A pain in the ass.

All I can say is me being 17, church in the corner and Sunday at 7:00 AM I am walking back home to face the whole congregation seeing me with my large afro, my unisex top showing my bellybutton, my hip huggers as tight as humanly possible and platform shoes and a face of rough night and yet I still said hi and good morning you all.

Raised catholic. Couldn't stand it. Had to wait until I was out of my mother's house before I could quit pretending I was going to mass on Sundays. It took a few more years before I realized I had no belief in any gods and that it was ALL mythology.
I live in the South. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting at least 4 churches.
I'm still an open atheist. Usually most people don't know it until after they've gotten to knw
me a little bit. Then, they're usually shocked. "But you're so NICE! How can YOU be an atheist?". is what I usually hear.

I've posted before so apologize for repeats. I grew up in the Boston area in a town that was predominently Jewish. I was an outcast cause I refused to go to Hebrew School so I wasn't invited to social events-Bar Mitzvahs. My friends were not Jewish, not white and outcasts like me.

JW Diaz just opened a discussion from the perspective of a less repressed area.

One of my grand children is growing up with freedom (from religion). Coolest kid ever. He's growing up in a restricted zone. It is not O.K. for us to exist here. For example, He and his buddy were discussing telling the truth to a teacher and the consequences if they spoke up. The 7 year old buddy said that ... not speaking up is a form of deceit + a lie and if you tell a lie it's a sin and if you sin, you go to HELL. My grandson said "Well that's the meanest thing you've ever said to me."

Then, my grand son had a belly laugh because, in his words, it was also the "dumbest" thing he'd ever heard. My grand son's parents had a lot of smoothing over to do with the buddy's parents. I was like Yikes kid, DUCK & COVER!

I was raised on Long Island in a predominately Jewish/Catholic neighborhood. I went to Hebrew School and wanted to become a Cantor before I realized that my language skills were not good enough. I was the only member of my family to attend synagogue when I was a kid and I continued to go to temple as an adult. My feeling towards G-d was basic, I believed.

Then at a service in a small temple in Denver, Co, the rabbi was talking about the story of Jonah and the large fish. During the sermon, he said that this was a "true story." I was thinking out loud, too loud as a matter of fact and said: "No it's not!" I had the entire congregation looking at me so I had to finish. I said that it is physiologically impossible for a person to live in a fish's belly. I walked out of the temple that evening questioning my belief. It took a few more months before I was convinced that the Bible did not make sense and I started my turn away from religion.

It took a Unitarian minister to show me that my lack of belief was that of Humanism and that I was most likely an a-theist in my beliefs. That was over 30 years ago and I have not looked back since.

I can tell you how it was to grow up non religious in two religious house holds in two religious towns in a religious part of a fairly religious state.

They told me I was demon posessed, misguided, grounded, I'm deep shit, and I was going to hell. I was dragged to church until I was 14 despite denouncing the Catholic church the second I was "confirmed" at age 11. I thought religion was an inconvenience and a waste of time. I found it's practices and prejudices antiquated and immoral.

Day to day life after I was allowed to leave the church still included grace before dinner (forced) and constant lectures about how I'll "grow out of it and come back to god."

I think my parents meant well, afterall they really believe that I'm going to hell for all eternity becausr reject the idea of gods.