Question for DUers who grew up religious, and rejected that relgion

[wysimdnwyg]

12. It was a gradual process for me

I will admit that the church I attended growing up was fairly moderate (and has since gone full blown liberal with a lesbian pastor), and I was not overtly pressured into an oppressive level of faith. Still, it was a Southern Baptist-associated church (at the time), and faith was a significant part of our lives - especially my stepmother, who joined the family when I was 12. Away for college, I stopped attending church, and only went a couple of times to the old one during visits home. I would say I was 18 the last time I went to a standard service.

While not particularly religious, I still considered myself a believer for several years after that, although I can look back and see how the cracks started to appear. In my early 30s, after reading the bible again for the first time in years, I realized that I could not accept anything in it as more than an interpreted (and usually misinterpreted) account of certain historical events. I no longer accepted the belief in an omniscient, all-powerful god. While the overall process was gradual, I went very quickly from a casual believer right past agnosticism into full-blown atheism.

I do understand how throwing off the last vestiges of a belief system forced upon you as a child can be difficult, but it's OK to have some subconscious remains of those beliefs. I still catch myself on a rare occasion thinking about "God", but as soon as I do, I realize that I do not believe that, it's just a remnant of what I was taught as a child.