Anyone from an atheist background and find spirituality/religion?

[treestarfae]

What's your story?

[Sarah CB]

I became an atheist at 10, shortly after receiving a Gideon Bible. My best friend and I thought we were very smart and that religion was for people who were afraid of dying. I was an atheist through my teens. In my early twenties I began attending a church - I'm not even sure why. It was a United Church; which was important at the time because if they had done anything weird or scary I would have been out of there. Then dh and I moved to England where the Pastor's wife (at the Baptist church) was Canadian and had kids the same age as mine. We became friends and she taught me about Christianity. During the same time span, I had started homeschooling and most of the resources were Christian. My favourite homeschooling book was Educating the Whole-Hearted Child - I "ignored" all the Christian parts, but eventually learning about Christianity through homeschooling books and curriculum, learning about it with my friend, and attending church eventually opened my eyes, my ears, and my heart and I became a Christian. Like that verse in Romans, it was a renewing of my mind.

 

I did not have a Christian upbringing (besides the odd Christmas or Easter service) and I seriously did spend years thinking that I had things all figured out. I'm so thankful I was wrong.

[Random]

I was raised without any religion by atheist parents. When I was 22, I was falling apart with a 'great' life that was really empty. I had a nice job, nice house, nice truck, great boyfriend and a fun German Shepherd. To make a very long story short, my boyfriend was raised in a Christian home, but had walked away from his faith. He felt God dealing with him and drawing him back, and he was miserable living a life that was replete with just about everything the Bible says to avoid. He asked if I wanted to go to church with him, and I did...mostly because I'd been to so many churches and NEVER before had they made an impact on my life. It was a wonderful church family, and I've rarely missed a service since then. They taught me about the Bible and what it means to be a disciple of Jesus the Christ.

 

It has changed everything about my life!!

[gardenmom5]

I was reared by atheist/agnostic parents who, prior to my father's death when I was 12, occasionally attended a particularly liberal unitarian church (as in, they'd make most unitarians look downright conservative. It was less a church and more an opportunity for extreme left discussions that had nothing to do with anything divine.). My materal grandmother used religion as a weapon, and I'm quite serious when I say she worshiped a god of death, hell, fire, brimstone, and destruction. I understand why people leave the religion of their parents and want nothing to do with religion at all. what was inculcated to me was a challenge to overcome.

 

there was always a part of me that rejected both of those extremes. A part of me that believed a "real" God must be a God of love. explored other religions. visited churches, talked to people, read and did lots of pondering cogitating. then I found one that felt right to me, and that's where I am 33+ years later.

[Rosie_0801]

They aren't mutually exclusive. I'm religious/spiritual and an atheist. :)

 

I only ever believed in the Christian God because Mum said so, but that wears off and I had ideas of my own. I found out those ideas had names and began to identify with those names. It's easier to talk and think about things when you have vocabulary. :p Having kids awakened a desire to formalise it more because it is helpful to have a system; and their father wanted them to have a spiritual system but didn't have one to offer. Last year I listened to Alain de Botton's "Religion for Atheists" podcast which introduced a few more ideas and read Spiritual Hunger, which developed some of the ideas I had floating around further. It's brought me to an interesting place and I like it here. :)

[milovany]

My parents were of the "let them choose when they're old enough" camp, so I was raised with no religion. Well, there were a few years where they would drop us off as Sunday school, but because they didn't stay and there was no religious instruction or practice at home, I consider my upbringing pretty non-religious. I learned to use myself as the sole basis for my decisions and ideas/preferences. I was a very self-centered person and didn't have any kind of big picture or long-term paradigm. Everything was about me and what I wanted.

 

My life/spirituality changed for me in college when my boyfriend at the time tossed a Christian book in my lap and said I might enjoy reading it. I did read it, and it all felt new to me even though I'd probably heard much of the message before in Sunday School. Reading that, and beginning to attend church, opened my eyes to a reality bigger than myself (namely, God and His love/purpose). I converted to Christianity then, in what I knew was a lifetime commitment to the faith, but it was 20+ years before I found a settled spiritual home in the Eastern Orthodox church, which is far different from the protestant church I'd attended for all that while. Now faith and everyday life are finally combined into one all-encompassing reality. If I ever leave Orthodoxy, I would also be leaving Christianity, as to me they are now one and the same. I hope, Lord willing, to press on and endure to the end.

 

I try, now, although I'm not always or even usually very successful, to look at life as an interconnected whole when it comes to worship of God and people. It's not just about me, but about my husband and children, my parish family, my friends, my extended family, etc. and together how this all plays out in our liturgical life. Not sure if that makes sense, but it's how spirituality (and Orthodoxy specifically) has changed me.

 

ETA -- Forgive me, I just reread the original post and you asked about an atheistic background, not a non-religious one. I'll let my story stand, unless you'd prefer me to remove it, because to me some of the process may have been the same, in having to separate myself from an upbringing that didn't address God very much at all to a life that now does.