Last year my brother-in-law was hit by a truck while riding his bicycle to church, and will be spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
At the time I was a believer in the baha'I faith that thought that god put in a valuable lesson into each catastrophe. So I'm thinking what was the lesson that Stan was supposed to learn from this catastrophic event? I mulled it over for some time, and then, like an epiphany, it came to me, "wrong place, wrong time", that's all that was going on. It didn't take too long after that that it came to me "well then there probably isn't even a god". Thank god I saw the light of reality before I died, I'm in my seventies.

I was a 5yo who wagged Sunday school because then I knew it was bullshit

I attended private school until end of 6th grade. Catholic school. Confess, sacred sacrimony etc... I knew I received host under sin. Nothing happened to me. I needed to turn in my signature card from church I attended and maybe I submitted 3 or 4 false signatures. I used to pray every night. everything just dissolved in front of my eyes. Maybe losing my best friend at age 11 was a key element but that more brought me into our mortality and how precious moments with our good people are. Those plans we talked about when we grew up we never got to see but that is another story I guess. I don't blame religion for his loss. He was black, he was ten times more poor than me but he was my buddy every day.... no questions ask. But we never got to grew up together as we talked about and double dating to movies, etc.

My baby brother confided in me that he was gay when he was 15. I have known since he was about 5 that he was likely gay. I had this whole internal struggle with my faith. My grandfather was the preacher at our local baptist church. I couldn’t reconcile my faith with what I saw. How could this god who loves us be so cruel to create people that were damned to Hell from birth? I started to question my 20 years of brainwashing. It was like coming alive again.

My mother was Jewish my father Catholic. My mother died when I was very young - never knew her. My father remarried a Methodist and I was sent to a Catholic boarding school. I got out of the boarding school and was sent to a Baptist private school. 4 years of Baptist shit. They kept telling me if I didn't believe in Jesus Christ I was going to hell. Everybody kept accepting it at face value. I never met the guy why should I submit my allegiance to him. My father died and my step mother married a Mormon. By now it was getting silly. No one could offer any science to back up their convictions - it was all done on faith. I have no such faith. I graduated from high school - my step mother moved to Utah and I remained in California.

For me it was at around 14/15 when I realized that I wasn't praying to anyone. From there the question was, "Well who do I pray to?". That became a bunch more questions beginning in W. By 16 I was pretty sure but unsure of myself, by 18 I called it.

By the time I finished High school I had begun to question religion. Watching how the various religions use their faith to promote hatred and bigotry pretty much sealed it. Most religions say the same thing, " Don't be a jerk." Beyond that, followers twist the meanings to fit what they already believed. Thus allowing in all the bigotry, hatred, lust and greed which they already had inside them.

I’ve never really believed but I read Stranger in a Strange Land when I was 14 and knew the god of the Bible was false. One of the main characters referred to 2 Kings chapter 2 verse 23.

I think my brother first questioned religion, and that led me to where I am now. I was eight years old and he was ten or eleven, I think. I remember singing a hymn about, "opening my heart to see God," and expecting to see something. Never happened, but I think the closest I've ever come can be expressed in the Victor Hugo quote, "To love another person is to see the face of God." If I've ever seen divinity, it was in the people I love.