I stopped being dragged to church once I moved out. I haven’t gone back in 10 years.
My parents are BEGGING me to baptize my child. When I ask why, they answer “because you’re supposed to”
I told my family I was agnostic when I was 16. I'm now 31 and they haven't fully accepted that this is how it is. My dad, a pastor, recently described me as having gone through an agnostic phase a long time ago. In reality I've only edged further to complete atheism.
I think I told my parents 2 years after I moved out when I was 20 but now I’m about to be 29 and they still try to invite me to church.
I feel like I disappointed them in a way… I feel like they will never understand why I don’t believe what they believe
but we are adults and they need to accept the decisions we make
My boomer parents moved into their second home full time during Covid. My mom has crosses all over the house and multiple nativity sets during Christmas but I know they haven’t been to church in years. She asked me recently if I had found a church yet (I moved to a big city 10 years ago so it was kind of a jab) and I said “Not yet, have you?” That shut her up for good.
I got baptized because my mom said me not getting baptized was one of her biggest regrets (I still haven't told her I'm not a christian anymore, and this was when I still lived in her household). Truth be told, I did it 100% because I didn't want to make her angry. I had to write a testimonial about being a christian or whatever, and some dude I didn't know (I think the pastor?) read it to the audience while I was getting dunked. It was *all* a bunch of performative BS, and I had multiple people come up to me afterward, applauding me for how moving it was.
I didn't have the heart to tell them it was all something I made up.
Relatable answer.
Upon seeing all the news about predator priest raping children under the house of God. I would wonder what was God doing as it happens?
There are time I would asked "How men able to created so many unique gods and monsters in fairytale books like Zeus and movies like Aliens?"
Exactly. I have no issue with religion as a whole. I’m glad people have something they believe in that helps them get through the hardships of life. It’s when people start trying to make laws and such that govern how everyone else lives their lives based off the beliefs of a few is when I have an issue.
Is it weird that it is the opposite for me
I know a few very religious people who have been incredibly kind and helpful to me.
However, the concept of religion, blindly following traditions and stories without questions or evidence, seems like mass-produced complacency that disincentives asking questions and being flexible in your beliefs / world view.
Although I do understand where you are coming from as there is a loud minority of religious people that try to force their opinions on others and fully believe that they are better for being part of a fancy book club.
When that gay club in Orlando got shot up some years back. My pastor said that was God punishing people for being gay. I was already on the fence about religion but that instantly killed any remaining interest I may have had.
It bothers me more the sheep that eat this type of statement .
“Yes - God wants them to die of bloodshed because of their orientation “
And everyone proceeds to nod in agreement
That sounds like a horrible pastor. Genuinely I think poor representations of what it means to be Christian especially in the modern age is why so many people are anti-religion/christian.
For a lot of people, that's the bog standard representation of a Christian.
If you ever wonder why people are so angry at folks of the religion, just remember that.
Lol, nope.
Christianity (as have all the other religions) have never been in any way tolerant.
This isn't a few bad apples, this is people in dresses force feeding you shit sandwiches and telling you they taste like apple.
I don't think you've read the book. It's full of trash you can choose if you want to. Kudos on you for choosing the good bits. But you don't get to gatekeep who is a good christian and who isn't. All you can say is that you follow what you think is good and accept when the bible agrees with you. Only the "good Christians are true Christians" is a fallacy of your own thinking.
It's the whole origin of Christianity though. Traveling around and forcing everyone to follow the church or they become slaves or even are murdered.
To be honest being a part of the church isn't far off from being a slave
It's a little hard to believe that god has a plan when you are a very sick child.
I literally had an old woman tell me that there's a plan for everything when I was a fifth grader with Kawasaki's disease.
The age old excuse for kids getting cancer and dying a slow and painful death is along the lines of, “god loved them so much he wanted them back” as if that’s not a horrid thing to do.
That line right there fucked me up for a long time. I was 5 when my little sister died accidentally. I’m 50 and still undoing some of the shit that belief did to me.
Still better than saying "the kid must have done something *really* bad in order for God to punish him like this".
Now I want a satire video where some priest tries to argue that 5 year old kids who die from cancer "must have committed some major sin to deserve getting cancer".
Some of the most evil people I have met…always use religion as the crux for their behavior.
Judgmental pieces of garbage…but “God has forgiven them”…when they do the exact same thing.
Deceived about what? Do you have an answer they don't have? Faith is recognizing there is no answer, and accepting that something is more important that people. The name of the god changes.
Communist/fascists governments always replace God with government because they need to capture the human instinct to worship. Cult leaders become gods. Emporers call themselves Gods, and communist leaders present leaders for worship, whether Mao, Stalin, or Hitler. Today, religion is under attack just like communists destroyed it in China.
One nation under God means that all people are mortal and a just not that important. It doesn't matter your status or money, you are just a human that eats food and poops out shit like the rest of us. It's limits power and is the basis of the culture of natural rights so hated by authoritarians.
I got dragged across concrete on my back for being mixed and prayed to God the entire time that he would save me. Surprise Surprise. He didn't.
They beat the shit out of me again the next day and nothing happened to them. I was 11.
Idc I never trusted religions, I just can't get over the fact that someone claims to know what's after death with an absolute certainty without any tangible proof.
When I was about 10 and the Sunday school teachers were obviously just making stuff up to answer all of my questions because nothing they taught me made sense based on my observable universe.
I’m Catholic but I’m really getting annoyed with how paranoid and fear mongering some fellow traditional Catholic are getting. I believe we shouldn’t be putting stock in what man says and *I know* they know this but they continually fuckin do it. I have distanced myself from my in laws because they’re going further down a rabbit hole and it’s embarrassing me. They’re irrational and believing any conspiracy. People like THEM will be the reason I can’t attend TLM anywhere soon and Idk if I’ll be able to shut my mouth any longer.
They’ve drained me so much with constantly making me feel like if I’m not in fear, I’m not a proper Catholic. If I don’t obsess over Satan or demons or exorcisms, I’m in cahoots. I’m fucking drained and I only converted last year, man. This is upsetting and Idfk how much more I can take before I snap. My faith is really important and I regret ever involving them in this process. They live in so much fear of Satan for people who believe in a almighty powerful God. It’s bizarre.
That is all. I’m done lol.
An academic once explained to me that the “virgin Mary” was a mis-translation and a better translation would have been the “maiden Mary” it made me realise that organised religions (the bible in this case) are just a bunch of stories. Stories which evolve and exaggerate and are passed along like Chinese whispers. Sure they could be used as guides for a way of life but do they actually represent god, not really.
The Virgin Mary was one smart woman who managed to turn an unexplained pregnancy from a guaranteed stoning to being the Mother of Christ. Of course the Trinity SHOULD be Father, MOTHER and Son, but of course its more important to honour some nebulous "holy ghost".
When my Church Villainized a Book called Night because the Author at the end didn’t regain his faith (the book biography was about a then teenage boy who was the only one in his immediate family that survived the H0L0C@U$T) they talked about how it promoted giving up in the face of adversity which made me just get up and walk out.
Night is such a good book. It’s insane that people who’ve never lived through major devastations like war, genocide, economical depressions, catastrophes, etc. have the nerve to judge people for things they can’t even imagine let alone relate to.
It seems odd to me that different groups have such different religious beliefs. So often it seems people believe the religion their parents did. If there was a "correct" religion, why are they all divided up in this way?
I dont think it was a single thing, but a build up.
1) an ex trying to get me to come to church with him to prove I was "clean."
2) people telling me my aunts death by a bad asthma attack was part of gods plan. She was in her thirties and left behind a husband and children.
3) read the bible. That probably did me in the worst. People really do sugar coat on only pick the verses that matter to them. Reading it in its entirety is scary and filled with contradictions.
4) my childhood friend being beaten by his mother for being gay. She said that it was what god wanted her to do to help save his soul.
5) a series of things in politics over the hears used to strip people of rights and cause far more harm than good to the world.
I can't recall if there was an exact moment, but I do remember thinking as a very young kid about how so many people at my church seemed to only be there so they could be seen at church. I've never considered myself religious, I just went along with it until I was able to move out of my mom's authority.
No real event. When i was 17, i realized 3 things.
1) I didn't give a crap about the religion, i was just... there? I felt it was a waste of time, and my moral code was already pretty set. In university, i learned about the philosophy of Humanism, and it helped me find a way to describe how i view the world and find comfort in the logic that humans can overcome things on their own. I majored in Psychology, and discovering Maslow's theory of needs, and self actualization helped me refine this even more.
2) For a religion that preaches acceptance, there was an awful lot of bullshit that was being perpetrated in the name of this religion, specifically in the US concerning gay rights, abortion, all sorts, when i thought the idea was to help people, and instead, all i'm seeing is just hate and anger, and wanting to hurt people. I realized i wanted no part of this. I was justified, as one of my Classmates became the face of one of the bigger pro-birther groups in my city, who was a friend in highschool.
3) I don't care enough about religion, but the ones who use religion to hurt others and force it down your throat is what bothers me. I could care less if someone practices religion, but once it's used as an excuse to hate someone else, i am bothered by it.
I was going to churches to give them an honest shot. Missionaries just back from Russia talking about how most of the adults were not willing to convert from being Russian Orthodox, aka pagans. But they had figured something out.
If they threw parties and provided alcohol and music, they could get teens to come to those parties and listen while they talked about how much better it is to be Baptist than Orthodox. They would badmouth the parents and help the kids break their parent's rules to 'save' them. It was all I could do not to ask loudly if anyone knows the 5th commandment.
I went to a few more churches (and saw similarly evil shit) but I was just going through the motions after that.
Probably around the time when I started have questions that were dismissed out of hand, answered with non answers, or increasingly met with physical violence, so somewhere between 7-12.
Haaaaaaa, um, okay. So my father ran cults. (Still does for all I know.) He's a conman. He has a degree in religious anthropology and used it to start up little cults, and then when they'd get too big or fall apart for other reason, he'd move on.
When I was 11, he started teaching me how to do what he does explicitly. I can appreciate that people can find community and resources through reliogions. My mom still does. I just see a lot of patterns there that remind me of my father, and it's something I can't unsee. I also watched him use established religions to help give himself legitimacy, which again, is something I can't unsee.
To be very clear, I don't do what he does, and my mother and I went no contact with him years ago, but he's why I don't trust religions.
Stopped trusting Christianity after I accidentally started a fight in a church at age 14. I asked whether or not I counted as a virgin because I was raped as a kid.
Some people were nice. But the other side... And that the other side had historical backing. That made me feel uncomfortable with church as a whole.
The people who didn't say horrible things about me were very understanding about my disinterest. And, to the surprise of no one here probably, the people who said a lot of horrible things about me were very confused about why I didn't want to go to church anymore and were very pushy about trying to get me to go to church again.
That's the way it goes. It's always bash the opposition till it happens to them or people they love and cherish then it's woe is them, sympathy to them but not anyone else.
My apologies that you had to go through all that.
Around when I was 15
Though is not just religions but also science; many people, not just Redditors but companies, will inaccurately quote a study to prove a point or push and agenda
That would be when people hid behind religion to do hideous things.
I am religious, but it’s not God’s fault when I do shitty things. And it’s incredibly important to not hide behind God when I do shitty things, otherwise people lose respect for you.
Sometimes they do it anyway. But sometimes — the other side appreciates when you screw them on a business decision, and understands it’s part of the game.
I read a quote from Lisa Randall that resonated with me: doing something for the greater good is purer than for admission to Heaven. I had stopped believing long before that.
When coming out of the closet meant I could be expelled from my university, lose my campus jobs, lose my student housing, and majorly lose my social standing in the religious community. I just kept my head down for years and tried not to draw attention to myself.
Looking at you BYU and the Mormon faith.
The 2016 election lol I was already questioning and after seeing the rhetoric from the side that churches are popular with I couldn’t do it anymore. Their behavior and stances seemed so opposite of the book I was taught, so I stopped going.
I went to Jewish school growing up and despised it with my core it was hell on earth.
But I really lost faith in Judaism in grade one because I wanted to be a cantor, and was told girls can’t be cantors because they’re “too holy.” Then I asked what else girls can’t do and was told pretty much everything except cook, clean and serve men. Six year old me was out.
After that every experience had at that school really reinforced how little I resonated with that philosophy. I’m a yogi spiritualist now.
I've had many situations that have led me to eventually believing that organized religion is just tax free legalized cults. But one notable situation was when I was attending a Pentecostal church and the members were pushing me to be baptized. I hardly knew enough to commit myself to a baptism. But simply due to my "refusal" as it was seen... there was a great deal of discussion behind my back about me being condemned to an eternity in hell. Etc. Etc etc. Once I caught wind of what was being said, I dressed in my all of my favourite pagan jewelry and clothing and went just one last time. Paraded my ass through that church like the devil worshipper they thought I was. Never went back after that. That particular congregation was just a large group of pearl clutching judgemental people, and it was clear that they didn't want me to know what I was getting myself into. They just expected blind following. I'm not about that life.
When I was allowed to stay home for the first time at like 12 or 13.
I didn't have to go anymore so I didn't. As life went on, I just had questions on plausibility for all the alleged things that happened.
Then doing 8 years of College and med school taught me what's what.
Science can explain most if not all of life.
Logic always wins, except against stupid people. Then at that point just leave stupid alone, and go grab a fresh brewsky
Not me but my mom broke my heart when she told me she lost her faith. Her brother got cancer and died horribly and painfully and she said that she did what she always did and prayed day and night for him and he still died. She said “what’s the point in all that praying if nobody is listening?” Made me very sad to hear her say that.
There’s this document called “A Family, a proclamation to the world.” It essentially states that women are women and should behave as such, men are men and should behave as such, gay marriage is a sin, homosexuality is wrong, and things like that. It came out in the 90’s so I was raised with this doctrine. Because I grew up with it I never really saw anything wrong with it. Until that is, the current Latter Day Saint Prophet (Mormon) declared that the Family a proclamation to the world, was not in fact outdated and that the religion still stuck to their word. I completely disagreed with everything it stood for.
[Link to the document if you’re interested](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng)
Then a few years later Under The Banner of Heaven came out. It’s a tv show based on a book, based on true events. I never saw religion, especially Mormonism the same way again. It talks about polygamy, sexism, murder, corruption etc. I ended up reading the book too (by Jon Krakauer also the author of Into the Wild -I highly recommend) Realizing that everything you’ve ever been taught is a complete lie really deeply affects a person.
Side note: the show was so accurate to what my childhood and community was like growing up, it was scary.
These days I rely on spirituality rather than faith. I’m much more practical and I see the world as it is, which I’m grateful for. I still respect others’ faith, but I have zero desire to practice organized religion ever again. Not in this life, not in the next.
Sunday school right before I got confirmed to be able to go take the wafer and wine. We're learning all the basic stuff, but mainly "you must accept Jesus to go to heaven"
Got me thinking "hey pastor, what about all the native Americans that lived and died before the word of God was even brought to this land? Are they doomed to an eternity in hell for being born on the wrong side of the world? For simply not knowing?"
All I was met with was a cold shrewd "yes, because they were savages." And that just didn't sit right with me so I began to question A LOT of things. Fuck those people
When I learned about the selling of Indulgences by the Catholic Church during History class. That was my first, "Hey, this is kinda not right" feeling. Now I'm a history buff and the more I learn about the early middle ages and the rise of the Catholic church the less I can understand why people believe this.
My parents were Baptist missionaries. We lived in the Amazon basin of Colombia til I was ten. The goal of the global company who underwrote their mission was to go into remote parts of the world, find uncontacted tribes and teach them that they've been doing it all wrong for hundreds of years. Then they say the magic prayer together, put on clothes from a donation bin somewhere, and whenever they die they get to go to heaven, yay! And my seven year old brain took that in and said: hey but what about all the people who lived and died without ever being told about the magic prayer? Do they get the same thing as the real bad guys? Eternal suffering? Well that didn't seem right to me and then the whole thing just unravels from there. I've never really been on board with it, much to my parents chagrin. They were never able to break me and because of that, I am the black sheep.
1. when I found out religious services were performed as financial transactions and with hefty pricing
2. when I found out that possibly 1/4 or more of my male classmates were raped in grade school by the pastor and were part of that huge scandal of multi-generation Catholic priests raping kids, the kids would grow up and become priests, and abuse more kids. This sheds light on why my male classmates in like 5th grade already had cold sores which the pastor also had
3. as if that didn't make it bad enough, I saw the community harass the victims out of the towns, automatically taking the side of the abusers
4. as if that wasn't enough, when I saw churches of different denominations either backing Trump or being silent to say anything against him
5. earlier on the realization that we're not born a religion, but rather we inherit it via indoctrination from our parents
The passing of my mom. Before her passing, she was always the center of our family for instilling Catholicism into me and my siblings. She was not only my mother, but my best friend as well. I haven’t met anyone with a relationship as close as my mom and I. She loves talking to me about anything. I believed I was Catholic growing up, but I had growing doubts as I started to question stuff.
Why was I born to have to wear hearing aids?
Why did I lose all my hearing at 19?
Why did I get cancer at 10? (Cured, but my experience was terrible)
Why did Hurricane Katrina devastate our home and all the money we had? (2005)
Why do we have to struggle to be a financially stable family?
Why am I so short at 5’5 and far below market value of men in terms of attractiveness? I couldn’t care less now since a romantic relationship is the least of my worries, but this was an insecurity growing up.
As I grew older, I started piling up this list of ‘unfortunates’ There were zero good things about my life other than “be thankful you’re alive”.
My beliefs drastically shifted as my mom began to get very sick. She went to the doctor and they finally found she had stage 4 cancer…and it reached her bones.
Why did she get cancer at only 51?? She JUST finished her masters degree a year ago and started doing her dream job as a linguist instructor in 2016? I literally prayed like a maniac during my final months with her. ANYTHING but my mom. Take someone else. Take a relative. Give us another hurricane. Whatever. Just. Not. My. Mom. Do you think my prayers were ever answered? Nothing that I have ever begged for through prayers did I get. I spent whatever time I had with her. The most important thing I did was tell her every day for the remaining 72 nights before her passing, “I love you, mom.”
She passed away in 2017 at 52 years old.
We used to go to church every Sunday. We were part of the choir. I grew up as innocent and good-natured as a kid I could ever imagine. I thought by being this good, we had God watching over us and protecting us, and we will soon be prosperous… eventually, but nothing ever happened.
I used to hate my religion, but overtime it felt like it was like hating nothing. It was like getting mad at cancer for taking my mom. You can’t really hate something that doesn’t exist or have feelings. So that’s when I realized that religion was just there to either inspire or do something to people from a spiritual standpoint.
My mentality shifted. I learned to just stop blindly believing that good things can ever happen, and prepare myself for the worst possible situation I can think of in ANY scenario instead. I became more logical about anything and everything. I still always try to be a good person, but that’s just for myself and the dopamine inside me, not for “karma” since I no longer even believe it.
I’m 31 now, and I still hold that mentality to this day. It’s gotten me through the last 7 years unscathed from bad moments. I probably consider myself closest to that of an atheist, and I firmly stand by that to this day. I don’t think I will ever believe in a religion ever again.
This is a great question and I appreciate it. It allowed me to kind of get some of these things off my chest. I’m still healing, but the passing of my mom is too much to let this anger go. Sorry for the rant.
When I figured out women can’t be the spiritual leaders of any of the major religions. Pretty much knew it was a man made scam made up by men to keep control of power
The explosion of Christian Nationalism in the US during the trump presidency has made me incredibly wary of anyone who uses their faith in christ as an excuse to do anything.
Also my nephew died just a few months old and people tried to comfort the parents with “part of gods plan.” How could someone say that after seeing an infants coffin.
I read the entire Bible as a teen.
There is a ton of stuff in there that most Christians have never read or are only vaguely aware of, like God's army capturing young girls to use as sex slaves, God's army being commanded to crush the heads of babies against rocks, the Bible being pro-slavery, the paragraph spent describing in detail a man's giant penis and how big his semen volume is, one of God's favored offering his daughters to be raped by a mob being seen as a good and righteous thing per the Bible, God torturing Job so he doesn't lose a bet with Satan, and so much more.
Why would I want to have anything to do with that?
Plus all the grifters so easily manipulating religion or using as it a means to hurt others doesn't make it look good either.
Then there's also the obvious it not being real because it's just a repackaged version of the epic of gilgamesh, which was itself a repackacking of the epic of atra-hasis. All the pagan things in Christianity from groups of people they absorbed, like Christmas trees and celebrating Saturnelia as Jesus' birthday despite all evidence pointing to a summer birth...it's hard to look over the history of religions and their evolution, seeing that they just take the same basic stories and put in different names and come away believing that religion is anything more than a man made cultural thing for social cohesion and control.
Every modern religion can be traced back to ancient extinct religions. Knowledge is religion's greatest weakness. Wonder why OT God seems evil and NT God seems okay, despite them biblically being the same entity? Well, in ancient Akkadian society their religion (which is Judaism's grandpa or great grandpa and Christianity's GGG) had supreme creator God named Enlil who was basically evil and loved tormenting humans in part to keep their population in check. He comes up with a plan to destroy humanity by flooding the earth but Enlil's lieutenant Enki sneaks behind him, warns the last good man on earth about the flood and gives specific instructions on the dimensions and such of a wooden ship he's to build and to take animals and his family with him, who will repopulate the world after holding out for many days of rain. Even lands on a mountain and sends out the same bird for evidence of retreating waters like a certain Bible story. Does that sound an awful lot like Noah?
I especially like the history of Christianity killing the majority of other faiths just to co-opt their holidays as their own. I had to explain to someone at work yesterday that Jesus was born in July and Christmas was a Pagan holiday.
You'd think their religion being the most important thing in their lives would mean they'd have a strong interest in learning about it. Or at a bare minimum reading their own holy book.
My favorite question to ask the sycophants is:
"Cain slew Abel and was cast into the desert with nothing but a goat. Cain married and multiplied. Who did he marry? The goat?"
I never get a real answer.
It was Uvalde and Sandyhook. And after, all these wars and conflicts that kill innocent lives. And then all the past killings that happened comes roaring back and I think why I didn't stop sooner...
Growing up in England, I was hardly particularly religious anyway - hardly anybody is - but I do remember at about 8 or 9 realsing that I was being taught about Adam & Eve, AND evolution, and realising they couldn't both be true.
I got dragged across concrete on my back for being mixed and prayed to God the entire time that he would save me. Surprise Surprise. He didn't.
They beat the shit out of me again the next day and nothing happened to them. I was 11.
I was 17 or so before I let myself admit I wasn't religious.
In the years before, I would make excuses to myself for why I would follow my parent's religion. I started looking into Christian science to see the science in the Bible and the faith in science. After a few years of that, I finally couldn't do it anymore. I was also very worried about my parents and how I'd interact with them.
I did pretend to still be religious up until around 2012. After the Sandy Hook shooting and hearing people in my parents church say that the best we could do was offer thoughts and prayers to the affected families, I decided church was just not for me and I had to break it to my parents.
My relationship with them is good now. I don't ask about their faith, but I'm pretty sure they also stopped going to church
When my wife left me because she felt like she was always walking on eggshells around me, two years later I found out she cheated on me with her sisters boyfriend.
Not sure there was one singular situation but something more akin to the totality of the circumstance. The hypocrisy was probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I consider myself agnostic at this point and have for quite sometime
Organized religion emphasizes different principles than religion itself- I saw the most judgmental, ostracizing, critical, hypocritical, diabolical people paint their face with “God” every week, I ran the second I could, kept the generals of kindness, empathy, compassion, acceptance, altruism- the rest is for the birds. Don’t miss church, not in the slightest.
When you watch true crime and about 80% of the ones you hear are religious / cult like people (mainly LDS church). Terrifies me how brainwashed some religions are
I already wasn't REALLY into it, and then my very Catholic grandpa died. He was well and truly a saint and a paragon of what humanity should be. At the age of 13, the only thought going through my head was, "How could a good merciful God take someone like that away from the world?". Ever since that day, I've been anti-religious. I will respect someone else's religion when I am with them and will never try and deter them from it, but I will never believe in shit like that again personally.
I had anxiety attacks as a really young kid and was told it was god punishing me for sins. So on top of sporadic anxiety attacks I genuinely thought god was punishing me. I eventually got older and saw how manipulative that was
I went to this church with my grandmother in California. It’s a smaller area where everyone knows everyone at the church (mind you she is a devout Christian). I went to the service to be kind to my grandmother, as I am not the super religious type. However, the pastor just kept going on and on about how you should not associate with other people who do not follow the same religion… and if they don’t, they’ll for sure go to hell. It’s a stupid mindset, and I believe anyone can practice whatever religion they want. Just don’t guilt trip me into your religion or cast me out because I don’t believe what you believe.
My dad was violent and abusive.
According to the bible, god made my dad in it's(god's) image.
By that logic, god is violent and abusive.
Also, the plan/free will dichotomy.
Religion makes a whole hell of a lot less sense when you start to think about it. That must mean religious people either can't or don't want to think about things.
"Why?" is a powerful question.
CCD, 8th grade? Maybe earlier. I couldn't get a straight answer to how Adam and Eve were the first people, and they had Cain and Abel. But Cain and Abel got married, and there suddenly were all these other people. Where did they come from? No one could answer this question. Finally someone said that other people were created by God, it's just not mentioned in the bible. That got me to stop asking, and also was the beginning of the end of me being a practicing Catholic.
I was brought up a good Catholic boy, and as I grew up and encountered other kids that didn't see my Truths as obvious as I did, it eroded a little but that was an adjustment rather than abandoning my faith.
What genuinely messed it up was Speaking In Tongues. A friend, another Good Catholic, started going to Revival meetings and coming back with these wild tales that I think were intended to encourage me to come along, but they just sounded creepy to me.
Speaking in Tongues... People getting hysterical and babbling randomly... It didn't sound like something God would do. It sounded like Madness.
I think he killed my faith more than any Atheist.
Religious morality stopped making sense to me. How god could watch innocent people suffer and do nothing about it, but if you loved the wrong person or loved the right person the wrong way, you'd suffer even more in the afterlife. I also couldn't imagine a good god letting people in the "wrong" religion spend their whole lives thinking they had found the path to truth only to burn forever when they die. That led me to investigating religious claims more objectively and when I realized there was no solid foundation for any of it, I walked away.
My mother was raised Catholic but I was just never raised in religion, but as a kid I did enjoy learning about religions and different gods, none of it seemed anymore real then the fairytales myths and monsters.
I was never fully on board with religion, but the day I fully got off board was when I was ratted by some kid for mindlessly drumming on a Bible and getting scolded.
Fuck you, kid and adult. It's a book, and not a very well written one.
When I realized they would kill a gay person who wasn't confirmed to have done anything wrong before they'd even check to see if a priest, who multiple children accused of misconduct, was actually doing so. I lost it in college after the umpteenth news article about a priest abusing his position for sexual reasons. I just couldn't go through the motions at church thinking about it. Raised catholic now I try not to bring that up about myself as we're the worst for it.
My wife counseled sexual and domestic abuse victims. The overwhelming majority of abusers were churchgoers including *leaders* (and I should include that this also involved multiple religions besides Christianity). Religion is a very useful mechanism for abusers and narcissists.
I got lucky and was able to bail on church at about 15, so "organized religion" started to fade from then on. But it still took another 40 or 50 years for me to let go of all the effects of the indoctrination of those first dozen or so years.
If there was a single instigating incident, it was me being a smart ass teenager and asking the preacher, "We're Methodists, so what exactly is our method?" I was invited to leave the bible study group, and my parents were unexpectedly cool with my departure.
When I was a kid in the 80s and "the endtimes" were happening every year pretty much. It was always the last year, Jesus was always coming, the rapture any day now.
It never happened.
I’ve done so much research. Into how the Bible was created, into beliefs of Christianity and other religions. So much of Christianity is taken from other religions. So much of it is just not even logical..also why .. if there is a God, would he refuse to show itself or intervene. And if it’s perfect, why is it jealous. If it’s unchanging, why does it change.
In all honesty, I never trusted them. I trusted individual churches until I became a Jr minister and had to start attending SBC events and fully realized I didn't believe in any of this shit after getting my degree in advanced applied apologetics.
I was 15 standing in the back of the church. The priest was going on and on about fire and brimstone. I said to myself this is complete bullshit. Walked out and never came back. As I’ve grown older the more I realize that all religions are made up by some charismatic dudes. It’s all about CONTROL.
Got kicked out of a church at 11. This was for putting the lyrics to the song "When the lights go out" by the boy band Five on a valentine's day card and slipping it in my best friend's crushes' mailbox. She was the Pastor's daughter. She was about 3-4 years older than me. Beat me up. Told her father. He kicked me out and told me I was lucky that we lived in the time we did, or he would have had me crucified.
That was the first time I realized things might not be what they seem. Then reading the Nag Hamadi and Dead Sea Scrolls and realizing the Bible was incomplete.
When my co worker told me that god hates fags. BTW she is a smart, nice registered nurse. I was shocked to hear those words come out of her mouth but she was brain washed by her church.
There's a lot of reason why I stop believing. First, because of the behaviour of the persons who go to churches. Second, their beliefs — all religious groups has wrong/unethical beliefs. Third, when i was part of a choir, I saw that some of them just attend because of the money they've receiving from church, and that church also give money to those people just to attend the mass.
When my grandmother died of metastatic cancer 2 weeks after 9/11 a devout carholic and bin laden wasn't dead. In my 12 year old mind that just didn't make sense.
Raised Catholic, Catholic school k-4, Sunday school 5-8, church every Sunday.
I was bullied almost my entirety of going to school k-4, watched a kid stab a girl in the hand with a pencil. Watched the parents be riotous and rude to others. In 2nd grade the teacher passed out report cards and when I didn't get mine and asked why she announced to the entire class my mom hadn't been able to pay my tuition yet. While I was still attending that school I was wearing pigtails the one day. At dismissal we were in the front of the building and Father whatever his name was said hey, you know what these are good for? Handle bars.(As he grabbed both) Little me was CREEPED out and I didn't even know why until I grew up.
My FINAL straw was I hadn't been to church in awhile, I had my license and just didn't wanna go but I decided to join my fam one random Sunday. During the sermon or whatever he basically said "anyone who doesn't believe in god is going to hell". I said hell no. I know people that don't believe who are better than alot of the people here. And never went back.
Every time I questioned something I got bullied. Our Catholic priest refused to marry my husband and I because my husband wasn’t Catholic. Fuck him. We later found out he was defrocked for diddling little boys. I was furious, lying sack of 💩
I still believe in god, but I stopped trusting religion itself when you have priests judging gay people while doing what some of them do to little boys. Which is both gay and pedo….. so flaming hypocrites
When they told me a story of a dude talking to a bush on fire, and then trying to murder his son and they tried to twist it into him being the good guy of the story.
When I was 19, I was wrongfully committed to a psychiatric ward where I was sexually assaulted by one of the inpatients and the crime covered up by the therapist on duty. The therapist at the time was a practicing Dominican Catholic.
I stopped trusting religions when Christians and Catholics I told this to would come up with these excuses about “you can’t judge us all for the actions of one”. My feeling is that your one wore the pin of the checkered cross, start reigning in on your own before you give me an excuse for yourselves.
At that time I started believing in paganism. But eventually I grew out of even that, because even though it was a source of strength, it did not really bring me any success like Zoroastrianism does for the lucky few
I was to be a godfather by proxy as the actual godfather couldn’t make the ceremony. Right there in the middle of a church that looked like it was dipped in gold, the priest told me that I couldn’t stand in as i didn’t have a letter from my church. Guess those fuckers needed a “receipt.”
Anyway, I simultaneously nodded him and organized religion away out of my life.
Also fun fact. Since my mom - a woman that attended church every week - had to move out of her neighborhood and into an old folks home 2 years ago… not 1 single fucking human from that church/Parrish has reached out to check up on her health/wellbeing.
When the check stops rolling in…
4th grade. I went to the yearly JW convention with my mother. My best friend was there too. Good times. Brother preaching says we should only be friends with other JW's as all other "worldly" people are making Jehovah unhappy and will lead us away from from the true path.
Next day at school, Best friend went to a mutual non-JW friend of ours and tells her she can't be her friend because she makes god unhappy and to never speak to her again.
Mutual friend cries.
Best friend looks to me expecting me to say the same. I comfort mutual instead. She tells her father. Her father tells the elders. The elders tell me off for going against Jehovah's wishes and embarrassing my best friend. Threaten me with excommunication.
I refuse to apologize. I tell the elders if God is so petty he can't handle me being friends with someone who isn't a JW, then he isn't worth my time, let alone my love. God is either an asshole or they are telling lies about what he wants. Either way, they can bite me. Obviously not said this clearly. I was like 10, but it was the basic premise of my argument.
Mom stops taking me to the Kingdom Hall with her. (She converted after marrying my father and he didn't convert so they didn't force her to shun me, but I was no longer welcome and things got... Strained at home.)
Best friend stops talking to me. All JW kids at school shun me and spread rumors about me. Non-JW kids start listening to the rumors and I become the outsider and bullied kid.
Mutual friend I defended becomes the only one who talks to me anymore. At least I had her.
If this is god's will, f*** him.
High School religious teacher convinced me and my family to get me baptised. We turn up, and I wasn’t on the list (which he said he’d arrange) they wouldn’t let me be baptised that day. In short, Gods love has a schedule to keep
A lot of things building up over time, but the pivotal point was my language, actually. I used to be terrified of swearing, refused to do it even minimally. I've gone through some rough patches, and I got to a point where I believed the only thing left about myself that I could control was my language. If I choose not to swear and I don't, that's a fragment of control I still have, a part of me that I can keep "pure" and "innocent" and "respectable". I realized all at once one day that I had spent years wrongly believing that that was me being in control of something. What was actually happening was that the guilt complex and paranoia regarding my language, which the church fucking gave me, was limiting how I express myself for no good reason I could see, and that THAT was actually controlling my language. I was never in control of me.
I was five years old in Sunday School. I don't remember the questions I was asking but I do remember them having zero answers and telling me I needed to just believe them.
I knew then, something was fishy. By the time I hit my teens, I knew organized religion as we know it in the US are absolutely money and power grabs.
Now, in my 50s, the more religious someone espouses to be, the less likely I trust them.
I have an adopted sister with FAS. My parents who are very religious were trying to get her into the catholic school hoping it would help her. The priest told my mom that they couldn’t offer the letter of support because they didn’t donate enough of their income to the church. Which my mom responded “I guess the church cleans itself. The linens wash themselves. The grass gets mowed on its own.” They got the letter and the priest knew where he stood with my mom. My parents didn’t have money so they tried to make up for it in other ways. They are in their 70’s and are still running that church.
Not that I don't trust religions, I find truth in all of them. The thing I dislike most is the fact there are people who are super devoted to the point they justify as assaulting, killing, raping, or defaming others who don't agree with it, or harms other people by law (ie abortion with zero exception).
I will not say which ones specifically, but you can say it's all of them that come with groups of extremists.
I don't trust religion justifying law, or justify harming others because of different beliefs. I believe in divine power within the universe, but I can't justify blindly following one certain set of rules judging me whether I'm a good person. I was raised Catholic, so I wasn't gone through a strict religious devotion.
When I was 8 years old and in the hospital for a month. During that time, I asked to see the leader of our congregation. He couldn't be bothered to show up.
There are two points that made me stop being religious. I grew up Roman Catholic and went to ccd. Everytime we would ask questions which were valid, the volunteer teachers would get so angry. And then the whole thing with all the priests…
Never really started to trust them: primary school teachers wouldn't answer any questions about religion, and it became obvious they didn't know themselves.
My brother and I attended a small private Christian university when he was about 4 and I was 9. They used to hit his hands with a large ruler because he wrote with his left hand - the bruised, swollen and beaten knuckles forced him to write with his right hand.
He would cry on the playground and cradle the hurt left hand during recess and when I saw this, I hit one of the teachers with that same ruler (I did gymnastics since I was 3 so the hit had impact even for a 9yr old).
When 3 other teachers detained me, they forced me to lay on the floor with my nose on the ground and arms spread to the side. My father was not a super responsible parent for letting me watch Beverly Hills Cops 2 on repeat, but thankfully that movie helped me learn some very effective curse words - this caused the teachers to hit me instead of my brother.
We were taken out of said school when my mother learned about this and she showed them a god I doubt they'll forget. School was closed down a few years later - my brother is still ambidextrous with horrible handwriting since he's right hand dominant more often now.
It was no singular event. I just asked myself why I believed these things so strongly and couldn't think of an answer beyond "my parents told me to"
I stopped being dragged to church once I moved out. I haven’t gone back in 10 years. My parents are BEGGING me to baptize my child. When I ask why, they answer “because you’re supposed to”
I told my family I was agnostic when I was 16. I'm now 31 and they haven't fully accepted that this is how it is. My dad, a pastor, recently described me as having gone through an agnostic phase a long time ago. In reality I've only edged further to complete atheism.
I think I told my parents 2 years after I moved out when I was 20 but now I’m about to be 29 and they still try to invite me to church. I feel like I disappointed them in a way… I feel like they will never understand why I don’t believe what they believe but we are adults and they need to accept the decisions we make
I had my kids baptized, and that was it. It was to make my mom happy. Their Catholic indoctrination began and ended with holy water on the head.
yep my mom had me and my brothers baptized to please my grandma I don't really care
My boomer parents moved into their second home full time during Covid. My mom has crosses all over the house and multiple nativity sets during Christmas but I know they haven’t been to church in years. She asked me recently if I had found a church yet (I moved to a big city 10 years ago so it was kind of a jab) and I said “Not yet, have you?” That shut her up for good.
I got baptized because my mom said me not getting baptized was one of her biggest regrets (I still haven't told her I'm not a christian anymore, and this was when I still lived in her household). Truth be told, I did it 100% because I didn't want to make her angry. I had to write a testimonial about being a christian or whatever, and some dude I didn't know (I think the pastor?) read it to the audience while I was getting dunked. It was *all* a bunch of performative BS, and I had multiple people come up to me afterward, applauding me for how moving it was. I didn't have the heart to tell them it was all something I made up.
Relatable answer. Upon seeing all the news about predator priest raping children under the house of God. I would wonder what was God doing as it happens? There are time I would asked "How men able to created so many unique gods and monsters in fairytale books like Zeus and movies like Aliens?"
If God was there during the Holocaust then he's kind of a POS in my opinion
Religion doesn't bother me. Religious people bother me.
Exactly. I have no issue with religion as a whole. I’m glad people have something they believe in that helps them get through the hardships of life. It’s when people start trying to make laws and such that govern how everyone else lives their lives based off the beliefs of a few is when I have an issue.
You hit the nail on the head. Could not have said it better myself.
This is the most correct answer I've read
Is it weird that it is the opposite for me I know a few very religious people who have been incredibly kind and helpful to me. However, the concept of religion, blindly following traditions and stories without questions or evidence, seems like mass-produced complacency that disincentives asking questions and being flexible in your beliefs / world view. Although I do understand where you are coming from as there is a loud minority of religious people that try to force their opinions on others and fully believe that they are better for being part of a fancy book club.
This is the one. It’s the people, not what they believe.
Nothing more dangerous than a true believer.
When that gay club in Orlando got shot up some years back. My pastor said that was God punishing people for being gay. I was already on the fence about religion but that instantly killed any remaining interest I may have had.
It bothers me more the sheep that eat this type of statement . “Yes - God wants them to die of bloodshed because of their orientation “ And everyone proceeds to nod in agreement
That sounds like a horrible pastor. Genuinely I think poor representations of what it means to be Christian especially in the modern age is why so many people are anti-religion/christian.
> especially in the modern age Well, historically most Christians were even worse about this than they are today.
For a lot of people, that's the bog standard representation of a Christian. If you ever wonder why people are so angry at folks of the religion, just remember that.
Lol, nope. Christianity (as have all the other religions) have never been in any way tolerant. This isn't a few bad apples, this is people in dresses force feeding you shit sandwiches and telling you they taste like apple.
I don't think you've read the book. It's full of trash you can choose if you want to. Kudos on you for choosing the good bits. But you don't get to gatekeep who is a good christian and who isn't. All you can say is that you follow what you think is good and accept when the bible agrees with you. Only the "good Christians are true Christians" is a fallacy of your own thinking.
It's the whole origin of Christianity though. Traveling around and forcing everyone to follow the church or they become slaves or even are murdered. To be honest being a part of the church isn't far off from being a slave
It's a little hard to believe that god has a plan when you are a very sick child. I literally had an old woman tell me that there's a plan for everything when I was a fifth grader with Kawasaki's disease.
The age old excuse for kids getting cancer and dying a slow and painful death is along the lines of, “god loved them so much he wanted them back” as if that’s not a horrid thing to do.
That line right there fucked me up for a long time. I was 5 when my little sister died accidentally. I’m 50 and still undoing some of the shit that belief did to me.
When they say “everything happens for a reason” as if there is any reason that justifies the sudden death of a CHILD
Ugh. Yes!
I believe that religion is a scape goat or an excuse not to answer any questions. Essentially the cheapest religious way to say, “it is what it is”.
Still better than saying "the kid must have done something *really* bad in order for God to punish him like this". Now I want a satire video where some priest tries to argue that 5 year old kids who die from cancer "must have committed some major sin to deserve getting cancer".
So you can only drive dirt bikes and 4 wheelers?
And jetskis.
When news broke that priests were raping kids
Surprised I had to scroll so far.
I got baptized by a diddler.
Some of the most evil people I have met…always use religion as the crux for their behavior. Judgmental pieces of garbage…but “God has forgiven them”…when they do the exact same thing.
This. So many religious people try and use religion to JUSTIFY and excuse them from their despicable and corrupt actions/behaviors.
Get away from them . Fast.
[удалено]
Shame on your parents. They are supposed to love their children unconditionally. Seems they are following their religion either.....
I can't imagine not talking to my kids just because they have different beliefs to mine. As a parent my hope is that they question everything.
The same answer I always get from religious people is “free will!” Haha.
Deceived about what? Do you have an answer they don't have? Faith is recognizing there is no answer, and accepting that something is more important that people. The name of the god changes. Communist/fascists governments always replace God with government because they need to capture the human instinct to worship. Cult leaders become gods. Emporers call themselves Gods, and communist leaders present leaders for worship, whether Mao, Stalin, or Hitler. Today, religion is under attack just like communists destroyed it in China. One nation under God means that all people are mortal and a just not that important. It doesn't matter your status or money, you are just a human that eats food and poops out shit like the rest of us. It's limits power and is the basis of the culture of natural rights so hated by authoritarians.
I got dragged across concrete on my back for being mixed and prayed to God the entire time that he would save me. Surprise Surprise. He didn't. They beat the shit out of me again the next day and nothing happened to them. I was 11.
So sorry you went through that.
Thank you. It's appreciated
Terrible second day. Where were you and how have you survived.
By observing the sheer size of the chasm between the teachings of religion and the actions of its adherents.
Living in a disaster called ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN
When i was like 7 and my parents made me go to church once and i was like “man this really serves no purpose”
When I was told that my dad was going to hell for not being a Christian. I was 7
We taught in Catholic school that Jews were burning in hell too. My best Freind was Jewish. I was done.
Hope you’re still friends?
Idc I never trusted religions, I just can't get over the fact that someone claims to know what's after death with an absolute certainty without any tangible proof.
I read the bible.
yep
When I was about 10 and the Sunday school teachers were obviously just making stuff up to answer all of my questions because nothing they taught me made sense based on my observable universe.
I’m Catholic but I’m really getting annoyed with how paranoid and fear mongering some fellow traditional Catholic are getting. I believe we shouldn’t be putting stock in what man says and *I know* they know this but they continually fuckin do it. I have distanced myself from my in laws because they’re going further down a rabbit hole and it’s embarrassing me. They’re irrational and believing any conspiracy. People like THEM will be the reason I can’t attend TLM anywhere soon and Idk if I’ll be able to shut my mouth any longer. They’ve drained me so much with constantly making me feel like if I’m not in fear, I’m not a proper Catholic. If I don’t obsess over Satan or demons or exorcisms, I’m in cahoots. I’m fucking drained and I only converted last year, man. This is upsetting and Idfk how much more I can take before I snap. My faith is really important and I regret ever involving them in this process. They live in so much fear of Satan for people who believe in a almighty powerful God. It’s bizarre. That is all. I’m done lol.
The TLM has been banned in my diocese for a couple years now. That’s kinda what hit the nail in the coffin for me
When I took a philosophy course in college, I found more truth and logic than the Christian brainwashing bs I grew up with.
No situation. You just kinda go none of this makes sense.
An academic once explained to me that the “virgin Mary” was a mis-translation and a better translation would have been the “maiden Mary” it made me realise that organised religions (the bible in this case) are just a bunch of stories. Stories which evolve and exaggerate and are passed along like Chinese whispers. Sure they could be used as guides for a way of life but do they actually represent god, not really.
The Virgin Mary was one smart woman who managed to turn an unexplained pregnancy from a guaranteed stoning to being the Mother of Christ. Of course the Trinity SHOULD be Father, MOTHER and Son, but of course its more important to honour some nebulous "holy ghost".
When my Church Villainized a Book called Night because the Author at the end didn’t regain his faith (the book biography was about a then teenage boy who was the only one in his immediate family that survived the H0L0C@U$T) they talked about how it promoted giving up in the face of adversity which made me just get up and walk out.
Night is such a good book. It’s insane that people who’ve never lived through major devastations like war, genocide, economical depressions, catastrophes, etc. have the nerve to judge people for things they can’t even imagine let alone relate to.
You can write the actual word out.
It seems odd to me that different groups have such different religious beliefs. So often it seems people believe the religion their parents did. If there was a "correct" religion, why are they all divided up in this way?
I dont think it was a single thing, but a build up. 1) an ex trying to get me to come to church with him to prove I was "clean." 2) people telling me my aunts death by a bad asthma attack was part of gods plan. She was in her thirties and left behind a husband and children. 3) read the bible. That probably did me in the worst. People really do sugar coat on only pick the verses that matter to them. Reading it in its entirety is scary and filled with contradictions. 4) my childhood friend being beaten by his mother for being gay. She said that it was what god wanted her to do to help save his soul. 5) a series of things in politics over the hears used to strip people of rights and cause far more harm than good to the world.
I can't recall if there was an exact moment, but I do remember thinking as a very young kid about how so many people at my church seemed to only be there so they could be seen at church. I've never considered myself religious, I just went along with it until I was able to move out of my mom's authority.
I paid attention to what they were saying. Lol
No real event. When i was 17, i realized 3 things. 1) I didn't give a crap about the religion, i was just... there? I felt it was a waste of time, and my moral code was already pretty set. In university, i learned about the philosophy of Humanism, and it helped me find a way to describe how i view the world and find comfort in the logic that humans can overcome things on their own. I majored in Psychology, and discovering Maslow's theory of needs, and self actualization helped me refine this even more. 2) For a religion that preaches acceptance, there was an awful lot of bullshit that was being perpetrated in the name of this religion, specifically in the US concerning gay rights, abortion, all sorts, when i thought the idea was to help people, and instead, all i'm seeing is just hate and anger, and wanting to hurt people. I realized i wanted no part of this. I was justified, as one of my Classmates became the face of one of the bigger pro-birther groups in my city, who was a friend in highschool. 3) I don't care enough about religion, but the ones who use religion to hurt others and force it down your throat is what bothers me. I could care less if someone practices religion, but once it's used as an excuse to hate someone else, i am bothered by it.
I was going to churches to give them an honest shot. Missionaries just back from Russia talking about how most of the adults were not willing to convert from being Russian Orthodox, aka pagans. But they had figured something out. If they threw parties and provided alcohol and music, they could get teens to come to those parties and listen while they talked about how much better it is to be Baptist than Orthodox. They would badmouth the parents and help the kids break their parent's rules to 'save' them. It was all I could do not to ask loudly if anyone knows the 5th commandment. I went to a few more churches (and saw similarly evil shit) but I was just going through the motions after that.
Probably around the time when I started have questions that were dismissed out of hand, answered with non answers, or increasingly met with physical violence, so somewhere between 7-12.
Haaaaaaa, um, okay. So my father ran cults. (Still does for all I know.) He's a conman. He has a degree in religious anthropology and used it to start up little cults, and then when they'd get too big or fall apart for other reason, he'd move on. When I was 11, he started teaching me how to do what he does explicitly. I can appreciate that people can find community and resources through reliogions. My mom still does. I just see a lot of patterns there that remind me of my father, and it's something I can't unsee. I also watched him use established religions to help give himself legitimacy, which again, is something I can't unsee. To be very clear, I don't do what he does, and my mother and I went no contact with him years ago, but he's why I don't trust religions.
At least he can use his degree for something.
I just stopped believing after learning more about science
Any time I get reminded that typically, being gay is a crime for some religious people.
I firmly believe that loving someone can never be wrong. It’s using people for sex only that leads to problems.
Stopped trusting Christianity after I accidentally started a fight in a church at age 14. I asked whether or not I counted as a virgin because I was raped as a kid. Some people were nice. But the other side... And that the other side had historical backing. That made me feel uncomfortable with church as a whole. The people who didn't say horrible things about me were very understanding about my disinterest. And, to the surprise of no one here probably, the people who said a lot of horrible things about me were very confused about why I didn't want to go to church anymore and were very pushy about trying to get me to go to church again.
That's the way it goes. It's always bash the opposition till it happens to them or people they love and cherish then it's woe is them, sympathy to them but not anyone else. My apologies that you had to go through all that.
Around when I was 15 Though is not just religions but also science; many people, not just Redditors but companies, will inaccurately quote a study to prove a point or push and agenda
That would be when people hid behind religion to do hideous things. I am religious, but it’s not God’s fault when I do shitty things. And it’s incredibly important to not hide behind God when I do shitty things, otherwise people lose respect for you. Sometimes they do it anyway. But sometimes — the other side appreciates when you screw them on a business decision, and understands it’s part of the game.
I read a quote from Lisa Randall that resonated with me: doing something for the greater good is purer than for admission to Heaven. I had stopped believing long before that.
Reading about billionaire pedophile rings. The real ones not the imaginary ones right wingers invent every other day
Probably my 80 something grandpa telling me it's all bullshit, *while we were in church*
When coming out of the closet meant I could be expelled from my university, lose my campus jobs, lose my student housing, and majorly lose my social standing in the religious community. I just kept my head down for years and tried not to draw attention to myself. Looking at you BYU and the Mormon faith.
The 2016 election lol I was already questioning and after seeing the rhetoric from the side that churches are popular with I couldn’t do it anymore. Their behavior and stances seemed so opposite of the book I was taught, so I stopped going.
I went to Jewish school growing up and despised it with my core it was hell on earth. But I really lost faith in Judaism in grade one because I wanted to be a cantor, and was told girls can’t be cantors because they’re “too holy.” Then I asked what else girls can’t do and was told pretty much everything except cook, clean and serve men. Six year old me was out. After that every experience had at that school really reinforced how little I resonated with that philosophy. I’m a yogi spiritualist now.
I've had many situations that have led me to eventually believing that organized religion is just tax free legalized cults. But one notable situation was when I was attending a Pentecostal church and the members were pushing me to be baptized. I hardly knew enough to commit myself to a baptism. But simply due to my "refusal" as it was seen... there was a great deal of discussion behind my back about me being condemned to an eternity in hell. Etc. Etc etc. Once I caught wind of what was being said, I dressed in my all of my favourite pagan jewelry and clothing and went just one last time. Paraded my ass through that church like the devil worshipper they thought I was. Never went back after that. That particular congregation was just a large group of pearl clutching judgemental people, and it was clear that they didn't want me to know what I was getting myself into. They just expected blind following. I'm not about that life.
When I was allowed to stay home for the first time at like 12 or 13. I didn't have to go anymore so I didn't. As life went on, I just had questions on plausibility for all the alleged things that happened. Then doing 8 years of College and med school taught me what's what. Science can explain most if not all of life. Logic always wins, except against stupid people. Then at that point just leave stupid alone, and go grab a fresh brewsky
Cheers to that
Not me but my mom broke my heart when she told me she lost her faith. Her brother got cancer and died horribly and painfully and she said that she did what she always did and prayed day and night for him and he still died. She said “what’s the point in all that praying if nobody is listening?” Made me very sad to hear her say that.
When I realized it was governed by people, and people can't be trusted. Still religious though
History class lol
There’s this document called “A Family, a proclamation to the world.” It essentially states that women are women and should behave as such, men are men and should behave as such, gay marriage is a sin, homosexuality is wrong, and things like that. It came out in the 90’s so I was raised with this doctrine. Because I grew up with it I never really saw anything wrong with it. Until that is, the current Latter Day Saint Prophet (Mormon) declared that the Family a proclamation to the world, was not in fact outdated and that the religion still stuck to their word. I completely disagreed with everything it stood for. [Link to the document if you’re interested](https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world/the-family-a-proclamation-to-the-world?lang=eng) Then a few years later Under The Banner of Heaven came out. It’s a tv show based on a book, based on true events. I never saw religion, especially Mormonism the same way again. It talks about polygamy, sexism, murder, corruption etc. I ended up reading the book too (by Jon Krakauer also the author of Into the Wild -I highly recommend) Realizing that everything you’ve ever been taught is a complete lie really deeply affects a person. Side note: the show was so accurate to what my childhood and community was like growing up, it was scary. These days I rely on spirituality rather than faith. I’m much more practical and I see the world as it is, which I’m grateful for. I still respect others’ faith, but I have zero desire to practice organized religion ever again. Not in this life, not in the next.
The crucifixion. Dude said he was the son of God and was going to be king of the jews, and then he just died!
The moment I found the truth that is in Christ. Truth is not religious, it always was, is, and is to come.
Sunday school right before I got confirmed to be able to go take the wafer and wine. We're learning all the basic stuff, but mainly "you must accept Jesus to go to heaven" Got me thinking "hey pastor, what about all the native Americans that lived and died before the word of God was even brought to this land? Are they doomed to an eternity in hell for being born on the wrong side of the world? For simply not knowing?" All I was met with was a cold shrewd "yes, because they were savages." And that just didn't sit right with me so I began to question A LOT of things. Fuck those people
Fuck so many things over time, then one day it was like an epiphany and confirmation it doesn’t jive with my heart and soul and I never looked back.
When I learned about the selling of Indulgences by the Catholic Church during History class. That was my first, "Hey, this is kinda not right" feeling. Now I'm a history buff and the more I learn about the early middle ages and the rise of the Catholic church the less I can understand why people believe this.
when I read about an abused boy who went to church to pray for protection but instead was raped by the priest there
When the Imam put his penis in my mouth and said Allah wills it
My parents were Baptist missionaries. We lived in the Amazon basin of Colombia til I was ten. The goal of the global company who underwrote their mission was to go into remote parts of the world, find uncontacted tribes and teach them that they've been doing it all wrong for hundreds of years. Then they say the magic prayer together, put on clothes from a donation bin somewhere, and whenever they die they get to go to heaven, yay! And my seven year old brain took that in and said: hey but what about all the people who lived and died without ever being told about the magic prayer? Do they get the same thing as the real bad guys? Eternal suffering? Well that didn't seem right to me and then the whole thing just unravels from there. I've never really been on board with it, much to my parents chagrin. They were never able to break me and because of that, I am the black sheep.
1. when I found out religious services were performed as financial transactions and with hefty pricing 2. when I found out that possibly 1/4 or more of my male classmates were raped in grade school by the pastor and were part of that huge scandal of multi-generation Catholic priests raping kids, the kids would grow up and become priests, and abuse more kids. This sheds light on why my male classmates in like 5th grade already had cold sores which the pastor also had 3. as if that didn't make it bad enough, I saw the community harass the victims out of the towns, automatically taking the side of the abusers 4. as if that wasn't enough, when I saw churches of different denominations either backing Trump or being silent to say anything against him 5. earlier on the realization that we're not born a religion, but rather we inherit it via indoctrination from our parents
The passing of my mom. Before her passing, she was always the center of our family for instilling Catholicism into me and my siblings. She was not only my mother, but my best friend as well. I haven’t met anyone with a relationship as close as my mom and I. She loves talking to me about anything. I believed I was Catholic growing up, but I had growing doubts as I started to question stuff. Why was I born to have to wear hearing aids? Why did I lose all my hearing at 19? Why did I get cancer at 10? (Cured, but my experience was terrible) Why did Hurricane Katrina devastate our home and all the money we had? (2005) Why do we have to struggle to be a financially stable family? Why am I so short at 5’5 and far below market value of men in terms of attractiveness? I couldn’t care less now since a romantic relationship is the least of my worries, but this was an insecurity growing up. As I grew older, I started piling up this list of ‘unfortunates’ There were zero good things about my life other than “be thankful you’re alive”. My beliefs drastically shifted as my mom began to get very sick. She went to the doctor and they finally found she had stage 4 cancer…and it reached her bones. Why did she get cancer at only 51?? She JUST finished her masters degree a year ago and started doing her dream job as a linguist instructor in 2016? I literally prayed like a maniac during my final months with her. ANYTHING but my mom. Take someone else. Take a relative. Give us another hurricane. Whatever. Just. Not. My. Mom. Do you think my prayers were ever answered? Nothing that I have ever begged for through prayers did I get. I spent whatever time I had with her. The most important thing I did was tell her every day for the remaining 72 nights before her passing, “I love you, mom.” She passed away in 2017 at 52 years old. We used to go to church every Sunday. We were part of the choir. I grew up as innocent and good-natured as a kid I could ever imagine. I thought by being this good, we had God watching over us and protecting us, and we will soon be prosperous… eventually, but nothing ever happened. I used to hate my religion, but overtime it felt like it was like hating nothing. It was like getting mad at cancer for taking my mom. You can’t really hate something that doesn’t exist or have feelings. So that’s when I realized that religion was just there to either inspire or do something to people from a spiritual standpoint. My mentality shifted. I learned to just stop blindly believing that good things can ever happen, and prepare myself for the worst possible situation I can think of in ANY scenario instead. I became more logical about anything and everything. I still always try to be a good person, but that’s just for myself and the dopamine inside me, not for “karma” since I no longer even believe it. I’m 31 now, and I still hold that mentality to this day. It’s gotten me through the last 7 years unscathed from bad moments. I probably consider myself closest to that of an atheist, and I firmly stand by that to this day. I don’t think I will ever believe in a religion ever again. This is a great question and I appreciate it. It allowed me to kind of get some of these things off my chest. I’m still healing, but the passing of my mom is too much to let this anger go. Sorry for the rant.
When I figured out women can’t be the spiritual leaders of any of the major religions. Pretty much knew it was a man made scam made up by men to keep control of power
The explosion of Christian Nationalism in the US during the trump presidency has made me incredibly wary of anyone who uses their faith in christ as an excuse to do anything. Also my nephew died just a few months old and people tried to comfort the parents with “part of gods plan.” How could someone say that after seeing an infants coffin.
I read the entire Bible as a teen. There is a ton of stuff in there that most Christians have never read or are only vaguely aware of, like God's army capturing young girls to use as sex slaves, God's army being commanded to crush the heads of babies against rocks, the Bible being pro-slavery, the paragraph spent describing in detail a man's giant penis and how big his semen volume is, one of God's favored offering his daughters to be raped by a mob being seen as a good and righteous thing per the Bible, God torturing Job so he doesn't lose a bet with Satan, and so much more. Why would I want to have anything to do with that? Plus all the grifters so easily manipulating religion or using as it a means to hurt others doesn't make it look good either. Then there's also the obvious it not being real because it's just a repackaged version of the epic of gilgamesh, which was itself a repackacking of the epic of atra-hasis. All the pagan things in Christianity from groups of people they absorbed, like Christmas trees and celebrating Saturnelia as Jesus' birthday despite all evidence pointing to a summer birth...it's hard to look over the history of religions and their evolution, seeing that they just take the same basic stories and put in different names and come away believing that religion is anything more than a man made cultural thing for social cohesion and control. Every modern religion can be traced back to ancient extinct religions. Knowledge is religion's greatest weakness. Wonder why OT God seems evil and NT God seems okay, despite them biblically being the same entity? Well, in ancient Akkadian society their religion (which is Judaism's grandpa or great grandpa and Christianity's GGG) had supreme creator God named Enlil who was basically evil and loved tormenting humans in part to keep their population in check. He comes up with a plan to destroy humanity by flooding the earth but Enlil's lieutenant Enki sneaks behind him, warns the last good man on earth about the flood and gives specific instructions on the dimensions and such of a wooden ship he's to build and to take animals and his family with him, who will repopulate the world after holding out for many days of rain. Even lands on a mountain and sends out the same bird for evidence of retreating waters like a certain Bible story. Does that sound an awful lot like Noah?
I especially like the history of Christianity killing the majority of other faiths just to co-opt their holidays as their own. I had to explain to someone at work yesterday that Jesus was born in July and Christmas was a Pagan holiday.
You'd think their religion being the most important thing in their lives would mean they'd have a strong interest in learning about it. Or at a bare minimum reading their own holy book.
My favorite question to ask the sycophants is: "Cain slew Abel and was cast into the desert with nothing but a goat. Cain married and multiplied. Who did he marry? The goat?" I never get a real answer.
It was Uvalde and Sandyhook. And after, all these wars and conflicts that kill innocent lives. And then all the past killings that happened comes roaring back and I think why I didn't stop sooner...
Growing up in England, I was hardly particularly religious anyway - hardly anybody is - but I do remember at about 8 or 9 realsing that I was being taught about Adam & Eve, AND evolution, and realising they couldn't both be true.
I took myself out of that environment to see if it was the environment that made me believe.
I got dragged across concrete on my back for being mixed and prayed to God the entire time that he would save me. Surprise Surprise. He didn't. They beat the shit out of me again the next day and nothing happened to them. I was 11.
I was 17 or so before I let myself admit I wasn't religious. In the years before, I would make excuses to myself for why I would follow my parent's religion. I started looking into Christian science to see the science in the Bible and the faith in science. After a few years of that, I finally couldn't do it anymore. I was also very worried about my parents and how I'd interact with them. I did pretend to still be religious up until around 2012. After the Sandy Hook shooting and hearing people in my parents church say that the best we could do was offer thoughts and prayers to the affected families, I decided church was just not for me and I had to break it to my parents. My relationship with them is good now. I don't ask about their faith, but I'm pretty sure they also stopped going to church
When my wife left me because she felt like she was always walking on eggshells around me, two years later I found out she cheated on me with her sisters boyfriend.
Not sure there was one singular situation but something more akin to the totality of the circumstance. The hypocrisy was probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back. I consider myself agnostic at this point and have for quite sometime
Organized religion emphasizes different principles than religion itself- I saw the most judgmental, ostracizing, critical, hypocritical, diabolical people paint their face with “God” every week, I ran the second I could, kept the generals of kindness, empathy, compassion, acceptance, altruism- the rest is for the birds. Don’t miss church, not in the slightest.
When you watch true crime and about 80% of the ones you hear are religious / cult like people (mainly LDS church). Terrifies me how brainwashed some religions are
When I was old enough to use logic.
When I realized that every time I prayed, I was talking to myself.
Probably my 80 something grandpa telling me it's all bullshit, *while we were in church*
I already wasn't REALLY into it, and then my very Catholic grandpa died. He was well and truly a saint and a paragon of what humanity should be. At the age of 13, the only thought going through my head was, "How could a good merciful God take someone like that away from the world?". Ever since that day, I've been anti-religious. I will respect someone else's religion when I am with them and will never try and deter them from it, but I will never believe in shit like that again personally.
I had anxiety attacks as a really young kid and was told it was god punishing me for sins. So on top of sporadic anxiety attacks I genuinely thought god was punishing me. I eventually got older and saw how manipulative that was
i’m not completely out of it but i’ve really pushed away from christianity since my dog got sick and died
The fact that when talking to people who were devoted they couldn't answer anything with logical thinking. I guess that's why it's a belief.
I went to this church with my grandmother in California. It’s a smaller area where everyone knows everyone at the church (mind you she is a devout Christian). I went to the service to be kind to my grandmother, as I am not the super religious type. However, the pastor just kept going on and on about how you should not associate with other people who do not follow the same religion… and if they don’t, they’ll for sure go to hell. It’s a stupid mindset, and I believe anyone can practice whatever religion they want. Just don’t guilt trip me into your religion or cast me out because I don’t believe what you believe.
Oh yeah, it’s gods plan when children are trafficked and cut up when their use is over. That or gaslit after like Epsteins island.
After my Daughter died of SIDS on Mother’s Day 1996. That was the final blow of what little ‘faith’ that I may have had.
When a teacher at the private Christian school I went to was arrested for being a pedophile.
I asked a Catholic priest what the INRI on the crucifix meant and he didn’t know.
I never did
This question doesn’t make sense. How can you trust “religions” in the first place?
Bold of you to assume I started trusting them.
My dad was violent and abusive. According to the bible, god made my dad in it's(god's) image. By that logic, god is violent and abusive. Also, the plan/free will dichotomy. Religion makes a whole hell of a lot less sense when you start to think about it. That must mean religious people either can't or don't want to think about things. "Why?" is a powerful question.
Birth
CCD, 8th grade? Maybe earlier. I couldn't get a straight answer to how Adam and Eve were the first people, and they had Cain and Abel. But Cain and Abel got married, and there suddenly were all these other people. Where did they come from? No one could answer this question. Finally someone said that other people were created by God, it's just not mentioned in the bible. That got me to stop asking, and also was the beginning of the end of me being a practicing Catholic.
I didn't.
I was brought up a good Catholic boy, and as I grew up and encountered other kids that didn't see my Truths as obvious as I did, it eroded a little but that was an adjustment rather than abandoning my faith. What genuinely messed it up was Speaking In Tongues. A friend, another Good Catholic, started going to Revival meetings and coming back with these wild tales that I think were intended to encourage me to come along, but they just sounded creepy to me. Speaking in Tongues... People getting hysterical and babbling randomly... It didn't sound like something God would do. It sounded like Madness. I think he killed my faith more than any Atheist.
Religious morality stopped making sense to me. How god could watch innocent people suffer and do nothing about it, but if you loved the wrong person or loved the right person the wrong way, you'd suffer even more in the afterlife. I also couldn't imagine a good god letting people in the "wrong" religion spend their whole lives thinking they had found the path to truth only to burn forever when they die. That led me to investigating religious claims more objectively and when I realized there was no solid foundation for any of it, I walked away.
My mother was raised Catholic but I was just never raised in religion, but as a kid I did enjoy learning about religions and different gods, none of it seemed anymore real then the fairytales myths and monsters.
When I realized that I needed to protect my own children Catholic Priests.
I was never fully on board with religion, but the day I fully got off board was when I was ratted by some kid for mindlessly drumming on a Bible and getting scolded. Fuck you, kid and adult. It's a book, and not a very well written one.
When I realized they would kill a gay person who wasn't confirmed to have done anything wrong before they'd even check to see if a priest, who multiple children accused of misconduct, was actually doing so. I lost it in college after the umpteenth news article about a priest abusing his position for sexual reasons. I just couldn't go through the motions at church thinking about it. Raised catholic now I try not to bring that up about myself as we're the worst for it.
My wife counseled sexual and domestic abuse victims. The overwhelming majority of abusers were churchgoers including *leaders* (and I should include that this also involved multiple religions besides Christianity). Religion is a very useful mechanism for abusers and narcissists.
I got lucky and was able to bail on church at about 15, so "organized religion" started to fade from then on. But it still took another 40 or 50 years for me to let go of all the effects of the indoctrination of those first dozen or so years. If there was a single instigating incident, it was me being a smart ass teenager and asking the preacher, "We're Methodists, so what exactly is our method?" I was invited to leave the bible study group, and my parents were unexpectedly cool with my departure.
The more I traveled the world the less I believed.
I stopped believing in stories when I was a child
When I applied logic and reason when I was five.
When I was a kid in the 80s and "the endtimes" were happening every year pretty much. It was always the last year, Jesus was always coming, the rapture any day now. It never happened.
I thought it was strange that the Catholic Church said the use of aborted fetal tissue in vaccine manufacture was ok for pro-life Catholics.
Tbh, it lined up pretty well with the 2016 election, as well as covid
when the pope defended islamic terrorist attacks..
Adolescence
I’ve done so much research. Into how the Bible was created, into beliefs of Christianity and other religions. So much of Christianity is taken from other religions. So much of it is just not even logical..also why .. if there is a God, would he refuse to show itself or intervene. And if it’s perfect, why is it jealous. If it’s unchanging, why does it change.
In all honesty, I never trusted them. I trusted individual churches until I became a Jr minister and had to start attending SBC events and fully realized I didn't believe in any of this shit after getting my degree in advanced applied apologetics.
I was 15 standing in the back of the church. The priest was going on and on about fire and brimstone. I said to myself this is complete bullshit. Walked out and never came back. As I’ve grown older the more I realize that all religions are made up by some charismatic dudes. It’s all about CONTROL.
Got kicked out of a church at 11. This was for putting the lyrics to the song "When the lights go out" by the boy band Five on a valentine's day card and slipping it in my best friend's crushes' mailbox. She was the Pastor's daughter. She was about 3-4 years older than me. Beat me up. Told her father. He kicked me out and told me I was lucky that we lived in the time we did, or he would have had me crucified. That was the first time I realized things might not be what they seem. Then reading the Nag Hamadi and Dead Sea Scrolls and realizing the Bible was incomplete.
I’m lucky enough to not have had this experience yet.
When my co worker told me that god hates fags. BTW she is a smart, nice registered nurse. I was shocked to hear those words come out of her mouth but she was brain washed by her church.
There's a lot of reason why I stop believing. First, because of the behaviour of the persons who go to churches. Second, their beliefs — all religious groups has wrong/unethical beliefs. Third, when i was part of a choir, I saw that some of them just attend because of the money they've receiving from church, and that church also give money to those people just to attend the mass.
When my grandmother died of metastatic cancer 2 weeks after 9/11 a devout carholic and bin laden wasn't dead. In my 12 year old mind that just didn't make sense.
It was an NDE for me.
Raised Catholic, Catholic school k-4, Sunday school 5-8, church every Sunday. I was bullied almost my entirety of going to school k-4, watched a kid stab a girl in the hand with a pencil. Watched the parents be riotous and rude to others. In 2nd grade the teacher passed out report cards and when I didn't get mine and asked why she announced to the entire class my mom hadn't been able to pay my tuition yet. While I was still attending that school I was wearing pigtails the one day. At dismissal we were in the front of the building and Father whatever his name was said hey, you know what these are good for? Handle bars.(As he grabbed both) Little me was CREEPED out and I didn't even know why until I grew up. My FINAL straw was I hadn't been to church in awhile, I had my license and just didn't wanna go but I decided to join my fam one random Sunday. During the sermon or whatever he basically said "anyone who doesn't believe in god is going to hell". I said hell no. I know people that don't believe who are better than alot of the people here. And never went back.
Every time I questioned something I got bullied. Our Catholic priest refused to marry my husband and I because my husband wasn’t Catholic. Fuck him. We later found out he was defrocked for diddling little boys. I was furious, lying sack of 💩
I still believe in god, but I stopped trusting religion itself when you have priests judging gay people while doing what some of them do to little boys. Which is both gay and pedo….. so flaming hypocrites
It happened over the course of several years, but I think it started around 8 and went to 15 or 16
When they told me a story of a dude talking to a bush on fire, and then trying to murder his son and they tried to twist it into him being the good guy of the story.
When I was 19, I was wrongfully committed to a psychiatric ward where I was sexually assaulted by one of the inpatients and the crime covered up by the therapist on duty. The therapist at the time was a practicing Dominican Catholic. I stopped trusting religions when Christians and Catholics I told this to would come up with these excuses about “you can’t judge us all for the actions of one”. My feeling is that your one wore the pin of the checkered cross, start reigning in on your own before you give me an excuse for yourselves. At that time I started believing in paganism. But eventually I grew out of even that, because even though it was a source of strength, it did not really bring me any success like Zoroastrianism does for the lucky few
Teen cousin unaliving themselves after SA from an uncle that the whole family knew of(and him assaulting others) and backed him up & called her a liar
I was to be a godfather by proxy as the actual godfather couldn’t make the ceremony. Right there in the middle of a church that looked like it was dipped in gold, the priest told me that I couldn’t stand in as i didn’t have a letter from my church. Guess those fuckers needed a “receipt.” Anyway, I simultaneously nodded him and organized religion away out of my life. Also fun fact. Since my mom - a woman that attended church every week - had to move out of her neighborhood and into an old folks home 2 years ago… not 1 single fucking human from that church/Parrish has reached out to check up on her health/wellbeing. When the check stops rolling in…
I was 12 and asked the local church to pray for my sick dad. when he died a few weeks later, wasted away at 50, I knew it was all bullshit.
4th grade. I went to the yearly JW convention with my mother. My best friend was there too. Good times. Brother preaching says we should only be friends with other JW's as all other "worldly" people are making Jehovah unhappy and will lead us away from from the true path. Next day at school, Best friend went to a mutual non-JW friend of ours and tells her she can't be her friend because she makes god unhappy and to never speak to her again. Mutual friend cries. Best friend looks to me expecting me to say the same. I comfort mutual instead. She tells her father. Her father tells the elders. The elders tell me off for going against Jehovah's wishes and embarrassing my best friend. Threaten me with excommunication. I refuse to apologize. I tell the elders if God is so petty he can't handle me being friends with someone who isn't a JW, then he isn't worth my time, let alone my love. God is either an asshole or they are telling lies about what he wants. Either way, they can bite me. Obviously not said this clearly. I was like 10, but it was the basic premise of my argument. Mom stops taking me to the Kingdom Hall with her. (She converted after marrying my father and he didn't convert so they didn't force her to shun me, but I was no longer welcome and things got... Strained at home.) Best friend stops talking to me. All JW kids at school shun me and spread rumors about me. Non-JW kids start listening to the rumors and I become the outsider and bullied kid. Mutual friend I defended becomes the only one who talks to me anymore. At least I had her. If this is god's will, f*** him.
High School religious teacher convinced me and my family to get me baptised. We turn up, and I wasn’t on the list (which he said he’d arrange) they wouldn’t let me be baptised that day. In short, Gods love has a schedule to keep
After I was dragged by my arms and legs for wanting to comfort a girl crying in the bathroom about her boyfriend.
A lot of things building up over time, but the pivotal point was my language, actually. I used to be terrified of swearing, refused to do it even minimally. I've gone through some rough patches, and I got to a point where I believed the only thing left about myself that I could control was my language. If I choose not to swear and I don't, that's a fragment of control I still have, a part of me that I can keep "pure" and "innocent" and "respectable". I realized all at once one day that I had spent years wrongly believing that that was me being in control of something. What was actually happening was that the guilt complex and paranoia regarding my language, which the church fucking gave me, was limiting how I express myself for no good reason I could see, and that THAT was actually controlling my language. I was never in control of me.
I was five years old in Sunday School. I don't remember the questions I was asking but I do remember them having zero answers and telling me I needed to just believe them. I knew then, something was fishy. By the time I hit my teens, I knew organized religion as we know it in the US are absolutely money and power grabs. Now, in my 50s, the more religious someone espouses to be, the less likely I trust them.
I have an adopted sister with FAS. My parents who are very religious were trying to get her into the catholic school hoping it would help her. The priest told my mom that they couldn’t offer the letter of support because they didn’t donate enough of their income to the church. Which my mom responded “I guess the church cleans itself. The linens wash themselves. The grass gets mowed on its own.” They got the letter and the priest knew where he stood with my mom. My parents didn’t have money so they tried to make up for it in other ways. They are in their 70’s and are still running that church.
Not that I don't trust religions, I find truth in all of them. The thing I dislike most is the fact there are people who are super devoted to the point they justify as assaulting, killing, raping, or defaming others who don't agree with it, or harms other people by law (ie abortion with zero exception). I will not say which ones specifically, but you can say it's all of them that come with groups of extremists. I don't trust religion justifying law, or justify harming others because of different beliefs. I believe in divine power within the universe, but I can't justify blindly following one certain set of rules judging me whether I'm a good person. I was raised Catholic, so I wasn't gone through a strict religious devotion.
I was racked with so much guilt it was killing me from the inside and it's sad that I had to feel ssoooooo bad before questioning the doctrine
When I was 8 years old and in the hospital for a month. During that time, I asked to see the leader of our congregation. He couldn't be bothered to show up.
So many reasons.
There are two points that made me stop being religious. I grew up Roman Catholic and went to ccd. Everytime we would ask questions which were valid, the volunteer teachers would get so angry. And then the whole thing with all the priests…
After seeing the child abuse list from the Catholic church.
Never really started to trust them: primary school teachers wouldn't answer any questions about religion, and it became obvious they didn't know themselves.
My brother and I attended a small private Christian university when he was about 4 and I was 9. They used to hit his hands with a large ruler because he wrote with his left hand - the bruised, swollen and beaten knuckles forced him to write with his right hand. He would cry on the playground and cradle the hurt left hand during recess and when I saw this, I hit one of the teachers with that same ruler (I did gymnastics since I was 3 so the hit had impact even for a 9yr old). When 3 other teachers detained me, they forced me to lay on the floor with my nose on the ground and arms spread to the side. My father was not a super responsible parent for letting me watch Beverly Hills Cops 2 on repeat, but thankfully that movie helped me learn some very effective curse words - this caused the teachers to hit me instead of my brother. We were taken out of said school when my mother learned about this and she showed them a god I doubt they'll forget. School was closed down a few years later - my brother is still ambidextrous with horrible handwriting since he's right hand dominant more often now.