I ate Pascal's Wafer

Hmm. You make it sound like you are gathering information to be used against Atheists everywhere in the future--an evil psychology experiment gone wrong, perhaps.

Anyway, I used to be a Christian back when I was too young to know any better. As I grew a little older I still believed in a personal deity, but I felt like Christianity was too silly to be true. After awhile I slowly came to lose my faith altogether. I think I might have posted in the Atheists testimony thread, but I really can't recall at this point.

-Nick

PaladInChrist

No, I don't have any sinister plans at the moment, but I do reserve the right to burn you infidels at the stake at some future point in time.

j/k

Biff the unclean

Back in the 50's in county Cork, I was placed in the tender educational care of the Good Sisters.

To digress, my Gran said that when she was a girl on the farm they always called the fairy folk "The Good People". Not that they were "good" mind you. Far, far from it. But they might be lurking about, out of sight, planning on doing you harm, and you had to watch what you said.

So anyway, I was going to school with the "Good" Sisters and one morning Sister says to us "Boys, one of the worst sins a boy can commit is the sin of self abuse! What sin is it boys?"

"Self abuse, Sister," We chorus back.

Hmmm, I think to myself, I wonder what class of a sin she's talking about? You don't think -- gasp -- she couldn't mean… -- how could she even know about that?

"Boys who abuse themselves are sure to be stuck blind," she declares and then goes on to prove it by explaining that this is how the blind man who Jesus healed became blind in the first place.

Yikes! The sweet Lord Jesus isn't going to wait 'til you're dead to make your life miserable, this is such a grand sin. And it my new hobby, I'm doomed.

"Plead to the Blessed Virgin to intercede with her Son, you boys, before it is too late!"

There are no whiter skinned boys than Irish boys. And no whiter Irish boys than a class whose blood has drained to their feet. Is it any wonder that so many turn to the drink? A Guinness and cookie break would have been welcome at this point.

So it's not two weeks latter that I find myself standing in the back of the classroom with a scrap of cardboard over one eye squinting at Sister's eye chart, muttering the names of letters that I don't see.

"You, boy," she snarls at my depravity, "you need glasses."

Hell? I'll tell you about Hell. Not one of my classmates didn't know why a boy would need glasses!!! And me with no Saviors wandering about the streets curing those who had been struck myopic for their sins.

I was saved only by a timely move to the States where there are a lot of sinners so I didn't stick out with my horn rims.

Now it's almost half a world and almost half a century later. If I'm a bit vain of my intellectual achievements, if my sophistication isn't that of the old country, well who can blame me. The Blessed Virgin Mary and her Loving Son are neatly tucked in the same trunk, in my mental attic, that holds the Fairy Folk.

But -- but --

When you get to be a man in his -- mmm -- ahh -- prime -- yes, that's it, his prime, the doctors like to give you extensive exams. Sure there's more poking and prodding than is seemly. And how did this child get to be a doctor anyway? And when he smiled and stuck his hands on his hips and shook his head and said, "Well, it looks like it's time for bifocals." YIKES!

Comquirk

Well, techincally I was a Christian. I was a member of the United Church of Canada, which, on the "belief in God scale" ranks one above the Unitarians and say three above an atheist.

Silent Dave

Psychological explorations into atheism are actually quite common. One of the most (in)famous examples is "The Atheist Syndrome," by someone whose name I forget. He looked at a few famous atheists' lives, saw that they all had issues with their fathers, and concluded that atheism is therefore false. It will be interesting to see whether PaladInChrist comes up with something similar.


Dave

Amos

I voted "no" because Catholics are not Christians in my definition of both of Catholic and Christian. The two are opposite in many ways and since most people would not agree with me on this I don't call myself Catholic nor Christian. For example: Catholics are sinners and Christians cannot sin (1Jn.3:9). Catholics are believers and Christians do not believe (in understanding all doubt is removed and without doubt faith is impossible), Catholics go to church and Christians do not go to church (son of man has no place to lie his head).

Maybe I should have voted "theist but not Christian" because I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic school for at least 9 years without ever being identified as Christian. We were Catholic, like the rest of us, and the first time I met a protestant was when I was 21. I began to notice the difference and soon after that I was asked if I was a Christian. This kind of told me that he was and I wasn't and from there I began to wonder what the difference was.

Worldtraveller

There was a day and age when this wouldn't have been funny.....

And there are still a few out there.....

I was raised more or less without religion, although, my mom went to church regularly, and my dad professed to believe.

Oddly enough, I've always thought my mom was smarter/had more common sense than my dad, and she is gravitating away from the church these days, and he is gravitating towards.

I leave up to you to make any inferences.

I voluntarily started attending churches when I was in about the 6th grade. I tried many different cults....errr...varieties of xianity, but they all told me the same thing,"we're right, they're wrong." Which, even to my untrained, 12 year old mind, raised all kinds of red flags.
Since then I have dabbled and researched in a few varieties of eastern religions and read the holy books to various degrees from several different, non western theologies. Which just makes me more firmly beleive that I'm an atheist.