My family was without any religion.
I was born not believing, & remained so.
Now, I read threads here about experiences in churches, temples, etc.
It's all gorillas in the mist....entirely foreign to me.
Anyone else here who finds religions to be utterly alien?
/Puts hand up
I hear ya.
Although my family isn't "without religion" though.
My mother is, what I call, a "cultural christian". She had a christian education growing up in a country with judeo-christian background, did commune, etc. But when I hear her talking about it, it seems to me that she was an atheist for as long as she can remember and never took it seriously.
My dad.... he takes it a little more seriously, in the sense that he actually does believe a god exists, but still I'ld call him a "cultural muslim" more so then anything else. When really questioned, I think he'ld qualify more as a deist then a theist, let alone a muslim.
In any case, they had a choice to make: raise us christian or muslim. And with that, I mean primarily which "rituals" to go through. Commune or circumcision? Quran class or bible class?
And since they thought neither would be fair towards the other, and since neither of them took religion seriously, they opted for "neither", resulting in me having a secular upbringing, where gods and religions were complete non-issues. It wasn't even discussed.
I was 15-16 when I first entered a church, for a funeral. During that mass, I actually got nervous a little. The uniforms, the crowd all knowing when to stand up and mumble the same words... all that ritualistic behavior made me quite uncomfortable. It all felt very cultish and I wanted to get out of there asap.
That's the moment that I gained an interest in religion in general, which later on morphed into an interest in the psychology behind "belief".
Even after all these years of reading and talking to theists.... it feels as "alien" as ever.
I can be tolerant of religions & believers at a distance though.
But I've had unsettling brushes with religions.
A couple....
I once worked as a sexton in a Methodist church...very
creepy...the accoutrements...the clothing...the preaching.
And they're one of the less bizarre flavors.
Attending a niece's bat mitzvah, I had a barely controllable
visceral urge to escape the religion & politics of it all.
Never again. So her younger sister was later blessed with
my not attending hers.
I totally get that.
After that funeral, I never joined a mass again except when I really had no other choice (exactly 3 other funerals).
Whenever there's a wedding with a church ceremony, a baptism, ... I'm all like
"see you guys at the party".
"Ow, you are not coming to church??"
"No. I'ld rather not burst into flames and ruin the wedding / baptism. Besides, I have better things to do with my time, like watching paint dry"