Yes, my mother's insane religious mania and my father's decision to simply ignore it lead to a miserable and damaging childhood, that left me with life long problems, psychological and physical, a disassociation with social norms and behaviours, a ludicrous and unfounded hatred of Roman Catholics and a terror of god that haunted me in to my late twenties.
Religion wrecked my formative years, destroyed my brother turning him to an alcoholic by his mid teens and worse later, it poisoned our minds and wrecked our ability to have healthy relationships.
The day I realised that I was an atheist and that religion no longer held any sway over me, I felt like I had been set free from a dark, dungeon could finally see the sun and know what it was to breathe easy without the stench of fear in my every breath.

Not me. At age five, when I was forced to go to Sunday school, I scoffed at ridiculous Bible stories (a woman turned into salt; Noah's ark; Jesus rose from the dead, etc.)

Mom was an atheist after growing up Catholic. Dad never went to church. Apparently they hoped dropping off us four kids at Sunday school would calm down our high-energy, smart-alecky behavior. It didn't work.

"Mom, I decided I'm an atheist," I said at 13. "I don't want to go to church anymore."

That's fine, honey," she replied. "What do you want for dinner?"

Very much so. And it was mixed up with racism, homophobia, and transphobia.

I'm still healing from the religious damage.

Big time. Too stupid to get out earlier than I did.

Definitely by being subjected to the horrible catholic school I was forced to attend for religious instructions and brainwashing that I despised along with those awful nuns that I hated .I was always depressed on the days I had to attend .This also retards critical thinking and common sense and makes you feel evil when you start to realize it’s all bullshit.

Yes, I still deal with that Catholic guilt over sex.

We were southern baptist. Remember having a good time at church. Was in the children’s choir and it was fun. Always felt uncomfortable proselytizing. When the youth Sunday school teacher told me that dinosaurs were not real, and they were put there by Satan to lead people from God, that just did not compute. That was the end.

I dump any “friend” that was religious. Life is too short to deal with toxic people.

Yes and no. It was negative in that it brainwashed me with a bunch of lies, and took a lot of time and money from me. It was positive in that it taught me to avoid smoking and to be nice to others.

My wife has always envied catholic girls. Sneak out, meet their boyfriends, have fun, confess on Sunday and then all is right with the world again. My wife is an atheist and she had catholic envy. Go figure.

Me, I vaguely remember going to church before starting school. I think there may have been singing. My father was the religious nutter but he was in the navy and gone half the time. Plus he had no rapport and much difficulty with putting words together. My mother never dwelled on religion that I remember and sure as hell was not dragging all seven us to church on her own. Frankly I don't remember her ever saying a word about it except when asked and then it turned out her religion was much like Roseanne Bar's. You know, good people .. but not practicing.

No, religion has left no scars on me. Lucky me. But I recognize it could have been very different if I'd had to fight my way out of church.

Nothing at all, fortunately.

You gotta be kiddin. Catholic education not only negatively impacted -- ruined my life. These deluded assholes are determining who goes on to higher education and political power. I got a D in Religion which prevented me from getting into a tuition free NYC college. In science class I looked down on Rudy Giuliani as average at best. He told the brothers that he wanted to be a Christian Brother and they treated him like he was St Thomas Aquinas reincarnated.

Read the Nation Problem in my book. No wonder the country is so screwed up with over two million in prison. I say in my book make these religious idiots get jobs like everybody else.

[amazon.com]

My childhood from 9yrs on...

Monday: Young folks meeting
Tuesday: Old folks meeting
Wednesday: bible study
Thursday: Choir practice
Friday: Outreach ministry
Saturday: prayer meeting
Sunday: church service x2 + fellowship

Barf. I hated that shit!

Being innondated and "educated" with that bullshit is what pushed me to agnosticism. I couldn't rid myself of it fast enough.

Well lets see I was brainwashed into thinking that I must eat the flesh and drink the blood of a god that by doctrine could not exist. By fourteen I decided to kill myslef for not being good enough for said god.

Here is my story.

Definitely. I couldn't wait to get out from under it all.

I was thoroughly indoctrinated into Catholicism. Found it extremely difficult to "fit in" with normal society.

I never related to the god from the desert. At 11 I gave up on trying. I liked the Norse stories my father told me, but I knew they were stories. I studied the history of religion for two semesters and learned that all were only invented by men to suppress populations. And I learned that two thousand years, on the average, was the expiration time on any gods.
And frankly, my mother's wrath was always more of a deterrent for sex when I was a teenager than any religion.

Religious guilt ( unmarried with child) scarred my Mom, which in turn made family fucked up. My Dad ....really wasn't there for us. Drink, work, bitch. Bitch, work complain.....drink.
What fun we were having !!

Only answers I ever got were to pray and go to church....Huh ?!? It didn't make any one of us any fucking happier or saner

Took most of my life to figure shit out. Still trying.....I'll never fit in. I get that.

Hell, maybe Mom was nuts anyway...........

Still trying to figure it out

Mom and dad made us two boys go to a catholic school and church in our early years, and we both thought it was a wrong and unkind place to be. I was frightened of the big cross with a dead man on it. Also the nuns were mean to some kids right during class. We could not leave until we received conformation. Public school was a nice safe place to be and I like all my teachers.

Of course it did. I only heard bible stories and the like for a long while, then my parents got into church and got me interested and I was filled with lies. All lies, and nothing but lies. Today I am pissed off at those who immediately ask me "how do you think we all got here then?"
If I tell them their god used incest to get the earth populated the believers want to claim people lived so long in those days that god's perfect plan was not really incest, etc., etc. They forget that their god used incest twice to populate and re-populate. I suppose this is some set up to claim why we really need god in the first place. Yeah, I was negatively impacted and lied to bigtime. Many of my religious friends today claim they just do not see this and do not know why I feel this way. This is also the reason I do not have many friends. I will not stay quiet about this when people start in about their "loving god."

It absolutely did. It did a huge number on my sense of self worth, and exacerbated my tendency to feel guilty about everything.

I know it did mine. I had a single mom who worked long hours. I lived next to my great aunt rosebub.

She was a bitterly small minded and bitterly intolerant christian fundamentalist who was utterly contemnptous and hostile to any other pov other than her own, and damn her, she had "faith".

She spent 5 years, from my 8-13th, telling me I had to be just exactly like her in every single way or I'd be no good at all. I couldn't like a single thing she didn't approve or or I'd "never amount to a hill o' beans".

(One of her favorite phrases was "never amount to a hill o' beans!" She repeated that like a broken record.)

I was interested in science, hard science. She'd pour scorn on me, telling me "You ain't got no more business thinking about that than the main in the moon!"

("you ain't got no more business thinking of that stuff than the main in the moon!" was another favorite and endlessly repeated phrase of here.)

She sincerely believed this, it was her nature to be utterly and bitterly hateful, scornful, intolerant, mocking and abusive to any view or feeling that wasn't in robotic lock step with her own.

And she had faith, she believed it. And thanks to the power of her faith she was able to, with her goddam old woman patience, chip and peck away at me constalty for 5 years. I was a kid, i didn't have a chance against her and her goddam old woman patience. Chip chip chip peck peck peck. Until she got thru to me and thru the power of her damnable faith convinced me she was right.

In her warped, small, bitterly hard and intolerant head she was doing me a kindness and could never accept I could be different than her and be any good, and she convinced me of it.

At 13, she had me giving up on life, she'd chipping and pecked her way into me for years until that old bitch was living in my head rent free constaltly telling me "You'll never amount to a hill o' beans! You're gonna be a buuu-uuuum! "

I had to spend a lot of time around her because ronnie kohlonberg, my mom's live in boyfriend, was abusing me behind her back.)

Well, aunt rosebud turned out to be right, in the same sense as a self fulfilling prophecy usually turns out to be right.

She had me so convinced I couldn;t amount to a hill o' beans i kind of quit struggling with the issues i was having. Why bother? What did it matter? She was in my head bellering at me I was no good and would never amount to a hill o' beans so I couldn't bring myself to try.

I had a lot of othe rissues like being a bully and bitch magnet,a high pitched voice and being the fat kid, aunt rosebud's faith driven conviction I had to be no good may have just made my life more certain to be a miserable mess.

I'm agnostic but even I hope she's in a form of hell now. I actually designed a very special hell just for her. No fire, no brimstone, no pitchfork wielding demons.

It'd actually be a very nice place full of happy successful good people who were not like her in various ways. She'd be forced to see people who was not like her being successful,healthy, happy, good, etc.

I'm sure it would be a horror and torture for her. I actually hope she's in it, but not for eternity. I'm not evil enough to wish eternal torture on anyone. I'd give her a few decades in it, relative ones anyway, then reincarnate her as someone who just maybe will be a bit less arrogantly, bitterly small minded and intolerant.

Other than being bored out of my mind most Sunday mornings, I can't say that it had much of an impact. I had fun in junior church and VBS. There were songs, snacks and crafts. As I grew up, I enjoyed youth group activities. I never joined though because memorizing the books of the bible was just too much work. As an adult, I had fun in the choir. All this while having no doubt that everyone around was completely full of crap. There was a short time when I thought maybe there was something wrong with me instead of them, but I got over that quickly.

It had a big impact in my early years. I always felt that I was an imposter trying to be ‘good.’ I had a fear of one slip up where I was found out and I would be cast aside! As I grew into adulthood that translated into I was a flawed person (I tried to be good but I never felt like I was good) so I felt that even god couldn’t love me! But, at one point when I fell into a bottomless pit, I lashed out at that whole system and began the journey to free myself from that whole distorted lie...that I had bought into! Things have been upright ever sense...

Being a youngster of 5 and 6, 1953, i do remember my dad being forced to remarry in the catholic religion to satisfy mom's parents. I stood scared beside my mother and dad. After parochial schools to the 8th grade, as a freshman left it behind. Impacted with anger, resentment and exhaustion i was glad to leave it behind. So it actually opened my eyes a little bit. Wide open now....