Also a recovering Catholic, I spent years trying to understand why I didn’t feel the devotion my friends and family seemed to have for this religion. I tried and tried to believe but a relative opened up to me that she never believed. That gave me my first bit of hope that I was not alone.
Now I enjoy the company (both online and in person) of many like-minded folks.

My family were not devout reigious people, when I was younger we attended church and that went on into my teens but by then I already did not believe. Religion was interesting in our household as Mum was anglican, Dad was an excommunicated catholic (because he married Mum) whose catholic mother was devout but father was a believer just not worried about it all, my older brother and I were christened on the same day because Mum and Dad had not gotten around to it before hand (he was 2, I was 1) by a presbyterian minister and my younger brother was christened by a united church minister.

I guess that made it easier for us as in our home the emphasis was on being a decent person rather than religion.
My parents were wonderful people who did things for others and so many of our friends ended up living at our house or using it as a drop in center to get advice or support.

One adult friend even handed over all of his credit cards to my mother who helped him dig himself out of the massive debt (to the point he was considering suicide) he had gotten himself into.

Those were the lessons we learned in our house so much stronger than religion.

In one word - "intelligence".
Baptised into the Roman Catholic faith ( there are many "Catholic" faiths.) I had to attend catechism classes. Too much of the dogma clashed with other dogma, as well as the science I was learning at school, and just plain logic, such as the virgin birth of both Mary and her mother.

I'm also a recovering catholic. The faith never had a real hold on me - though I tried. Just too unbelievable for me. But the guilt is built in to the raising of catholic families, I think, faith in the religion or not.

My experience could be said to be similar to that of Dan Barker. I remember in my past life as a believer that losing faith was so hard that I cried. Through a series of events I finally realized along about 2000 or so that it was all bullshit. No gods, no Jebus, and no Supernatural.

I was in an honesty group that focused on recovery from religious conditioning. We generally agreed that Catholic was the worst, and that recovery was the hardest. Later on, we agreed that we needed a "special training course" for recovering Catholics. Since then, I've thought that recovering from Islam might be even worse.

I was only loosely raised Catholic. But my mother also encouraged critical thinking. By age seven, I recall thinking, “this is a bunch of baloney”. As my mother WAS a believer, I “observed the customs” when within her sight until I left home at seventeen.

wasn't raised in any kind of religion. So, no indoctrination.

The indoctrination did take hold, but happily a later trauma tore it loose and saved me from a life as unhappy as that of my observant Catholic father. I don’t know the details of Barker’s life but did write an abbreviated memoir that probably tells a story much like his.

Once you realize it's all total bullshit, it's a cleansing experience.