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How and when did you lose your religion?

I read a post recently on the different experiences we have all had with religion. I was 11 when I started questioning everything. My brother and I attended a private “christian” school and something happened one day at school that made me go “dafuk??”. From that experience I wanted out of that school and my path towards atheism began.

helionoftroy 7 June 17
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1

My mom was a very religious woman but I had doubts about religion for a long time. I didn’t come out openly as an atheist until my parents were both dead and I was in my 50’s. I still don’t discuss my lack of belief much as most of my friends are religious. I have found that most religious people are very good people, just somewhat set in their ways about religion.

I’m lucky in that my parents encouraged critical thinking. My dad didn’t ever believe and made sure my brother and I questioned everything.

7

It's a long story, but the gist of it is that I caught the nuns blatantly lying to us in the first grade. That's what got the ball rolling, and it didn't take long after that.

They know it’s a lie but use it to control. I’m sorry you had to go through parochial school.

@helionoftroy Thanks. It was only first and second grade, so it could have been worse. My mother is the oldest of eight, and they all went to Catholic school for grades one through twelve. A few of them are real idiots.

7

Just the other day, had a hole in my pocket and it was gone just like that.

I think I know someone who found it for you. Want it back?

@helionoftroy don't need it anymore, but thanks!

7

At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men.

Was never a believer. My mother dropped off us kids for Sunday school, shoving us into the arms of the Lord. Mom went home to bed. Dad never went to church.

"Mom, I decided I'm an atheist," I told her in the kitchen. "I don't want to go to church anymore."

"That's fine, honey," Mom replied. "I became an atheist in nursing school when I realized a woman cannot turn into salt."

We laughed.

My mom would drop me off in Sunday school and I would call her to pick me up with some excuse as to why I couldn’t go to church. My parents weren’t big believers but because we are Greek they were more interested in community fellowship. Had to keep up the appearance.

7

Sixteen months ago. I was tired of all the damn rules, how they treated the gay community, and being told I go to hell if changed sects.

There are so many impossible rules aren’t there?

@helionoftroy Yes, there is.

7

In my mid teens. By the ime I was 15, I had read the bible from cover to cover 3 times. Each time that I read it, I saw more and more that did not make sense. I also hated feeling sinful for having normal teenage thoughts. And, I disliked spending so much time in church, when I could have been much more enjoyable and productive things. By the age of 18, I was an agnostic. Since my late 20s, I have been an atheist.

It still baffles me that fear is the motivating factor as to why people continue to believe.

@helionoftroy I think that it is simply fear of hell.

I had the same experience as a young studying JW. I was carrying an enormous amount of guilt for just having natural feelings. I often closed myself in my room and cried over it asking god to take it away.

@AngiePoo Isn't it a shame that we had to feel shame over simply being ourselves?

7

It was a gradual process that culminated while I was in college. What truly sealed it for me was a Western Civ class I took my sophomore year. Reading other literature written the same time as The Gospels was a real eye opener for me, as was the secular study of Christianity. After that, I had no doubts left at all that religion was a fairytale.

Do you happen to remember any of the stories you read?

@cimoore34 Yes. Apuleius' "Metamorphoses"

@cimoore34

[loebclassics.com]

@Piratefish much appreciated

Interesting that there is a secular study of Christianity. The truth shall set you free!!

@helionoftroy It was a Western Civ history course. The foundations of Christianity were touched on, but I chose to dig in further than what the class required. I found there is no shortage of secular sources on the roots of Christianity. Anyone who is so inclined can easily discover a well documented history of the religion (and others, too, I'll bet) from objective, secular sources. And doing so would undoubtedly test the faith of any thinking person.

7

When i started studying science. Science ruined any hope of life after death for me. Science is continually questioning itself. Theories that once were and have been proven wrong are welcome and encouraged. Religion on the other hand will not change its opinion even in the light of new evidence. Religious people have blinkered prejudice, science is fact based, evidence based practice. Religion is pseudo science.

I don’t think religion is any type of science pseudo or otherwise. Especially the new age beliefs of crystals and energy.

6

It was always pretty shaky, but the coup de grace came when I found out my brother was gay. Any entity who was going to send my brother to hell for being who he is was out the fucking window. Easiest decision of my life. The whole god belief went right with it.

Judgmental assholes!

6

I never had it.
I was fortunate in that I wasn't raised in a religious household.
I opted to actually read the bible, if memory serves it was a version of King James.
I concluded, that not only was it not a good read, but just chock full of nonesence.
I've heard from many that the easiest path to Agnostic, or Atheism, is to actually read the bible.
The whole thing is so far fetched, I can't fathom how any one would ever take it seriously.

But I've learned over the years that to never underestimate brain washing, and willful ignorance.
I have known, and are great friends with people that "woke" for lack of a better word, and came to understand that it's all a pile of manipulative BS.
I honestly think that is a growing trend, and I will gladly offer what I can towards those who are starting to question.

I agree that it’s a growing trend and I hope it continues to pick up momentum.

5

Freshman year in college. Philosophy 101 and a book regarding the existence of God

lerlo Level 8 June 17, 2019

Education does, normally, broaden our views.

5

It was lost at around 16. But the FINAL finishing end to end all ends with end-of-the-road finality was: Jesus didn't exist! At all. No such dude. Not even as a humble carpenter who went beserk.
The final swing of the hammer?
No Nazareth! Not a little tiny, eensy-weenzy hamlet, not even a single house! It was a graveyard, "for Christ's sa...." Oh, sorry.
So not only was there no Jesus, there was no Nazareth!
That realization just really pissed me off!

A make believe person in a make believe land.

@helionoftroy Yeah, like they were so clueless or ARROGANT about it they didn't even bother to put him in a REAL VILLAGE! Come to think of it, it DID make it impossible to trace a real lineage, a family tree... or tie it to any actual real events surrounding a REAL town...pretty smart, actually...AND how were Roman scholars supposed to know anything for REAL about bumfu*k-Judea of all places anyway?
But intriguing thought. They had to be smart to start up a new religion from scratch to begin with...probably DID make up a hometown on purpose!

5

I grew up liberal christian, taught that the bible is myth and that, like fables, there are lessons within. Upon departing for college, I was exposed to christian hatred and bigotry for the first time. I have never cared to be associated with those who use religion to justify their prejudices. I’ve been on my own since. It blows my mind that others do not see religion for what it is, a social weapon of man.

Zster Level 8 June 17, 2019

Agreed!!

5

Not until my late 40s; I started researching it and it just didn't add up.

Orbit Level 7 June 17, 2019

It really makes no sense at all when you think about it. Myths and fables to scare people into control .

4

By the age of 12, I had a strong enough science background to conclude all the major Bible stories were nonsense.

BD66 Level 8 June 18, 2019

Ditto!

I wish more and more people would see that also!

4

I was right around the same age. I was learning about things I had once thought a god was behind and started having doubts. Then one day an older friend's older brother said his professor in college said there wasn't a god, and that just made so much more sense to me. So I read and read and eventually came to the same conclusion. The kicker was twofold; I learned how many more gods came before the ones prevalent today, and all my questions about the physical world were being answered with science. It became clear as day by my late teens that humans invented gods. And everything I've learned in the 25 years since has only solidified that position more. Dafuk is right.

Many gods in the past and probably more in the future when the christians jesus doesn’t ever come back for them. On to the next deity.

4

I am a born skeptic—didn’t believe what was said in church. So as not to rock the boat I pretended to be a Baptist throughout adolescence. After that I decided that religion is not something written down in some holy book that you have to believe. Rather it is a state of deep awareness, awe, and reverence that you carry in your heart.

I still have my religion.

I was the same. And faked it well. Won nearly all of those bible verse contests.

I do remember the exact moment of cognitive disconnect where I realized that these adults around me were not telling these stories like Aesop's fables or Paul Bunyan.

These grown people actually literally believed a whale swallowed a man. and all that other crap.

My foundation of trust and confidence, crumbled and I knew I would have to fake it.

@BufftonBeotch Just as an aside I read or saw somewhere that it is physiologically impossible for a whale to swallow a human due to some sort of grating in a whale’s throat that only allows small objects through like plankton. Unfortunately I can’t remember the source but I’m sure our biologically astute friends can tell us if that is correct or nonsense.

The religion of William!!

4

My grandfather was an unabashed non-believer. I remember him saying more than once, that Hell was living on earth in America as a black man. So I asked him why he didn't believe in the Hell of the Bible, (we were raised Catholic) and instead of answering my question, he told me to ask the nun where the woman that Cain married came from (he had this thing about us finding things out for ourselves). The nun's answer was a call to my mom to have me chastised for questioning the Bible (good children didn't do that). When mom found out that my grandfather had given me the question, the chastisement went away (she didn't really care as long as I was officially confirmed catholic by the church so that she would see me in heaven) but the question created all kinds of other questions in my mind to ask, just as grandpa had wanted. The use of punishment instead of real answers demonstrated that there were no 'real answers' to give.

After checking in on the other god based religions and finding pretty much the same, it occurred to me that they didn't have answers because they never asked the questions, making them poor teachers. From there I came to an understanding that if they didn't have any real answers about the origins of humanity then maybe the whole idea of GODS was BS too. Subsequent research seemed to confirm that all of the 'god' stuff was no more than carefully written books to fool people into giving religious institutions money.

redbai Level 8 June 17, 2019

If more than half of the human race is correct concerning God, then he/she is a God that likes to write books. The Bible, the Quoran, and the Book of Mormon are the more common books.
I was a Christian for 63 years before I became fully aware that I am agnostic. The first inkling I had was in college when I studied astronomy.
About 5 years ago I read the book THE DA VINCI CODE. That got me extremely interested in the idea concerning what is the real truth about God. I have been on a quest since that time. I have read books written by the Four Horsemen (Dawkins, Harris, Dennett, and Hitchens). These new Atheists seem to make a lot more sense than religion. I think my Science background has a lot to do with it also.

Incest is best, put your sister to the test.

@helionoftroy Yeah, it was an answer that the nun didn't want to give but I guess asking it in the middle of class kind of put her on the hot seat. I have to admit, it kinda felt good watching her squirm as all the other kids in the class wanted to know the answer too, once they saw uncomfortable implications of the obvious answer. There might even have been a couple of "ewws" in a room full of 12 and 13 year olds.

4

Figured out religion was BS in elementary school when the church asserted things that were not representative of reality. The Star of Bethlehem fable was the story that allowed me to realize the entire book was little more then a children's book of fables.

I don’t know that story. Were you raised Jewish?

@helionoftroy Methodist. . ." . and the wise men looked up and saw a star that guided them to the stable located right above the birth of Jesus . . . " that would only work if the star was a stationary element not far above the stable - - part of the biblical firmament. LOL. [en.wikipedia.org]

@NoMagicCookie Oooooooohhhhh that story! Yeah, No!

4

I started to loose my religion (or faith) when I read Genesis 1:27 "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him..."

We are all gods in our own minds!

@helionoftroy That is true... in too many cases. In my particular case, I do know, and accept, I am a primate, and I will die as all primates die.

4

Not sure that I really ever had it, but before I was eight one of the churches in the area would come and pick up us kids for bible church. Part of the program was that they would ask about stuff from the bible and correct answers would receive tootsie pops. I never quite understood the big deal, but one day they were teaching us about tithings and how they needed my pennies, the only money I had. Well I felr I needed the pennies more and took a few from the collection. About the same time I got bored & left the service and went back to the bus to wait. Subsequently taking a few extra suckers too.

It was years later that I realized how manipulative of children. I believe I was 15 when I had a term to put with who I was, but 16 was when I officially recognized myself as an Atheist.

What? They would take money from children?

@helionoftroy yep they would.

4

i never lost my religion. i just realized when i was 15 that there were no gods. it didn't have much to do with religion itself; my family was never religious.

g

You can’t lose it if you’ve never had it.

@helionoftroy well, i won't say we had no religion. it's just that we were not especially religious and never talked about the god part of it. so in discovering there were no gods, i was not railing against some kind of brainwashing, or even ritual, or the kind of hypocrisy one so often sees. we didn't pretend to believe anything we didn't, and we didn't especially talk about whatever it was we did believe, other than in our cultural identity (though we didn't put it that way). that, i suppose, is why i still feel comfortable going to shul on the high holidays, or celebrating passover. i can make of these things what i will. i don't harbor the resentment that people often do when they discover their religious leaders have been lying to them. it doesn't hurt that there's no fire and brimstone in judaism lol, or that the sermon at any given time might be about, say, the value of recycling.

g

4

I was 25 and taking a spirituality class in grad school. When we were asked to identify a faith we believed in, I said I wasn't sure. My professor, who was struggling with his Catholic faith as a gay man, said, "That's cool, Tim. You're on your journey." First time I really felt validated in not being religious. I was raised Catholic myself. From that day, I have never subscribed to any religion.

I’m sorry you had to endure Catholicism

4

I never really believed I just kept quiet because it was forced on me. Seeing the bad all over how can there be a god of any kind. Religion pushes fear. God is watching you all the time everywhere. If this was true why are there murders, and theft? If god was so good or great as they claim why is their poison plants and animals, weather events that kill so many. Drought and floods all over killing more people. Then you see diseases, and birth defects there can not be a god of any kind because if there was it would not have made these things.

Fear is a form of control.

4

I was raised to be a Mormon. As an adult I began to study the prophecies of the founding prophet, so I could convince others that he was a true prophet. To my surprise, I proved just the opposite. He was a false prophet. Then I applied the same test to the biblical prophets, and discovered that they had no divine gift for predicting the future, either. I did a lot more study, finding contradictions in the Bible, false prophecies and phony fulfillments. I read books on apologetics recommended by my christian friends. All the "evidence" they offered turned out to be illogical and false. It was when I reached that conclusion that I abandoned religion completely and became an atheist.

I seen those things well before without reading religious books non of it made any sense to me. Seeing how so called religious people treat eact other and others showed me it was all fake. I first started speaking up by saying how can someone die for my sins when I had not committed any! and I was not born yet. Then someone gave me a bible and I found more terrible things in it. I even pointed those things out to him and he could not answer my questions just you have to believe!

@benhmiller You are fortunate. I had a great deal of brainwashing to overcome. 🙂

I believe the Mormon and catholic faiths have done the most damage to people psychologically. I’m glad you got out and found reason.

@helionoftroy Thank you! 🙂

4

I didn’t have it to lose in the first place.

You were ahead of the game!

@helionoftroy Not really. It took no effort, so I have great respect for those that were religious and made the change themselves.

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