I was forced as a child but never truly believed it... I never had a choice under my dad's roof!

I was always aware that the teaches of the church were hypocritical.

It really smacked me in the face when I was around 11 or 12, when my father, after all the "ridiculous questioning" that I ensnared his philosophies into, finally submitted to me that neither he, nor the church, nor the Bible, nor anyone else had any answers for me.

But the final nail in the coffin for me was when he turned to me and said "Look. Right or wrong, I'd rather live my life as a Christian, believing that Jesus Christ is my saviour and get to go to Heaven than get to the end of this life and have to go to Hell because I questioned God."

That is complete bullshit, and I called him on it from that day forth.

Blind faith should not be that which allows us life eternal.

I was raised Episcopal, but somewhere around age 10 I realized how absurd the ideas were. I faked it for a time after. During my confirmation, I started cracking up and was having a terrible time controlling my laughs every time the bishop slapped someone. I just couldn't stop myself. He slapped the hell out of me when it was my turn, but I'm afraid he was too late.

I didn't have a particularly good grip on it from the day I was born lol

Well, my immediate family wasn't too religious. Then my very religious aunt & uncle(southern baptist) moved in with us and WE had to go to church. Think I was around 7 or 8. While sitting in "Sunday school" listening to what the "Teacher" would tell us I started to ask questions she couldn't answer and I'd get in trouble for it. Ever since then I knew it was all bs.

Always questioned it never really followed a religion , as I was getting baptised I asked in my head if your real god prove it ...no answer. At 11 my religious teacher who was a vicar couldn't answer why I had to believe his answer you have to have faith me but why .he also hated when my homework was about Greek gods and not his god . Fast forward a few years read Dawkins Hutchins etc and never looked back

After my parents forced my first communion. I saw the true essence of that faith. It was money, power and influence. None of which have anything to do with love, compassion and peace. I think if all the people that followed those books, had even half the love those books claim to spread. The world would be a better place. As it is, probably more like 10% and the rest feeds an agenda. People need to walk the paths, instead of paying someone to tell them about someone else walking it.

I was adopted at two weeks old. My mom is Methodist, my dad is Jewish. They never saw a reason to press the religion issue, because they didn't want me taking a "side" between them. To be honest, I think it was the best stance they could have taken. Kids are smart as a whip, they can figure that stuff out.

In High School, I had a huge crush on a Wiccan girl, and started down that path as a way to try and impress her. We never did date, but I stuck with it for a while. Seems kind of silly now, looking back at it. I still have a lot of friends in the Wicca community though, and I go to Pagan Pride day every year to see them and help them organize it.

I'd say I've really committed to the agnostic/atheist/whatever your label in the past few years or so, mostly because science and a lot of the stuff I believed in started having it out over the internet. Science can't explain everything, but I'm sure as hell going to put my stock into people working hard to save the environment using proven techniques over people who are going to clutch their crystals and wish for it really hard.

Raised a Catholic and so got roped into all the stuff you do when you're young and at school but it never took hold, from as early as I can remember it always seemed flawed, it lacked consistency and coherence. I've always been interested in the subject of religions and find it a fascinating subject but I haven't come across one yet that made any sense and to be honest I'm not likely too as it doesn't.

I was raised Catholic, but never bought into it even as a child. Religion just seems so hypocritical and empty to me. It seems the most fake people I've ever met were usually very religious churchgoers. Even as a kid, you can see right through the b.s. and I always felt gross any time I was around those types of people.

I grew up completely apathetic to religion, it never took root. Grew up in a catholic home, went to catholic schools, did all that communion and confirmation crap, but I was just going through the motions.

Other than the ceremonies, thankfully my parents were not super pushy in everyday life about it. Our house has religious iconography all over the place, but it just sort of blurred into the background for me. I wasn't forced to go to church all the time, no preachy nonsense, it was rather secular all things considered.

Baptism, communion, confirmation, and all that jazz doesn't count either. I didn't really do any of that of my own volition, I was roped along like all children into doing it 'because'. If I am not willingly accepting these things, then I'm no catholic regardless of how much belly aching I'll get from family.

School did nothing for me, if anything they made religion more unappealing. Learning about it was the driest and most boring class up until 11th grade when we were allowed to take world religions. At the very least world religion class gave me greater insight to other faiths and be the point of no return to being a true atheist. Other than that it was just all this routine with no rime or reason to any of it. Now all things considered, it was a more liberal and lubby dubby New Testament kind of schooling.

I'd say I was at least agnostic for a short spell, but that quickly became unsatisfactory after getting a bit wiser, thinking a bit more. I never even "wanted" to believe, I just never saw anything that truly convinced me. The conflict of multiple religions, the supreme irony of downplaying other beliefs as myth while upholding ones own religion, the ugliness that region brought out in people, the unsatisfying and childish answers. Religion as a whole was an utter failure in capturing me.

I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic school until I was through 5th grade. Know all the stuff that goes with it. During the late fifties, tired of the abuse, my Mother, brother, and I moved to Zuni, New Mexico, for my Mom to work as a nurse in a Public Health Hospital. During this time I can into contact with a different culture and in order to make things make sense, I started to read and try to understand what I was experiencing. Religion for Indians is more than just a way to think, it is a way to be. Actually this is wrong, it is the way to be to live within the order of the world as they experience it. It is not believed, it is experienced. This allowed for a want to discover the way the Universe worked and led me to Science which I have tried to spend the rest of my life understanding. The five years at a University, studying Math, Science, Religion and Philosophy has left me with a manner that does not fit most of what people think to be true. I can go on but not without someone wanting to go further, I joined to discuss topics with someone not go on for long rants.

My parents weren't religious so I only went a couple times and that was just weddings and funerals. I always thought it was kind of silly the stuff that people that went told me. So I've never believed although there have been people that tried to talk about it but figured out quick that I wasn't religious material just with my questions.

Finally realizing that the stories in the Torah were just that, stories. Talking animals, burning bushes, people being swallowed by large fish, and a mean-spirited god. I turned away from religion 30+ years ago and have not turned back since.

That's the short version. I have told the long version many times. Bottomline - There is no sky spirit that knows everything and can do everything.