Made my yearly visit to church last night.

I go with my extended family to their lifelong church in rural Minnesota to the Christmas Eve service. My wife & I are both atheists, and are trying to raise our kids with exposure to religion in general - "Some people believe that..." etc. So I figure it's good for them to see what goes on inside a church.

Every year, though, I'm just uncomfortable there. I don't sing the hymns (which has more to do with me being a lousy singer, I think), I certainly don't join in the prayers, and I don't take communion. (This is a Lutheran church.)

But every year, I am again reminded of my journey to atheism and what really set it off: that the whole time I considered myself religious, praying, learning, studying, doing the whole deal - I never "felt" anything. I kept assuming that if I continued praying, being a "good Christian" that I'd eventually feel it. But I never did. And now, every Xmas, I spend my awkward hour or so sitting in the pew, looking all around at the religious imagery while everyone else's head is bowed, and wondering in amazement at the power religion holds over people. And I wonder, sincerely, how I was able to break free.

Anyone else have to "go through the motions" for Xmas or Easter or similar event for your family?

On edit: I should note that my family isn't really aware of my atheism. They probably all suspect something, especially since we didn't baptize our kids, but they might just think that is a function of my wife being raised a Baptist. But I figure it would cause too much friction in the family were I just to declare it, so it's just sort of a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy. ;-)

a church, I just had this very uneasy feeling, sort of like the whole thing was just a sham and a lie. I don't mean myself, I mean the whole church and religion thing. Then one day I finally realized why I felt that way. I couldn't believe in something that I had so many questions about and no answers for. It was the beginning of my realizing that faith just wasn't enough. There had to be more. Finally I gave into the fact that I just did not believe in a "God" type deity. How could one believe in a God that professed to love all his children, yet make them suffer so much. I have children that I love more then life and I would never put them through any kind of suffering, just to prove a point.

After wrestling with this for an extended period of time, I finally came to know who and what I was, an agnostic. I'm not sure what is behind life and the hows and whys of things, I just know there is nothing up there in that big blue yonder that is calling the shots.

Since my putting this religion thing behind me, I now feel happier and freer then ever before.

And I don't pressure her about it. My brother knows, and I don't think he cares -- he's gone back and forth over the line before, and I still think he attends church, when he does, more for the social connection than anything else. Nobody could have as deep an appreciation for Frank Zappa as he has and believe wholeheartedly in Christianity, I suspect.

For me, weddings and funerals are it for religious services, family or not. I got to the point where, with church, I felt like I was forcing myself not to think of objections to everything the minister said that wasn't quoted directly from the bible. I think the first four years of my first marriage -- spent with my former Air Force first hubby living at least six hundred miles away, sometimes farther -- got us off the expectation that we'd come back to the homestead and attend.

But family and second hubby's friends do die and get married, and we've been compelled by social or familial connections to attend these things. As I mentioned in another thread, about funerals, I don't pray -- and I don't go out of my way to fake it. I have no urge to be disruptive, but neither do I have any urge to put on a show for a bunch of people who believe something about which I have fatal doubts. Nobody ever mentions it, so I guess they're as devout as they want others to think -- or they know if they admit they were looking around during somebody's prayer, they're admitting to being inconsiderate and irreverent of prayer.

I don't know, it wasn't church services per se that put me off -- it was a particular minister at a particular church who started my journey into logical apostasy. I don't hold that against other ministers or other churches that don't hold the particular dogmatic values this guy held that made me ask those uncomfortable questions of myself (not that I didn't start asking the same uncomfortable questions of youth ministers and Sunday school teachers at around the age of eight or nine). I just don't care one way or the other, and I'm okay with other people who can give me the same consideration. Going to church isn't a very good way to avoid that, though, so unless somebody's getting 'married or buried' I don't.

I'm not expected to go for x-mas but I do I go for the baptisms, weddings, and funerals in the family and have nearly the same experience that you describe. I'm a people watcher so I'm always curious about the rituals and how others react to them. But I always feel like an intruder and I half expect someone to stand up and shout "infidel" as they point a bony finger in my direction.

Just as it does for you, a visit to church always causes me to wonder in amazement that I have been able to break free from the powerful pull of religion as well. It always has the effect upon me of reinforcing my feelings about religion and confirms for me that I have found a fine path on my own.

I too take my children and use it as an educational experience. I've never talked about my feelings with my family either. But the ones closest to me must notice that I never bow my head for prayer, sing or kneel and I never say "amen." Oddly, I've noticed that my father quite often joins me but we have never talked about what that means. I think my grandmother knows. I drive her to funerals and other family functions that she won't drive to herself and she has quite often remarked that I wouldn't be expected to join in or even go to the church if I didn't want to. She's quite astute in her 80 years but I'm not sure if she understands that I've gone all the way to atheism.

"Going through the motions" is fine on an occasional basis. I even take away a fine feeling about myself and who I am. But I would never do it regularly.