Childhood/teenage Christians (Poll)

[Overcame Faith]

I find it amazing how many people became christians as a child or teenager. I was in church throughout my childhood and teenage years. However, I was not a Christian then. The other teenagers and I thought it was all silly. Church was a good way for us to meet up and then get together after church services to have fun (drinking, sex, and all other fun things teenagers like to do). Our preacher would preach hell and brimstone sermons, but we paid it no attention. It was not until I became an adult that I took the religion seriously and underwent my brainwashed years.

 

Also, when I ask when did you become a Christian, I'm not talking about going through some ritual like being confirmed, going to the altar because your parents expected it of you or because of peer pressure, or being baptized because it was the thing to do. Rather, I am talking about when you actually believed it all and took the religion seriously and did your best to follow its teachings (even if not perfectly).

 

Finally, given that this is an ExChristian website, my assumption is that everyone here at some point in time was a Christian. Therefore, I did not include as a possible response something to the effect that you never were a Christian.

 

So, how about it?

 

Finally, if you haven't already, please also take the time to do the poll I entitled, "How Intense was your Christian/ExChristian Experience."

 

Thank-you.

[ClaraOlive]

Also, when I ask when did you become a Christian, I'm not talking about going through some ritual like being confirmed, going to the altar because your parents expected it of you or because of peer pressure, or being baptized because it was the thing to do. Rather, I am talking about when you actually believed it all and took the religion seriously and did your best to follow its teachings (even if not perfectly).

 

This actually isn't something that I can separate out. As a child, there was no distinction between religion and not-religion. There was never a time in my conscious life that Christianity wasn't presented as a fact, so I didn't experience it as either a choice or as coercion. I do consider myself to have become a Christian as a child though, since I did believe it all and was sincere in my belief.

[Guest Babylonian Dream]

I was told it was the way or I'm on my way to hell. So I was very christian. When I got superserious about Christianity, that's when things got interesting.

[par4dcourse]

Quit on my 18th birthday and never looked back.

[TheSecretAtheist]

I was raised Southern Baptist, we don't have any sort of confirmation or catechism class, and they put a lot of emphasis on the fact that it has to be a decision you come to yourself. That is not to say that they don't strongly encourage it, or that they don't indoctrinate the young, but they don't have a set age that you become a Christian like some of the other Christian denominations do.

 

I, at the age of eight, told my parents that I wanted to ask Jesus into my heart and become a Christian and be baptized. I knew what I was doing but this was, of course, based on a perverted worldview I'd been brought up into by my parents and the church. I knew I believed in God and Jesus and that I wanted to do what the bible told me to, and I wanted to be in heaven forever when I died. What kid who has been taught all their life that God loves them more than anyone in the whole world, and will reward you with heaven if you believe in him would reject that? I had believed for years before this, I believed from the time that I was able to think about such things in a meaningful way, the problem was that I had been taught lies about how the world works. A child can think pretty rationally, but if they are fed incorrect information they will come up with incorrect answers. Children are easy to be misled not because they are unable to think clearly, but because they lack the experiences that help them make well-informed and rational decisions. (I may have been a bit more logical than some kids, I dunno. I realized at the age of 5 or 6 that Santa couldn't possibly exist and I asked my parents about it.)

 

(The sad thing here is that many who have been brought up in X faith are taught nothing but that faith, and are taught that it is evil to even question that faith, so they often will discount any evidence against their faith and not seek answers to questions of doubt that may pop up. They will eventually fool themselves into believing that there is no issue and that their faith makes perfect logical sense. Christianity is set up perfectly to cause this, saying that 'the fool says in his heart there is no God' and teaching that "man's wisdom" is wrong. Christianity has evolved to be very effective at converting and holding converts.)

 

Anyway, I know that I believed as an eight year old, believed with my entire being, that what I was taught in church was real. Later on (not more than 4 or 5 years later) I began to question things that I had been taught, and then as I went through high school I dealt with serious doubts and serious guilt issues over those doubts (not to mention serious guilt issues over the urges I was having thanks to the hormones rushing through my body and the conflicting message about those urges that I got from my religion) that eventually led to my no longer believing in the bible or in God at all. I started with doubts at the age of 12, it took me 17 years to finally admit to myself that I don't believe, and I'm still working through stuff...

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

I was 9 or 10 the first time and then 14 the second time. I asked Jesus to save me again at 14 because I was afraid I had been too young the first time and it hadn't worked and I was still going to hell.

 

So, twice saved, always saved.

[Guest Valk0010]

Billy graham cult meeting at nine, deconverted once in jan of 09 reconverted deconverted for the second and final time nov 09

[XcaliburGirl]

Grew up in Christianity and believed it from the start. I was a bit of a Bible nerd in high school. No one in youth group noticed me unless there was a Bible trivia contest, in which case everyone wanted me on their team.

 

Things started to really fall apart when I turned 20. Before that most of my doubts were directed towards churches and pastors and extra-biblical traditions. After some emotional trauma which weakened my personal "experience" of God (i.e. realizing I was probably imagining what he said when he "spoke" to me), my research to figure out how the early church worked started the ball of discovery rolling.

 

 

I was 9 or 10 the first time and then 14 the second time. I asked Jesus to save me again at 14 because I was afraid I had been too young the first time and it hadn't worked and I was still going to hell.

 

So, twice saved, always saved.

Been there, done that. Went up to a few "alter calls" as a kid just in case. When I got older, one of the first things that broke the spell a little was when a visiting preacher came and I realized the sort of emotional manipulation that goes on that can make someone who knows they already prayed the prayer that's supposed to save them, but they still feel emotionally compelled to "get saved" again. It had happened to me before, but this particular guy just seemed artificial and irritating to me, so I ended up experiencing that surreal moment of sitting in a large room full of people I know who are sobbing uncontrollably for no tangible reason.

[Phanta]

Also, when I ask when did you become a Christian, I'm not talking about going through some ritual like being confirmed, going to the altar because your parents expected it of you or because of peer pressure, or being baptized because it was the thing to do. Rather, I am talking about when you actually believed it all and took the religion seriously and did your best to follow its teachings (even if not perfectly).

 

Wow. I was always the first kind of Christian. I never made it to part II of your description.

 

P

[Overcame Faith]

Also, when I ask when did you become a Christian, I'm not talking about going through some ritual like being confirmed, going to the altar because your parents expected it of you or because of peer pressure, or being baptized because it was the thing to do. Rather, I am talking about when you actually believed it all and took the religion seriously and did your best to follow its teachings (even if not perfectly).

 

Wow. I was always the first kind of Christian. I never made it to part II of your description.

 

P

 

I consider you fortunate, Phanta.

[Deva]

I can't really remember a time before I deconverted when I did not take it seriously. It was deadly serious and it was the truth with a capital "T".

 

I was raised in a Fundamentalist Baptist Church. It was very uncompromising and my parents had a united front on the issue. For me to buck it would be throw into question my entire life and the authority of my parents -- hard for a child to do. This is why I never even started questioning it until I was around 14 or 15.

[Seeking]

The sad thing here is that many who have been brought up in X faith are taught nothing but that faith, and are taught that it is evil to even question that faith, so they often will discount any evidence against their faith and not seek answers to questions of doubt that may pop up. They will eventually fool themselves into believing that there is no issue and that their faith makes perfect logical sense.

That was my experience, and that's why it took me 'til age 35 to allow myself to actually question and acknowledge the doubts that I had kept shoving to the back of my mind for 20 years.

 

I was born into a full-on fundy home, and what I was taught was The Truth. There was no choice involved. I remember asking Jesus into my heart when I was 4 or 5. By 1st grade I was "witnessing" to the other kids on my school bus, and even converted one of them. My teenage years were squeaky clean: no alcohol, no drugs, no swearing, no R-rated movies, no kissing even.

[foolish girl]

I asked Jesus into my hear when I was eight years old. I wept bitterly for having hurt him.

I asked him to save me regularly over my childhood years- I was always afraid that I didn't mean it enough.

I had rebellious teen years, in my late teens I still believed, but I ignored. At 22 I had a revival. Learned apologetics, got gung-ho.

Rebaptized in the Church of Christ sometime later, cause the first baptism wasn't good enough. 4 years later I started to doubt. One year after that, I typed this message.

[HRDWarrior]

My parents found religion when I was about 5-6, and I was "saved" at 7, and well indoctrinated and brainwashed by the time I was a teen....had already had a number of the unanswerable questions shot down by pastors and parents, so made it through my teen years with less questioning than I would have liked.

[flockoff]

I got "saved" at 7, then as I used to say I got "really saved" at 11 or so. I think I got "really saved" a few times afterward too. I kept wondering what the right age was to say you fully grasped the reality of it as you were doing it. If you ask me today, no one ever does.

[Vomit Comet]

I wasn't really raised with much of anything. I think I set foot in a Catholic church exactly once, with my grandma at age 7, and I remember having no idea what the fuck was going on. When I was 9 my parents tried to make me go to a Vacation Bible School at the local respectable liberalish Methodist Church and I threw a fucking fit; the reason was because I had seen some crazy ass preacher on TBN while flipping through the channels and it scared the shit out of me. My parents were saddened because they thought it would instill good values in me or something, but they didn't press the matter. My mom tried to get me to go to this youth group at that same church when I was 11; we went on a beach trip and I liked that there were lots of cute chicks and the guys were kind of cool, but once was enough and I lost interest.

 

When I was 12 or 13 or so, me and my friends started going to this "outreach" youth group that had the ostensible purpose of keeping little shit-heads like us off the streets. The people were nice enough and we thought some of the older youth leaders with "colorful pasts" were cool, but we hated the fucking music. After a while we wore out our welcome because we beat the shit out of a couple of the youth leaders' kids, and because we sexually harassed one of the youth leaders' daughters. We were little juvenile delinquent shit-heads and didn't know any better, and the girls we were used to being around were tough and would have just told us to fuck off.

 

This particular youth group... I don't know what the fuck denomination it was but it must have been evangelical of some kind. They never told us we should get saved but they were always talking about having a personal relationship with God. The whole time I remained ignorant about who Jesus was. I just figured he was some cool mystical hippie dude or something, akin to Buddha. Seriously, I was pretty fucking ignorant. That's what growing up largely irreligious in Los Angeles is like.

 

When I was 13 I visited this youth group a few times because I heard there were lots of cute chicks. These were good whitebread rich kids and I was a scumbag but they were really nice to me, I'll give them that. However, all I remember hearing teaching-wise was how we shouldn't fall for the lies of Mormonism. I actually jived with it because I thought Mormons were dweebs.

 

Well, 15 years later and I was pretty fucked up. I was about to be committed to a lengthy stint in a mental hospital but managed to weasel out of it later. I got dragged to this Pentecostal youth group by a dear friend of mine. She was hardly a believer but she thought it would be good for me, and in a way she was right. I just wish I would have deconverted by age 18 after having gotten all the benefits of positive socialization from people who weren't violent, heavy drug-using fuck-ups.

 

I converted my first night there. I had no idea what the fuck I was getting into, but the "feeling" was right and I was pretty goddamn hopeless at that time. I figured I had nothing to lose, I was so fucked up. Months later I realized the implications and I was like "fuck..." I was tripping out how heavy and intense the evangelical doctrine really was, the whole hell thing, the whole salvation thing. In fact, the realization hit me like a ton of bricks during the bible study that happened immediately prior to me and several others being baptized (in a fucking backyard swimming pool). I had previously been almost entirely ignorant of what it was I had gotten myself into. I almost backed out! But I had a second, serious, knowledgeable conversion inside my head and I went forward. 40 minutes later, there I was, being baptized by the very youth pastor that converted me that first night I showed up.

 

And from then on out I was a full-fledged born-again Christian, officially baptized and fully aware of what the deal was.

[Vendredie]

I was raised "Southern Baptist" and got saved at 7, along with my sister (who was 5 at the time!) and my friends (7 and 8 year old sisters). I'm the only one out of us four to deconvert. So far.

[dB-Paradox]

I was 8 years old when I accepted Jesus into my heart. Rededicated again in my teens and finally saw the light and deconverted in my 30s.

[dichotomy]

I became a Christian when I was 7. It was at a Billy Graham Tent mission and I responded to an alter call. At the time I thoroughly believed in God and church was a distinct part of my life but I'd never *committed my life to Jesus* and when the alter call came I just had this burning desire to do so. That was my first religious experience on a personal level. I had other significant moments at the age of 9 and again at 11 where I continually committed my life to God as I understood *it* better. By the time I was 14 I was full on having spiritual experiences, involved in worship and other kinds of *ministry* in the church and wholeheartedly believed everything I was told.

 

At 16 I started to question certain aspects of church leadership/authority/expectations of my life but was still wrapped up in my *relationship* with Jesus and my faith in god as my father, I went on *mission* for a year when I was 18 with my husband and got baptised when I was 19. However this tension within me continued for a good 6years where I went through periods of being utterly enveloped in my belief, faith and love of God and then periods of wondering if it was a load of crap and why church and Christianity seemed so *wrong*. When I was 22 I began to have much bigger *issues* with church, the inconsistencies of the bible and how so much of church life and christianity seemed to contradict my understanding of the bible and from that point on I gradually grew much more liberal and flexible in my understanding of *christian*. I was still pretty involved and considered myself *saved* right up until I was 26 though.

[Shion]

I converted when I was 17 due mostly to social pressure. Psychologically I felt it would 'cure' me of my deplorable genetic deficiencies (i.e. being a closeted lesbian).

 

I did not completely deconvert until after I was married by then I was 21-22 years old and flip-flopped around a lot with various other beliefs.

 

The process of loosing my faith was a very melancholy process for me. What angered me the most was the backward step I had taken from the atheistic viewpoint I had developed earlier in my life. In a lot of ways I am still angered by succumbing to social pressures. And consequently, I found I was angriest at the people still clinging to their aggrandized fictions rather than seeing the facts of the observable world.

 

I can't say I'm completely over the anger yet.

[Guest Valk0010]

I was a literalist till about the time I discovered theistic evolution at about 18, before that, I never lived in a real enforced christian household, they taught me creationism and everything, but weren't regular church goings, no like family bible reading sessions or Wednesday services anything like that. So this left me being a literalist but really ignorant as to what was in the book.

 

Fortunately my BS meter got to loud by the time I was 20. So do count myself, as a true believer, just not exactly the greatest follower, for reasons outside of my control and somewhat in my control.

[Guest]

Wow, it seem like none of you were actually born into xtianity like I was. I have vague memories of my early childhood (3 to 5) in Pensacola, Florida, and going to the church there and the Sunday school. My "real" memories start when I was 5 and we moved to Deerfield Beach, Florida and joined an evangelical lutheran church. I remember the first day we went there, cause the old church just had a stand alone organ in the corner, but this church had a HUGE pipe organ that shook my bowls with the low notes. Funny, music is always on my mind, even at age 5.

 

Anyway, this was the church that did all my damage. Not just because I went to church every Sunday, but because I also went to their school Monday through Friday, kindergarten through 8th grade. I was on this campus 6 days a week until I graduated 8th grade. They had a high school, but I told my parents if they made me go there I would get myself expelled, so they let me go to the public school.

 

We never had to be "saved" or had any alter calls or anything, but I read the bible cover to cover for the first time when I was in 6th grade. It opened my eyes and I had millions of questions. Nobody could answer them, and I actually got in trouble a few times for "disrupting class" when I was honestly trying to understand what I had discovered. I started to think 1) They didn't know the answers any more than I did, and, as I started my confirmation classes and were taught by bishops who couldn't answer my questions and got mad at me for asking them 2) that the whole thing was a money making scam and I was uncovering the secrets. This place lived for money, they begged for it at church on Sunday, and in school chapel services on Thursday. All I ever heard from the leaders were how they were in danger of closing up and we needed to donate money ASAP.

 

My confirmation classes were 2 years long, every Sunday after the morning church service. I was in 7th and 8th grade. I was taught by the highest up people in my local area, and I was told "the devil fools you with logic" as an "answer" to many of my questions. Even though I knew xtianity was a scam before I started my 2nd year of classes, I didn't have the balls to say anything, and I was forced by my parents to stand up in front of church and announce I believed in all the tenants of the church, blah blah. This made me quite angry that I was not allowed my own say in my life...

 

Anyway, after that service, I was given my own personal offering envelops embossed with my name on them and I threw them in the garbage at the top of the steps on our way to the car. Because such a big things was made about me now "being an adult" in the church, I used that as my way to get my parents off my back about going every Sunday with them. I went on xmas and easter for about 5 years until that too got old and I just stopped going all together.

[ClaraOlive]

Wow, it seem like none of you were actually born into xtianity like I was.

 

Huh? It sounds like a lot of people were born into Christianity. I was taken to church as soon as I could be in the nursery and went to Christian school 1-12th grades. However, even though I was christened as a baby, it was believed that I was still responsible for my own belief when I was old enough to understand.

[Guest]

Wow, it seem like none of you were actually born into xtianity like I was.

 

Huh? It sounds like a lot of people were born into Christianity. I was taken to church as soon as I could be in the nursery and went to Christian school 1-12th grades. However, even though I was christened as a baby, it was believed that I was still responsible for my own belief when I was old enough to understand.

 

Maybe I'm confused because my brand didn't have alter calls and getting "saved" at a young age. I was a xtian as soon as I was born, cause my parents were, and it wasn't until my confirmation that I was able to make the "choice" (there was no choice, I had to be confirmed) to be a xtian. But reading the previous posts many are saying they became a xtian at 8, or got saved at 14. Perhaps it should be taken for granted that they were already born into a xtian family...

[dichotomy]

Wow, it seem like none of you were actually born into xtianity like I was.

 

Huh? It sounds like a lot of people were born into Christianity. I was taken to church as soon as I could be in the nursery and went to Christian school 1-12th grades. However, even though I was christened as a baby, it was believed that I was still responsible for my own belief when I was old enough to understand.

 

Maybe I'm confused because my brand didn't have alter calls and getting "saved" at a young age. I was a xtian as soon as I was born, cause my parents were, and it wasn't until my confirmation that I was able to make the "choice" (there was no choice, I had to be confirmed) to be a xtian. But reading the previous posts many are saying they became a xtian at 8, or got saved at 14. Perhaps it should be taken for granted that they were already born into a xtian family...

 

If, by definition, you are a Christian because you are born into a Christian family, then I'm still one. But I'm not because I don't believe. You're not born *believing* it's taught and indoctrinated into you and at some point you accept it as truth whether you know it or not at the time (or you reject it of course without ever believing it for yourself!).

 

When I said I was *saved* when I was 7 what I meant was that at that point I personally chose to commit my life to Jesus, but my beliefs didn't really change from what they were before I just had a newer or *better* understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. I don't ever remembering not believing in God and my lifestyle and culture and family was Christian, I was baptised into the church as a baby, so in all those ways I was a Christian from birth, but the point where it became *my* belief or *choice* (however limited) was when I was 7. In essence I took *ownership* of my parents belief. I expect that is similar to many.