and not leave our homes without a blessing. A couple years later I felt as if something was calling me to attend the church. I started

As I mentioned, I myself in a short period of time considered an atheist, but I changed my mind. The reason for this was that I saw many problems with this system of thinking. Some of these problems are the following

Religion never crept its way into my life like it has for others, i was never indoctrinated into the cult of religion not out of my own choice but because of the choice of my mother and father. Even though children have the freedom of choice to not believe in a deity it can be more difficult than putting a giraffe through the eye of a needle to not accept religion when your parents are so religious and they ram it down your throat until you can't breath anymore and promise the idea of you burning in hell as a threat even though pascal's wager is ridiculous and illogical but it still makes it so hard to not accept god not even out of fear of “god” but from the very real punishment of your parents.I however was given a choice and my parents never

I used to be very apathetic when it came to my beliefs. I would consider myself to be an atheist. My mom was not very happy about this at first but over time she grew to accept it. One day that all changed. I came home after school and immediately upon entering my house I heard my mother's voice.

I am writng these thoughts and addressing it to you, Kyle, not with the intention to come to an agreement (in fact, I would be very upset if a Christian would completely agree with my point of view), but to listen what you have to say and learn from you. To get the knowledge not only about the religion, but about how people live their life, and you Kyle, are insightful, in my opinion. Although our opinions are far apart I still can tell that I enjoy listening the ideas and standards you propose.