I am Ganesh, an Indian atheist and I don't eat beef. It's not like that I have a religious reason to do that, but after all those years seeing cows as peaceful animals and playing and growing up with them in a village, I doubt if I ever will be able to eat beef. I wasn't raised very religious, I didn't go to temple everyday and read Gita every evening unlike most muslims who are somewhat serious about their religion, my family has this watered down religion (which has it's advantages).
But yeah, not eating beef is a moral issue I deal with. I mean, I don't care that I don't eat beef, but the fact that I eat pork and chicken but not beef seems to me to be weird. So, is there any religious practice that you guys follow to this day?
edit: I like religious music, religious temples (Churches, Gurudwara's, Temples & Mosques in Iran), religious paintings and art sometimes. I know for a fact that the only art you could produce is those days was indeed religious and the greatest artists needed to make something religious to be funded, that we will never know what those artists would have produced in the absence of religion, but yeah, religious art is good nonetheless.
Pretty fucked-up that your parents sent you to a religious school, and then didn't even prepare you! Glad you made it out okay.
I’m from Scotland, and when I was a kid, it was assumed that everyone was Christian. It was extremely uncommon to be raised atheist - all of my friends have Christian parents, pretty much, and every school was a religious school. It wasn’t too hardcore or anything. We had lots of religious lessons in class, the school got together twice a week to pray, read bible stories and sing hymns, and we recited the Lord’s Prayer before lunch each day. I wasn't really interested in any of it but also I didn’t make a scene or ask to sit out or anything, and we were never forced to read from the bible or anything like that. I have read the bible, out of personal interest, but it was never expected from me.
High school was a bit similar but not as much - we had the school chaplain (priest who partnered with the school) show up once a fortnight (every 2 weeks) to deliver a sermon or religious lesson or whatever, and they were always good for a laugh. My favourite lesson of his was about how text speak (this was before smartphones, so we all typed on the 9-digit phone keypads stuff like “hey hru will u b going 2 skl 2mro” meaning “hey, how are you? Will you be going to school tomorrow?” was common) could be used with God as well - we could say “hf” to mean “Heavenly Father” and lol could mean “lots of love”. We got a kick out of that for a few weeks sending eachother ironic texts that we had meant to send to god but got the wrong number.
Wait, what was I talking about again?