I stopped just believing and started thinking critically about what I'd been taught since childhood. a few years later, I was atheist. That's all it took -- thought. It explains why the church is so against people thinking for themselves.

In what church/denomination were you reared? For me, it was Catholicism. My family was strict and strictly Catholic, and we had lots of iconography strewn about the house, attended weekly services, etc., and I was sent to Sunday school for a time before being sent to parochial elementary school. I was an altar server from age 7 till age 18, then went off to college — a very devout, structured Catholic college.

It was actually an excellent school, and it was there that I learned that I didn't agree, on a fundamental level, with some of the teachings of the Catholic Church. In particular, the idea that it is morally justified to let a woman and her unborn child die during an aortic rupture rather than take action to terminate the pregnancy to save the mother's life was/is abhorrent to me, and I began to realize that the theology and morality of Catholic doctrine is heavily based in rigid deontology — and that I didn't agree with that way of thinking at all.

For a time, I held to the Christian metaphysics, but once I'd started pulling threads on what I believed, the entire tapestry eventually unraveled. As you noted, it was difficult because it was so integral to who I was as a person that I felt empty. Over time, and with plenty of effort, I filled the void with substance of my own design — philosophy that made sense to me, rather than being spoonfed to me in childhood, and ethics that were based on doing good (and less harm) instead of authoritarian rules.

It didn't happen overnight, and I spent too many years trying to convince others that they had dedicated their lives to a lie, but eventually I reached equilibrium. Now, I've settled into a comfortable, but not complacent space of realizing that the complexity of the universe and existence will always be outside my grasp, yet there are claims people make that lack support and are unworthy, no matter how tenaciously held and pontificated, of serious consideration. And I have a much more laissez-faire approach to life, and don't waste my energy on what other people are doing (insofar as it doesn't encroach upon others' rights and liberties), and don't worry myself with things outside my control.

There's a lot I left out of my experience, but in short I'm more relaxed, I'm kinder, and I'm more accepting than I was when I was religious.

Good luck, you're going to need it. Career peaking at 63? Retiring at 71? Working every night until 830pm? Did you know that the average life expectancy for a US male is 78? Again, good luck.

I was never churched therefore no journey. I had the regular life journey, but religion was never considered.