Your story...

[tacoma_kyle]

I dont really have a story. At the time I was in high school and despised the social ladders. I was always confused on the topic but never really thought about it. Nor cared. Around Soph. time I was at the 'I believe there may have been a god' stage. Then it went downhill from there. Listening to TOOL and conversing with a particular friend of mine in a similar position helped speed up the process for some reason. Still took a year or so.

Drinking and BBQ'ing on Sundays is more fun anyway.

[afreethinker30]

I dont really have a story. At the time I was in high school and despised the social ladders. I was always confused on the topic but never really thought about it. Nor cared. Around Soph. time I was at the 'I believe there may have been a god' stage. Then it went downhill from there. Listening to TOOL and conversing with a particular friend of mine in a similar position helped speed up the process for some reason. Still took a year or so.

Drinking and BBQ'ing on Sundays is more fun anyway.

[quizlixx]

man, my story sucks compared to that. my parents baptized me prespaterian(however you spell it) and then we moved and joined the baptist community, we wer there for about 7 years and then became methodist. my family was extremely gung-ho about being active and i really led the pace i quickly became known by everybody in my church, i did voulenteer work with mission trips and participated in events. i actually participated in an anti-abortion rally at my city hall carrying a sign that read " what if jesus had been aborted" i also was enrolled in catholic private school all my life. until i flunked out on purpose. my parents sent me to a much better public school. i discovered that i was questioning my beliefs when i was about 11. I was at catholic school back then and they told me that everybody goes through a doubting phase. i was as brainwashed as you could be. i was extremely conservative, hate fillet, half bigot, christian. all because my parents are brainwashed by these stupid religions. i am currently working up the nerve to tell them. yall will be the first to know when i do. if i'm still alive.

[rassy]

when i was a small child, my mother got into an accident and i went to live with my aunts in the bible-baptist south. ok, it was Florida, but it still counts. i spent about a year and a half there and in that time, the only religion i was introduced to was the dinner prayers and such. when my mom finally was able to get out of the hospital, we moved back up north to PA. we moved into these little shit apartments that we could barely afford and we had these neighbors who lived across the street from us (and for the sake of protecting the innocent and guilty, i'm gonna use pseudonyms.) it was a small family, consisting of a grandmother and grandfather and their three grandchildren, sarah, kate and john, who were taken away from their real parents because they were drunk assholes or something like that. anyways, they became my second family and helped my mom, who was still really sick, and i out a lot, with food and watching me and money every now and then. they brought my mother and i to the church they went to, and i assimilated quite quickly and made friends. the girls went to my elementary school and they became my sisters. i went to church every wednesday and sunday and we went on mission trips to baltimore and i went to camp and had a bible. i accepted jesus h. christ as my lord and savior more times than i can remember. soon enough, the smiths moved into a bigger house, and it was still normal. we still spent a lot of time at their place and i was well on my way to becoming an upstanding christian young woman. then, one year, i went to church camp with another one of my friends and they stayed behind for whatever reason. i learned about a week later that the girls had accused their grandfather of sexual molestation and they had been taken away from their grandparents and put into foster care. at first, my mother was very, very steadfast about defending him and the church had his back as well. that is, of course, until they found DNA evidence to convict the son of a bitch and threw him in jail. as the years grew on, i found that my supposed "faith" was dwindling at the same time that my new found curiosity for answers was growing. i wanted to know how a man of god could do such a thing, and how a supposedly forgiving religion could turn their back on someone so quickly. the church wont talk about it, his wife moved away and i havent seen my friends in six years. i wanted to know why the ever lving father in heaven had just up and abandoned mere children. how can you let something like that happen? if god is so damn powerful, why didnt he stop a young girl's life from being ruined? if you have the power and don't use it, you are a coward and worthless. eventually, i realized that god was just a pretty story. it can let you get away with anything, saying you're religious. i can imagine that if they could, evangelists in the south would still lynch blacks. religion is a farce and one with such deep roots that people are afraid to question it, however they can use it as a reason to violate a child. it's disgusting, it's hypocritical and i couldn't imagine allowing myself to be affiliated with something that goes against a basic moral code i have for myself. religion is a crutch. it's a way of taking hopeless and lost people and turning them into tools for your power trip.

i had the greatest way of coming out, however. there's a church nearby where my mom and i used to live and every christmas, they displayed a nativity scene. one day, i said to my mom "mary looks awfully thin for someone who just gave birth. or did he spring from her forehead?" and my mom yelled at me and told me that i was a christian and such blasphemy was wrong. i corrected her by saying "no, i'm actually agnostic (i was at the time) and i would appreciate it if you stopped trying to tell me what i am and what i am not. also, the light is green." honestly, i thought i had just killed my mother. she mocks me endlessly, then gets offended when i do the same, but besides that she pretty much leaves me be.