Question for the Former Theists

[Silver]

I believe there were two separate incidences that eventually led me to discard my religious beliefs.

First, it was what I encountered during my senior year in high school. The best way to describe what happened my senior year is that I was weak and fell victim to what Christians and the church were offering in the way of friendship and finally having a place in which to fit. The thing of it was that in high school I was an outcast, and the only person I basically hung around was my sister. The first individual to whom I came out of the closet invited me to join her church. At first she was cool with me being gay, but as time passed it became apparent that everyone I encountered in that particular church only wanted to change me. It especially become disconcerting when the pastor, who had no idea I was gay, made the claim before the congregation that God had informed him someone in the parish was suffering from the demon of homosexuality. When he called my name and asked me to join him at the front of the church, I looked at my friend and knew that she had been the one who told him about me. I never trusted her again after that, and I believe that was when I truly began to question everything regarding religion.

It was when I was in my first year of college that I happened to stumble across a website (http://www.infidels.org/library/historic...ingersoll/) of Robert Green Ingersoll's works as I was perusing the internet. His writing completely changed my perspective.