Anyone else just drop religion with a snap of the finger?

[PookieNumNums]

I am honestly curious if anyone else has experience this.  I grew up in Christian schools almost my entire childhood.   Religion never made any sense to me.  About 4 years ago one day I was thinking about things and it was literally like an instant snap in my brain.  At that moment I realized the B.S that it is.  Everything clicked in an instant that it makes more sense to completely abandon any idea of there being a God and religion than to actually believe .  4 years later I never once looked back.  I know right now that it is impossible for me to ever ever believe in an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.  I actually look at people that worship hands raised ... praying to their invisible god as lunatics.  I'm sorry that's just how it is.  Even growing up in a Christian atmosphere my whole life after that switch in my brain I can never again look at religion the same. 

Sorry for my horrible grammar and typing ....

[purplepurpose]

All kinds of people commit suicide or drink themselves to death. Religion provides help, even if it's hard to live with it.

[Peebothuhlu]

While I too attended some Religiously run schools. Religion as a whole just wasn't something my kin were realy into.

Oh, there were bouts of "C'mon! We're off to church!" such things seemed more sporadic than anything else.

Luckiky I live in a reasonably secualr country so, for me, it's never been a big issue either way.

Cheers.

Not at work.

[Belacqua]

an invisible being that floats out there in space that no one has ever seen or talked too.

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

If that's what they taught you in your Christian schools, you were very right to stop believing it.

[Gwaithmir]

I wish I could say that I dropped religion in an instant, but I was a victim of 12½ years of Catholic brainwashing. It took about ten years of deep introspection and comparative religious study before I realized that I was an atheist. 

[brewer]

I had a brief battle of wills with my parents, but that was at age 13.

@Belacqua Does the Popes, Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian's definition of god make his decision to not believe less valid?

[Fake Messiah]

The Pope doesn't believe in this kind of thing either. Nor did Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, or any other Christian with some knowledge of theology. 

And look where it got them: St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas concluded that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches.

What's next? Are you going to recommend Hitler's theology as well?

[downbeatplumb]

Never left religion because I never had it.

It all just seems stupid to me.

[Duty]

Cool story OP, your grammar and spelling ain't too shabby, by my mind.

Julia Sweeney also remembers the moment of "revelation"  Check out the (hilarious) Youtube video of her kicking the god delusion story HERE.

[AFTT47]

I had a moment like that. I rejected biblical stories as soon as I heard them - around 5 years old - but accepted God. To complicate things further, I sucked up science like a sponge. I was about 12 years old when I was trying to reconcile God with science and the obvious fictional nature of the bible when the possibility of there not being a God popped into my head. It was like you described - flipping a switch. The moment I contemplated the possibility of atheism, I was an atheist.