I was raised as a Catholic, went to private school K through 12, and even wanted to be a nun when I was around 12. I bought into it 100%.
First started questioning the sinfulness of same-sex love because I was having feelings for my best friend in high school.
I was taught that questioning was a sin, but even that didn’t make sense to me because my intellect is a gift from God, so why would it be sinful to use it?
So I started to allow myself to question things, but continued going to church and believing through my 20s. I just cherry-picked which teachings to keep and disregard.
Sometime in my 30s, thanks to the internet, I was exposed to people like Dan Barker and Sam Harris. I was living in Michigan at the time and also started listening to a local podcast called Reasonable Doubts (highly recommend).
All of that combined helped me realize atheism made the most sense, though it was several months before I learned to embrace the term.
I was raised as a Catholic, went to private school K through 12, and even wanted to be a nun when I was around 12. I bought into it 100%.
First started questioning the sinfulness of same-sex love because I was having feelings for my best friend in high school.
I was taught that questioning was a sin, but even that didn’t make sense to me because my intellect is a gift from God, so why would it be sinful to use it?
So I started to allow myself to question things, but continued going to church and believing through my 20s. I just cherry-picked which teachings to keep and disregard.
Sometime in my 30s, thanks to the internet, I was exposed to people like Dan Barker and Sam Harris. I was living in Michigan at the time and also started listening to a local podcast called Reasonable Doubts (highly recommend).
All of that combined helped me realize atheism made the most sense, though it was several months before I learned to embrace the term.