Faith no more

[Kayenneh]

I think I was destined to become an atheist from the very beginning. When I was a child, saying my prayers with my sister, I never ended with the small word "amen", as everyone else did. Nobody explained what it meant and I didn't like using words I didn't know. Instead I used to end my prayers with "the car", since I was a huge fan of cars. It made so much more sense to me. I thought that God wouldn't mind.
When I was fourteen I went to confirmation camp and loved it. I started to become more and more involved with my church and I was convinced that there was a god. It was some years later, after I started high school, when I truly begun to doubt. IB was probably the best thing that could've happened to me. There I was taught how to think critically and it really helped me realize that there might not be such a thing as a god at all.
Those seeds of doubt and thought started to spread, but for a long while I thought myself more of an agnostic than atheist. Even though I had turned 18, I had not left my church, though I wasn't active anymore.
For a while I believed in a personal god, but not the one priests used to preach about. But the more I saw what religion was about, the less I believed.
One day I just had enough with my hypocrisy, I left the church. When the letter saying that I didn't belong the parish anymore, I felt a little bit queasy. For the rest of the day I walked around, afraid that a lightning would strike me down because of my cockiness. But nothing happened. Nor has anything bad happened to me since then. I actually got work when I needed it, got rid of my anxieties and have never been so balanced in my whole life.
So now I am a happy atheist, who despite my quite insignificant existence, try to make the most of my life and be of service for the members of my society before I die. And thank goodness I don't have to live forever. One lifetime is enough for me.

[Gawdzilla]

Welcome. We have a wide range of experiences here, but they all wound up at the same point, "This shit makes no sense."

[Kayenneh]

Well, the shit made sense when I just needed a group to belong to, but I rather be alone thinking, than in a group worshipping something that doesn't exist XD

[tackattack]

@Gawdzilla - Not all ... but definately the majority.

@Kayenneh- So you couldn't ", try to make the most of my life and be of service for the members of my society before I die", think critically or doubt (question) with religion? Was it the hypocrisy that drove you away, or was it more?

[Justtristo]

I think I was destined to become an atheist from the very beginning. When I was a child, saying my prayers with my sister, I never ended with the small word "amen", as everyone else did. Nobody explained what it meant and I didn't like using words I didn't know. Instead I used to end my prayers with "the car", since I was a huge fan of cars. It made so much more sense to me. I thought that God wouldn't mind.
When I was fourteen I went to confirmation camp and loved it. I started to become more and more involved with my church and I was convinced that there was a god. It was some years later, after I started high school, when I truly begun to doubt. IB was probably the best thing that could've happened to me. There I was taught how to think critically and it really helped me realize that there might not be such a thing as a god at all.
Those seeds of doubt and thought started to spread, but for a long while I thought myself more of an agnostic than atheist. Even though I had turned 18, I had not left my church, though I wasn't active anymore.
For a while I believed in a personal god, but not the one priests used to preach about. But the more I saw what religion was about, the less I believed.
One day I just had enough with my hypocrisy, I left the church. When the letter saying that I didn't belong the parish anymore, I felt a little bit queasy. For the rest of the day I walked around, afraid that a lightning would strike me down because of my cockiness. But nothing happened. Nor has anything bad happened to me since then. I actually got work when I needed it, got rid of my anxieties and have never been so balanced in my whole life.
So now I am a happy atheist, who despite my quite insignificant existence, try to make the most of my life and be of service for the members of my society before I die. And thank goodness I don't have to live forever. One lifetime is enough for me.

Welcome Kayenneh and thank you for sharing your story. I have to say, I don't think I was a born atheist, born theist more likely. However certain experiences that happened in my formative years turned myself into the metaphysical naturalist I am today.

[Kayenneh]

I want to be/do good to other people, because I want to. Not because I'm scared and coerced into it, not because the supposed afterlife means more than the life I'm living now and I'm being kind to people because I want to collect god-points like life is just a big game and the l33ts are the ones to get into heaven. Sure, you can do good as a believer too, but for me it's like medicine vs. homeopathy, I can't deny the placebo effect, but I'd rather be dealing with the real thing.
I like questioning and I love to ask why and understand why things work as they do. My Religion(/psychology) teacher in high school wasn't too amused by this, and in the end she just ignored me even though I tried to answer a question and nobody else did. I did my assignments, but all of those lessons made me a better drawer, if nothing else. She should have been grateful that she had a student that actually wanted to participate, but all she wanted to do was mould everybody's opinion according to hers and couldn't stand that someone might think differently than her. I might sound paranoid, but this happened also to my sister, two of her friends and an acquaintance of ours. I can't stand how religion gets in the way of education, and I didn't have it bad, but just thinking about the Bible Belt etc. makes me shiver. And as someone much wiser than me said (unfortunately I can't remember who) that why can everything else be questioned, but not religion?
It's not so much the hypocrisy of faith that drove me away, it's the ignorance. Occasional stupidity can't be helped, but to stay ignorant willingly is beyond me.

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@Atman: Thanks! Did you happen to write down your story here too? If you did, would you mind linking it so that I could read it?