Atheists, answer honestly, was/is at least one of your parents atheist too?

BBagwinds2016-02-29T10:02:59Z

My father studied for the ministry; although he never became a minister, he was religious his entire life- he died early at the age of 44.
I never discussed religion with my mother so I really don't know what she believed. After my father's death, we continued attending Sunday school/church and all of us were confirmed.
My son was also confirmed in a church; he is also an atheist. I never spoke to him about atheism; he became an atheist in high school even though he was still attending church with his mother, from whom I was divorced by that time.
You really should leave words like "honestly" out of your question because it is quite frankly, insulting and will very likely cause many people to respond in kind.

robin_lionheart2016-03-02T05:24:58Z

No, honestly, both of my parents were Christian. They raised me Christian too, before I deconverted and became an atheist. I know of other atheists who had atheist parents and were never indoctrinated into any religion, but I was not so fortunate.

?2016-02-29T12:42:52Z

I was raised as an evangelical / pentecostal Christian.

Dad: Evangelical Christian, Young Earth Creationist. Great gardener and funny guy.
Mom: Liberal Christian, encouraged me to think for myself. Artist,deep thinker.

All five of my siblings are church goers.

I don't know of an atheist in my entire family. I have an uncle that might be Buddhist, not sure.

yogicskier2016-02-29T09:59:31Z

I'm an atheist-leaning agnostic. My father was brought up Catholic but my mother wouldn't marry him unless he became an Episcopalian. Most of my close relatives still claim one or the other of those religions. We used to go to church every Sunday, plus on Christmas Eve.

I went to summer Bible camp (a couple of weeks) at least twice that I recall. There was a "regular" summer camp I went to for several years that had pretty-much mandatory church services, although I think it wasn't officially required.

When I was in my late teens, I told my parents I didn't want to go to church any more and they said, "OK." When I was in Air Force basic training I went to church on Sunday, but stopped when I went of to technical school.

?2016-02-29T09:58:32Z

Mormon mother, Catholic father - both still practicing.

Ironically, having two mutually exclusive sets of dogma (both claiming to be the only true one) did have a lot to do with me being aware that both were complete nonsense.

As I got older and was exposed to other religious beliefs/philosophies it was painfully obvious that all of them had the same fundamental flaw of being based on superstition and myth.

Show more answers (23)