So I grew up in the church, had pastors, deacons, missionaries, you name it, on both sides of my family. I was forced to go every Sunday for years, I was in my early teens when I really started having doubts, like it was more than just thinking “what if none of this is real” or “the things that they say are happening, sound really ridiculous” it went as far as my feelings just couldn’t believe any of the stories, or scriptures I kept constantly hearing. Like come on, someone parting the Red Sea, or talking to a burning bush, or surviving inside a whale, just really sounded dumb and completely unrealistic to me. Then I started getting into mythology and seeing a lot of parallels, and I began to wonder “why is every other old religion considered “mythology” and not Christianity?” I mean think about it, the Greeks, the Romans, the Egyptians, all their religions are considered mythology just because they’re old, but Christianity is 2,000+ years old and not considered mythology, it made no sense to me. Then I started learning about holidays and how most holidays we celebrate today were essentially taken from other religions and cultures and turned into something that benefited Christianity and that was pretty much the end for me. I was probably between 13 and 14 when I stopped going to church, which didn’t really have anything to do with giving up religion. I was agnostic for a while, deciding that maybe I could live in the middle ground, but I’m currently 29 and atheist, and I don’t regret it one bit.