Thanks for the feedback!

1. I don't go to anymore, I got tired of it pretty quickly. I definitely did not let it control my actions.
2. I was mostly just showing myself that I could do something my parents didn't approve of. I never told them, although they found out eventually because people would see my parents in a store or something and say, "Hi, I saw your son there the other day!"
3. I felt I needed some guidance in life, so I decided a would be the best bet. I chose the Presbyterian because it was two blocks from my house. I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it.
4. I have read most of the bible, and I have to admit I thought some of the sermons there were very true to the stories in the bible and rather thought-provoking. I actually rather liked the Pastor there. I'd like to add that some of my best friends are Christians.
5. Yes, I know there are other religions out there. There just weren't any synagogues or mosques near me, or Hindu temples or Zoroastrian worships or what-have-you in my neighborhood. See item #3.
6. I don't think the Myers-Briggs test results are set in stone, I just put it out there for those who are interested.
7. My parents were not exactly domineering, but they did tell me what to do a lot and I'm only human, I wanted to rebel. I could have smoked or done grafiti instead, I think church was a fairly mild course of action.
8. I have never wanted any one person to tell me what to do; I want to have control over my own life (see "The Grand Inquisitor," by Dostoevsky). That being said, we have to expose ourselves to different things, don't we? I'm not proud of going to church, but I think I learned a thing or two. My father was actually raised before he became an atheist, so it's not like permanently turns you into an acolyte.
9. When I was in church and I told my friends about this, they said this was the opposite of the cliche where the family is and the son decides he is an atheist, and we have a scene where the mother is crying and the father yells at the son to get out and not come back. I don't know, I think it sort of rings a bell.

Adolescents are all about differentiating themselves from their parents, so often their parents are, by definition, lame and ignorant and humiliating. So they act out to demonstrate how clueful, smart and admirable they are by being "not their parents". It's a story old as time, and has little to do with [ir]religion and everything to do with figuring out who you are and where you fit into the world around you.

Hopefully now in your 30s you have that sorted out. As one wag (Mark Twain, probably) said: "When I was young my old man was really stupid. But by the time I was an adult I was amazed at how much smarter he had gotten".

Are you sure you're not just throwing a tantrum?

if you went to church in secret, how and whom were you showing that your folks couldn't control you?

actually, i don't know that cliche where the folks believe but the son rebels by being an atheist. that may be a cliche among religious people; it's not how most atheists realized that there were no gods. it may be how the parents look at it. well, it would be how they looked at it, if they were religious.

in addition, it's interesting that someone would go to a church as an act of rebellion. why a church? is the opposite of atheism christianity? are there NO other religions in the world?

pardon me for being skeptical, but your story has some holes in it.

g

Ha ha ha...your parents could not control you...the Presbyterians did ??

What happened to your rebellious faith since then? How did you end up here? The suspense is killing me!

I met a girl in college in a similar situation. She and I reconnected through facebook quite some time later.

Her mother, who raised her, was atheist and was completely turned off by religion. I remember feeling sad that she would not even entertain the idea that this girl could explore spirituality on her own. The discussion came to be during a sleepover in a church. i cannot recall the exact nature of the camp-in, and by that time, i was leaning toward atheism, although still exploring religion personally. Anyway, she said the words, "my mom would not approve of me even being in this church [basement] right now, even though, it's mainly for social reasons." i recall, during the morning prayer and grace before our pancake breakfast, she was sitting there with an unease.

Fast forward. She lives a pretty conservative life and is really involved in her church. She posts on Facebook all the time about the activities she and her family participates and her husband, who is a politician, runs on a platform of this christian morality.

i always smirk when i think of her life. without the environment she was forced into growing up, the pendulum would not have swung so far in correction. She would have had a different life had her mom taken her to church and she not rebelled looking to fit in where she was not allowed to.

Good for you. The most important thing for a parent to know is that you can, and will, go your own way, and if they love you, then, when they come down off the ceiling, they will be proud of you for being your own person. But your parents should know that the more you know about religion the more you are likely to be put of by it.