For those who have left a religion

[Theisticdefenderofatheism]

What religious community are you an ex member of (if any)?

I started out attending my Mum's Community of Christ Church, then eventually joined the Baha'i Faith (my Dad's religion since I was about 4) and then left that to do my own thing.

Does that make me a two timer of organised religion? Lol

Anyway lame jokes aside here's your turn to share if you were ever part of an organised religion.

[Unbeliever]

I was raised Southern Baptist, and was very much "on fire for God" for quite a while. Read the Bible from cover to cover 3 times and realized that it couldn't possibly be the "Word of God" so I stopped being a Christian. Looked around at some other religions but couldn't see that they had any more to offer than did Christianity, so I started reading about science and logic and realized that I no longer believed in any God or god.
That's it in a nutshell.

[Dark Lightning]

Roman Catholic. Didn't believe, starting around 14 YO. Kept that to myself, seeing how believers treat non-believers. Now, if someone asks me point blank, I will not deny it, but I don't wear it on my sleeve.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I was invited to not come back to Sunday School because I asked where Noah's sons got their wives. /win

[Mr.Obvious]

I used to be roman catholic.
Fervent and self-righteous believer as a kid.
Funny that as neither of my parents are actual believers. They raised me and my siblings in a way expected of them by their parents.
So we got baptised, took communion, went to cathechism before taking second communion and then second communion. We didn't go to church though. But i did take religion instead of ethics in elementary school. And went to catholic high school.

And apparently, that was all young me needed to believe. I prayed. I felt loved by god. I took strength out of the knowledge that He created me with purpose. I looked down on none believers and for a small period of time wanted nothing more than to become a priest.

Began outgrowing it in the second half of high school. When i realized i had to change who i was. When i finally faced that i was not happy with who i was. That i was not god's gift to the world, in a matter of speaking. When i began working on myself, i learned i had to question and criticize myself, which allowed me to look sceptically at all my beliefs.

[Blackleaf]

I was a Christian until my mid-twenties. It's been about ten years now. My brand of Christianity varied quite a bit. I started out in an independent church that was basically Pentecostal. They spoke in tongues, danced in the aisles, got "slain in the spirit," etc during church services. I never liked it there. When I was a teenager, my parents started taking me to a Lutheran church. We stayed there for quite a bit. But I got a little too comfortable. Formed basically my whole social circle outside of family there, so of course my parents decided to force me (an adult by that time) into church hopping again. We ended up staying at a Baptist church, which I eventually settled into. It wasn't exactly the same, but it was something. Started to make frie--acquaintances there and feel like I kinda belonged. And then the young adult minister left, and the contemporary worship leader, and the pastor, all within months of each other. Then it felt like an entirely different church. After that, I was basically like, "Fuck it. I'm done."

[viocjit]

I don't know where can I begin because I was raised in a "Cafeteria Catholic" family and was never baptised.

I'm also a former believer in many conspiracy theories but nearly no one believed in one of them around of me. I was the lone of my family to believe in these stuffs.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Flip side here, never religious. 'Rents made a few feeble attempts, but when they told us to go to church while they slept in I had the thing figured out.

Congrats to all who escaped Fantasy Island, and good luck to those struggling. Remember, fake until you make it if you need to, not really worth fighting over.

[Unbeliever]

I think it was more like the island of Dr. Moreau.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The fantasy is that the monsters are there to make their life better.

[Cariboo]

I was born into the mormon cult, of course I didn't know at the time that it was a cult but did figure out quite young that it wasn't true and therefore not relevant. Later on I came to understand that it should have been named the Later Day Grifters International. But then really aren't all religions based on the grift. Give to me and in return you'll receive a great reward when your dead. Now that is a four star no return policy if ever there was one.

As a side note The founder, Joe Smith made money by convincing folk he could find treasure. He claimed that a stone he kept hidden in his hat had magical powers that only he could see. He was arrested for fraud and later killed by an angry mob when they came to understand how stupid they were to be duped like that.

[LoriPinkAngel]

Hello. Until I was 5 or 6 my mom took me to her parents church which was Missouri Synod Lutheran. She left that church for a different church which was then part of the LCA. I liked it better because they had a fellowship hour with cookies after the service and I met black people for the first time which I thought was pretty cool. I went there through high school, participating in Sunday school, vacation bible school, youth group, choir and all that. My senior year in high school I went to a non denominational Christian church to be a member of an elite church choir. In college I didn't go to any service regularly but occasionally would attend random churches with random friends who invited me. In Basic Training I went to the generic Protestant services including the choir so I didn't have to clean the barracks. Then I didn't go to church again until my 30's. I went to a Presbyterian church. I was again in an elite choir and I had my son baptized there. I sent my son to a Christian school affiliated with a Southern Baptist church which was his father's parents church. I tried going there but couldn't stomach it. I read several different versions of the bible. From early childhood I had questions no one could answer.  In my late 40s-early 50s I accepted that it was all fiction. Somehow it felt much better realizing that bad stuff that happened in my life just happened and was not a product of a god actively ignoring my needs.

[Unbeliever]

When I stopped believing in God I also stopped believing in Hell, and I've never been more ecstatically happy than knowing I never again had to worry about the possibility of burning for eternity in a lake of fire!