OT: What's your religeon?

[Will]

Atheist. Although I have been associated with Humanist Groups before (and still am, loosely).

I was sort-of raised Presbyterian, but after my grandmother moved away around when I was 8 or 9, most of the religious pressure was removed, and I realized I didn't really believe all that stuff that was taught in church, and that a lot of it seemed really absurd. A few years later I discovered there was such a thing as Atheism, after a girl that went to my future high school brought in the ACLU to stop requiring graduating seniors to go to a pre-graduation ceremony at the church next to the school, and to stop prayers during graduation. And there was much gnashing of teeth... same as when I made it known that I had the same beliefs as she did. Follow up with five years of basically being shunned when I wasn't being "converted". The entire experience has left me less than enthused about the concept of Christianity in general, but more specifically of the evangelical variety. I have since come to know that being an evangelical does not automatically make one (like the people in my town and school) a sorry excuse for a human being (sorry as in, intolerant of all people who are not: white, Christian, English-speaking, heterosexual). There are many who I have met who are quite outstanding people. But I still find it best to avoid religious discussion -- and pretend to be vanilla, non-denominational, basically non-practicing Christian when the topic does come up among people I don't know well.