I was also raised Catholic. Became born again at 17 during a really tough time. I was a runaway at the time. Stayed in fundalmental Christianity until two years ago when Trump got nominated. I just couldn’t keep
Making excuses for the hate of the poor, the immigrants, or minorities that Christians have and use to affect politics.

I began questioning the existence of God around 8 years old after being forced to go to church and Sunday school every Sunday... I don't think I ever believed.

Once I turned 18 I was able to stop going to church permanently.

I had a United Methodist missionary family. Although I was devoutly religious, they were liberal. When I began reading the original Bible in Hebrew and Greek, I realized 98% of what the churches teach isn't in the Bible at all.

The bad behavior of Christians I knew-racist, hateful, condemning, xenphobic, homophobic, etc., finally convinced me to drop church. After I read the Sumerian texts, written 2000 years before the Bible, but the same stories, I stopped believing in Christianity altogether.

Welcome to the real world. Spread your wings and be free of the fear (religion) of your past.

I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. They taught me to hate all other religions, and then I learned to hate them too.

Welcome here. I was raised Lutheran and then went to a Lutheran college to get my first college degree. I took 5 of the religion classes while there, I still have my notebooks and papers that I had to write in them. I then went and tried the teaching of Mathematics and decided I liked computers more so got I got to the point that I decided that it was time to read the Bible from beginning to end yet again and while doing that I finally couldn't reconcile the contradictions, atrocities, and malarkey that is in it.

Welcome aboard

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.
I was raised a catholic, too. Always knew it was bullshit.

Well, since you asked.... Born and rise Catholic in an extremely represive environment where if you didn't feel guilty then you would burn for eternity blah blah blah...when I turned 14 (give or take) ran into the book "why I am NOT a Christian" by Bertrand Russell. My life was pulled out of the same bull shit that ruined another siblings. At least I could free myself and never came back. I am 54 now, have been completely detached from any religious influence my whole life and I made it just fine

Well welcome to our freethinker community. Iwas raised Jewish,started rebelling at 5 and was out at 16. Parents punished me by shipping me to Israel on a Bible Study Tour

I never really believed, never really thought about it. I was in the army, and in my twenties when I realized I'd always been an atheist.

I never crossed the line. I was born an atheist and I still am.

I grew up Mormon and then became old enough to realize fact from fiction. I simply walked away.

There was no line to cross. Just the realisation that logic, common sense and actual provable facts made a lot more sense to me than the questionable translations of the scribblings of some iron age desert dwellers.

I think I was seven years old. The Catholic nun at my Sunday school said "Jesus was a little lamb". I 'knew' at that point that I was being spoon-fed drivel, and I've never, ever, doubted it for a moment since.

I never crossed the line to begin with. I wasn't brought up with any religious upbringing by my mom. I always wondered and asked on occassions, but never really got an answer.

Grew up as a Jehovah's Witness until I was about 12...Honestly I don't know if I ever really believed or if I was just going a long and eventually I gained the flexibility needed to really question and realized religion wasn't for me.

This was the thread I was waiting for as a new member. I was raised Southern Baptist. Went to an Episcopalian Junior High School and High School where we had Chapel (mandatory) every morning. Sang in the choir while I was in college (Alto). I enjoyed it. I read the Bible cover to cover. I read up on Biblical Archeology--how many events or places or historical personages mentioned there can be proven by archeological research? A lot, when it comes to the Old Testament at least. But no actual miracles. Nothing that would prove a divine hand in the course of history in that part of the world, and the people who populated it. I prayed, I sang, I listened to many sermons.

I would NEVER want to compare my experience of acknowledging my "epiphany" of non-belief to the trauma many have experienced coming out of the closet as gay or trans, but in a much smaller way, it sort of felt like a lot of what I have read of that experience. First you have to realize that the feelings you are supposed to have, you don't have them. Second, you ask yourself why you don't. Then, you have to go through all the arguments (Pascal's Wager comes first to mind) against your new knowledge of yourself. Finally, there's the act of actually deciding who to be honest with and who you really need to still fly under the radar around. It was so incredibly awkward. It is still incredibly awkward. I'm currently applying for a job where I feel my lack of religion will make me discriminated against.

My first understanding was that a lot of the people who are religious are that way because they are afraid of death. My second understanding was that a lot of the religious people who are afraid of death are afraid of death because they feel they are too special and unique to not be immortal as an individual soul (ego). My third understanding was that other people genuinely have religious experiences which are apparently denied to me despite my early attempts at them (neuroscience is starting to make great inroads here to explain while some people perceive a divine presence while others cannot.) I realized I could stare into the void and not be frightened of it. I will live my life as best I can and appreciate the days I am given. Science and nature are awesome, the cosmos are awesome, and I feel that every day I have more opportunity to learn more about all of that. Science gives me the sense of awestruck wonder that I guess a lot of people get from religion. The universe is vast but I do not believe it is ultimately unknowable. Humankind needs to keep striving to learn more and more and not rely on myths to explain what is not yet perfectly understood. But for now, many people seem to need those myths. I don't feel that I do.

I am tired of being evangelized. I don't try to convince others to feel and believe as I do, so why do they think it is their business if I am saved or not? I think it goes back to fear. If they see people who are unchurched and non-believing leading good and happy and fulfilled lives, that's a threat.

I've said enough. Thanks for reading. I feel better for posting this.

I was raised Southern Baptist. I never liked church, so when I was in my teens, I stopped going. Later in my early thirties, I had some tragedies occur, and assumed it was because of my lack of faith, so I got serious about god for the first time in my life really. That was ok, until I started reading the Bible. The more I studied it, the less and less and less I could believe. I still believed there was "something" for a pretty good while, and that Christianity had just gotten it all wrong, but when you start honestly trying to find the truth, you find it.
I was serious about believing what was true, so eventually I had no supernatural beliefs left.

Wasn't your shift from Roman Catholisism to being born again simply jumping out of the frying pan into the fire ?

I was raised Baptist, quit the church at about age 12 or 13, then for a lot of years was kind of a new-agey, mystical type, but kept reading philosophy and science, and then about 8 or 9 years ago, I just couldn't believe in a god anymore. I like to think I'm more reality-based now than I have ever been in my life.

I was 14, quit going to church, never looked back.

My story is very dramatic. I never really believed in religion even when I was little and my parents dragged me to church. When I was about twelve I found out there were others like me and there was a name for it. That’s when I came out and told my parents I didn’t want to go to church ever again.

I'm actually not sure. I was raised in the catholic curch. But my dad died when I was 10 and mom never pushed it on us. I rememebr being bored to death in church, but then most kids are. I do recall getting REAL pissed when some Jehovas came to my door in the late 80s. My ex got mad because I yelled at them. LOL. The older I get, the less patience I have for any of it.

Christ in a sidecar, that is quite a journey.

My bona fides? First, I'm Australian. We generally don't do the churchy thing. Just putting that out there.

I never really got religion. I spent a year at university going to church each Sunday (Catholic, only to please my mother). It was a year of kneeling uncomfortably in a room that felt like a barn and completely bereft of anything divine.

Fast forward 30 years - tried it again. Anglican, this time. Because, you know, maybe it's like different flavoured ice creams.

Again, nada. Nothing. Some lovely and misguided people, but nothing divine.

So I never crossed a line; in fact, I approached it from the other side. I wanted something to be there. I tried. It was an absence, not a presence.

And that is my story.

Welcome, Stargazer13, I think you will like it here.