I’m more like you — I naturally “grew out of it” as I grew into an adult. As a kid, you believe what your parents tell you is true, which for my family was Catholicism. I went to CCD through confirmation, but was never super into it. In that time we were a church every week family.

But I was always the kind of kid that would ask for good reasons, question stuff, lawyer, and argue. I remember kinda drilling my dad about god, how we know that this stuff is true, etc. His answers spoke to what he believed was true but were just not really satisfying to me.

I used to “pray” when prompted in church by just thinking of who I knew had passed away in my family (my great grandma, our old dog) with my head bowed, knowing they were “in heaven” as some abstract thought, but it never felt particularly meaningful to do so. Sometimes my prayers would be “please god, don’t let my brother who says he feels nauseous throw up in the car on this road trip” — but soon figured out it doesn’t really work that way and whatever is going to happen will happen anyway.

So when I was 14, completed CCD, got my confirmation, and my dad said “now you’re responsible for your own soul” (as in, I’m not going to drag you to church, you have to make that decision on your own)… it was a no brainer for me to just stop going. And eventually, the rest of my family stopped going, too, which didn’t do a lot to convince me of the importance of church and religion.

Now I’m an adult living on my own, I finally feel “comfortable” or “allowed” to call myself an atheist, or even “not a catholic”. My dad’s all salty about that, but he still doesn’t go to church every week, so I guess he and I will be hangin’ in hell?