At a very young age I realized the lies and hypocrisy. I was raised in a catholic family and grade school and had to endure severe and sadistic retribution for being curious and non-conformist.

Facts.

My parents never pushed religion on me. Being raised in the south east however meant everyone else did. As a child I learned to just believe because everyone else did. As I got older I began to feel like it was all so.... primitive. It seemed more and more that God and the Devil were inventions of humanity in an effort to explain things that were out of the collective understanding. Now, as an adult I tend to see religion as filling the role of Santa for grown folks. Be good and you'll get the Castle Grey Skull Christmas morning for all eternity. Be a bad little human and it's the socks and underwear Christmas foooooorevvver.

The various religions simply do not make sense. When I was a Christian I was judgmental and saw people as sinners needing to be saved. Now I see them as brothers and sisters who are to be loved and helped.

In part, Had to do with a person trying to teach me (a kid) and others how to speak in tongues. I realize then and now it was all nonsense, as you can't teach a person to be endowed with the holy spirit that prays to God in tongues to fool the devil. It was all a show for others in the congregation.....but it can also be a powerful meditation tool...and that's why so many do it. But, the most powerful catalyst in my dismissal of a God and religion, was logic.

Yes! Being 14 years old having to be going to a Presbyterian Church. I needed tutoring to understand the concepts being told. I believed the world was very Honest about our Past and I accepted the Jesus in my Life the way they told me. I took off trying to learn how that works in our life's. Being a Fanatical & Extreme Christian. It was the soul purpose for my Life and thought about being a Pastor. I also had the temperament with interest in Science. I thought Christianity was collaborating with Science and was an addition to it. But then? I then began to notice conflicts and it confused me. Then without knowing the words, I already made my own interpretation to the excuses of Christianity as "Sophistry" and "Chicanery" for the things they kept coming with me at. Like: It's the "Devil" But? I could not understand why the "Devil" always became the excuse for all the things that wasn't going right. But anyway, I tried to Persevere after I got out of the Navy in 1975. After looking at all my Persevere excuses in Christianity, I got more doubts. I was reading about the 4 Temperaments from Tim LaHay. My Question why did Tim Lahay discover our 4 Temperaments in our Century and God didn't lay it down for us in the Bible for all Generations to understand it? I have a lot of reasons for my Apostate from Christianity as others shared their reasons also. I could write a book about it, because there is Hundreds of reasons I went through to come to what I think of now. I still think we are Spiritual, but Christianity & Jewish Race is just a Culture wanting all the Credit for it. Yes I also agree that lots of atrocites are committed in the name of religion. I found out the World isn't as Honest as I thought it was. I seen more lies and Betrayals in my life and in our Government. Hypocrisy is noticed in Christianity. They want a Capitalistic World. The Competition they Justify over Lust. Is Hypocrisy with me. They Censor Lust but in another Lust, Lust for Competition in the buying and Selling Consumerism. The Mark of the Beast.

Because when I was starting to unreligious I thought that I should study the bible. But when I finish. I became a complete Atheist

I was raised in a religious family, but found the whole thing illogical as I got older. By 16 I was agnostic and have moved closer to atheism as time has passed.

I was brought up to be religious. I learned all of the Bible myths in no particular order, and was indoctrinated in their moral system.
I rejected the religion of my Mother in my teens because of the hypocrisies of those who were my examples. I embraced my Father's non-religion of honoring nature.
A number of years later, after divorcing I moved back in with my Mom. My Dad had passed away by then, and both Mom and the town in which she lived put a LOT of social pressure on me to attend church.
A girl from my work, believing that only their way was the 'RIGHT" way, encouraged me to study the bible.
I was only able to understand it, to begin with by what I was told, and outwardly, I became totally controlled by this cult, to the point of becoming a street evangelist to recruit more members. I eventually realized that it was more about scoring brownie points for the ego however that it was changing lives, and that making an impact on lives would require more humanitarian efforts.
I continued studying and comparing, however, and was finally was able to start thinking for myself and question and break free.
I continue that practice to this day.

To be honest I just grew out of it I had no Eureka moment I just realized at one point that I was done with it.

I am not religious anymore because I strongly believe the bible and religions in general are absolutely nonsense.

I was never especially religious. My mom had been baptized Mormon as a child, but she never went to church, thank goodness, so I never picked up bad habits. I did believe in god at one time, but as I got older I realized how ridiculous it all was.

At a young age, I came to my senses. Seems I wasn't religious when born, became a believer (maybe it was because of all the days off from elementary school if you said you were a believer), then I reverted back to no religion.

At the age of 9 I made the decision to not have imaginary friends.

I had a family member imply that I would go hell is if I change religious sects. So, I thought screw god and religion, I will try atheist. I'm so glad I did. Now, I can do whatever I want without feeling guilty about it. I have no problem with having a husband one day instead of a wife. Or get some tattoos and piercings. it's my right to smoke pot if I want to or not. I put it on my bucket list since I became an athieist.

When I bought into the bs, I was baptist. I felt unfilled and tried catholic and morman, because I thought that was were god was leading me. A family member had a problem with that and told me your baptist and should know better. I started to doubt there is a god in my 30s and thought changing christain sect was the answer. I finally realized there is no god and did away with closed minded crap of religion. I do wish that I became atheist first instead trying other christain sects to solve my problems. My life has gotten a little better since I did away with god and religious bs. I hard to believe how closed minded I was in my youth. I'm more open minded now and glad for it. One of the first things I did when I became an atheist is throw the book of mormon in the trash.

I was raised in religion; taught God held "the whole world in his hands" as a wee child; given the NT at 8 I did the unthinkable and read it, but it refers to the OT; So I thought it better to start at the begining right?
The religion began to fall apart there.
The God idea held on for a decade or so throug permutations, evolving through Christianity and world religions, to Deism and Mysticism, to Agnostic Atheism, to Ignosticism where I reside quite contentedly.

God is an idea, an unproven Idea which many people favor, an idea which does not match person to person, and an idea which for most people is either undefined or undefinable, more a feeling than anything.

IF you cannot even define what you are talking about, or consider it beyond human understanding, how is it you can claim to know anything about it and keep your intellectual integrity intact?
IF your understanding of reality itself is based on a feeling which you cannot show evidence of, which you cannot really define and certainly not prove by its very definition, YET you will insist on certain aspects, powers, abilities or attributes OF this reality
Are you not basing an awful LOT of your world view on a feeling with no evidence? Like buying a car because of it's paint (makes you feel its cool) but never checking its engine or carquest?

It seems absurd. It doesn’t make sense. It is not scientific. Why would a god let you find your lost keys while your brother, afflicted with mental illness, commits suicide? Your child gets cancer and dies. Your neighbor becomes quadriplegic after getting run over by a drunk driver. I guess I’m glad if people get comfort from believing, but really.

Well, I grew up attending an Episcopal church, sort of religiously, except during the summer, when we were usually at the lake, with my devoutly Episcopalian grandmother. I am now Buddhist. One can have a reasonable discussion about whether Buddhism is a religion. It does not posit an omnipotent deity, although it does have some of the other features of a religion. But I guess I was just sort of born a skeptic and an empiricist, and could never see any evidence for the existence of an omnipotent deity. Then, one day, when I was about 9, in Sunday School class, this kid whom I already thought was a total putz, asked in suitably plaintive tones, why, if this god guy (my words) is all powerful, did he not stop the Nazis from killing 6 million Jews? My immediate thought, unstated at the time, thank, er, my frontal lobes, was, "You really think any entity exists in the universe that could have stopped the Holocaust, other than the armies of the Soviet Union and the allied western powers? You ARE a putz." Rank nonsense. In some ways my thinking has evolved on this issue quite a bit over the intervening 44 years, but I stick by my initial position on the total absence of any supernatural entity that could have prevented the Holocaust or stopped it once it got started.

Because of the emotional manipulation and spiritual abuse I received at the hands of family members throughout the years coupled with making an honest attempt to find a loving, nonjudgmental, welcoming church home. Every where I turned Christian people were judgmental, controlling, and exclusionary.

Some specific thunderstruck moments was like the time when I sat listening to a minister talk about worldly addictions and say how we can't give them up without Jesus. And it became clear to me that basically they wanted us to exchange our worldly addictions to an addiction to Jesus.

Then there is the whole Satan enticing you to do bad things bullshit. It kept getting to me that Christians get to absolve themselves of any and all shitty behavior because it wasn't their fault they did xyz, it was Satan. And you aren't capable of not doing the next shitty thing either without Jesus.

I didn't like how churches teach people that they are weak and incapable of change or doing the hard work of not being a shitty person.

Yeah I wasn't religious in the regular sense (if there is one) I was a seeker and after doing what I thought I should do, like the golden rule and prayer, I found myself still alone and wanting. Tried and failed. Though now I know that it's alot of mumbo jumbo and an authoritarian, hierarchical business.

I remember talking to my youth pastor about noahs ark- but not in the regular sense- I was like surely that wasn't the first rainbow there are prisims and rainbows at water falls and that can't be the only time it rained wft?! And ofcorse she didnt have an answer for me

When my status changed after a divorce, I suddenly found out what happens to anyone in the church who goes against the norms. While people welcomed my ex and his new young lover, my kids and I, who had been very active in our church, were suddenly personae non gratae-people acted like they didn't see me, were mean to my kids, etc.

I changed churches, but soon found out that single mothers are second class citizens, and eventually the hypocrisy got to me. They constantly preached that whatever happens is "God's will" so when a friend of mine who was supposed to die of cancer in two weeks, suddenly got well after I slipped him a cassette tape of Scriptures how we have authority, how we can tell mountains to move and they will, etc., instead of being happy at his healing (the man never mentioned me or the tape when he told our Sunday school class), the leader suspected me, took me aside afterward and told me to "find a church that matches your beliefs."

That was the last straw. I told my daughter that we wouldn't attend any church that claims that "God is in control," and blames everything that happens on God as though humans are helpless victims of God's whims.

Later I began reading the Bible in the original Greek and Hebrew, using the online Strong's Concordance, and realized that 98% of what I'd been taught in church wasn't even in the Bible and that Jesus' whole point is that we are all God that we all have God's authority, that WE are the ones who can tell a mountain to move and it will, etc. (Mark 11:23).
Then I realized that we all have that power, and it has nothing to do with religion.

I appreciate objective truth more than a comforting lie. Not being afraid of death, but being scared to death to hurt those who love me, and not sharing in my kids life. I cannot be scared into believing. The examination of religious claims, and educating myself basically did it too.

I was religious because I loved my step parents and didn't want them making Novenas to the Virgin Mary praying for me. I played along until they were dead then I had my own religious freedom.