I am 58, I have a vague memory of being lied too about Father Christmas , being told thays not true even though I was assured he was originally and then thinking the same thing about god (catholic family) but figured out for myself that it was bullshit. Doesnt take much ciritcal thinking, even as a kid to realise that.
I had to LARP for a bit but stopped the nonsense of church etc when I was allowed too as a young teen. Reading more widely after that you get to see some of the utter horrors caused by religion and release how toxic they are.
An example, lived in Cambodia many many years ago and a bunch of evangelicals wouldn’t let locals use a water well until they “converted”. A constant reminder of the toxic nature of religion.
I was raised as a Catholic, went to private school K through 12, and even wanted to be a nun when I was around 12. I bought into it 100%.
First started questioning the sinfulness of same-sex love because I was having feelings for my best friend in high school.
I was taught that questioning was a sin, but even that didn’t make sense to me because my intellect is a gift from God, so why would it be sinful to use it?
So I started to allow myself to question things, but continued going to church and believing through my 20s. I just cherry-picked which teachings to keep and disregard.
Sometime in my 30s, thanks to the internet, I was exposed to people like Dan Barker and Sam Harris. I was living in Michigan at the time and also started listening to a local podcast called Reasonable Doubts (highly recommend).
All of that combined helped me realize atheism made the most sense, though it was several months before I learned to embrace the term.
Raised Catholic. Around 12 years old I simply could not reconcile the idea of “God is Love” with the idea that “God sends unbelievers to eternal torture in Hell”. I had just learned about Gandhi, and was like, “that guy’s in Hell??”. Told my mom I didn’t believe in god anymore and I didn’t want to go to church anymore. She cried.
Well, my family is a weird split between Christian and Atheist. On my Dad’s side my Grandmother is Christian and Grandfather is Atheist. My Dad was put through Catholic private school and hated it… he’s never expressed any religious belief for as long as I’ve been alive. My mother’s side of the family are all Protestant Christian (My grandmother on Dad’s side is too she just has an extremely weird perspective on Christianity).
So, my Mother tried to raise my siblings and I as Protestant Christians. Unfortunately for her I’ve always loved learning about biology which brought me to knowing 'bout the theory of evolution… which contradicts Mom’s Creationism. At first I was just ignoring the evolution but as life went on I was presented with a mounting body of evidence of Mom being objectively wrong about various things and occasionally deliberately lying to me. This is also with the strain of Christianity Mom’s side of the family has holding that being Christian is to have a relationship with God, including that he would be responsive to prayer. I never felt it. No presence of some “higher power” or anything that I could take as being the answer to prayers to it, not even “No”, no response at all.
After enough of that I had to ask myself what I believe. Being presented with science verses dogma and being told they’re mutually exclusive (by the side of dogma) I chose science. Kept that decisions to myself for a few years out of fear of retaliation. In that time I learned about ethics, a little philosophy, a little physics… and the online Atheist community in-general. So by the time a family member asked me directly if I still believed in God I had pretty well made up my mind that #1: I don’t and #2: if I’m wrong I certainly don’t want anything to do with them. I left the second point out of my answer and told them the truth: I don’t believe in their god anymore.
It took me a month or two to stop worrying that some retaliation was coming… it never did but my relatives were curious about what I did believe since it wasn’t the same as what they did. I’ve pretty much settled on a materialist view of the Universe, I don’t believe in anything that is supernatural.
I actually sat down and read the Bible after my youth group got dissolved so they could charge us $$$ and I found it odd ppl who tell you not to be greedy were trying to get money out of kids.
My uncle runs a Christian Megachirch and he is the worst family member I’ve ever met, narcissistic, selfish and generally concerned mostly about money. I left for college, left all the religion behind and never looked back.
(I grew up Catholic) All throughout my Sunday schooling the inconsistencies kept popping up; when I was young I would chalk them up to ‘I’ll understand later’ or ‘as I learn more I’ll figure it out’, but it never happened. By the time I was in my teens I was there just to keep the family happy; I became more aware of the underlying bigotry and hate, and my disagreements with the church as an organization piled up. I distinctly remember while on the way home after confirmation that I didn’t feel any different for having gone through it, and when I said it aloud, my father couldn’t provide any useful guidance, I sometimes think he doubts, but won’t or can’t bring himself to leave. As soon as I graduated I stopped going to mass regularly, sure that I didn’t want to be considered Catholic anymore, but still unsure of what I believed. In college I was a Classics major (these days I teach Latin), which is what finally killed any last vestige of faith I had. I spent a lot of time working with documents ranging in age from the Epic of Gilgamesh to the works of St. Augustine, and at every turn I saw just how deluded, how derivative, it all was. There was a sentiment throughout the classics department that went something like this: Studying these topics will either strengthen your faith and make it unbreakable, or destroy it utterly. Obviously, this applied most to Christian students, but seeing the way the religious sausage is made so-to-speak would have been enough, for me at least, to turn away from any faith. I never understood how anyone could learn all about this and still have faith, the cognitive dissonance just seemed so massive, yet I saw it happen with some of my fellow students. These days, except for weddings and funerals, I avoid going near churches.
You just unlocked a childhood memory of mine. At maybe 6 or 7 I found it very strange how closely my church’s dogma rhymed with various”pagan” mythologies that I’d read about. I recall asking my mom about it, in some childish way, and being taken aback at how unsatisfying her “paper over the cracks” response was. Later on, I also had a lot of “I’m supposed to feel something but don’t” moments. This was a source of considerable distress until I managed to deprogram myself.
God made me. It’s part of His Plan™ that I’m not religious, and I apparently cannot deviate from His Plan™. Plus, Jesus already died to forgive any sins I may commit so ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Eta: I cannot deviate from His Plan™ even tho I supposedly have Free Will™
Others did a great job with their points; for brevity’s sake, I’ll only cover what I experienced & was not said: lots of hate, judgment, belittling, and generally speaking “weird shit” that one couldn’t get away with if engaging with people of high value, worth outside of church.
To subject yourself to church is to subject yourself to all, to become subservient. Specifically Judeo-Christianity is the religion of slaves. The ones who behave are good little bitches who get walked all over by the others, they’re also held to higher standards because “they know better”, “strong Christians”, whatever praise or wording to encourage compliance. The ones who misbehave, are arrogant/mean, or seek to seize power & influence over the other members. If they’re called out for not being Christian-like, oh well, they “made a mistake”, “we’re all human”, “they don’t know better”, “only God can judge”, every excuse in the book to overlook their (repeated!) bad behavior. Now as a 28 y/o lifelong Christian…how can I have a relatively good grasp on being a good person & a 50+ y/o lifelong Christian be a domineering, gossiping piece of shit?? Explain that to me. Because yes, everyone makes mistakes, but a lifestyle comprised of mistakes & being a bad person isn’t very impressive to me. I was treated with more respect by complete strangers than I ever was at my church. I was consistently treated as sub-human, I was always subject to the highest levels of scrutiny, contempt, and scorn. That’s pretty messed up.
Now that I’m gone, if they want so badly to criticize some piece of shit, I guess they can look in the closest mirror. There’s lots of material to work with.
@Lanky_Pomegranate530
I was raised in a somewhat skeptical environment but had been drawn to Christianity by a charismatic bullshit artist.
A new girlfriend was interested in me & asked me to explain my beliefs. As the words were coming out of my mouth, I felt like such a gullible, credulous moron. Something about saying it out loud rather than just thinking or hearing it popped the illusion. Like waking from a weird dream.
Unintentional street epistemology. Still together 37 years later.
According to my parents I was questioning God in year 5. So I guess because it doesn’t make sense? But also, if this God actually existed (The Jewish God) I absolutely wouldn’t want to follow him.
Well, mainly because religion cut my penis (circumcised). But, TBF, religions never made any sense to me. As a kid, I was forced to go to Madrassas in my free time after school. The kids there would argue for silly reasons and the preacher would tell me to learn useless sentences in Arabic. Apparently, this God can only hear you if you tell him in Arabic. That didn’t make any sense either.
When I went to a new school, in my middle school years, on my first day’s break time, a group of students came to me and greeted me. They said they wanted to be my friends. Well, I thought that’s cool, as I hadn’t made any friends yet. Subsequently, they asked what my religion is. Well, I told them what religion I was being taught. They immediately then changed their expressions. They uttered I don’t look like people of my religion. IDK why though. Anyway, these middle-school kids only befriend people of their religion. That moment made me have a disgust for religions since then. I kept my distance from these kids after that too.
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