I hope no one minds that I bring this thread back up to the front. It's a few months old, but only on the second page, so I decided to post what I was remembering here. :)
I was not raised in a religious background. Both my parent's parents are religious, one set more devout than the other set(well, not a set anymore, only one), and my parents were raised as the American brand of Christian. You know, when you pretty much believe it butit doesn't affect things you do. They weren't strict with me about religion while growing up. We never talked about it or mentioned it. I found that pretty normal.
When I was about 7-8 we did start attending Church more often, but I didn't see it as the other attendees did. When I was little one of the first things I took interest in (besides dinosaurs, which also fit better in time when not using the bible ;)) was Greek mythology.
Before I could tell you why we celebrate Easter and probably even Christmas I could tell you about the Labours of Heracles. I knew the pantheon of Olympus before the Holy Trinity was even mentioned to me. I didn't think the Greek myths were factual. I knew what myth meant, I wasn't stupid by golly. But I was familiar with them before I was exposed to Christianity.
That affected my view of the religion. I saw it more as just another set of myths and morals that I was wise to abide by. Right off the bat, without any questioning, I was practically an atheist. It wasn't until I moved from the area and really got older and out into the world that I realized people actually formed their lives around this belief in god. I was pretty naive.
So I just accepted it and moved on, until I started reading up on other religions and wondering why people I knew didn't follow those instead. Then I met the first atheist I'd ever known in school. Atheism is something I wasn't likely to encounter after moving to Texas, but it happened. The exposure really opened me up to the fact that people actually give consideration to choices of religion and it began the process of questioning myself. I concluded that I was, indeed, an atheist.
I still like Greek mythology.
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