I grew up in the Christian church. I even went to Bible college and graduated.

There’s plenty of internal inconsistencies in the Bible that people point to. Honestly, while I was always intrigued by those, I didn’t (and still don’t) think those are deal breakers. What did it for me was twofold.

First, the people and their inconsistencies in belief/behavior. There’s plenty of beliefs, practices, and policies that you can argue, but being kind and compassionate are pretty clear callings without room for debate. The most hateful, spiteful, discriminatory people I know can all be found in a church on Sunday, or at least claiming to be Christian. Not to say that all Christians are like this - some of the kindest people I know are Christians. But as a group, they are appalling.

Second is results. I’ve prayed for plenty of stupid stuff I’m sure. If a god is real, I don’t hold it against them for ignoring my dumb asks. But when I look at the serious stuff - prayers for lost people to come home, for severe illness to be healed, for provision for the impoverished, I can’t see any difference at a macro level between praying and not praying.

I questioned what good religion was if it didn’t seem to improve people or the world, and came to the conclusion that it was a wash, so I quietly walked away nearly a decade ago.

It honestly kinda sucks. It was a huge portion of my life. Most of my friends are people I met through church and college. My family is still heavily religious. I met my spouse through church, and they are not in the same position as me. Barring 2 friends, I have never told anyone I know that I’ve even questioned. Even as I’ve moved through jobs, there’s always been someone who already knew me, so the expectations that come with a religious history and degree have always preceded me. I’m effectively in the closet. Anyone who says leaving is the easy route is ignorant and wrong. It’s hard.

At one of those bible study after church things, I asked the priest if when I die and go to heaven, I’ll get answers to things I’ve always wondered, like how many stars there are, or since I’m outside of time then, be able to observe historic events like building of pyramids or the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs , or supernovas, or how technology would be in the future.

… he said that I wouldn’t care, I’d be too busy being astounded by the face of god for all eternity.

Which I thought was the lamest way to spend eternity, and what’s worse, would mean that my main trait at the time, curiosity, wouldn’t be part of me when I’m in heaven. Then would it really be me up there?

Act 2. I eek out the “why does a loving god allow souls to be tortured and burnt for all eternity” question to a different priest and got some answer like hell is just the absence of god. Which, I can understand why to him that’s torture but for me… it seemed more like a “ok you don’t want to stare at my godly face for eternity? Be elsewhere then with your fellow non believers “. Which from my pov, it’s like ok no big deal then?

And from there the shadow of doubt grew enough and now I understand this is all there is so we just gotta make the best of it, and try to push the envelope for humanity in any way we can.

I was raised Mormon. Mormonism is somewhat unique in that it claims to have a modern prophet and leadership that are directly led by god, and it strongly encourages members to pray to god and ask god for confirmation that this is true. Mormons are also taught that god would not allow their prophet to lead them astray, and that your local leaders are also inspired by god in what they do in their official capacity.

I was a missionary when shit started to break. I had a nervous breakdown; I am on the autism spectrum (although that diagnosis wasn’t available at that time; it was almost 30 years ago, back in DSM-III), and being a missionary was a lot too much for me for many, many reasons. I became suicidal. My leaders–again, people who were supposed to be called by god and led through inspiration from god–insisted that I must be acting in some sinful way, and that it was sin that had led to me being suicidal. They encouraged me to read my scriptures and pray more–as if I wasn’t already doing that a lot as a missionary–and to repent of my sins (whatever they were, because I sure as fuck didn’t know). If I was not sinning in some way, then Satan never could have taken hold in my heart, and Satan was obviously what was causing me to be suicidal. Obviously these commandments did not help, because I wasn’t doing anything ‘wrong’ in the first place.

But that leads to a problem: I believed that these people were called by god, and acting under god’s instructions, because I had received a spiritual witness. However, it was clear that they were wrong; I was not acting in a sinful manner (certainly less so than other missionaries!), and I had nothing to repent of. So these things are clearly contradictory: if I have received a spiritual confirmation from god that these men are led by him, then what they are saying must be from god and therefore true. But I know my own actions, and I know that I haven’t done anything that is sinful under any remotely normal definition of sin. Therefore, the feelings that I believed were spiritual confirmation must not have been spiritual confirmation at all.

Once you realize that feelings can not be a reliable way of knowing if something is actually true or not (or True, for that matter), then all of it falls apart. You realize that ‘answers’ to prayers are just feelings, not communication from the divine. The bible is suddenly a book of myths. Miracles dissolve like fog in the sun. When you look at religion–not just Mormonism, but all religion, and you compare it against things that can be verified empirically, none of the claims stand up.

Even though the foundations of my faith cracked while I was a missionary, I was unable to accept the meaning for several years, because Mormonism is a cult, and it’s very hard to escape even when you know it’s garbage.