Religion was nothing to me all throughout my early years. Phrases that included "jesus" or "lord" entered my lexicon ("jesus christ!" or "lord almighty") usually through comedic use in films. Other than that, I had no clue what religion was.
Around 8 or 9, a friend of my mom's son, the same age as me, was going to some children's group called "Awanas" and suggested to my mom to get me to join as well. My parents paid for me to go, and looking back now, I hate how it operates. You basically go, hear a story about some bible thing, then go into back rooms where a teacher-thing would recite verses from the bible and you would read along and have to memorize them. After you finally were able to repeat the verse without looking at what was written down, you could go back out and play some games with the other kids. The entire time, I just wanted to play with the other kids. I imagine the other kids were the same. So, we'd try our hardest to breeze through that shit just to go play. I retained NO verses into memory, so the process of indoctrination didn't work at all.
Forgetting mostly about the whole thing when my parents could no longer afford Awanas, I didn't even think about religion for some time. It was around age 11 or 12 that I started hearing about how some religious people wanted to ban gays, or kill abortion doctors that I then associated religion with acts of violence or malice. I didn't ask my parents about any of it, I just instead ignored all religious activities, as I tend to ignore things that don't directly or indirectly affect me. In ignoring it all, the only alternative to religious shows or such, is science and educational shows. I spent most of my time from then on learning about how the world worked.
When I got the internet when I was 16, naturally it wasn't long before religious debates came up on forums or in chatrooms. They always included contradictions to what I had learned through watching/reading educational things, and thus began my crusade against religion. Since the moment I've heard about it, and the more I read about it, I am thoroughly against religion's misteachings and zealotry. I am antitheist.
About growing up in a religious household, my parents both claim to believe in the Christian god, but don't claim any religious affiliation.
I never went to church growing up besides the Awanas thing.
I hold no spitirual beliefs at all. There's no afterlife, there's no heaven, no hell, no reincarnation, and knowing that there is none of that does NOT make me depressed or afraid of death. When I die, I will be dead. I will have no regret for anything I did in my life, no lingering doubts. I won't exist, I won't have a brain, so I couldn't feel any emotions anymore. I understand people's fear of death and desire to believe that this life isn't the only thing they have, though. I just don't feel the necessity for it for myself.
