It took me longer than I’d like to admit to realize it was total bullshit and start to really understand evolution. it also stunted my development of critical thinking skills. I love science and the natural world so much, I still don’t know if I can forgive my folks for doing that.
Shoutout to AromRa on YouTube for his creationism/evolution videos.
It wasn’t really taught in my school aside from one dickhead substitute teacher, but a lot of my classmates were Christian and it was more or less universally accepted among them that YEC was the only valid way to interpret the Bible (including the class valedictorian) and your choices were
As an early teen, I chose 2. In hindsight, it was a very Reddit-esque oversimplification, but I was also a child with minimal knowledge of any religion except Biblical literalist evangelism. I have a much more nuanced understanding of religion now than I did as a kid (I understand that YEC is a relatively recent invention and interpret religion in general through the lens of Marxist–Leninist atheism), but to this day I can’t seriously entertain the prospect of being anything other than an atheist, and I think my childhood experiences are largely responsible for that.