You did not have a religious upbringing?
I had a rather religious upbringing, albeit luckily by extraordinary parents involved in genuinely good churches. Understand my perspective on this; although I do try to be as objective as possible.
I would argue fervently that a religious upbringing does not consistently imply religious indoctrination. I will readily and happily concede that large swathes of those high in religiosity are absolutely involved in religious indoctrination of themselves and their offspring. I'll agree with what I assume your response to that is: disgust and rightful indignation. Don't you worry, it deeply angers me as well to see beliefs harmful to the greater population be projected as absolute fact so malleable minds at a young age. As it should anyone.
Nonetheless, I've witnessed plenty of folks involved in....well, I don't actually know if I should call it "my church" or not. That's a tricky one. I've spent hundreds of hours volunteering in food relief programs (warehouse shit mostly) and have been on multiple missions to Mexico with them. I've chosen not to attend weekly service frequently at all; only to see certain people that only come around once in a while. But all of the people involved in the organization of this church (not very hierarchy-based at all) and the general membership are phenomenal people. Real fucking credits to the species, and I mean that shit. Come to think of it, it is worth mentioning that local...traditional baptist and methodist churches do tend to consider my church to be far too "progressive", as they put it. Some of them hate our guts! But I've seen children grow up in that church. I'm witnessing it now, even! The large majority of these children appear to be brought up with absolutely solid Judeo-Christian values without the baggage of strict and compressing dogma.
It's funny, reading what I wrote up there makes me realize that I really do consider myself a part of this church. Every single one of them there think that I'm a great lad and a strong Christian. I wouldn't dream of doing or saying anything to make them believe otherwise. It really gives them such joy, they are such lovely people that I'd never take that away from them.
As for me, my religion is convoluted and deeply personal. I find mystical/spiritual power in secrets, in knowledge of your own synthesis that few others know. Maybe that nobody but you knows. So I openly share my faiths very scarcely, and only with very special people.
Broadly, I can say that I am a polytheistic christian heretic at this time. Beliefs certainly shift, and I do reckon this is the first time I've typed that out. I'm very sorry for how special snowflake syndrome it looks. I'm in a funny mood having stayed up a while, worked all night and come home on Easter Sunday to some nice beers and gloomy rain.
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