Engels was able to express his own beliefs at an earlier age coming from a family with moderately liberal political views. Although his family did remain pronounced in the Protestant faith that did not stop Engels from venturing out and developing his own beliefs that were not necessarily embraced by the Protestant faith. Growing up, Friedrich and his father only had one thing that they could not agree upon: How he was going to make his living. .
Although Friedrich expressed his skill in poetry, Engels' father insisted that he go to work in the expanding textile business that he was in. Insisting on pleasing his father, Engels spent the next three years (1838-1841) in Bremen, Germany learning practical business experience in the offices of an export firm. .
Engels started to lead somewhat of a double life during his "learning- experiences in Bremen. By day, he worked quite proficiently as a business apprentice. After "work hours-, he took on a whole new identity. He became an expert swimmer, learned to fence and absorbed riding enough to outride most Englishmen in fox hunts. He soon became so interested in the outside world that he boasted to his sister to know almost twenty four languages! After first embracing some banned literary works, he soon after rejected them as undisciplined and inconclusive. .
Engels then turned his attention and embraced the philosophy of the "Young Hegelians-, who were a group of leftist intellectuals, including the theologian and historian Bruno Bauer and the anarchist Max Stirner. The "Young Hegelians- helped convert Engels into a militant atheist after directing their first assault against the foundation of Christianity. In 1841, Engels went on to enlist as a one-year volunteer in an artillery regiment in Berlin. .
Shortly after his discharge in 1842, Engels met Moses Hess, who would later become the man who would convert Engels to communism.
