I find it to be very interesting to see the perspective of people who were very close to their highly religious family members or even in your case those who had family apart of the structure in religious institutions who have lose their faith. Excellent read.

As a species we long for safety & security. The world & cosmos is a mysterious place. Our creative ingenuity invents 'comfort blankets' called religion. Who likes being unwrapped from the swaddlings only to discover that all is not what it seems?
We are gods, in charge of our destiny, take the resposnsibility.

My father is a retired Anglican (same as C of E or Episcopalian in other countries) minister/priest, as was his father, and his sister's husband. My mother is from a Methodist/Congregationalist background.
I still hold fairly strongly to the ethical side of what I grew up with (do unto others etc), just none of the supernatural stuff any more. Interested in what a secular version of the confession-penance-forgiveness system would look like, and if it would work.

Yes, my dad is a pastor. He doesn't care as far as I know they treat me the same. My mother is the only one that tries to give me the jesus scare but she is just a little sad and shocked. I have never been a real Christian so it wasn't a surprise. They know that I don't care about others opinion of me so I've been that black sheep for the longest. I remember they wore young and used to go out and we used to go out dancing, I remember their past alcoholism and all. Nothing has really changed. I don't announce it tho because their followers will probably be more asses then my actual parents.

There are no gods as they are all imaginary. I would also avoid spiritualism as I would any other sources of woo.

Wow, your parents must have been so disappointed in you.

Was Christian for many years. I remember laughing at Islam for thinking that Mohammed flew to Heaven on a horse but then it hit me that bible says Enoch flew to heaven on a chariot and there was a talking mule. I then realize that my religion was just as crazy as theirs

My dad did a stump thing whenever the feeling took him, but he was an atheist. Does that count?

some vv i doubt your father ever mentioned, for reflection;
you and your sons will be here with me
No son of man may die for another's sins;
No one has ever gone up to heaven
There is only One Immortal
He who seeks to save his soul will lose it

also, the desire for a God that would require a human Sacrifice is covered in the Esau story, but of course your father would not have wanted to contemplate himself as Esau, and so the story was lost on him, wadr, however, Give me some of that red stew, for I am famished unto death! see

The 'final shoe' dropped for me after years of independent study of history and human (particularly destructive) behaviors. With a former attitude that 'religions were the 'keystone at the center of mass and individual mental sickness and destructiveness, something rather simple, almost comical happened to slightly adjust that perspective to my present one.

I noticed two things clearly on display at the top of all the (modern/'civilization) world religions; which I prefer calling theologies. 1. The top several strata of theological hierarchies are all comprised of males, usually elder, with a penchant for aggrandizing themselves with ostentatious attire and absurd heas gear. 2. In kind of a 'back to 1', they being male, propagate a shared idea that at the top of their deities a male god is in charge.

Before about 4500 or so BCE archaeological evidence shows human societies to have been much less warlike. Before agriculture, more like 10,000 years or so ago, we were even more peaceful and even greater evidence shows female parity in social structure and roles. Surviving hunter-gatherer societies in remote areas bear this out, for the most part.

So, for me it isn't religions as the root cause of violence and human suffering, but males being in exclusive 'charge', as we can still see clearly in places like North Africa, Middle East and central Asia.

I am the brother of a Presbyterian minister who concluded well into his ministry that he could no longer believe what he was expected to preach and retired as a non-believer.

Very close to my own story.