I feel like I’ve become more empathetic since I left religion. When a group of people are killed and murdered I now feel sorry for them no matter who they are whereas when I was a Christian there was always that judgemental thought if there weren’t Christians then they deserved it for sinning

They make it seem that you can't be a good person if you're not religious

I gave up christianity at 15 yo. I became a wiccan, was so for 25 + years. The I became an agnostic for a few years. Then I became an atheist.

Can't imagine living like that. Here I have a big yard sign stating it is a gun free zone, NRA cowards not welcome, a fiction bumper sticker. No one asks about religion and if I mention being an atheist or non-believer I usually get a me-too reply.

Religion doesn't give you a good moral character

How will my children know right from wrong?

I will take time to teach them and role model the appropriate behaviour. In the end we, as adults, choose our own path. What we learn as children can only guide us to he starting gate. I prefer they get to that point under my direction,

My religious experience also involved the Methodist brand and for me it was the crafts and snacks. The rest was nonsense and by the age of 10 I just quit going. When one Sunday I refused to go Mom said "it's good for you". I said "If it's so good for us why do you just drop us off at the front door?"
Even at 10 mom and I were on rocky ground. It was not about religion it was about who had control.
Now I live in a college town surrounded by rural right wing religious folk. Some are real nutters, some like the KKK brand and some aren't too bad. The ones I know from around the apartment complex have stopped asking if I want to go to church. Some act like any minute the lightening bolt's gonna strike and they had better keep their distance.

I live in whacko floriduh, when people ask me where do I go, my answer is always either "well, that is really none of your business, is it?" Or "to the nonofyer business" temple.

I was about that age, somewhere between 8 and 10, when I read Carl Sagan for the first time. I was done with religion after 1 more straw after that.

Suffice it to say after reading from "The Book of Carl" as Dr Tyson called it once, my religious fate was at the very edge of the event horizon. Just needed one little gravitational tip into a black hole lol

These stories are really interesting. I went to Sunday school and then church for a year until I left home at 16. but it never meant anything. just something I had to endure on Sunday.
The USA seems to be living in a sort of time warp. Every town here has a few empty churches,either falling in to disrepair or being used for some other purpose and a church minister now covers several parishes,
In my travels round the USA there appears to be a church on virtually every street corner. Come on guys get with the times.
Worryingly there is growth in the "happy clappy" churches usually with an American pastor at it's head.Well as far as I am concerned you can keep them. We don't want our youngsters led astray.

I feel that I took on a lot more responsibility for myself when I gave up the idea that someone else ultimately took responsibility for my mistakes and misjudgment. It doesn't mean that all others can learn the same lessons, but I now believe we need to find a way to forgive ourselves as well as others and to learn from our mistakes. I think it is part of becoming an adult instead of an adult with a child's mentality. We make enough mistakes as it is, we don't need to be making more trying to avoid responsibility of those from our past.

Yes, I'm a secular homeschool mom in very religious area. I get this A Lot!!! I've said when my kids are older they can attend church and decide for themselves but I refuse to immerse them in it when they are young. People think I am crazy but my kids have better respect and value for humans than most religious people I know so whatever.

I always said my children are welcome to go to church if they want to. I actually encouraged mine to do that so they would understand the cultural values of their neighbors. I explained to them that I was not religious and did not believe in a higher power but that they needed to decide on their own what they believed. I have one atheist child and a semi-religious one.

The answer that I gave before they went to church was of course they can go if they want to but I am not religious and I encourage my children to make caring ethical choices whether or not they go to church.

The religious guideline provided by the God of the Bible? Hello?

Do you really want your daughter to grow up into a genocidal maniac with catastrophic anger management issues?

How come Iowa has so many inbreds?

I don't believe in hell, but I lived in small town Iowa for two years, Hampton, Iowa, to be exact (pop. 2500). And if hell exists, that couldn't be far off. Lots of small-minded, judgemental people and several churches for every bar in town, of which there were only two. Something very fucked-up about that kind of ratio... But I'm sure there are places in the South that are far worse.