It really did winkie. My parents used to force my sister and I to go to Church -- but they didn't go with us ... just dropped us off. It made it like a "punishment". If they would have gone with us and made it a family thing, it would have made a big difference.

No I have not personnaly been force fed knowledge but my cousins were, and they all say that if you sin, a person will go to hell. That statement has left them sinners lost to the abyss of not knowing the difference between being good and or being bad or perverted by the god that has betrayed by their sin of the flesh, but hey they all have jobs in Las vegas and Reno. Go figure.

I was never really forced fed religion as a child. And I wouldn't really call my grandmother taking me to her church on sundays forced-fed either since who else was gonna watch me while my parents worked during the day. Also church had some really good korean food. But as I got older and stuff I stopped going to church with her consistantly. Besides, they were more of the come pray, socialize and eat type of church. Not the, "you goin' ta hell whether you like it or not!" type of church.

I was sent to a catholic primary school, it put me off christianity, and school too for that matter, but I still have religious beliefs, just not christian ones!

yep it certainally showed me the hypocracy, put me off for life. people are ignorant to a childs understanding of the things going on around them

I think the change in religion has put me off it. If I hear one more sickly evangelical utter one more idiocy I think I will join an 'Abolish Religion' group. The other thing is the realisation of how the 'management' in the church manipulates the church-goers and the evident discrimination of some 'managements' against those who are comfortably off. It seems more like a socialist set up for those who like to winge about people who are more fortunate than themselves. If someone is rich it is their good fortune and nothing to get jealous about!

I used to be sent to Sunday school but when I was older said I didnt want to go and was alloed to stop. My children asked to go and I took them until they didnt want to go any more. One is agnostic. One attends church regularly.One is Atheist.

YES, i was forced to attend church as a child. i hated it, the preacher would scream about how everyone was going to go to hell and that anything that brought any enjoyment was a sin, one preacher screamed that all women were going to hell, that we couldn't help it, it was just how we were made. after hearing that i thought why try anymore, i could murder someone and it wouldnt matter because im doomed anyway.at 13 my parents split and i was so relieved that that part of my life was over with...

Absolutely. Now I am a non believer. My husband and I have come to the decision to allow our children to decide for themselves when they are old enough if they want to join a religion or not. I wont make that choice for them, so they are going to public school instead of catholic like him and I did.

No, not really. I still believe, but I see it in a different light.

Haha! Yes!It put me, not only off, but made me an avid atheist.

Yes i am only 15 and i have been put off religion. Maybe if my family wasn't religious i would have chosen a religion myself. But i also look at things logically and i find nothing logical about religion

No, but country music has. As a kid, the only music my parents listend to was The Grand Ole Opry. country music. i did not have a choice and like most kids, you obeyed what your parents told you. I made a promise to myself that i would hate country music for the rest of my life and never listen to it. I live in Nashvile, the home of country music. i love my city, but i still hate country music. You will NEVER hear a country song coming from my house or on my car radio. NEVER.

No, I wasn't taken to church as a kid. I used to buy into that line that being "force-fed" religion put kids off religion, but then I studied history just a bit. Kids were taken to church and "force-fed" religion all throughout history without being put off. It has only been an issue in the last fifty years or so. So what changed in the last fifty years that made being "force-fed" religion off-putting? Hmmmm...I suspect the change came from two forces that became common nationwide in that period: television and other forms of entertainment and public school. For the last fifty years or so, church has had to compete with a steady diet five days a week of public school which was designed to replace Christianity with "the religion of secular humanism." Those aren't my words, those are the words of the founders of public education, Thomas Dewey and Horace Mann. Feel free to look it up. On top of that, it has had to compete with the steady secularizing diet of much more entertaining television. It is much more fun to sit home and watch TV or listen to music or play computer games. Lets face it, church has a hard time competing with all that exciting and fun entertainment and with public schools telling kids five days a week that Christianity has been superseded by science. They are taught to not even question that science is superior (which is unscientific, by the way, science is all about asking questions). Besides, there is so much money to be made by telling the little darlings such things. I mean, once you've taught them to be in touch with all human emotions and experiences, including despair, anger, violence, and suicide, they are bound to be so depressed and angry that they'll need drugs (legal or illegal) to cope. They'll have no hope, so you'll have to swoop in and teach them to shop so they can hope for that next purchase. They'll have no sense of belonging, so you can sell them tattoos and gang related clothing so they'll "belong." It is just a wonderful mine for gold. Just whatever you do, don't let them question what they are taught in school, or they might reject all that "truth" and go searching for real truth.

As a child, I had already decided that religion was not for me- ever. That being said, I have some spiritual tendencies. :)

Yes we were forced to go to church when we were growing up. My mother is still religious to this day, I think it has something to do with the way she was raised in 1950's catholic Ireland.

Yes! I seen the light many years ago! it's called self belief!! :-)

well , it put me off "that" religion . and when you see the lies they spread about other faiths , the child recruiting , and stealing holidays and rituals from other faiths and calling them their own. smear campaigns , murders , cover ups . etc ... you wake up and smell the clergy ... also, it opens your eyes when you see stuff like this . http://www.evilbible.com/Murder.htm

No. I did change religions as an adult.

For the first few years of my life I was in a Catholic School... you do the math.

I was never force fed religion, I chose to investigate that myself. Sometime things should just be left unquestioned. Faith is supposed to be blind and I guess I saw too much. That is what put me off religion.

definitely. it didnt makes sense then and it doesnt make sense now.

Yes. Church was the place where "respectable" people spent Sunday morning. I got tired of being "respectable". +5

Absolutely YES !! I had enough religion the first 18 years of my life to do me until I'm 100 years old.

Yes, but I came back around once I realized that it did not need to be the same religion.

To the contrary, religion gave me a moral foundation on which to build, while the rest of the world around me grew worse over time. Frankly, I'd rather be faithful than add to the problems. +5

It made thinking for myself a priority.

Yes.

Yes. I never felt that the Christian faith was mine, because as a child, I never got to decide whether I believed it or not. It was just forced upon me, as my parents marched me into church every Sunday like guards escorting a prisoner to jail. I was also turned off by the judgmental parishioners and teachers in my church. When the preacher would scream at us about us hell-bound, sinful people, I thought to myself, "Why did I bother to come to church, if I'm still going to go to hell anyway?" Religion should be a solace, not a curse.

Yes and no,I am not a believer in any religion anymore due to scientific facts,,,the idea that many of the biblical teachings/plagues can be explained just solidifies my disbelief in a god or religion altogether,,the idea that mankind is still falling for the old ways is kind of astounding,,is it me not seeing the light or them?

No, my parents are atheists and I was never force-fed religion as a child. What put me off Christianity was later when I joined a church and found that nobody could adequately answer my questions. Also what puts me off is people evangelising on websites like this one.

Partially yes. But more importantly, seeing the Sunday Saints, made quite an impression upon me.

No, not exactly. I was forced into Catholicism as a child, but that didn't really bother me. It was having to deal with religious people that put me on the path toward atheism.

Not exactly, but I would say my forced feeding did play a part in my current beliefs (of lack thereof). Since I was so unhappy in the belief system of my parents, I looked around, studied the world, read many books and discovered that I was an atheist.