I just tried my hardest to believe in God (evangelical Christianity in my case). I tried to make it work with what I know and my morals. Just in the moment I thought I worked it out, a new issue or paradox occured. It took me a long time to confidentiality and absolutely say: “You know what? All of this is bullshit.” And finally a big knot inside me loosened. At this point I can’t even remember why it was so hard, but it felt like you just had to believe in God, because that’s traditionally the thing you do. And well, mum does so and she surely can’t be wrong?

My family was (is, for the most part) Christians, though last I heard my dad is thinking of converting to Judaism. I went to church every Sunday, and Awana (kids bible program thing) every Wednesday, I earned a free trip to bible camp through my church multiple years running, cuz I wanted to go that badly… All that to say, I tried, okay? I really tried. I WANTED to believe in God, and Jesus, and all of it. I just … Didn’t.

I never felt the euphoria that other people claimed to feel, I never felt anything but fear, cuz everyone said God and heaven and hell were real, and I did NOT want to end up in hell, but I didn’t feel shit. I was convinced for a long time that the lack of feeling was because I wasn’t really “saved”, that’s I’d messed it up some how, or lost it. And I really did not want to go to hell, so that was pretty upsetting.

But ultimately I never really believed deep down. I thought the flood story was dumb, I thought praying was dumb(I still tried it, trying to feel the damned feelings), I did not have a “relationship with Jesus”. I was confused on a lot of points, especially where the love of Jesus conflicted with my republican families political opinions.

When I was in my early teens my grandpa died, and at the funeral some relative or other assured me I’d see him again in heaven, and I remember thinking, “Now that’s a weird thing to actually believe.” …That thought came out of no where. I was still trying to believe at the time, and I think that was the beginning of the end. It was a slow end, with a couple more tries at various churches, but I really just used church for socializing from then on. Socializing and hedging my Pascal’s Wager, you know, cuz I really (and I can’t stress this enough) did not want to go to hell. I wanted to at least be able to tell god I tried. Just in case.

So yeah, god, and random internet people, I tried. But there wasn’t much faith to lose.

Nope. Wasnt even baptized, my dad is a self proclaimed agnostic and my mom just doesnt give a shit about religion. Thank goodness

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Raised mostly Baptist. As a kid I decided the thing to do was to learn as much about the Bible as possible. As a teen I realized I wasn’t comfortable with the praise and worship part of church. The other bits were boring and didn’t feel like there was much to learn. Then I decided what I should do is just read the Bible cover to cover.

I made it to that story where some men of the lord were hiding from villagers in some dudes house. The villagers wanted the guys and to keep them happy the owner of the house sent out his daughters to entertain the group of men.

It took a while to cope with the massive shift in my reality. Eventually I decided I’d rather burn in hell for all time than worship an entity that requires actions like that from me.

Not since I was old enough to make my own choices. I can vividly remember hiding behind my house when I was a kid, I don’t know how old I was, trying to avoid going to church. As far as I can remember, I never believed. In fact, for the longest time, I thought people were just “playing along” so to speak, because that’s what I would do whenever I was dragged to church. I was older than I would like to admit when I realized that people really do literally believe in all the dumb shit in the bible.