I grew up and got a brain.

Religion never made sense to me. I started to become a nonbeliever when I read the Bible cover to cover for my church confirmation when I was 14 and realized how ridiculous it all was. None of it made any sense and no one was able to provide me any answers. If you don't agree with something don't follow it, it doesn't matter if every other person on the planet is following it.

Fact checking.

I guess I must ask the question define Religious. I was always breaking rules and "sinning" I was into a religious environment on a private catholic school but that does not means I was religious as I noted.

Learning that churches are just a business like any other, selling a product. I think evangelicals were the greatest influence upon me to turn away from organized religion.

Reading the bible for myself and not through the filter of some "teacher" putting everything in context led me to the conclusion that whoever wrote that bunch of stuff had no other purpose in mind except to control and manipulate people through fear and superstition.

I got serious about my search for god. I started reading the Bible for myself instead of listening to the apologists. If anyone honestly reads the Bible, I don't know how they remain a believer.

In my teens, I began to think and could not accept the characteristics of a god that was cruel and narcissistic.

I just can't understand children suffering. People taking advantage of someone looking for help. The last church i went to , the preacher demanded that some of us refinance our house so he and his family and a certain few followers go on a mission trip to africa. That was ut for me.

I was raised in Church- i guess I used my brain to think my way around it. I saw how many different beliefs there were and how they all varied and made the decision this is something people do to toot their own horns to feel right to judge others for not being like themselves. I didn't like it so I found other ways to deal and cope and eventually denounced the belief that anyone can really forgive my sins other than me. I'm happier this way.

Throughout the years I have visited a few religions, I have traveled to a few countries, and I have dialogued with a diverse group of people. Furthermore, in the process of earning a few degrees, I have allowed my mind to think beyond the walls that imprison the weak of mind and heart. My ability to research, read, analyze, and synthesize information has grown. What was "the word" back when I was younger is now a catalyst for more and more research. Today, I think in a logical and unbiased way.

a lot of people just assume that i am a non-believer (how i refer to myself) because my son died.
but, that's ludicrous.
i quit believing a few years before he died -
but he was still very much struggling with what he believed -
and he'd get in periods of fear for my salvation -
thereby fixating on me -
rather than figuring out his own life.
so, for him, i never revealed that i believed in nothing, until after he died.
then i didn't give a fuck.
people assume i am angry at their god -
but, i just don't believe that one exists and i don't care to explore any further.

i'm kind of a nihilist - a little bit...
there is a degree of peace in knowing that my son didn't miss his calling or purpose, that i am not missing mine, i don't need to search for the meaning or reason for anything. life just is. and so is death. my son lived and he died. it wasn't right, it wasn't okay, it wasn't a blessing in disguise. it just was. and that's the best way i can wrap my head around such a person tragedy.

I found too much hypocrisy in comparison to my job in the military. I would sit in church on Sunday and listen to the dogma of control and how we must submit and comply. Then I would go to work on Monday and get an intelligence briefing about East Germany that said how wrong their system was to force control and compliance upon their people. Ethical dilemma forced me to analyze it and realize both were a crock of B.S. so I left church and haven't looked back in 31 years.

Can't really say what happened. Just at some point I no longer believed in what the catholic church taught. the older i get the stronger my anti-religious feelings become

Coming from Jewish parentage, I questioned all the Hebrew and customs as long as i can remember. I always felt i didn't fit in. No one ever explained why they were doing what they were doing.

I found it served no purpose for me. It didn't make sense, no one could tell me when I was a kid, were god came from, what happens when you die and what happened to the dinosaurs & why they were never mentioned in the bible. So ya.. a bunch of malarkey and after my dad passed, I hated anything that was connected to religion.

It didn't take me long to figure out religion is all a scam... age 14 maybe?

I was indoctrinated from the time I was five until I was 19. I just kind of stopped going to church, and never looked back. I think I realized I was duped when I was in my late twenties. I know how dangerous religion is. It's scary to think I was so brainwashed, and that I bought all that horse shit hook, line, and sinker.

I kinna grew up!

God never did anything from me.

I am still at the state of being confuse. It just happen that religion failed to answer so many questions in my mind and i don't know what to believe anymore.

A couple of years ago I started to really question my faith. I tried hard to hang on by reading christian authors that would validate exactly what I wanted to hear but it all came to a head in the past year or so. In the process I lost my identity. Religion completely made up who I am. Or who I pretended to be. I ended up suicidal and self harming. It's been a rough couple of years but I'm glad I've seen the truth.

I wasn't raised in a religious household. But it wasn't NON-religious either. As a teenager, I really tried to be Christian. My best friends went to church and a youth group, and I decided to tag along. I really wanted to fit into the group. At the end of the service, the pastor always invited people to come down front if they were feeling the power of the lord, and my friends would get teary-eyed, raise their arms, and go down front to get patted and blessed. I'd sit in the pews with my head down, BEGGING Jesus to give me the feeling. It never happened. After a while, I realized I was just going through the motions, and I had to admit to myself that none of it made much sense.

I began to think , and decided I should be honest

First I found out easter bunny wasn't real, then father christmas, it didn't take long to work out that god wasn't real either and when I turned 16 and was allowed to decide whether or not to go to church I stopped going.