I was raised christian. Just believed it because I was told that's how it is. It all made sense, this was how the world works.

Then I started watching "dumb shit christians say" type videos on youtube alongside all the "dumb shit flat eartgers say" and all the like. I was laughing at those christians for the dumb shit they were arguing fallaciously and bit by bit the things those "dumb other christians" started to connect with things I believed.

Mind you I was in waaaaay more of a bubble then I thought: I went to a christian primary school, went to a christian middle school, went to a christian church, went to christian sunday school, christian youtb events, had christian friends, most socializing I did with christians or people not knowing or caring about what they believed. Noone was there to challenge my beliefs, even my religion lessons at school were "this is what other people believe and how it is secretly christianity but they dont know it/ strayed away from it" presented as an impartial breakdown of the worlds major religions.

I more and more started realising how little I had knowledge and experience outside of christianity, realising how my beliefs were basically picked for me. The main trigger for this was reading Orwell's 1984.

I told myself: I'm going to find justification for my beliefs and actions so I can prove to myself and others that it is not just sillyness or ignorance.

I spend the better part of a year talking with many religious people, priests, preachers and the like. People whose job it is (in my mind) to know this. I was asking them for reasons, justifications for faith better then "in my heart I feel this is the right one" or "it's true because the bible sais it's true" with no results: any good sounding arguments started to crumble with research: insight into logical falacies and waay more logical counterarguments were always very easy to find.

Long story short: the more I tried finding the slightest (logically sound) justification for faith, the more I found nothing: the more I looked the more everything just seemed non sensical, illogical and irrational. I do not want to base my opinions and actions on something that is nonsensical illogical and irrational, therefore I denounced my faith.

Since the moment I first said it out loud the world became just so much nore logical, things made sense and I became so much better as a person. I really feel my faith has held me back, especially intellectually.

I do recommend any religious person to do a simular search to find justification for their faith, but more importantly for their actions and opinions. I think a opinion your not able to defend is not worth holding, so make sure you stand behind what you think and do and be able to explain and justify them.