What made you turn to/away from religion?

[EmmieJ]

My spiritual beliefs are an ever-evolving process. I was raised Catholic, but only my dad was Catholic and my mom was Presbyterian. She agreed when they got married that any children of the marriage would be raised in the Catholic Church. So I grew up with the example of my parents being of different religions (well, not really because the basics are the same) co-existing quite happily with each other and being mutually respectful. My dad felt some religious foundation was important for children, so he provided it.

So I was a faithful Catholic, bought into all the guilt over every thing you do or think, blah, blah blah. That guilt is some rotten stuff. When I went to college, I began to expand my acceptance of other religions, and search for one that felt more right to me. I never found one that was a perfect fit, but bits and pieces worked in harmony with my belief system.

Then as time passed, I grew more certain that if there was a God, that diety was surely quite distant and not really involved in our everyday lives. Because if so, how could such a god care about helping me find a good job, while letting children be horribly abused, or populations being decimated by neighboring states, or corporations plundering our environment? It simply didn't add up. At best, god was a diety that sort of created humanity on Earth as an experiment, and then moved on and left us to our own devices. Sink or swim humanity.

If there is a higher power, a holiness, then it comes from within each of us. We are the good that can be created here, as we are the evil. Not some presence hovering over us like an ever watchful cloud.

Not to mention, if there was a god presence, it would have departed long ago, overwhelmed by the constant prayers and pleas being tossed its way.

[QAF_Rocks]

Can't really answer the question properly, since I've always been an atheist. But I guess the reason that I've never changed my position is because belief in the supernatural doesn't make any sense to me. Why do people think that gods and goddesses are real? Where is the evidence for them? The answer seems to be that an old book talks about a particular deity being real, and that's why most Americans believe in it. I can't fathom how this could possibly be considered evidence by anyone, but there you have it. :?

[stum_ble]

I don't know if I ever really did believe. It was painful to write that sentence, though.

My family moved to a very conservative area when I was 12 and joined a church. I struggled with the idea of God and faith from the very beginning. I felt that most of the people i met through school and youth group were somehow disingenuous. I couldn't put my finger on why, but I just figured I wasn't a good enough Christian to feel the same way they did about God. For years I tried really really hard, but I could never find that inner peace or joy that others seemed to get from prayer and worship. I thought church was Bible study was extremely dull, and sermons were even worse. I was uncomfortable discussing my faith with other people because it seemed to be so unstable. I thought God kind of sounded like a dick, and I didn't understand why he would create the world as he did when he really wanted all the attention for himself and punished people who didn't obsess about him. In short, being a Christian made me feel awful about myself and like I was less than others, but I still tried for many years to fit into that mold without success.

I ended up at a Christian college where I met a guy who I thought understood me. He was one of the campus student chaplains and seemed very genuine. I was honest with him about my feelings about God and Christianity, and he said he wanted to help me find Christ for real. We started out with one on one Bible study which was okay at first, but it quickly evolved into a relationship where we would read the Bible and pray together, and then he'd want me to perform various sexual acts on him after. Once I was able to wrap my mind around the fact that this was fucked up, I was pretty much done trying. I clung to the basic idea of a god, but I stopped going to church and seeking out mentors and Christian friends.

I met my current boyfriend several years after that. He has been very patient with me and likes to discuss religious concepts, but he doesn't subscribe to them. He also doesn't carry around the feelings of guilt and obligation that I've struggled with for so many years. I look forward to getting to that point myself, and I believe that I will.

TL;DR Tried to be a good Christian for most of my life, met some douchebags, realized that if God wanted me to find him he would have met me halfway, now I'm working on letting go of that idea.

[Sola]

It was learning more about Christianity that made me leave. The more I learned, the inconsistencies I found and the more question I had. It didn't make sense and it was a gradual realisation, but it was one that started pretty early in life, around the age of 7 I think. By the time I was in my teens I was a confirmed atheist.

[Seven Severn]

Sitting in 4th grade Sunday school it hit me like a ton of bricks: This stuff was made up by people a long time ago who were trying to explain things they didn't understand and control people they didn't understand. I've been atheist ever since. I never said a peep to anyone and kept going (house rules dictated I had to keep going until I was 18). I sang in the youth choir and then the adult choir until my late 20s. I loved every second of it and miss choir terribly (it was an excellent, excellent choir). The idea that there's a supreme being just doesn't make any kind of sense.

[mpheels]

I grew up in a mainstream/mainline Protestant family, mostly Methodist with a healthy dose of Freewill Baptist exposure. I've never had trouble with the idea of a higher power that we call God, but sometime in my teen years I really started to question the whole son of God, raised from the dead thing. The real clincher for me was Easter service at my grandmother's church during my senior year of high school. The minister was just awful (as is typical of Methodist ministers in remote, rural communities), and the logic of his sermon was so circular and full of fallacies, the whole story just fell apart for me. I needed more proof that the stories in the Bible were 100% true, and his only answer was look at the Bible. Now I'm a happy Deist/secular Christian. I believe Jesus was a good teacher, possibly even a prophet, and the lessons attributed to him are a good standard to live by, but I draw the line at ghost sex and zombies.

[slh12280]

I kinda feel like I am in a process of change right now. So much has changed in the past few months. I was brought up conservative Baptist so I followed that way of thinking very strongly into my teens. I was also the same at the beginning of college. Once I got about half way through college I started having a lot of questions and read a lot. After a couple months of this I went back to church and realized that I had become more liberal on some things. I couldn't understand why women weren't allowed to be pastors and all the submission stuff. Then a couple of months ago I met a guy and started doing some things I said I would never do, as I was saving my first kiss for marriage. I would keep doing it but felt really guilty and would end up crying. I would always say I was gonna stop. Now, I still don't believe in premarital sex but am okay with some things that I used to strongly condemn others for. Sometimes I think about how judgmental I was and now I can't judge people because I have experienced some of the same things. Becoming less conservative has made me more understanding. Plus, I think I was heading that direction since I always wore normal clothes, listened to secular music and didn't have a problem with alcohol. Now I look at some of the more conservative people I know and can't believe how judgmental they seem to me, not that I don't like or respect them, but things are just different. Anyway, I guess it was just a combination of a lot of things. Now, I am probably more of a mainline Christian with some conservative leanings.

[Kitty]

First, I rejected Creationism at age 8. My grandmother had to move out of her house into a tiny apartment, and my mother still had some of her old things there, including a book on horses that explained evolution. It made a lot of sense, and when Last Church showed us a video on how Satan planted fossils to trick people into believing in evolution, I was all "...that's stupid." That was a few years later.

Then I rejected the notion of the Trinity. Seriously, that makes no sense at all. I may suck at math, but how can 3 wholes be 1 whole? They'd still be 1/3 of that 1 whole. Qualified monotheism FTW!

After that I became very disillusioned with evangelicalism. That's not the reason I left, I just started questioning that, and from there started questioning everything else. TL;DR Christianity as a whole stopped making any sense, so I quit.

I dabbled in neo-paganism throughout my high school years. I quit when I realized that I was only doing it for that spiritual "high" that I missed from going to church. And that I was basically being taken around in circles. I still believed in science, very strongly, and I just couldn't reconcile that with religion, at all. You'd think earth-based religions would talk about science more. Maybe it was the community I was in, but having too much of an interest in science was a no-no. I like science too much to be religious.

[luckystone]

That's a really good graphic.

I was never religious, I suppose the more I heard about it the more I realised it was illogical and harmful. When I wasn't in public school I spent some time in religious schools but they were the friendly, loving god forms, and maybe due to the place I live in and the demographics, the chaplains and a tiny minority of teachers/students were pretty much the only people in the school who believed in the religion, and a lot of them were still pretty liberal. By primary school I was already puzzled by a lot of the logical inconsistencies in religion and by high school I was pretty open about being an atheist.

It's funny how many people on this thread have mentioned enjoying religious choir whilst not being religious. I also like a lot of hymns and so much of the most gorgeous music we have (Bach, etc.) was written with religion in mind.

[Hisey]

I was raised in a Jewish family that didn't do much that was Jewish. However, I was always told that I could only date (and marry) a Jew.

When I was 15, a nonJewish boy asked me out. It was the first time I'd been asked out. I was permitted to go because it was my first date and my mother believed it would "get me started." The boy was very smart and a perfect gentleman. We had a good time. A few days after that first date, he asked me out again. This time I was not permitted to go, due to the rule I mentioned above. I was furious, but did what my mother told me--I went to explain to the boy I couldn't go out with him. With naive honesty, I told the truth--that I was not allowed to date nonJews. It was soon spread all over school. My mother was disgusted with me for being honest. Apparently (I had not gotten the memo) I was supposed to lie.

The next year, my mother cooked up a date for me with one of her friend's nephews. A nice Jewish boy who lived a couple of hours away. Everyone approved. I didn't think he was terribly exciting but I was not used to thinking that my views were important. On our first (or perhaps second) date, while we were watching a movie at a theatre, he stuck his fingers someplace that was very shocking to me! Then he tried to move my hand to an equally shocking place. We had not even kissed yet, when he did this. I was very sexually inexperienced and barely knew what he was doing.

I told my mother when I got home. I was horrified and grossed out. She was not upset. This was a nice Jewish boy, after all. I was permitted to keep dating him (which I did a few more times, unenthusiastically). Then he invited me to go with his family to their beach house. It seemed scary. . . a strange house, a strange famiily, lots of opportunity to be alone. . . my mom was fine, though, with all of it. She wasn't worried about the kid coming to find my room or anything. All because the kid was a Jew. I didn't go, and stopped seeing him shortly thereafter.

This is really one of many, many reasons I lost interest in religion, but I was thinking of this today and it made me sad.

Edited because I got my age wrong.

[holierthanyou]

As a child I was drawn to the predictability and control exhibited in the church that I didn't necessarily find at home.

As an adult I remain drawn to the church and seeking that relationship with the Divine, whilst simultaneously finding myself unable to believe in anything much of the time.

I guess I would sum it up as an "it's complicated" status.

[Austin]

I always find this to be an interesting discussion and have posted my "story" before and so won't write it all out again. However, it brings to mind a discussion my husband and I had on Saturday. We were at lunch and were talking about how grateful and happy we are for all of the good things in our lives and also being thankful that in many ways, our lives together have improved over recent years. I asked my husband what he thought the main reasons for that were and he said, "Well, for one thing, we stopped going to church", and we both laughed. But there is a lot of truth in it.

We were both evangelicals for decades, and my husband especially, was a true believer. But we feel now like we've been unchained from a huge burden. It's kind of wonderful (for us at least).

/thread highjack

[ShadowyOne]

It was learning more about Christianity that made me leave. The more I learned, the inconsistencies I found and the more question I had. It didn't make sense and it was a gradual realisation, but it was one that started pretty early in life, around the age of 7 I think. By the time I was in my teens I was a confirmed atheist.

I think that I started having more and more doubts as my rational mind grew, and I had very real questions concerning some of the logical inconsistencies in Christian faith (my biggest one was about the power of prayer - if God knows what's "best" for a person, and will do what is best for that person in the long run, then what is the point of praying to change one's circumstances? Either that (what one is praying for) is what's best, and God would have changed it anyway, or it's not, and therefore he won't, therefore it's pointless). In any case, one day as an early teen (it hadn't been very long since I had been confirmed), I basically didn't feel like getting up on Sunday morning and I dug my heels in and said I wasn't going because I didn't believe. I wasn't made to go, and my brother reported back to me that my mother had told other members that it was a phase that I'd grow out of. In a weird way, it was that last bit that cemented it for me more than anything. I felt that I had reasonable doubts that were dismissed out of hand with no respect to me as a thinking person, and, dammit, I had a right to be taken seriously. I never went to church again until I was an adult (and even then, for social reasons, never as a believer). All of that said, I think that everyone has the right to draw their own conclusions, and many of the smartest people that I know have maintained their faith. My mother works for her parish; MrShadowy is a "holidays" Catholic, and I've agreed that he can baptize our kids and bring them to church when he goes, since that's important to him, but not to me; my oldest friend in the world is an Episcopalian priest (she married me, in fact). Perhaps if someone had addressed my questions rather than dismissing them at a critical moment, I'd still be a believer myself... though I doubt it.

[tacky]

The older I got the more I questioned and the more I was told by pastors and youth group leaders not to question. I went to college and was exposed to all kinds of awesome and diverse people. My best friend all through college was Muslim and I got close to her family and learned a lot about Islam. I started questioning whether or not any one religion could be right about God and it went from there. The last straw was when the pastor of my church found out I'd campaigned and voted for Clinton in 92. He told me I was a murderer and would be held responsible by God for all of the abortions performed under a Clinton presidency. I told him to shove it and never looked back.

[sippin0nsunshine]

I don't think I've ever really believed in god and/or religion. I grew up in a very multi-religious family, so I understood that lots of people believed differently. My mother was Pentecostal and raised us as such, My dad and his sisters were Lutheran (dad is non-practicing), and My dad's brother and his family were Jewish. Around the time I was 6 or 7 I was regularly going to bible school and could memorize verses, but I never really believed it, I just did it because it made my mom happy and I liked the rewards. When I was 9 or so I started a Girl Scouts-esque program in Church called Missionettes, and the activities we did and trips we went on were the only reason I stayed in Church. After that I only went to Wednesday youth services, and eventually quit when I was 13, because I was tired of pretending. My mother especially wasn't too happy that I "abandoned" god, and she also thinks it's "distasteful" that I'm getting a Star of David tattoo on my wrist in honor of my Uncle (he was more of a father to me than my own), despite my not being religious. Overall, she's come to respect my decision on religion and doesn't discuss such things with me.

[Hane]

You have no chance to survive, make your time!!! :mrgreen:

For great justice, take off every zig! :clap: :clap: :clap:

[Glass Cowcatcher]

For great justice, take off every zig! :clap: :clap: :clap:

WHAT YOU SAY!!!!1!

Dude, Zero Wing is in the Bible.

That just hit me.

[fundyfunland]

Christian theology turned me away from Christianity. My mother was a Southern Baptist, and I went to a Catholic school for a few years in elementary school. I didn't get why there were differences between various religious denominations (ex-Catholics believe different things than SBs, which now that I'm older and know a bit more about the history, I do understand some of the differences a bit better). One of the main things that I didn't get was the trinity. How could God be a human and a spirit? If God was the most powerful being in the universe, why would He need to sacrafice someone else to forgive me? Couldn't he just forgive me? If Jesus was God, why did he pray to God? How could someone be forgiven and end up in heaven after murdering people just because he believed that Jesus died for him? Was God not just? Total assholes could go to heaven, but a good person who spent their lives helping others would get no reward?Anyway, I decided that Jesus couldn't be God. I still believed that Jesus existed, and still believed in stories and whatnot from the bible, but didn't call myself a Christian since I didn't believe in the theology.

This pretty much sums it up for me. Except, instead of Southern Baptist, add in Catholic for my mom's religion. My dad was United Church of Christ. I was baptized Catholic, went to United Sunday school til I was about 6, then back to Catholic church with my mom, and Catholic elementary school. I NEVER had a bad experience with any of the church people I met. All the priests, sisters, reverends, brothers, etc were all VERY supportive & loving. It just never made sense to me. Then I started reading about Judaism, and that pretty much explained away any of the weird questions I had about Christianity. I read John Spong's book Living the Gospels: Reading the Bible With Jewish Eyes. This book blew me away! I started the conversion process (after serious investigation), to convert to Judaism. I decided in the end not to go through with it, for multiple reasons, although Judaism still speaks the most to me.

Right now though, I'm just skeptical. I remember the day it dawned on me that heaven DOES NOT EXIST. Wow! Ever since then, I'm kind of spirit-less, and I'm not sure if I find it sad or not. It did give meaning to my life, for sure.

[muffynbear]

There were several factors that made me turn away from religion. I was never truly a religious person, yet as child & teen I was forced to attend church every Sunday and youth group on the weekends. I had to go to Bible Camp every winter and had to sing inane songs about Jesus and the Bible. Needless to say I was going through the motions. I was only a Christian on Sat/Sunday if that makes sense.

Another factor was my boyfriend that I met when I was 19. He was a Christian who desperately wanted to be Jewish. He was going through some weird religious identity crisis. He wanted me to study the Torah with him and observe certain Jewish practices (i.e. no pork, resting on the Sabbath ). However he was a complete hypocrite in other areas of his life: drinking booze, smoking pot and sex. Things started to get weird when he would tell me that I should drop out of college (even though he had a degree), and that I should always have long hair and not wear any jewelry that would "call attention" to myself. He also wanted me to get off of birth control. Now, this should have set off HUGE red flags but I was young and didn't know anything about Patriarchy or fundies. He wanted to get married ASAP. He also lectured me on what I should and shouldn't eat (no shellfish either, no salted food, abstaining from sex after so many days of a woman's period). Luckily, he dumped me because I wouldn't/couldn't conform to this. I realized many years later that he was trying to brainwash me. All of these insane lectures he used to give me about religion had the opposite affect on me. Instead of drawing me into his religious beliefs, I was actually pushed away from it. So in a way, I thank my ex because now I'm truly happy with NO religion at all.

One of the final factors that cemented my agnostic views was the fact that my Pastor for the last 10 + years was having sex with a church member who was NOT his wife. If my own Pastor can't follow the Bible and God, then why should I? He was someone I considered a role model to an extent and yet he's been cheating on his wife for years. All of the years I wasted on youth retreats and bible studies were a joke.

Finally, after watching the Duggars and other fundies made me realize that I never wanted to let organized religion control my life. Ever. I can be a good person without religion. It sounds cheesy, but thank you FJ for opening my eyes to Patriarchy and how completely evil it is. I am now an agnostic, tree hugging, liberal feminist thanks to FJ! :mrgreen:

[LIzzieB]

My father is strongly ex-Catholic and my mother was a sometimes-Anglican growing up. As a result, I was brought up without any religion. I went to an Anglican school from the age of 10, purely because it had an excellent academic record. It was the first time I'd read the bible, said a prayer or sung a hymn. I think because my parents (particularly my dad) raised me to think analytically and be wary of religion, I was able to observe from the outside.

We had compulsory Christian Education classes, but in high school, they were less about Christianity and more about comparative religion. We covered Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and cults. Our chaplain was fantastic and dealt with questioning minds calmly and rationally. The liberal environment allowed me to form my own opinions, particularly that while I was fascinated in what peo. I had a brief brush with wanting to be confirmed as a teenager, but had enough self-awareness to realise that it was the rite of passage and sense of belonging that appealed to me, not Christianity, so let the idea go. I now believe that all major religions share the same basic tenet: treat others as you would want to be treated, and strive to live like that. Integrity, after all, is doing the right thing even though noone is watching - I don't need some god looking over my shoulder to ensure that I'm living a good life.

[Effie]

When I grew up, I left both my childhood and my religion (protestantism) behind me. I developed a critical nature, which made a religious belief impossible for me. I'm not satisfied with someone else having all the answers for me. I'm not satisfied with not understanding the world. I want to know more. I want to be able to understand more. I don't find what I'm looking for in the Bible.

[Deleted08]

I'm still a Christian, but I became a fundie right after tons of stress. We thought my mother had cancer, some personal issues, etc. It was comforting at the time, but became a stranglehold as soon as I started to ask questions.

[latraviata]

I envy those of you who lost faith at an early age. When I stopped believing, I was middle aged and still have a problem not talking to myself(praying) LOL

My youngest daughter never believed. That amazes me because we took her to church when she was young. However, she never had any deep connections with faith the way I did. I think some people are born with analytical minds and others, like myself, have to overcome black and white thinking.

I never believed, despite of being raised catholic, went to catholic schools.

Not a religious bone in my body, I was born like that.

[JesusFightClub]

I was brought up attending Chapel every day. A school thing. I just believed because you did.

When I was 17 I became a Marxist and lost my belief. I spent a long time working out if I lost belief for valid reasons or not. It came out "valid".

[NjoyingNsanity]

Okay so I'm the crazy weirdo here ,but grew up just about every flavor of Protestant Christianity from Methodist to Southern Baptist to Penticostal. I always had doubts and questions and problems accepting limits and the very clear gender bias in the Bible, grew up experimented around with Christianity and different types of Paganism and Wicca before settling on Pagan with Loki as my patron diety.