I don't look at it as having been lied to but as other people not addressing things but following beliefs without due consideration. I haven't met any two people with the exact same beliefs which shows how subjective the whole thing is. Religious people just can't seem to grasp that.

No grief at all, except for not singing hymns ever again...just a feeling of peace.

I'll respect anyone's beliefs, right up to the point where they try to use their beliefs to dictate how I should lead my life. I have plenty of Christian and a few Muslim friends who don't go around telling me I should live my life by the Bible or Quran. Any that did would be cut out of my life, where possible.

To quote Stephen Fry:

"I have no quarrel, no argument and I wish to express no contempt for individual devout and pious members of that [the Catholic] church. They are welcome to their sacraments. They’re welcome to their reliquaries and to their Blessed Virgin Mary. They’re welcome to their faith, to the importance they place in it. To the comfort and the joy that they receive from it. All of that is absolutely fine by me. It would be impertinent and wrong of me to express any antagonism towards any individual who wishes to find salvation in whatever form they wish to express it. That, to me, is sacrosanct, as much as any article of faith is sacrosanct to anyone of any church or any faith, in the world. It’s very important."

There's a ton of common sense and basic human decency in those words.

Like they say you are happy with your likes i am happy with my likes lets us move on
journey from a to b can be taken in several ways -days, knowldege and ignorance

Yep, it's true. You are over due for your fire and brimestone encounter.

I see this with a with of different behaviors though. I've seen many people who have smoked for years suddenly quit and become raging anti smoking advocates. I think it's because when you realize a truth that you kept yourself from for a long time you become angry at yourself for having believed the lie.

While I agree there seems to be parallels in the grief process, I think the realization that we are different, just as I tell religious believers when asked about what church I go to, helps me. You bring up an important aspect in your post, ie. being angry at others may be in our own continuing struggle between what we see as our goal and from where we have come. I can't count the number of times I've asked my self, "Why the anger if I truly believe?" So someone else hasn't questioned their beliefs as I have, that doesn't diminish me.

Honestly, I really don't care about being accepted by theists. I can be the nicest person in the world and they would still have a certain view of me. The ones that are cool are cool and the ones that aren't cool aren't cool. No need for me to be accepted for my non-belief. My best friend is a theist. We are like brothers. I bet he still thinks I'm going to hell lol

I'm not saying I act in anger towards theists either. I have no reason to.

Yes calm, cool, and collected all the way. With convincing arguments

There is an aspect of self-hate when you are ex-anything. I see this as a formerly obese person. I was never a serious practitioner of the religious culture I was raised in — neither were my parents — so I don’t have that sense of regret or antagonism. But I totally understand it.

Very well put. It's similar to ex-smokers being so hard on smokers: being angry at your old self as represented by others. Another way to look at it is why should you get so aggravated trying to change others? We're non-believers. We shouldn't be auditioning for the roll of god.

I totally agree. I'm not an antitheist (other people can do whatever the hell they want, provided they afford me the same respect), but I do share the feeling that the world would, ultimately, be better off without religion; for that reason, I'm perfectly happy to interact with and talk to people of all religions in a friendly way - by doing so, perhaps one or two of them might start thinking about atheism and perhaps even veer our way. If I scream and shout and tell them they're wrong and stupid, they're just going to think I'm a horrible person and refuse to listen.

There is NOTHING that an atheist can do to be accepted by the religious. We are tolerated but NEVER accepted and in a therocacy, we are not even tolerated.

No one likes accepting that they've been lied to their entire life. Some people can never accept it.