When did you first stop believing in God and Santa Claus, and do you resent your parents misleading you?
821356
My parents have never said anything about God or Santa my entire life, I was free to decide everything for myself.\n\nI never believed in Santa and realized there was a God around three years old because I realized humans weren't very bright so I had to look else where for truth.\n\nI've raised my son the same way, he's always known there wasn't any Santa without me telling him and he seems to be intelligent enough to also know there's a God. But we don't talk about that either because we don't have to.
286314
You didn't, you just accepted the truth that there is one God and many ways of worshipping Him and accepting Him into your lives.  Viva la difference!\n\nLucky future kids though...twice the holidays :)
713828
I'd call those hypocrites out. They must be very insecure about their beliefs if they are threatened by Santa. They harp on and on about believing in this higher being, that no one has seen. I'm talking about God, not Jesus (most Christians of late seem to think that they are one and the same, which they are not.) Jesus did walk on this Earth. These same people try to say that Santa is dead. My understanding is that Santa Claus, is a saint; Saint Nicholas. \n\nI grew up in a Christian home, but we also believed in Santa. \nSanta wants you to be good so that you can be rewarded on Christmas morning. You can't see him. I think those ideals gave us the outline of what is expected of us from God. The bible outlines the many rules we must adhere to, or face the dire consequences of the failure to do so. \nSanta just focuses on the positive reinforcement of those biblical bylaws. If we are good all year, get a reward. Nothing wrong with that.
377420
My husband believed as a child, lost his adoptive father and then decided their must not be a God.  He was eleven.\n\nAt age 31, he went to jail for a crime he says he did not commit.  He sat and looked at his life, the steps that got him where he was.  Whether he committed the crime or not he had done some other pretty heinous things.  He realized most of this started when he stopped believing.  He started to read the bible again and asked God to show him what to do with this mess he called his life.  He repented and accepted Jesus again and while he still struggles, he has been freed from the accusations mostly, and lives a better life now.  It was not a miracle, a lightning bolt, or a burning bush.  It was God wanting him to turn his face back to Him.  He will come to you in many ways, just keep asking and talking and loving Him and your neighbor as yourself.  Blessings.
834566
well some people believe that the only way you go to the fire place is if you refuse to believe in him.\n\nthe similarities between god and santa claus are uncanny, except if you are bad, santa only punishes you with no presents on christmas but god makes you BURN!
1142861
How sacreligious you are!!! The bunny and Santa are make believe. God is real and true and He is my Heavenly Father. I hope you come to know Him and trust one day.
703977
I out-grew the present receiving in my teen years learning that it is better give then to receive. I don't look for presents and haven't for many years but yet I still receive presents from my children and also give to them. I retain the family tradition of giving presents to my grand-children but stop giving once they graduate from High School.\n  Christmas to me is my religious teaching that it is the birth of Christ, and that still remains my thoughts of the celebration, and other religions celebrate in their own ways.\n  So it is not just another day to me but the day we worship the birth of the Christ child.
402751
I love the fact that you allow them to find out for themselves. I am so glad my parents never forced me to believe or not believe in what they believe in.\n\nThe subject God is not something anybody can ever make someone understand or believe in. It's more of a personal journey out of a longing and desire to understand our place in this Universe.\n\nSo just let them find out on their own path. I think it's important to teach kids good values and good character qualities because what we put out comes back to us.
760416
I chose my faith. My parents and I were not believers while I grew up. But, my mom got hired as a secretary at a church. I began attending the youth group at the church and was the first person in my family to accept Jesus. Then my mom. Then my dad. No one forced me; I decided on my own. Not only that but I have since researched my faith, and spent 4 years of college studying my faith further; now I am the youth director for my church. :) Good question!
875744
at age 17, in 1961, I was embarrassed by my drill sargeant for having "atheist" on my dogtag and was forced to go back and get a new one with a religion " I don't care what religion but we do not have any atheists in my troops!"\n\nI had made the mistake of answering the religion question with 'No preference" and they had no category for that except atheist. I went back to office and chose "catholic' because I could not think of anything else and my grilfriend was a catholic. This placated his wrath and I learned to keep my religious beliefs silent in USA or be punished for them. He always picked on me after that.
353392
when i was 15, 2 very close friends were killed in a car accident, i was miserable and confused. i discovered that it wasn't that god had abandoned me, he never existed in the first place. i have spent a lot of time reading about it and discovered what a bag of shite religion is,\n\nsince loosing my faith, my life has improved ten fold, instead of wasting time on a false deity, i am living life for me.\n\nconsequencially my fiance wants to get married in a church, but i refuse.\n\ni kinda upset my parents as well!
962452
I'm a lifelong atheist with two young children, and my wife is an agnostic with spiritual leanings. \n\nI learned from being a teacher that most people are fairly ignorant about their beliefs, and very sensitive. I discuss whatever my older (6) son wants to talk about, and I'm careful not to commit to any point of view. \n\nI do tell him, when we're discussing anything supernatural, that I don't believe in it, but that many people do. So for instance, when we're near a church, he's sometimes interested in what the building is for, and I tell him enough to satisfy his curiosity. \n\nI've actually recently been considering taking my kids to religious services of a fairly wide variety in order to give them the opportunity to compare and contrast for themselves. If they want to believe differently than I do and I repress that, they will simply resent me. \n\nI would draw the line at hate groups.
757356
You bet I did. I've probably been atheistic in my beliefs for 10-15 years, but only managed to truly embrace it this year.\n\nI struggled off and on with my doubts fo years, too, since I was a teenager. I grew up in a small Midwestern town of less than 1500 people. Everybody knew everybody else and everybody was either Lutheran or Catholic. Growing up, I didn't know ANYBODY who wasn't either, let alone didn't believe at all. Kids made FUN of those who didn't go to church every week. No, I wasn't one of them, I just knew kids who did.\n\nThe atmosphere here is still, in a way, like things were back in the 50s. People are generally polite, friendly, and trusting, honest folk, God-fearing. People unfortunately also keep some of those lingering prejudices from those days, even those that are my age. For example, my best friend in high school is a devout Catholic. Nothing wrong with that, was never an issue. However, within a year or two of graduation, she was pregnant out of wedlock. This was a gal who, as a teenager, denounced her own parents to me because they had her older brother out of wedlock. She loved her son and the father stayed with her and they eventually married.\n\nBut the point is, they didn't have much money to get married right away. When I saw her maybe 6-9 months after her first son was born and she showed me her engagement band, she told me that her son "would now have a father". Didn't outright use the b-word, but you know damn well what she meant. I don't know ANYONE my age who would still call a child of theirs born out of wedlock a b-strd, nor insinuate it. But she did. So that's an example of some of the outdated things people still have around here and it's worse for atheists.\n\nGrowing up, having another faith besides Christianity was bad enough, it was worse to NOT have faith at all. There was a stigma(and still is to a point) that atheists are selfish, sinful people who like to drink, smoke, do drugs, sleep around, etc. They also have the lovely stigma that atheists are Commies(more proof that people still think like it's 1954 around here at times), worship Satan, sacrifice babies, and burn Bibles.\n\nTo a point, I grew up thinking that atheists were angry, dark, evil, frightening people. When I started doubting, I fought it and I fought it hard. I didn't want to be associated with that sort of stereotype. I didn't want people to think I did those things because there's no WAY I'd do any of it. I'm not that kind of person.\n\nSo I doubted and desperately tried to find faith, find any reason at all to believe in God and like what I was taught. Didn't find it. So, seeing as how I was grown up, in college, had lots of friends from bigger cities who were of different faiths, I tried that. I tried looking into Buddhism and Wicca, hoping that if I couldn't find God in Christianity, I could find it somewhere else. Didn't work either. I was scared of being stereotyped, scared of letting the family down, scared of letting God down if he existed, wondering at times why I was made to doubt if God created me and wanted me to believe in him. The usual stuff.\n\nAfter several years of it, I just gave up caring and trying. I figured I'd let religion find me instead of exhausting myself trying to find it. Figured that sooner or later, if there was a religion for me, I'd find it. Lots of fights with the family, lots of humiliation and strife over me being "not Christian".\n\nThe final "puppet string" as it were, I suppose, was my cousin. Up until this February, I kept it quiet, just didn't care or worry about it. I've dealt with lots of nastiness in the family about being not "good enough", even when I WAS a believer and my cousin and his mother were the two biggest instigators. They were the ones who kept attacking and demonizing and humiliating me in front of the family.\n\nMy aunt,
968893
Probably 3-years-old and now I'm 14-years-old. I didn't believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus even though my parents tried hard. I could never believe anyone could circle the world and back in one night to bring gifts or money. This Christmas, they will probably still tell me to go to sleep early so Santa Claus will come. My eyes will open about 1:06AM and I'll get at my gifts. I'm not knocking little kids from believing in them, but I just didn't.
1158382
My not believing in god comes from me. I was raised to think, believe whatever I wanted. I was exposed through my life to most religions, beliefs, sciences, and theories. After looking at all, I chose. I used logic, and observations to make my decision, atheism was the choice. I came into life a clean mind with no beliefs, and over time made my own, but only after many years. Most of the theories I believe are my own, and I am the only one who believes them. The only influence on my beliefs is me, my thought.
291455
Yes, I was raised Catholic and converted to Wicca when I was 21.  I had become increasingly unhappy about some of their theology and will be honest the way the sex scandal was handled was my last straw.  At that point I still did believe in Christianity.  But when I searched for the sect that mirrored what I thought I read the bible more and more and things just didn't make much sense any more. Then the more I read and looked the inconsistencies and contradictions jumped out.  The OT horrified me beyond belief and I couldn't understand the shift from the OT to the NT, it was as if God had a personality transplant.  Then I began finding out the changes that had been done to it, stuff taken out, re-written, gutted, etc.  and my disbelief grew.   The end finally came while I was watching George Carlin, believe it or not.  When he did his skit about how God and Santa sounded about the same, I was floored.  I sat there as that played through my mind and it made sense.  My faith officially died.  After that I read the books of many faiths from around the world.  Wicca matched what I believed best and my journey ended with it.
722779
Even though I do not believe in god I do not compare god with Santa. You're not taking the people who believe in god serious by calling them addicts. All religions are not only something to believe in, but also a set of morals to live by. In practice most religions are more a way of life then a belief. Also does this believe help a lot of people, giving them more strength. If this religion helps them and makes them better people who are you to call them addicts? \n\nA part from that it is okay if you do not believe in god, but you have to understand that that is a belief al the same. You believe that there is no god. That is your reality, but for people who believe it is their reality that there is a god. Your reality is unique. By that I mean that what you see, feel, hear and most importantly think is unique. There is a point for every kid that they start calling themselves "me" and "I". That's when they're able to understand that they have their own mind. Self-conceptualization. You have to place yourself a bit more in other people and do not assume that your reality, your truth, is the only reality there is.