Have you ever been religious, if so what religion and denomination?

[pytheas]

The seasons

First season innocent child
Dad atheist but kept pretences at christmas, easter, weddings, christenings, Mum used to believe but lost faith gradually in contact with my father.As soon as I could reason with the current mindset-age of 7 – I understood the bullshit I was fed. When I questioned I was told to decide for myself, when I asked what do you think, a split poll yes M and no D. Grandma was a believer, she went to church, lit candles for the dead, cooked according to calendar. She hadn't finished primary school.
Forced every Monday and Wednesday to attend orthodox church with a standard state primary school and Friday catehism  class . I grew very discomforted in church because all the old people sat in the available chairs, and we had to stand silent and immobile for 90 minutes. I fainted once, postural hypotension I think it was.
Noticed for the musical voice and offered to singalong with the chanting instead of  passively attending. Grabbed the opportunity.

The state school had religious lessons (and still has but now you can opt to be excluded- a few do as it creates a vibe kids don't want to be in) There I got expelled as I asked about the justice of eternal hell if that meant punishment, against a petty lifespan 50? 70? years of bad behavior. When would the punishment be spent and why not?
Also how come Jesus zapped and destroyed the fig tree that simply produced no figs?? Is productivity a divine command which you better or else?

Second season adolescence dawns

Vandalized, fucked in, and polluted churches, took scull from cemetery spent-grave-dug-up-bone storehouse, once ambush-attacked  a fat priest with raw eggs (injected with vinegar for a day)


Third season modern times
I yielded to the demand for a christening with the first child, as I am against marriage there was parental peer disappointment-my condition was Not In a Church
A crooked priest performed in our garden very quickly and quickly ran away at the arrival of my friends/ dressed as the 3 fairies in 10foot walking stick-legs, one was breathing fire with the mouth-petrol, one was throwing flowers from a basket and one had colored long ribbons and tied us in passing.

The old folk about 100 of them were generally pleased, "the lad is a bit weird" but the food was exquisite-banquet of Petronius no less- the booze plenty and they danced and sang well into the night. We younger folk also partied in a -parental censorship- possible in a different adjacent building


After some personal grief of separation combined –nasty slow parental death on one hand and more rapid end of love with the partner then, I needed to create a frame for self support. I did yoga, read bitten by the black snake Manuel Schoch, stillness speaks by eckhart tolle, which helped and started searching how an atheist can justify blind faith as a means to appease oneself in the face of tragedy without insulting the intellect. It sums up all I need to pillow on when the time of grim separation in love, health or any type actually arises again

1)   O Fortuna Imperatrix Mundi, which apart from a very nice musical piece by Carl Orff , sums up all time and not only actual medieval atheism by monks.
Chance, luck, a proper uncertain and unknown chaotic backbone is the ruler, really..
In the pot of life we try to fish out from the soup of experience success. But the soup is thick and there are equal pieces of failure as there are of success. Don't dismay, try and try again.

2)   logic is problem solving, its a dog and its bone to chew on is any  problem. The direction or meaning  of our life is not a problem. The general outcome is not a problem. Variables we do not control are not problems. Logic turns them into problems to deal with them. Do not allow logic in the upper deck of your consciousness boat, it is not fit to wonder at open horizons.  In my opinion it may endanger a pessimist approach

3) blind faith is thus restricted and used every time  we try at the soup. we hope and have indication to expect a positive outcome. Always,  because it arrives also from corners you may not expect

I also came up with this hymn fit for any ceremony as long as you debauch to unconsciousness to provide grounds for self-respect
http://www.happyatheistforum.com/forum/index.php?topic=8943.msg147337#msg147337

[Harmonie]

Well, I've been apart of three different churches over my early childhood to early/late teens. In my early childhood I believe my family went to a big Methodist church in the city. I don't have any real memories over it, I know what the place looks like, but that's it. Throughout most of my childhood my family attended an Church of Disciples Christian church. (I had to look it up to find the denomination just now because I never actually knew, and I still don't know what that is. lol). In my mid teens we switched over to another big Methodist church. It's a really large church. I'm technically still a 'member' there, but I haven't been in a while. My family just doesn't go much anymore.

In late 2007/early 2008 when I decided to try to be a Christian again, I identified as a "Progressive Christian", because I wanted to be a Christian but accept myself and others. Everybody picks and chooses, so why couldn't I pick and choose the good?

EDIT: I found out that my original church was Methodist, not Baptist.

[Beachdragon]

Born and raised Roman Catholic.  Did the whole First Communion, Confirmation stuff.  Used to pray the rosary, etc.  My Mom and her mom were devout Roman Catholics.  Dad didn't really care about religion. 

When I started dating some how I always ended up with pagan boyfriends, LOL. 

Now I call myself agnostic and that usually shuts people down.  I'm not really an athiest, but I do feel that we as the human race need to move on to more rational ideas than something that is 2000 years old and never made sense in the first place.

[philosoraptor]

I was raised Methodist, and attended Catholic church for a few years in high school.  I was another one who had church forced down my throat, as though it could cure me of my doubt.  I've identified as an atheist for almost 10 years now.

[history_geek]

I actually remembered something from way back when I was in elementary school. Since we have State *cough social club cough* Church, religion is a compulsory school subject, but I never really bought into it, and we never discussed that sort of stuff at home. But one day I remember coming from school and we must have had religion on the last class or something and as I was thinking about it I did the "Well, if there is some god up there, how about sending down an angel or something to prove it?"-thing while walking. Nothing happened. I shrugged. And that was basically it for me, though I was much more of an agnostic then an atheist (something that I remember defined to us as "people or person who doesn't believe in anything", oddly enough...) until I finally realized the truth of it

[Beachdragon]

Oh my gosh, how could I have forgotten to add that my mother forced the whole family to go to church.  What's worse, we had to go to Washington DC to the big Italian church.  Hard to find parking and we always went to the noon mass which made fasting that long very difficult.  And the folks made me, a kid, fast till then.  I nearly passed out in church once.  Too much incense and an empty stomach.

Worse yet, the masses were always in Italian, so you can imagine how painfully hard it was to sit still, behave, and not understand much for an hour or hour and a half in there.  Blah.  Another reason why I don't like going.

I have a friend who has become a Deacon in the Catholic church and he invited us to mass one day.  He was giving the homily and promised to work in the words "I attack" and Lord of the Rings in there.  He did it too.  And as I was sitting tehre I was yet again reminded how much the church just isn't for me anymore.

[Dobermonster]

Raised in the Pentacostal Christian church quite literally from infancy. My first questioning of the teachings began around age 6 in Sunday school; the discrepancies between the New Testament books that described the crucifixion bothered me to tears. I remember clearly pressing my Sunday school teacher on these, and the poor woman could only answer that they were "different views of the same event". When we were old enough to begin learning about proselytization and would go on group outings, door-to-door, I was acutely aware of the insincerity in the words "God bless you" as we would part each household - which, again, distressed me to tears and the Sunday school teacher to speechlessness. I oscillated between serious doubts and serious devoutness from age 12 to 15. If I believed, I believed with great faith. When I doubted, I doubted in fear and silence. It was only at 15 or 16 that I put my foot down and refused to attend another church service. My innate, stubborn resistance to hypocrisy would not allow me to continue the charade in full knowledge of my agnosticism. This, of course, lead to the first real divide between myself and my parents, and began the battle of will and truth that continues at the ripe old age of 24. It was only a few years ago that I could have definitively described myself as atheistic.

A long answer to a simple question, and probably far more than anyone would really care to know, but there it is.

[Traveler]

Not at all too much, Dobermonster. I find all these backgrounds very interesting. We all have such different stories, and this really does help us all understand each other.