Is there a connection between religious belief and familial relationships? - Or: Are you an atheist because you had a shitty upbringing?

[ProgKing of the North]

My close family isn't religious, although some of the more distant relatives are pretty hardcore Southern Baptists, but I did go to a religious school (which basically consisted of saying the Lord's Prayer every morning and going to a "be a good person" centered Chapel service once a week). I'm nonreligious just because I haven't personally seen any proof that any sort of God exists, and although I'm open to the idea of one existing I don't see how it necessarily follows that because one exists it's the God(s) of Christianity or Islam or Hinduism or whatever. I have my issues with most organized religion, but if I did see that proof I'd probably bite the bullet and join one.

 

[Miss Misery]

I couldn't really vote because my answer is weird.

I was raised without religion but wasn't discouraged from investigating, my grandparents were all nominally Christian but didn't go to church. I find religion fascinating in an anthropological sense and was various levels of atheist, agnostic, and 'spiritual but not religious' for most of my life. Great relationship with my parents. And now we're all Christian, but we came to our conclusions on faith and religion independently.

 

[Hellbound Hellhound]

There is obviously a strong link between religiosity and familial relationships, since family is the main means by which religion is transmitted. Just about every religious person belongs to the same religion as their parents, and this is true to the point where the ones that don't are considered rare statistical outliers.

I find it interesting how many people don't seem to give this fact much consideration, because it is perhaps the single biggest lesson we could learn about how a society's values are cultivated. It demonstrates to us that belief is considerably more communal than I think many of us would like to admit, and from my perspective, it is also arguably the strongest argument against faith, at least from an epistemological standpoint.

 

[Nadeko]

I think this is funny because I have a good relationship with my one Christian parent and a horrible/nonexistent one with my nonreligious parent. I guess that my parent's divorce came in handy to answer this question.

 

[Duncan Hills Coffee]

I'm very close to my parents but they're both religious. Not evangelical religious but they're people who take Christianity seriously. Which is why I feel uncomfortable discussing it with them because I'm not religious myself and I haven't told them I'm agnostic. I'm jealous of them being able to have such religious faith; I want to take Christianity seriously but it doesn't make a lot of logical sense to me, and I know that it's not about logic but I can't shut that part of my brain off.

In short I have a good relationship with them but my own hangups on wrapping my head around religion prevents me from sharing their faith.

 

[Guts Gets Some]

My family are all very conservative and I bought into it as a child only from the fear mongering. Once I wised up with age, I wasn't afraid to state I was not part of their mindset.... and while they were generally displeased a bit, nothing else really changed. Unconditional family love and all that.

Good enough.

 

[Rice Is Ready]

I went to a Catholic school after regular school everyday in elementary. I started to think it was bunk when they began teaching us about Noah's Ark.

 

[Varis]

Non-religious / Non-religious / Good Relationship

Aside from the occasional, tongue-in-cheek "our lord and saviour" quote from my mother, we really didn't talk about religion at home. I mostly learned about Christianity at school, where the boring religious morning assemblies and getting dragged to church every spring and Christmas caused me to resent both organized religions and the school system. I was upset with my mother for never pulling me out of the religious classes, even though there was an option for non-Christians.

Our relationship was never poor, but it has greatly improved in my adult years. Still don't talk about religion.

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

It was not a "suicide cult". You are ignoring the fact that Peter denied Jesus three times, and this is the man that we have been given the keys to Heaven through the Holy See. Why would Peter, of all the apostles, suffer martyrdom if he did not witness the resurrected Christ? You are playing with these ideas in your head as if they are fiction. All of the apostles were real people, and you are taking them for profoundly stupid ignoramuses. Even further, Peter had to be given a prophecy by the Lord Himself in order to comprehend the gravity of his rejection. This is the cocks crowing three times. Do you think that if Peter were not given this prophecy, that he would believe in the risen Lord? There is also zero benefit for eleven men to commit to a suicide pact to enrich the cause of a dead man. What is the benefit? Notoriety? How could these men predict whether they would attain notoriety or not for dying for such a cause? And what value does this have to dead men? I would not submit to martyrdom for notoriety. You have to be stupid to do this. These men did not want notoriety for such a cause, and this much is obvious. If they wanted notoriety, then at least one of them would deny the divinity of Christ to save his own life. The value of notoriety for the dead is zero. People do not work for nothing.

If you want to reject the historicity of the Bible, then fine. Do what you want. Go have faith in empty things and die an empty man.

 

[Otterly]

“Give me the child for the first seven years and I will give you the man.”

(Possibly) ignatious of Loyola, who founded the jesuits, although also possible that Voltaire was making a point.

Either way, there’s a lot of truth in it. Children are impressionable, and I would put money on the general trend to be for children to believe roughly what parents do.
There’s also a wider community/cultural impression that is given to children as well. So I’m not particularly religious but we still do Christmas, because I suppose we are culturally Christian even if we don’t believe.

Ne? Not religious, brought up by half atheist/half catholic family. Nobody particularly forced any views on me but neither was I taken to church except for weddings, baptisms, christenings and funerals.

The people I have encountered who have had changes of views have done so in response to significant life events, including:

Converting upon marriage
Losing faith completely after serious loss
Losing faith after witnessing horror (holocaust survivor.)
Illness (mental and physical.)
All those people had fairly dramatic changes of mind, and those who found religion tended to be fervent about it. Those who lost faith because very much atheists.

Personally I have no faith, but I don’t necessarily think I’m right nor I do I feel the need to attack anyone who does believe. Secular society - anyone can believe anything, but all obey the law and no one forces belief on others nor harms anyone for belief or lack of it, is my view.

 

[Lemmingwise]

It was not a "suicide cult". You are ignoring the fact that Peter denied Jesus three times, and this is the man that we have been given the keys to Heaven through the Holy See. Why would Peter, of all the apostles, suffer martyrdom if he did not witness the resurrected Christ? You are playing with these ideas in your head as if they are fiction. All of the apostles were real people, and you are taking them for profoundly stupid ignoramuses. Even further, Peter had to be given a prophecy by the Lord Himself in order to comprehend the gravity of his rejection. This is the cocks crowing three times. Do you think that if Peter were not given this prophecy, that he would believe in the risen Lord? There is also zero benefit for eleven men to commit to a suicide pact to enrich the cause of a dead man. What is the benefit? Notoriety? How could these men predict whether they would attain notoriety or not for dying for such a cause? And what value does this have to dead men? I would not submit to martyrdom for notoriety. You have to be stupid to do this. These men did not want notoriety for such a cause, and this much is obvious. If they wanted notoriety, then at least one of them would deny the divinity of Christ to save his own life. The value of notoriety for the dead is zero. People do not work for nothing.

If you want to reject the historicity of the Bible, then fine. Do what you want. Go have faith in empty things and die an empty man.

I just gave an alternate answer to the question you posed. You may not like that there are alternate possible answers, but to dismiss them is begging the question.

You say there is zero benefit for these men to commit a suicide pact; why then do people ever engage in a suicide pact? For example Jonestown suicide.

My answer to your question is that people do things that aren't for their benefit all the time.

But the best part is that you say you would not submit to martyrdom and that one would be stupid to do so; you are calling jesus stupid for not resisting, then.

Your claim that people don't martyr their lives ever is a deeply ignorant view. I wasn't looking for you to rephrase scripture, I know it well enough.

I don't think you are genuinely curious or interested in talking about this subject. Why else give such a reaction when I answer your question? If you genuinely seek answers to your questions I'm willing to play, but if you are only interested in your answers and not anyone elses, why ask the questions publicly in the first place?

If you want to reject the historicity of the Bible, then fine.

Let's see who has a better understanding of the historicity of the bible. What language was the bible first written in and in what year, roughly?

 

[1864897514651]

[redacted]

I said, "I would not submit to martyrdom FOR NOTORIETY." Jesus also was not martyred, but sacrificed.

 

[von Hapasbourg]

Both of my parents are boomer-tier religious. I'm not really that religious nor have the zeal to commit into up until I've read a tabloid from an ultraconservative Catholic advocacy group when I was in highschool. I'm still in a transition to fully commit to the faith again though.

 

[Bum Driller]

I don't comment on my own background or familial relations, but what I've observed in people I know, almost all people who have strong faith in "strong" divine authority figure, whether it's the God of Christianity, Satan or Adolf Hitler, seem to have abysmal relations with their mortal fathers. They also seem to hate their own lives.

 

[Ughubughughughughughghlug]

Parents were non-practicing Christians and familiar with other religions. I was raised with a children's Bible and went to a daily Bible camp one summer. I had a familiarity with the stories and concepts from the Bible but no great detail.

In college, I went through a religious phase. Started off with one group of interesting heretics that I already admired. I thought I felt the presence of God and converted, but in hindsight, it was a figment of my imagination. Later on I left them for social reasons, and fell in with a different bunch, who I didn't agree with but thought God wanted me with for other reasons. After I fell out with them, I tried a normal church in my parent's favored denomination, but it was boring and, by that point, my really weak faith had pretty much entirely worn off.

No real desire to go back to religion now, though I would rather be a fervent member of the first church.