Asklemmy

The question doesn't directly apply because I'm not an ex-believer, but I am sort of ex-church (attendance).

After years of praying for healing, for myself and others, and seeing nothing happen (beyond the natural healing that would have happened anyway had I not prayed for it), I prayed for someone to be healed and he died.

So that's how healing manifests through me. You aren't or you die. This seems in direct contradiction to Jesus' claim that all who follow him will do greater things than he did, which I interpret to mean at least the same as what he did, one of which was that everyone who came to him got healed.

So my church attendance is on hold for now while I work out why God doesn't want to involve me in his work. I'm still a believer, but obviously I can't preach "God heals" when my only direct evidence is that he doesn't. I'll go back when it's clear what he wants me to do.

My super religious wife cheat on me and get knocked up. Followed by all our church friends throwing her a party. All the scandals didn’t help also. So I’m done. I now consider myself an atheist.

They tried too hard to make me join, but instead I got annoyed

Does it count if you live in a very religious state that has pushed religion down your throat all your life but you resisted? For me I think I was about 22 when I started to see religion as not just a personal belief, but as a tool used by power hungry men to hurt and control others. I used to respect my religious peers, now I feel sad for them, because I know that they were raised into it so hard that I can't really blame them. The sad thing is, even though I live in one of the most developed nations in the world. I am still in a part of it where criticism of religion, past not believing it, can come with a high social price.

I don't like to say I quit, more like expanded my belief system to become a human belief system, and not exclusive to a cultural belief system.

I traveled outside my very conservative and religious country, met many different people, learned about a lot of different cultures, and their beliefs. It made me see how "limited" one type of faith can be. How blind I was to the human experiences.

So now, basically, I don't believe there's one answer to rule them all. And that's the biggest change I went through outside of the religion i was raised on.

Withdrawing from it for a while and not going through the motions

I was never a believer but I was raised by MAGA Christians. The kind that believe in the rapture and show you bad dystopian movies about it.

I tried to believe it for a long time but eventually gave up. I'm pretty sure the majority of the people didn't believe any of the mythology, they were just there for the racism and child abuse, so I tried to get away. Unfortunately the same stupid bullies have taken over the country. At least I'm not trying to see their side as tolerable anymore.

If I'm really honest it was just because I'm a bit of a weird guy and just didn't fit in.

I mean if all church girls loved me I would've probably just ignored the illogical nature of it all, at least for a while.

Spending time away from it. I was raised as an evangelical Christian and I was fully bought into it. I'd had doubts but was always able to explain them away or suppress them. All it took was not going to church every Sunday for me to finally stop believing.

Because I was raised in such an extreme "all or nothing" way, I wasn't able to fall into a sort of half belief like what I imagine most Christians in America believe who only go to Church on Christmas and Easter. But I think younger people are starting to identify as agnostic or atheist in those scenarios.

There are more specific steps to it, but that's the majority of it was just getting away.

I'll never forget the relief when I finally came to believe that the category of things that were sins but not otherwise morally wrong were things I didn't need to worry about anymore.

I dunno, it just made no sense. If people find out you're an atheist, they don't argue with facts, they argue with morals.

I'm sorry you need to believe in something with zero evidence to be a good person/find beauty in the world/be at peace with yourself/whatever, but I can just do those things anyway. I don't need to convince myself of certain facts for it.

Hypocrisy, politicization, hellfire, and lack of community I guess.

If religion is supposed to be the opium of the masses, it should at least leave me feeling better after church. The rising ideology was naive and attracted narcissists, and there was less and less space to hold on to the original beliefs. It started looking less like a refuge from the world and more of the world. It wasn't perfect before but there was more flexibility and grace at least.

Hypocrites, draconian believes and the fact that I never felt the so called “presence of God” or of the Holly spirit or anything really

The church's overall support for trump and anti-vax/anti-mask positions were a strong counter to the doctrine of sanctification, especially as support tended to increase among older populations. Sanctification is central enough to Christianity to be one of the pillars that either proves or disproves it.

Haven’t. Curious on the experience of others.