What Age Were You?

[Aurelia]

I finally let go of christianity at 27 yrs old (or 1 yr young, depending on where you start counting - long story). Was born into a christian household, dedicated as a baby, taught about god from day one, said the "sinner's" prayer at 5, began to have doubts from about age 21. Somewhere, along the way, I ended up here.

[starelda]

First taught about god when I was age five...basically when I first stepped foot in school.

 

I started questioning my beliefs around 2 years ago. Though it's only recently that it's really sunk in that I can never go back to Christianity, I'm 24 now.

[Mman2000]

I was first introduced to xianity at a really early age, pretty much my first books were all christian themed ones.

 

I started doubting at age 19, and I had pretty much thrown the faith out like an empty soda can at age 20.

 

Now I can live the rest of my life quite well after spending the first two decades of it stuck to bullshit religion.

[-Demona-]

My personal timeline:

 

- Indoctrinated from birth.

- Stopped going to church regularly at 16.

- Stopped going altogether at 20 (except for one Lenten service this year where I was acting as nursemaid to my injured mother).

- Stopped believing in any of that crap just before my 22nd birthday.

- Am now a happy heathen girl at 24.

[Thurisaz]

Just got through reading the thread that asks "how long have you been out of christianity" but I'm wondering how old were you when you finally knew, without a doubt that christianity was not for you?

 

Also, another question: How old were you when you were first taught about god?

 

I never got into morontheism (fundyism), but for the moderate/liberal brand of the cult, I dumped it at 33 years of age.

First taught, oh well, pretty similar to your own answer.

[evergreen]

I was raised Pentecostal from the time I was born.

Realized I couldn't believe it any more at all when I was 18, almost 19. (Turning 23 in a couple weeks.)

[GraphicsGuy]

I am nearly 33 and my life is just beginning.

[Ro-bear]

From birth I was carried to church and subjected to the dogma. Mom and Dad didn't talk about God or Jesus very much at home. They have always been religiously passive. My siblings and I were probably taken to church out of tradition, need for instilling moral values, developing social connections, etc.

 

First doubts arised when I found out Santa wasn't real (Hey, if they lied about that...) when I was 6 or so. Decided I was an atheist around 12 or 13. I am now 48; I've been an unwavering atheist for 35 years or so.

[LosingMyReligion]

Honestly, I would say around 22 years of age. That is when I got disillusioned with it. Officially, it was two years ago and I was 27.

[Sexton Blake]

My mother was very religious and I think when I was old enough not to make a noise in church (cry), I was taken. I got Sunday School, choirboy, the whole works. About age 14 I had my first doubts and by 15 I had dumped religion, for good (in both senses of the word). The only good thing I can say about the church I went to is while the vicar did not seem to have anything to do with women, he did not like little boys either. Then again, he wasn't a catholic priest.

[robbie]

1) Left Catholicism between the ages of 16 and 17. I've just turned 18 now and I'm not doing too bad catching up on the rampant hedonism front. Given that I spent my early teens in a church while almost everyone else was having sex, drinking vodka between lessons and smoking hash on the way back from school.

 

2) Was born into it, so I guess at school when I was 5 was when I started to be taught about god etc. Really got into it for myself later though, like 12 or 13.

[☆ TexasFreethinker ☆]

I was a Southern Baptist from day 1 - some of my earliest memories are of Sunday School in the church nursery and going door to door on "visitation" with my mother who used her sign language skills for the church.

 

I stopped being a practicing christian around age 22 and basically ignored religion for the next 15 years. Around 37 or 38 I decided I needed to find out the truth about religion and became an atheist around age 40.

[Deva]

I was raised in a Christian home and taught about God as a very young child in the Methodist Church. Then the family moved when I was 8. Then my parents joined an Independent Baptist Fundie Church. I was "saved" and baptized at age 12. Myself and my two brothers were forced to attend this church 3 times a week until I was age 16 or so, when parents left the church over the pastor being not a likable guy.

 

At 17, I went away to college and no churchgoing for me for the next 13 years, but I would still have called myself a Christian. I did have many doubts about Christianity from about age 15. Then when I was age 30 I waivered during a crisis time in my life and went back to a fundie Baptist church in 1989 and stayed there a couple of years. When I realized that form of Christianity was impossible for me as an educated adult, I left that church. I briefly joined a Unitarian Church and then an Episcopal Church. Stayed in the Episcopal Church from 1994 to 2000. The entire decade of the 90s was a time where I read everything in sight on Christianity trying to "make it work" for me somehow, along with philosophy, Buddhism and other eastern religious teachings. Left church and Christianity for good in 2001. So it has been a long process, but I am finally free. I am now age 49.

[mick]

I became a "Christian" at age 21 in college through Campus Cruscade for Christ.

 

I completely came out as FULLY rejecting that any of it was true in any manner at age 38. However, I spent at least the last 7 years of my Christian life with my head in the sand, utterly depressed about the contents of the Bible, the doctrine of Hell, Calvanism, and the secret knowldge in my heart and mind that it was all bull shit. When my children started to get to the ages where they were getting baptized, and asking me stupid things like "Dad, when Noah was on the Ark, blaah blah" I started to reallize that I had to do something eventually. One day my son, was like 7, he saw something in church about hell and was definatley disturbed. He came to me and asked if he and I could go house to house in my town and ask people to believe in Christ. Horrified I of course came up with some excuse why we would not do that. Then I spent the last few years relaizing it was complete bull shit, and that I had to break free of it in some way. Now my older children (11 and 9) are normal kids, who seem to naturally realize that the Bible is bull shit.

 

Hi all!

 

Just got through reading the thread that asks "how long have you been out of christianity" but I'm wondering how old were you when you finally knew, without a doubt that christianity was not for you?

 

Also, another question: How old were you when you were first taught about god?

 

My own answers:

1) I knew without a doubt that christianity was not for me at the age of 38.

2) I was first taught about god as a very young child, before age 5.

[4truth]

Some of us are slower than others. I was 48 when I left; I was taken to a fundamentalist church when I was still a baby. When you have been indoctrinated since infancy I think you just accept what you're told and don't think about whether it makes sense or not.

[fallenleaf]

I'm a Roman Catholic,

And have been since before I was born,

And the one thing they say about Catholics is:

They'll take you as soon as you're warm.

 

You don't have to be a six-footer.

You don't have to have a great brain.

You don't have to have any clothes on. You're

A Catholic the moment Dad came,

 

I was "technically" Catholic from before I was aware of it. Of course, we all know that having the beliefs assigned to you doesn't really make them yours. For the majority of my childhood I was purely atheist. I knew it as simply as I knew my mother's kiss didn't really heal a scrape but it still made me feel better. I knew it as simply as I knew that a fairy tale was fake but it was still enjoyable. And, as ignorant as I was at that age, I believed that everyone thought about it that way. I was an odd child... really. I never was one for magical thinking. I never wished when I blew out the candles on my cake and any "lucky charm" [penny, rock, rabbit's foot, or whatever] was usually obtained because another child told me that it was lucky... and as soon as the moment passed that object would be discarded. It's not that I thought much about them... I just didn't believe they were really lucky.

 

During my childhood, I was technically a Christian... but I wouldn't have known it unless prompted. In fact, unless I was being directed to pray... I only prayed on my own during my migraines... and I didn't really pray... I just screamed out my desire for death to whatever might be listening. "Please let me die or pass out..." and I really didn't have a preference. Anyway... I am rambling.

 

I guess I really first became a Christian around 9-10... well, maybe I became more aware that I was not a Christian around that time and really got saved at 11. I don't know. But around that time it started to become clear to me that lots of people took this "God-thing" very seriously. My mother had switched churches (several time but finally settled in a nut house) and I was surrounded constantly by fanatics. At some point I forced myself to believe it and really converted... and I did believe it for a while... or at least I suppressed my disbelief.

 

My conversion was intense but not really long lived. I am just not a believer... it never came easy for me and was always work. At about 13 I lost it completely. The church I was in said that I either served God or Satan... but I didn't know what I was... and that was okay for me. Because of the church I was in and the people around me, I did not feel safe coming out and did not even attempt it until I was 21. And I wasn't really out, in any manner of speaking, until I was 23.

 

Start: [0] 9-11

End: [21,23] 13

 

The numbers in []'s are years I could get technical credit on.

[Kalidasa]

I had no choice whatsoever in my indoctrination. I was christened as a member of the Anglican Church at the age of four months, sent to a Christian preschool for a year before I started primary school, forced into scripture lessons during K-5, packed off to a Reformed Church private school at the age of eleven and only stayed until graduation because my parents wanted at least one of their kids to finish high school. BIG mistake.

 

As for when I left? I started to have the smallest of niggling doubts when I was fifteen. That year was my lowest point in a pretty hellish childhood (not in terms of familial abuse, because that never happened, but in terms of severe and unrelenting bullying that very nearly caused me to commit suicide), and in desperation I turned to the Bible for answers. I found nothing.

 

In January of 2000, weeks before I began Year 10, I left Christianity. I last went to church willingly when I was fifteen, and I was last forced into attending by my school when I was seventeen.

[sparkyone]

I was sprinkled as a baby in the Lutheran church and went to kindergarten and first grade in a Lutheran private school. After that we moved and joined a Baptist independent fundy church, where I spent the next 9 years, basically growing up. I was "saved" 2 or more times, since I would doubt it at times and baptized twice more (for "real" this time, by immersion.)We moved to another state and similar church, where I ended up meeting and marrying my husband. The last time I prayed to make sure I was "saved" was about 2 years ago after a friend shared her concern that I needed to make sure I was truly "saved" and talked to me for awhile. It didn't feel right, but I thought it was worth a try to stop having the doubts. I decided I didn't believe in it before the opportunity to get baptized again came up. I was put on a list of those desiring baptism until the church scheduled a baptism service (which they held this summer, incidentally, at a park). I don't really classify myself as anything, religion wise, and I'm just learning more about myself and enjoying life much more than before I left the church. So, basically I was born into Christianity and have gradually left it over the last few years. I'm 33 now.

 

Sparkyone

[BobbyCole]

I was 10 in Catholic school when I knew something wasn't sitting right. I fought it, hated it, began to despise it. Had to get through 8 more years until I graduated High School. From that day forward I never comsidered myself a Catholic. Right now, I'm 47 and I am more of a Deist/Atheist. I need probably the rest of my life to give me a formal tag. I may never know what I feel I am.

What's happening here is the first wave of immigrants at the turn of the century believed 100 percent from all lands. All their children born in the 20's and 30's and 40's and even the 50's believed without a fight. I'd say the 60's, was the turning point but not ready to become a dominate force. People like myself in their 40's, especially if we went to catholic school have seen enough and are becoming vocal about it. It's about time... I'm ready to go on public speaking tours and face the world. I'm so sick of religion and the pain it has created that even I can't fully get rid of.

Bobby

[Guest Seculi Terminus]

1) I've been raised as a fundamentalist Mormon since birth.

2) I officially stopped going to church when I was 18.

[william]

I've stopped going to church at around 12 to 13

 

Officially out 6 months ago.