It wasn’t the lack of faith like you. I had faith in spades. I felt guilty if I didn’t believe as much as I was expected to believe.

I find it a reversal in logic when people ask "Why are you an Agnostic?". It always seemed logical to me that one would search for reasons to BELONG to a religion rather than search for reasons NOT to belong to a religion.

I grew up in a strict fundamentalist church. We were pretty OT; I had heard about Jesus but didn't know what the big deal was until high school when I went to a baptist church. Christmas was pagan so that probably explains a lot about why I didn't know who Jesus was. Anyway, I remember being in World History class in 6th grade feeling guilty as hell because I was really interested in how different countries/cultures celebrated Christmas. I felt ashamed because I wanted to learn about it.

All my childhood, and now my adulthood.
Are they foolish to agree they know isn't true, or do they know/feel something I don't?

My dad always acted like it was stupid to believe religion so I guess that's why that never happened to me.

I've never been influenced by religion. It never made any logical sense to me. My parents sent me to Sunday school when I was very young, but I asked too many questions and hated going. As a teenager I began to wonder if it was me and if I was too stupid to not 'get it' so I tried to find god in some church's on a few Sundays but that didn't last long either. Nothing felt right and those that did believe could never satiate my questions. In my 20's i realized I am comfortable in my disbelief and I wasn't too dumb to understand, they were too dumb to not reality and logic and relied on faith instead of comprehension of life itself.

No. As a Haiti missionary kid I went along with most of it, although I thought the Hebrew god blood-thirsty and cruel, and that Christians in general were unpleasant people.

I resented how the missionaries equated "evangelism" with Westernization of the Haitians, and how they tried to make them sing their boring Western hymns and wear their klunky clothes, using money as bait.

All of us in one shape or another is likely. That is why this site is such a blessing (insert sarcastic smilie face here)

I always thought there was something wrong with everyone else BECAUSE
they believed, and I knew it was all bullshit.

On a sarcastic note, what in heavens name where you thinking.
I was brought up in a Catholic home just never made sense to me either.

At age 13, I became an atheist when I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men. I don't believe in an invisible being that resides somewhere beyond the clouds.

In nursing school, my Catholic-raised mother became an atheist.

"I realized a woman cannot be turned into salt," Mom said dryly.

My parents were fine with my decision.

nope. i never cared what others thought of me -- especially since most people already apparently had so many reasons not to be my friends. being different was how i had always been, on so many levels. my only friend at the beginning of my high school years turned out also to be an atheist, but i doubt we discussed this with anyone else, so how would anyone else even know? later i made a couple other friends and i don't remember discussing this with them but they certainly were not religious zealots at any rate, and had it come up, i certainly would not have held back.

g

I could be wrong .. but I highly doubt it.