Sometimes my mind reflects back on what it felt like to be completely indoctrinated and feeling I had God's protection or holy spirit and my mind misses that feeling of security. However, I know that's not real. I also miss my parents, younger brother and sister and grandparents. I lost them all when I chose to leave. I don't miss the fake friendships or feeling judged.
Never, Never
without religion, i am happy as a crow.
I really don't. I only really remember how depressed and self-hating I was because of religious belief. I just can't think of anything positive in my childhood that involved religion, or was caused by it in any way.
Yes, in a way. I was raised in Seventh Day Adventism, with potlucks and hikes and all-day Saturday worship activities, and a rather active religion-based social life, and of course atheists don't have a church or community center that maintains such regular weekly activity schedules I could tap into. I live in a town where few people even have a 4-yr college degree, let alone graduate school or college level science education, and I am atheist, so I have not yet met anyone here with whom I have much in common. If I had stayed in the church, I would have an active social set, and all the socioeconomic survival net that the church provides its members, and might even meet compatible men to date (not a priority any longer, but probably in part because I have not met any reasonable potential partners in years). I don't miss the religion, but we atheists really do need to do better at developing a social network that fulfills the social needs churches fulfill so well for their members.
Was never really religious, but I've been to many a sunday service, and I gotta tell ya, its really not all that terrible. At least for the non-denominational church I frequented with my christian buddies. Free coffee and people I generally like.
I do miss that on occasion, but I never miss the actual sermons and stuff.
Not at all, although I enjoy the acoustics, architecture, and the historical sense of a large, old church or cathedral. I recently had the pleasure of hearing Vivaldi performed in a church in Venice. The experience could not be matched in a regular concert hall.
When I was still a teenage atheist, and thus living with my still-Christian parents, I tried out a few other neighborhood churches, including one where the pastors are trained to lead 4-part choral singing, and the congregation sang all their hymns in 4 parts (mind-blowing concept in the church I was raised in). I was atheist for sure by then, but I still loved the singing. I joined a church choir in grad school too for a while, one run by a choral conductor I knew, because under his direction the choir was taking on some of the more difficult choral pieces with a weekly audience and a church building with great acoustics to perform in every week. The religion was annoying, but the music was fun.
Until about five years ago I would have said community. but since then I realized there are many different ways a creating a community then just going to church. I'm a gamer mostly board games as in Dungeons & Dragons, starfinder and Firefly. there is a game store near me that has a lot of events. so I just started going and I made a lot of friends. we hang out a lot outside of the store now. I've helped a couple with moving and one of my friends even help me when things were going bad with my mom's health. So to answer the question, no! there's nothing I miss.
I was raised mormon, and within the mormon church there's a really string sense of community. I grew up in that sort of environment so a lot of the time i do miss the sense on community.
I don't care for the momron church at all, I think it's a terrible institution so it's not like I'm contemplating going back or anything, but that's the aspect of the church i miss.
Not at all. I have abandoned all religious groups that I tried to belong to but I never cut my friendly relationships with the people I met/got acquainted in those groups so long as they remain sincere and give me the respect that I deserve
I rarely do. I did when I was first shunned by the congregation (Mennonite) It was all I knew. As I grew, I discovered a brand new world. Freedom to be me. Not being controlled and threatened with eternal damnation. Discovering people who I was told to avoid were actually the most beautiful people in the world.
Sometimes miss being able to talk about God with another religious person, because it's something to easily connect on with a lot of people. And even though I am very tolerant of religion and faith, I feel if I voice my opinion on a date or something it closes a lot of doors.
I've said the same to myself, "closes a lot of doors." Challenging yes; however, it can open other doors as well.