Current Events > At what age did you "give up" on religious stuff?

(+) Yeah! (+)

Some time in high school.

Started wavering in high school; pretty much gave up on it in my early-20's. Still pretend that I follow it to keep the peace.

28, almost 29, and still religious

Until religious conservatism is defeated, no one has yet.

Can't say I was ever religious, even though mom forced me up through Confirmation during elementary and middle school.

I've never been religious.

When they stopped making me, I stopped doing it.

Around 15/16 is when I completely stopped believing in anything. I was a pretty religious kid, mostly because of indoctrination (Roman Catholic primary school connected to a church and my high school was part of an abbey). Theres a reason they baptise, hold the communion and confirm you when youre still a kid.

I picked 16-20 because it was about end of highschool and into my college years did I realize I had to commit to so many cognitive dissonance to make my religious belief work with how the natural world works. I just couldn't be dishonest with myself anymore.

It was just my dad and I. He worked hard so he mostly relaxed and slept on weekends so I didnt have to participate in church. Religion was something I read about and studied on my own at a young age and decided it was nonsense. It didnt take long, and it was in Elementary School.

i was like five or six when i started to be bothered by the logical inconsistencies in The Bible and said i didn't like church anymore. my parents respected my choice.

11 to 12

6th grade. Learning about Mesopotamia got me to unbelieve

I never went to church. I stopped believing in a god of any sort in college.

Officially? no idea.

I traded whatever religious capability I had for patriotic fervor.

Too young to remember precisely, but not long after figuring out Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real.

Maybe a couple weeks after I got to college.

Like there was a church on campus and I went twice.

And then I just said to myself "wait a minute..."

I've never really done stuff like go to church or pray. As for believing in any particular religion anymore, that stopped when I was like 14 or so.

I'm actually more religious now than when I was actively going to church while I was younger, >.<

Christian, though not the sickening Evangelical zealot type ruining the US and much of the rest of the world.

4th grade.

I was in 3rd grade at 8 years old, and I was so, so bored by the substitute teacher's droning that this boredom even overrode my constant background fear. It let me think clearly.

"I only believe in God because I'm afraid of death. That doesn't make sense."

While as a kid my mom tried taking me to church and I remember having to do catechism every Wednesday. I always hated it, I found it so boring.

When my parents got divorced my dad got custody evey Wednesday so that stopped the Wednesday stuff, and my mom stopped taking us to Church. It was one of the few things that was a big improvement on the early years of the divorce

Around 12-13 is when I stopped believing, ultimately giving up.

Ratchetrockon posted...

Learning about Mesopotamia got me to unbelieve

Why?

It's hard to remember exactly, but I would say in the 11-15 range, because I got confirmed at 16 and I somewhat ironically definitely did not believe by that point.

I remember the moment it happened, though, even if I can't remember my exact age. I was still doing Sunday school at the time, and they brought in this outside minister that was related to one of the teachers to "answer any questions about our faith", which I evidently misunderstood, because I asked him all the traditional beginning-to-doubt questions about dinosaurs, evolution, etc., which ultimately resulted in my parents getting yelled at by the church elders, and me having a 1-on-1 meeting with the pastor about faith, at which point I realized, "oh, so these people don't actually have any answers to give".

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Well it started my doubts.

Their belief in more than one God. Like a few thousand iirc (but only a few major ones).. None of them relevant today despite their religion lasting for thousands of years.

Just made me realize this is probably gonna happen to the Gods worshipped today in a few thousand years as well. Future civilizations might worship aliens or some other beings.

oh I also thought the belief in thousands of gods was too outlandish and after some thinking I realized this could also apply to the belief of a single God as well. i grew up listening to pastors talking about the ONE TRUE GOD. I'm sure previous civilizations thought the same for their dozens/hundreds/thousands lol.

And once I learned more about other polytheistic cultures I got the hunch that this God stuff must be made up.

The above should be an accurate representation of what I thought in the 6th grade. Well even today I still think this. I haven't updated my thoughts on this topic since then. I have a nagging feeling I'm making a leap in logic somewhere though. I'm not great at detecting this tbh .

18 when I could finally decline going to church. My mom is pretty religious still and tries to bring me back.

One time she was going on there has to be a god because some womans kid was horribly sick and didnt get better until she prayed so it was a miracle. Looked her dead in the eye and told her you know that mom was poisoning her kid, right? Its a mental illness because the mom wanted attention. Never got her to shut up about it so fast.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]

Indeed, that's probably the prevailing sentiment.

I'm 33 now, but I think I stopped believing between the ages of 11-15. Can't remember exactly when or why I stopped. But I do recall telling my mom around maybe 9th or 10th grade, and she gave me this long lecture about how I shouldn't think like that because I'm destroying my life or something like that. She sounded so concerned.

It was then that I decided to just keep my atheism a secret from my family. Although I openly say it to my sister now that I think all religions are a scam. She heavily believes in Christianity. If it ever came up again with my mom, I'd let her know now that I'm still atheist.

I never really was in to it but went because my parents made me go. I was really done with it when I was in 8th/9th grade. At one point I had a cyst that made it uncomfortable to sit. My dad still wanted me to go to church that weekend to "pray to get better" but thankfully my mom said I could stay home. I was still forced to go through high school but then once I was done with that I stopped going and now the only time I'm ever at a church is for weddings or funerals.

Maybe around middleschool or highscool when I thought science had the whole universe figured out. Then I realized we barely understand anything at all.

I'm still somewhat skeptical when it comes to the institution of religion, but I think personal belief in a higher power is a net positive for a lot of people.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


Theres an argument to made all of anything is because of death, to be fair.

Never was religious, My parents didn't want me or my brother to be raised predisposed to believe any specific religion and felt that when we were old enough to make our own choices that if we wanted to we could choose a religion to believe in

Toonstrack posted...

Theres an argument to made all of anything is because of death, to be fair.

If death wasn't inevitable, we'd still suffer from it as it's in our nature.

Probably around 7 or 8. I remember thinking about how illogical it is to assume a religion is correct just because it happens to be the one you were born into. A simple, childish way to look at it, but that I was.

Single digits, though I never really believed in it.

TheOtherMike posted...

Too young to remember precisely, but not long after figuring out Santa and the Easter Bunny weren't real.

Yeah, all of them hit me at the same time too.

I've never been religious.

My parents weren't religious, so I was never really exposed to religion as a child. By the time I was old enough to really think about that kinda thing for myself, it was pretty obvious to me that it was a bunch of bullshit.

20. I was on my own. I still believed but didn't pray, attend church etc. This happened till 2015. I started a full removal when my sister passed. What she went through no one should have. I wasn't gone but I questioned why. I explored other areas. 2020 I lost my partner. I had to fend off his family for what was 50% my property who were all christians. They sued me. Someone they have known for 30 years. Pretty much family to me. I felt betrayed. That was my departure. Why do people fake it. I never changed they did. The final nail was a friend who asked for my help to be her caretaker since she lived alone and it was during covid. She said she would die on her own terms. I said ok since she helped me through my partners death and the drama after. The situation was similar to my sister. How cruel does he have to be. My friend was very devout. We had plenty of time to discuss it. I was still being pursued by my partners family who still thought I was hiding shit. So that added to what was already stressful. I told them to go to hell. They just gave up. 2 more things happened one was her daughter visited and her mother was pretty much on her deathbed. Instead of letting their decades long feud go, she never ended the feud. She is also very devout and forgiveness is important. She never did. She should have been there not me. Her passing confirmed I was done. I hate the hipocracy and it from people's family. You either live the life or you don't. I'm more a Christian than they are and I no longer believe.

"at what age"?! Forcing religion onto young children is fucking disgusting.

never been religious

I went to VBC a couple years with a friend but that was mostly just for the parties and the food. the couple times I actually went to church felt really weird.

Ratchetrockon posted...

oh I also thought the belief in thousands of gods was too outlandish and after some thinking I realized this could also apply to the belief of a single God as well. i grew up listening to pastors talking about the ONE TRUE GOD. I'm sure previous civilizations thought the same for their dozens/hundreds/thousands lol.

And once I learned more about other polytheistic cultures I got the hunch that this God stuff must be made up.

What I've realized about God(s) is they are shorthand explanations for things that people, historically, had no explanation for. Why did a massive flood come from the sky and wipe out your crop? The Rain/Weather/The God did it because you didn't worship hard enough. Why did your country's army suffer a debilitating loss? Because the God of War blessed your opponent or your nation was not fervent enough in its worship of the God of War.

Now why did they have no answer? Chiefly because the vast majority of people received no sort of formal education or methods to improve their logic/deductive skills. Add in shared beliefs create identity and culture, and people prioritize their (small) community over all else and it is easy to see why God(s) are common beliefs in basically every human society to ever exist. Then sprinkle in those who use religion to wield power, and it becomes obvious why said God(s) haven't disappeared.