A Question for Athiest/Agnostics who were Christian

[keen23]

It was pretty gradual for me, starting at around age 12- right around the time where Confirmation classes started in our church. For me, I had too many questions as to what happened with Jesus between ages 13-30. I mean, there's NOTHING written about it. There's the moneylenders in the Temple, and then the story picks up 15 years later. What happened during that time? It's too easy to scrub the historical record to make your main character better fit the story that you want it to fit. Also, the fact that the Bible wasn't written until 100's of years after Jesus' death, and even the current version that exists has been edited with huge amounts of bias over the past two thousand years. How can you say that this book is always 100% correct if it's been edited and revised soooo many times? That's when I became agnostic.

I became an Atheist in college. I took lots of history classes, including archeology classes. Learning about early humans and brain development, it was really easy to make the jump to thinking about the dilemmas that happen when you have a big brain. You have this big brain, you have down-time, because you've figured out how to survive, so you start to wonder about things like "what happens when you die," "where did we come from" and the need to have coping mechanisms for this. Religion fills that gap quite nicely. It gives the brain comforting thoughts that "souls" will live on "forever" and that there's some big sky father guy who watches over everyone who ever was and whoever will be.

[Talitha Cumi]

I grew up devoted to my church. It was what was done in our family. Church schools (because public schools taught evolution!) and church every week, and Pathfinders (church's version of Boy/Girl Scouts) every week as well. Life and the church were inextricably intertwined. I never felt the presence of God, though, even though I tried and tried.

I started having anxiety attacks when I was 16. I was afraid of environmental destruction. We were killing our planet, and what if there was no God to save us? I prayed and prayed, but there was no relief from the fear.

When I went to college (church college!) they made me go to far more worship services than I'd had to at home. I realized on my own that homosexuality wasn't evil, and when my earth science professor said "I know what the church teaches, but as a scientist, I can't ignore the evidence of the geologic column," I started considering that creationism was wrong.

Church became less important to me until 9/11. I was living in DC at the time, and worked next to the FBI building. We were evacuated, and we could see the smoke from the Pentagon. For a little while (before we were evacuated), we heard that the fourth plane was headed toward us, and we didn't know where it would hit.

The next night, I went to a church service. I became totally focused on God. For the first time, I believed because *I* believed, not because my family believed. And I believed because I was terrified and needed comfort.

Four years later, a friend of mine was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer. I spent the day in bed. My dad was a pathologist, and I knew there was no hope. I felt like I was staring down a long, dark tunnel, and at the end was nothing. I realized that I didn't believe in an afterlife. I never had. And without an afterlife, Jesus had lied, and if there was a lying Jesus, there was no real Jesus, and Christianity was a lie.

It was such a relief. I'd come out as bisexual years before, but now I didn't have to try to reconcile the Bible with what I knew to be true. It didn't matter what the Bible said about homosexuality. It didn't matter how much I went to church, or how much I read my Bible, or how much I prayed. Now I believe that the meaning of life is to improve the human race. It's more important than ever to live a life of kindness and caring for others, because *this life is all we have.* Now I'm true to myself.

I call myself an agnostic because hey, maybe there's a god after all. But it makes no difference in my life.

[Dev83]

Looking back, I don't think I was ever REALLY Christian -as in, I don't think I ever bought into it 100%. But I was really into church and my bible study group throught Jr. high and High School. I read my bible and I tried REALLY hard to believe. I accepted Jesus into my heart like 30 times lol I think I thought that was what I was supposed to do and what I was supposed to believe, and honestly, having a religion was nice at times.

After I graduated and started branching out intellectually, I just realized I couldn't fake it anymore. I remember sitting in small group and thinking that the story of the virgin birth sounds like the best excuse ever - and I did not buy it.

For a long time I just considered myself spiritual, not religious. I still prayed occassionally ect. But by the time I was 20-21 I was pretty firmly in the atheist camp.

It is weird too - both my parents are Christian (although liberal Christian) and both my sister and I are athiests. She just "came out" so to speak about a year ago (she is 10 years younger than I am). So two politically moderate christians have two kids 10 years apart and they are both liberal feminist atheists. heh.

[CrazySister]

I started shifting away from christianity in college and shortly after. The bible was big for me. The more I read of it, the more horrible it seemed. The more I learned about the political processes that went into the writing and translating of it, the more I came to recognize it as something man-made and not worthy of special consideration. That started me wondering, if I don't even believe the central holy text of christianity, what else do I not believe?

Do you have any books you'd recommend on this? I've tried to find out how the "canon" was really chosen, and so far Google* & people irl haven't been much help. I always seem to get the same "God chose it" answer which isn't close to what I'm looking for.

*I'm sure it's partly me not using the best phrases. I love Google and mean no disrespect to the wonder that is at my fingertips everytime I hit search. ;)

[Cran]

The canon was chosen over a series of councils and synods, and it took over 300 years to do it.

Although you said you researched it via internet, the wikipediaarticle might be a good starting point:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_c ... cal_canons

[Sprocket]

I was raised as a southern baptist, although it was a very liberal upbringing. My dad's career was in the military, and while we didn't move around a lot (surprisingly), I was still surrounded by people who were different than me. Had I stayed in the little town in NC where my family lived, I may be a different person. But the military brought people of different races, religions, etc in and out of my life and I'm thankful for it.

As far as "leaving" Christianity, it's been a process. But I feel like I've only left the concept of southern, hate-filled Christianity. As far as the teachings of Jesus (helping the weakest in my community, standing up for those who have no/little voice, etc) I feel like I'm called to follow that. I consider my "religion" to be about what Jesus taught, not a religion about the person Jesus. Furthermore, I don't believe in the Trinity. Jesus himself said that his father (God) is greater than himself. Couple that with the Trinity not being established until hundreds of years after Jesus' death and that makes it more ridiculous. I've studied the history of Christianity and thus know that many of the stories in the bible have roots in pagan history. The virgin birth, the resurrection after three days.... all of it pagan. It was common practice to take stories that belonged to other religions and adapt them to the current religion in order for people to conform more readily. So I've identified as Unitarian for a long time now, since college. Not being a conventional Christian in the deep south is a big no-no, so we stay home and have pancakes on Sunday.

We're still discussing how we want to raise our children. We want to give them faith in something higher than themselves, but the freedom to think and seek what calls to them. As far as what organized religion that may fall into, we're still looking. My husband was raised IFB and he wants our family to have no part in that. We agree that there is value in giving our boys our religious imprint so that they are not swayed by the crazy that they are sure to encounter with their IFB cousins. Right now, we're just teaching them to be thankful. My oldest does (and enjoys) saying his prayers at night. If I forget, he reminds me to "say prayers". He says "thank you God for...." and then likes to list off the things and people he loves. But as they grow, I just want them to find what fits them best.

[B5SnowDog]

Try "development of Christian biblical canon". Wiki has an article about it, which will give you a starting place.

[slh12280]

I never admit this to people but there are moments when I feel sort of, I guess, agnostic about certain things. I truly do believe in God but I guess it is more questions about the details, even though I identify as Christian and attend church regularly. I am conservative in a lot of senses, always have been. Meeting more people and having more life experiences has definitely had an impact on my worldview. I also started reading more of the Bible, mostly Old Testament, and realized that there are some pretty terrible things in there I find highly immoral. I used to view this as cultural, but then I realized that God was commanding some of these things. However, I still have faith but ask a lot of questions. It sometimes makes me feel bad because my mother and other family members are always so sure about their brand of evangelical Christianity. I realized that if you lose faith in Bible (or other religious text) then there isn't proof for a lot of things otherwise such as an afterlife, a soul, etc. I even asked why God had to create an afterlife. Anyway, I keep coming back to Christianity and when I do things wrong the guilt is a very strong motivator but I don't want to stay in a belief system out of guilt and fear. I like the Gospels so that is something. Honestly, this sometimes scares me if I start asking too many questions. Studying other religions and belief systems is also a hobby of mine. This might explain my love of FJ! Also taking an ethics class made me realize that life does not operate in black and white as often as I thought it did. Anyway, I like certain aspects of a lot of belief systems, so that is where I am at.

Raine, I always enjoyed reading your posts and feel that you are very honest, even if it goes against your church's teachings so I know you will get where you need to be even if it may be difficult.

*Sorry, I am not technically following the thread as I am not an atheist or agnostic. Just wanted to add my 2 cents.

[quiningseven]

Great thread!

I was raised evangelical and broke from that into more liberal Christianity in high school. I did not become an atheist until 17-18. What did it for me was the problem of evil- that it is impossible for an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being to exist and there to be evil in the world. The usual answer to that is free will, but strangely enough, it is possible for god to create us in such a way that we would freely choose good every time. I started thinking about what it would be like in heaven- there would be no evil there, so either we lose free will when we die or we gain additional ability to allow us to always do the right thing. If it's the former, then obviously free will wasn't necessary in the first place, if it's the latter why not give us that ability at the start?

[Deleted01]

As far as "leaving" Christianity, it's been a process. But I feel like I've only left the concept of southern, hate-filled Christianity. As far as the teachings of Jesus (helping the weakest in my community, standing up for those who have no/little voice, etc) I feel like I'm called to follow that. I consider my "religion" to be about what Jesus taught, not a religion about the person Jesus.

This is basically where I land these days. As I said elsewhere, I'm a reverent agnostic. It's kind of crept up on me so I honestly don't know how long I've been going through the motions of belief. Fundies like to slam Catholicism (or any denomination that has liturgy) for being mindless, empty, vainly repetitive ritual, and in many ways that's what it has become for me in the last few months. Maybe not exactly mindless, but it sure doesn't feel genuine to me anymore. I've not been to Mass the last two Sundays and I just feel a teeny, tiny bit of Catholic Guilt but am honestly not worried about dying in a car accident and going straight to Hell because of it.

My last hold out for believing in God is the necessity (in my brain) of an un-caused cause.

[alsio]

What did it for me was the problem of evil- that it is impossible for an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being to exist and there to be evil in the world. The usual answer to that is free will, but strangely enough, it is possible for god to create us in such a way that we would freely choose good every time.

That was the sticking point for me as well. Especially concerning inpersonal evil, like big natural catastrophes and horrific illnesses.

Free will doesn't have anything to do with it, so there is no excuse for a two year old dying of cancer.

I was raised rather liberal catholic and never particularly devout, I sort of slipped from a vague believe in a christian god( that changed because of the consideration above) to a somewhat spiritual mindset(still believing in some kind of afterlife etc.).

One day I realised, when I really thought about it, I simply did not believe in any of it.

[Sola]

I think it was a gradual realisation, or maybe a gradual acceptance with me. I do know that I never felt as though I believed in it all.

I was brought up Christian, my dad was in the ministry. We were very involved with the church and the church community. I used to to to church on Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays so it was a big part of my life. With my dad being a minister it came into every part of our lives really.

One incident stands out. When I was about six we had a visiting evangelist from the USA over. Not to our particular church, but to another one that we sometimes got involved with in a churches together type programme. We used to join with the other churches for kids events and stuffs. It was always fun and we'd go all over the place. One of the things we did was go to the pentecostal church (where the evangelist visited) and they'd show us cartoons on a projector. One night my dad took us to the church as they were showing a film for the kids. That film was A Thief in the Night.

Well there was no way that film was suitable for little kids. I was six, so was my friend who came with me and her brother who was five. It's scared the life out of us. At the end of it we were terrified that one day we'd wake up and our parents would have gone and we'd be all alone. Then the evangelist came over to us and told us that if we were saved then we wouldn't be left alone when the 'rapture' happened. He told us that we needed to pray and ask Jesus into our lives. Well of course we did; what else are upset, terrified five and six year olds going to do? He got us to kneel down and I remember him putting his hand on my head while he prayed with us. Afterwards, and I can remember this so clearly, he asked if we felt different. I didn't of course, but I didn't want to say that so I said that yes I did. He said that the feeling was Jesus scrubbing the sin from our hearts and then asked us if we could feel that. Well again I said yes but I didn't feel a thing.

Afterwards I thought about it a lot over the next couple of years and I still didn't feel any different - I don't know what I expected but the evangelist made us think that we'd suddenly feel so completely different and we'd be able to tell that Jesus was within us. I felt a little disappointed that I felt nothing and sometimes I wondered if I was properly 'saved'.

As I got older I started to think about it more and I started to question whether there was a god in the first place. My own experience I think probably started those doubts. When I got into my teens I had more or less come to the conclusion that there was no god. I talked to my dad about it and I'm glad that he didn't just ram more Jesus down my throat. He told me to read and learn about it myself (I think he meant the bible, but it didn't turn out that way :D ). I've always had a fascination for religious history which is something my dad shared so I didn't mind finding out for myself. I did read the bible of course, but the more I read, the more questions I had. I had a friend at school who was Muslim so I think I bored her to death asking questions about Islam too. I remember being really surprised that Jesus was in the Qur'an as I didn't know that Islam was another Abrahamic religion. I started reading about mythology and found out about all the earlier myths which became part of the Jesus story and by this point - I think I was about 14 or so - I stopped going to church most of the time. I realised that I was an atheist and I sort of 'came out' to my family when I was 16.

They were OK about it. My dad was happy that I'd not just jumped to the conclusion and I'd put in the 'work' and learned for myself. My mum, who really wasn't as strong a Christian as my dad anyway, was fine. My gran, she was a strong Christian, was disappointed but never looked down on me or anything. She just wished I'd go to church again. Out of the four of us siblings, myself and my youngest brother are atheists now. The middle two are Christians, with my oldest brother (the one a couple of years younger than me) being the most 'fundie', although he is no way as fundie as the ones we discuss on here. He isn't even fundie-lite really. He is pro-life (grrrr!) and his wife is a SAHM, but there's no submission shite going on.

Now when I look back on it, it actually makes me quite angry. That evangelist knew exactly what he was doing in showing that film to kids. Not long after that he went back to the USA and the following year he'd invited my dad to go over for a visit. For some reason my dad backed out, not sure why. He was quite keen on it at first as part of the trip involved some conferences or something as well as trip to the Grand Canyon which he was really looking forward to. But in end he didn't go, don't know why.

[valsa]

I admit, I still have a strange need for rituals. I have a theory that the later a person looses faith, the harder it is to get rid of the outer trappings of religion, like praying or lighting candles. For the time being, I am using the outer trappings of Wiccan as a crutch to overcome my dependency on religion. Because I've come across atheist Wiccans, I don't think that I am being disrespectful to another's faith-at least, I hope that I'm not. However, I'm aware that what I'm doing is a bit illogical and based on an emotional need. For the time being, I'm okay with that but eventually, I will probably move past it.

I think it's a combination of personality and maybe age. I've had a need for "rituals" (not necessarily a literal ritual) since I was little and it can cause me some annoyance. For instance, there's a television show that was created by someone I really, really don't like. Normally, if I don't like a creator or actor/actress or singer or whatever involved in a piece of media, I don't watch it because I don't like to contribute money/ratings/whatever to that person. However, I started watching this show before I disliked the creator and now, pretty much any time it's on, I watch it (despite not liking the creator and having seen every episode probably a half-dozen to a dozen times) The familiarity brings me comfort, so I consider it a sort of soothing ritual for me to watch it (it's happened with different media before- during the summer between 3rd and 4th grade I obsessively watched Braveheart every single day for the same reason)

I think that familiar "rituals" bring comfort to a lot of people and older folks may just be used to religion being their particular ritual.

[changemanagement]

Raine, I suspect I am in the same place as you right now. Am I ready to make a leap? I can't even answer that.

Like others, my faith has suspect for quite some time and I bounced around different denominations. There wasn't much of a positive takeaway from the churches - there was the pastor who I saw at the bank the Monday after service in his gold and diamonds. There was the bishop who had the congregation buy him a jet so he could preach in 2 other cities in 2 other time zones, where women could not hold positions of power. Also at his church, we made the mistake of entering thru his private door and were stopped by his security( ! ) team.

My BIL tithed his ass into bankruptcy and the church was of no help, but they made him an elder. Woo? When I was seriously ill my mom would call PTL to pray for me over the phone. The take away from that was learing now to fully relax. Never did tell my mom I thougt it was BS. I should have, though. She sent money to Jim Bakker.

That being said, I'm still not ready to not believe yet, but it sure is something I am thinking about a lot these days.

My daughter is also going through this. She is moving toward spiritual agnostic. We are both on this journey. We just haven't told my husband.

[ceg045]

I was raised by fairly non-observant Catholics, attending Mass for Christmas, Easter, and weddings/funerals, but little else. Nowadays we don't even go on Christmas or Easter. However, because of the local culture where I grew up--heavy Catholic population with an abnormally large number of Catholic schools--I was Catholic educated from first through 12th grade.

Even from a young age, I remember dreading school masses, which we had to attend 1-2 times per week. Even though they were only 45 minutes to an hour long, it was by far the longest hour of my day. I was bored out of my skull. So, even from a young age, I wasn't engaging with the material, wasn't transfixed by the ceremony, etc. It was on a very childish level, but I knew something seemed off.

As I moved onto high school, my thought became a bit more sophisticated. I had major issues with the Catholic Church's attitude on social issues and its attitude toward women. I'm very socially liberal, so it's obvious that we'd be diametrically opposed on a lot of major issues. Then, when the pedophilia scandal was at its apex, it came out that a friend's brother was molested by our parish priest, and that our monsignor had simply shuffled him off to another church (and school!) when he found out. The pedophilia was sickening enough, but the fact that someone I knew was a victim really hit home. The complete lack of response/denial by the Church (both internationally and in our local parish) also disgusted me. Then during the 2004 election, our local archbishop told everyone that he would refuse communion to anyone who voted for Kerry, as they were not true Catholics. I wasn't old enough to vote that year, but guess who I was volunteering for? Add to this the blatant lies told to us in religion classes (birth control pills will make you blind!), and I was thoroughly disillusioned. Anyway, all of this happened during my high school years, so it really opened my eyes to all the things the Church preached that I not only did not believe, but often downright opposed.

I went into college saying that I was "spiritual but not religious," and came out as an agnostic, and that's how I stand (write?) before you today.

[B5SnowDog]

One night my dad took us to the church as they were showing a film for the kids. That film was A Thief in the Night.

Well there was no way that film was suitable for little kids. I was six, so was my friend who came with me and her brother who was five. It's scared the life out of us. At the end of it we were terrified that one day we'd wake up and our parents would have gone and we'd be all alone.

I never saw that movie but the rapture was taught in my church. As a child, I'd have the most terrible nightmares about being left behind after the rapture. One was so vivid, I could still "see" the demons reaching for me to drag me into hell even after opening my eyes.

[bellicosebroad]

If you don't mind sharing, what was your sort of process for losing faith or leaving your religion?

Is it totally weird or unheard of to just suddenly be like "hey, I don't really believe this and I think I might have been trying to fool myself the whole time" or is that common?

If it was a longer process and you don't mind sharing what changed your mind and how you handled things with religious friends and family and the faith community you may have left, please share your story and any advice you might have.

(I'm going through some weird things right now and trying to figure out if this is what's going on or if it's going to be one of those flip-flop things and it's not something I can really talk about with most people in my life.)

I was raised Lutheran and just sort of had to suck it up and go through the motions until I got confirmed and could then make my own decisions. I remember questioning this pie in the sky uber-controlling, mean deity who said he loved us but was an ass nonetheless when I was really young, like six. I believed he existed then; I just wondered why the hell anyone would listen to him, especially my parents, who were all-powerful grownups. By the time I was about 12 I thought, "Ah, fairytale farce meant to 'control' just because." In between those two ages, I tried really, really hard to "get" it and to believe, because everyone said I'd be so happy if I did (and I was going to scary hell if I didn't, anyway). But I've never been a true believer; always questioning until I just didn't even do that anymore and knew for myself that it was not real, and not harmless, either.

[vetrik]

I was raised in a pretty liberal Methodist church. My family was very involved - my mom was the organist, my dad was the Sunday School director, I did all the activities like plays, Youth Group, confirmation, etc. However, I never, ever liked church. I liked hanging out with my friends, but I never engaged or really even thought about the actual content of the teachings. Like a PP, we had a great minister that we all liked personally (and I even dated his son), and I think he was a huge factor in keeping our family so involved. I even had him officiate at my wedding, although it felt a bit hypocritical since I was certain I was not going to be involved in religion any more at that point (was not ready to declare myself atheist or even agnostic yet though).

As I got to be an older teenager, my family actually pretty much stopped going to church (my much younger brother didn't even make it to confirmation), and I was relieved. I then went through quite a few years of not attending church, but not really being ready to explore what I really believed (or didn't believe). I started dating, and then got engaged and married to my DH, who has been very confident in his atheism from a very early age. Eventually I decided that I was agnostic - I think I already didn't believe there was a god, but was having a difficult time giving it up completely. In the last few years I've come to feel more strongly that I'm an atheist. I don't talk about it in "real life". Everyone knows we don't attend church, and we did not baptize DD, but no one asks specifically (and we're not mentioning it)! However, DH does not really keep his interest in Richard Dawkins and other well known atheists secret. :D

I just find the whole idea of religion interesting. They are all so different, and how can one religion say they are the one, true, right religion? There seemed to be so much hypocrisy too, and so many things that just don't make sense. I always believed in evolution, and I can remember being young and really trying to reconcile the creation story with evolution. I think that's why I leaned towards agnosticism for so long - I couldn't say whether there was a god or not, but I just couldn't believe in any one religion. Now I feel more confident in saying that I don't believe in god at all either.

A lot of Christians seem to think that they could enlighten someone who is atheist and convince them to convert. However, I'm part of a group of atheist/agnostic moms (specifically discussing raising children without religion in a world surrounded by it), and they have studied religion - most of them were raised in religion, and did pretty extensive reading and questioning before becoming atheist or agnostic.

[awmom]

I don't know if I would call myself Agnostic just yet--still kind of on the journey, but I think I am on my way out. My parents met in a super conservative christian group (cult?) which fell apart in an ugly way when I was in preschool. We didn't go to church as a family after that but always read the bible and learned the theology. I started going to an evangelical youth group with a friend in 7th grade and got pretty deeply involved in it. I never could totally stomach the exclusionary "we know best and everyone who thinks differently is going to hell" or the inherent racism in the "mission trips" to other countries (though I couldn't have articulated my problem with it at the time). I ended up going toe to toe with my youth pastor when I was 16 or 17 because I just couldn't believe that people would go to hell for not believing in Jesus. I think the worst moment was when he said that people would only be held accountable for "the light shown to them" so if they had never heard of Jesus then it would be a non-issue and they could still go to heaven and I responded "well then we should try to make sure NOBODY ever hears about Jesus and then EVERYONE can go to heaven!" After that I got a call saying I couldn't be a camp counselor for the children's ministry anymore because I would be a danger to the children with my false teachings etc. etc., and that was kind of the beginning of the end with that particular church.

That was about 15 years ago--I tried a lot of different churches after that, each more liberal than the last and finally landed in a small, super liberal reconciling (not homophobic) congregation. I have read a lot of the bible and a lot of theology (conservative and liberal--liberation theology is my favorite). I don't believe in hell anymore, I definitely don't believe in substitutiary atonement (e.g. Jesus died for our sins), don't believe in the divinity of Jesus and not quite sure if I believe in God either so by evangelical standards I'm really not a Christian. I love church for the community and, like other posters mentioned, the comfort of the rituals. I think the farther away you get from the evangelical church the more you start to realize how ridiculous it all is, especially all the proof texting from the bible to prove any particular point. Once I stopped being afraid of the consequences of not believing a certain way and was free to think for myself I realized that the bible was an interesting history of a people trying to make sense of things that happened to them but it's no good as a guide for living and certainly nothing close to an absolute truth.

[awmom]

I never saw that movie but the rapture was taught in my church. As a child, I'd have the most terrible nightmares about being left behind after the rapture. One was so vivid, I could still "see" the demons reaching for me to drag me into hell even after opening my eyes.

I saw a horrible one at church camp where three kids get in a car accident. One is a christian and the other two aren't--the two that aren't are dragged away to hell screaming at the christian kid "why didn't you tell us about Jesus?!!!!!!" I could not stop crying for an hour afterwards and no one could figure out what was wrong with me. They went and got my older sister who hugged me and whispered in my ear "don't worry, that's all bullshit." Probably the truest and most helpful thing anyone could have said.

[B5SnowDog]

I like your sister's response. :-)

[Dark Matters]

I was raised in the Greek Orthodox church but my family was what I would call holiday christians, we mainly went to church on the holidays. My father worked six days a week, long hours, so Sundays he preferred to sleep late and then catch up on projects around the house or take care of my sister and me while my mother was at her job (private duty nurse).

I guess I believed in God but since we were such apathetic christians, religion never had a big impact on me. I just liked the pretty stained glass windows in our church, the rituals, candles and incense on the holidays and the musical sound of the priest's voice as he read the liturgy (it was all in Greek which I couldn't understand but I enjoyed listening to it anyway).

At one point, I went through a searching period first where I ended up in a bible study with Jehovah's Witnesses and from there went to an Assemblies of God church for awhile. After that, I became a solitary practitioner in Wicca. The problem was that even though I consider myself a bit on the gullible side, I find it impossible to believe in speaking in tongues or in calling on the goddess and her consort and felt silly trying to do those things.

I have, over the last seven or eight years, become an atheist. My education on this has come from the internet, following atheists/sceptical blogs and following links on those blogs to other resources. I am not a militant atheist, more of a live-and-let-live, so long as my rights are not infringed upon.

BTW, I still like rituals, candles and incense and some of the holidays but I am quite comfortable enjoying them as an atheist.

[JesusFightClub]

If you don't mind sharing, what was your sort of process for losing faith or leaving your religion?

Is it totally weird or unheard of to just suddenly be like "hey, I don't really believe this and I think I might have been trying to fool myself the whole time" or is that common?

No, that's how it happened to me. I came back from school one day (I would have been 17.) It was winter so it was dark outside but it was also heavily overcast and lashing it down with rain. My brother was playing on the computer. I stuck a video of Neon Genesis Evangelion in (subtitled version 8-) ) but I wasn't really watching it. I couldn't be arsed changing out of my uniform and was lolling about on the couch watching the rain. Then all of a sudden, I realised I didn't believe in God any more. Seriously, that is how it happened. That quick, and 17 years of praying and stuff, just...gone.

Looking back I can see loads of things that led up to it. Too many contradictions, absurdities and downright horrors in both how we were taught religion and in what the Bible actually said. I'd always struggled with the fact that if I prayed, sometimes I got what I wanted and sometimes I didn't. But little kids in foreign places prayed and they were still starving and had flies on them when you saw them on the regular TV appeals. They never got what they wanted, ever. I saw a very terrible God in this picture, who gave me more than I could ever eat, use, drink or do with one hand and took away from the keening, rocking mother in the African desert everything she loved, wanted and needed with the other. I'd tucked all the confusing stuff away in my head and relied on "just believing" and "things are too complex for humans to understand, but it'll all come out right in the end, one day we'll understand it all". Then someone nicked off with the comfort blanket and I lost my faith. It vanished and it has never come back.

Freeing myself from "Goddidit" and reading and understanding political ideas (as well as asking "Why?") made the relative positions of me and that mum in the desert clear. Why I am not living as she does and she is not living as I do - well, it turned out there were multiple and complex reasons. It was as though I'd known the answer to the sum but not seen the working. Now I could see the working, I could solve sums on my own. We could solve sums on our own.

[Mythicwings]

Wow, this is a really interesting thread! I haven't finished yet, and would like to add my own, but for now (supper's almost ready) I'll just post a link to something I read today.

Warning: this is probably triggering for a lot of people, although I doubt I need to say that since it is written by Nate Phelps, an estranged son of fred Phelps. You can scroll down to where he discusses his spiritual journey after he left home (the first part he describes life growing up there):

http://stoppingthehate.com/News-Article ... blicly.htm

[hagia sophia]

I was the only christian in my family. I got "saved" after riding a Sunday school bus. I was 13. I got sucked into the IFB church (independent fundy baptist - the southern baptists are liberal don't you know?) and attended all through high school and even went to bible college. I was going to be a missionary.

But through it all, even through bible college (I graduated) I had this list going of questions that I was going to ask god when I saw him. In the meanwhile I "just had to have faith." The list was getting longer and longer until it got ridiculous. It collapsed under it's own weight.

Near the end I tried to tell a close friend of all the things I was having trouble with and the things I thought about. She said, "You think too much."

By the time my student loans were paid off I didn't believe any more. I left that church, and lost all my friends from there. That made me sad, when I realized they weren't real friends. But I don't feel I've turned my back on "the truth." I feel like I found the truth. In fact, I have this picture on my desk at work:

http://images.paulspoerry.com/2007/12/automotivator6.jpg