Sometime in my early teens I saw the coercion in a way that made me forever skeptical. Because of family and other social connections, I continued to be involved (thankfully my family was in a relatively liberal-leaning denomination) until I went off to college. One day in my twenties, I took my 2 young step-children to the High Museum here in ATL and they had not heard the stories behind some of the fabulous art we were seeing that day so I sat them down and told them the basic bible stories we were seeing explored in the paintings. I realized the cultural significance of being exposed to the Judeo-Christian tradition and found the most liberal-leaning church I could find near us and began to attend, telling my kids that they can and should question all they hear. We did find good fellowship there, 30 years later I (and they) still enjoy friendships from that time. So, I don't begrudge the social aspect of organized religion. I am hopeful that with things like Sunday Assembly the secular world will build community and congregation because it is healthy in other ways even if magical thinking is not in itself healthy.

At 16 denounced god at my confirmation of Jewish Sunday School in front of my extended family. Promptly shipped to Israel for punishment. My Bible Study Tour included a stint for a week in Gadna, the junior Israeli Army, working on a kibbutz, and living with an Israeli family.

I recognized that SOME of them were posers as young as probably 8 or 9, but one of my few regrets in life is that I did not catch on to them ALL making it ALL up (including of course myself) until my early to mid 30s, and did not decisively act on it until my late 30s. In the meantime I made a lot of awful decisions heavily influenced by the failed epistemology of religious faith, not least my first disastrous marriage.

It was a slow process, starting to doubt when I was about 17 and went on for more than 40 years.

My family was never religious, so we never went to church. But from a young age I felt that there couldn't be a God with so much suffering in the world. I felt like if a god did exist, he was an asshole.

I more so relied on what I was told, which would vary… Definitely concluded it was prettymuch BS before my teens.. I like your description of, “pretenders at best and true believers at worse.” I so appreciate ‘this place,’ discovering the depth of creativity and intellect among ‘our own’ is thought affirming!

How often are we going to answer the same questions? ...never mind! Not meant to be rude but a search will find you plenty of answers before you make the question.

about 6, our congregation were a bunch pf pricks.

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I realized early that Christianity was mostly a game, not taken very seriously even by the Haiti missionaries, who turned to modern medicine when sick, locked their doors, and had insurance, despite their claims of submission to "god's will."

I think I always did. I was never a true believer.