If the bad thing that happened turned you away from religion — well, it wasn't ALL bad.

Nope. Like you I began questioning the narrative early on. It never made sense to me and the questions I asked were never answered. The hard part was learning to live around those who bought into it, including my parents.

Absolutely none. I read about other myths before I read the Abrahamic ones. They were just stories and I have seen nothing about them that makes them real... or contributes to someone being a loving and caring person. My ex wife has a ton of issues, and I can't tell you how many stem from catering to domineering parents that were pointing her to different denominations and telling each other they were wrong.

Yes, I think it was because Jesus didn't bring me a pony one year for Christmas. No, wait. That would have been Santa Claus.

Watching too many people arguing about issues in Bible...I used to love to talk with preachers..and I believed and still believe Jesus was about love...If you don't get that concept you've missed the boat...I can not stand a person going to church all the time and are hateful, arrogant and just down right mean......then have the nerve to judge me cause I said fuck.....huh

Nope. Education, logical and critical thinking, and an open mind willing to question all that I had been taught won over in the end. Thank God!!!

Not something bad but something good. When I was very young I figured out that I valued truth over fiction and after analyzing church (fiction peddled as truth) stories I discovered Faith (assertions based without evidence) claims were not consistent with realty. This taught me to question all faith based claims.

I always felt like it was weird, silly, and unbelievable... at age 10 and 11 my parents had me in a Catholic school because the public school outside the base we were stationed at was not accredited with the state. The Catholic school was. I was stunned at how many things about the Catholic religion were tweaked different compared to the Baptist upbringing I seen. I mean stuff like purgatory I had never even heard of as a Baptist, yet it was mentioned almost daily in Catholic School back then. I really had a sense of "How are these religions getting all this different crap out of the same book?"

Lived in Italy for 4 years after that and it becomes clear the Catholic church is a financial machine. And not a very friendly one either. One day I'll tell the story of the Catholic Orphanage I worked at as a Boy Scout overseas, for some kids Eagle Scout project. Grim, grim, grim. First time I saw my Navy Pilot dad cry.

That was as a kid... where it seemed stupid and ugly.

As an adult Ive learned to hate it. My parents retired to a small town where my mom grew up. They started attending church regularly and my mom even started playing piano. My dad has slid slightly right wing, and now mumbles anti-abortion stuff from time to time. But my mom... She has gone from saying stuff like...
"See that little girl walking down the street? I feel so bad for her. Her mom is in jail for drugs. Apparently she is here in town living with her old step dad who was married to her mom back when she was like 3 to 7 yeara old. Now 13 and he's the only family she sort of has, and he's a drinker. I pray for her."

And after a few years it became...

"See that girl? She's the new little slut in town
Her mom is in jail for drugs, and all the other relatives are dead. Somehow she is living with the guy who used to be her stepdad when she was little bitty. He has his other kids every other weekend, and he's always drunk. He's probably raping her and its just a matter of time before she gets shipped off for selling meth!"

My mom has literally gone from being concerned about all people to openly despising most of them. And its not old age. It's fire and brimstone hateful Baptist rhetoric rolled out every Sunday.

I believe at a very young age, I realized that adults used religious doctrine for selfish reasons. Raised Roman Catholic in a Cajun french community, I experienced the restrictions on females, distorting biblical teachings to control groups and often the sheer impractically of some of the rules..ex. not eating meat on Friday. Lol good for chickens
Maybe...I just don't buy the man made God with all the different flavors of the month. More inclines to go with native Indians evaluation of our place in nature. Respect and kindness