If you were religious and aren't now, what made you lose faith?

[GerryJam]

Ive been fairly religious all my life.

But of late I am really struggling. I've been through a very shit life, hindered by a debilitating illness which has ruined all aspects of my life from health to career prospects. Life is a struggle mentally and im always skint too which doesn't help matters. Im nearing 40 and have watched friends and family flourish through life relatively unscathed and financially stable and with so many opportunities for themselves and children. Im happy for them.but it breaks me to think that I could have had similar if it wasn't for my health. I feel a failure and feel robbed of a life of what could have been. Mostly I feel so sad for my children whom I feel I've let down. Sometimes I feel that I shouldn't have had children. I can't give them what they deserve. Life has been so cruel to me from a very young age.

The last few years I've slowly stopped praying. I don't feel heard. I feel hurt and let down. I still believe but I am so distant from it all now.

The free will argument does not explain natural evil, it does not explain why a benevolent, omniscient, omnipotent god would allow natural disasters. Stephen Fry's argument is why a god that supposedly designed and created the universe would also create in it so much harm and misery, 'bone cancer in children' being his example, nothing to do with free will.

Yes, the ‘free will argument’ explains very little.

Religion is man-made and as such is pure and utter bollox. The 'devout' followers are the biggest hypocrites on the planet. Religion has caused wars century through century. It has subjugated women. I despise religion. I don't believe in God.

I was never very religious but I have no belief now. Several reason but mainly
because I think our current God was invented to control people not help them.
The roots might be good, but the whole tree is rotten.

Free will is bullshit.

What it means is God created the world and then said 'you are on your own'.

If we are all his children, what parent does that?

Why would he allow people to keep vomiting crime, spreading hate and pain in his name?

And what about shit stuff that's no one fault?

The death of my DM made me lose my faith. I firmly believe that if there is this all encompassing, all loving higher entity, then there is NO way he/she/it would have let my DM suffer like she did.

@OzzieWozzie your post sums up exactly why I left religion. I was raised Anglican, went to church every Sunday, Sunday school, religious Girl Guides, my mum still runs the church toddler group and old people's lunch day every week and she goes to bible study once a week. I found the church to be the opposite of what they preached, everyone very judgmental of outsider and church members, lots of whispering behind hands, a culture of keeping up with the Jones', doing things for appearance's sake and being frankly hateful for no reason. As I got older I felt more and more uncomfortable with it and as a scientist I didn't see proof either. I tried really hard to be religious to the point where I actually tried several different religions thinking maybe I was just following the wrong one. It took me a long time to realise that being religious didn't equal being a good person and that I didn't need religion to validate me as a good, worthy individual. I read atheist and humanist books (The God Dellusion is fantastic) and I read the Humanist UK website. As I was reading more I knew I'd hit the nail on the head and I was an atheist humanist and it brought me a lot of peace to know I didn't need religion. I love the community aspect of religion but that can be found in other ways and I've found religious communities not as supportive as they like to appear anyway. My husband feels the same way which is really helpful. I still have some friends who are religious and we are just respectful of one another. I got married in a church to make my mum happy but my children won't be going anywhere near them since I think they just breed guilt and hatred. humanism.org.uk/

Freckles but what decent parent micro manages every aspect of their adult child's life so they never do wrong? We equip them with what they need and set them free. That's the theory behind freewill and god as parent, in religions that follow that belief.

I agree there's no logic at all to natural disaster and awful things happening to children and absolutely no valid explanation has ever been made for these. But faith in God as the force of all things good, loving and life-giving (as opposed to blindly following soem power-crazed man-made religion) can be uplifting for a lot of people and there's no harm in that faith. The harm comes when nasty, self-important manipulators abuse their power in the name of faith.

Frecklesbut what decent parent micro manages every aspect of their adult child's life so they never do wrong? We equip them with what they need and set them free. That's the theory behind freewill and god as parent, in religions that follow that belief.

When a parent creates a child they dont cut then lose the instant they come into the world. A parent, parents.

God created us? Then cut us lose in an instant. All powerful God that loves us as he loves his own son? If you were all powerful and your child was being abused, raped, tortured, starving all through their childhood and then all through their adulthood. Are you saying you wouldn't step in? Even when they are adults? I am an adult, I would step in if I knew stranger was suffering. If I knew people were suffering at the hands of one if my children, especially in my name, I wouldn't just stand by and say 'ah free will and all that'.

Free will is bullshit. It's a convenient excuse to explain away the glaring obvious. God doesnt exist or doesnt give a shit. Doesnt really matter which one

If you believe and get comfort out of it, that's great. But dont start spouting the freewill clause, because you dont like what others think.

I went to an Anglo-Catholic church during all of my childhood (was in the choir so I loved the singing) but the sermons just didn’t add up for me. Was agnostic by the time I was about 12. Then a friend died in a very cruel way and it absolutely stopped any belief I could possibly have in an ‘all loving, all powerful’ god.

However, I have since been investigating Buddhism due to having a Buddhist friend and that makes a lot more sense to me.

I used to go to church as a child because some of my friends did & I did believe in god.

But then my much loved pet rabbit was pts after getting flystrike & I realised that god either didn't exist or was really cruel.

Now I'm an adult working in a hospital I feel the same.

I was never religious. I might have been, but from an early age there were people who told me that I was a Christian and when I said I wasn't they told me I was wrong and had no right to say that because I was far too young to make a decision like that. Not indocrtinated but inoculated. Now, I'd say the teachers and others who said that to me bore a very close resemblance to the pharasees, scribes and hypocrites condemned by Jesus in the gospels.

Now add to that the problem of competing revelations and the sheer scale of creation and the tiny irrelevance of one small blue dot in the scheme of things and there you have it, without even needing to get into the human psychology of pattern recognition.

The problem with the free will argument is that the religious use it only to explain away the bad. If bad things happen then it’s because God created us with free will. But when good things happen then “praise the lord.” And in my opinion you can’t have it both ways. If God isn’t responsible for the bad then he isn’t responsible for the good either.

So either you believe in a God who is responsible for everything that happens be that good or bad or you acknowledge that he isn’t responsible for any of it. You can’t have it both ways.

But dont start spouting the freewill clause, because you dont like what others think.
Freckles I wasn't doing that. I was just discussing, and I understand why people scorn faith on the grounds you listed. I just think: why blame God for rape, abuse, war, torture? That really abnegates responsibility from the shits who are perpetrating it. But I am not interested in having a heated 'I'm right/you're wrong' conversation. It's just a discussion. I don;t think my views are any more valid than yours, or superior to yours. Just different.

Incidentally, I grew up enduring a repulsive, abusive shit of a father who was fiercely atheist because nothing could possibly be greater than his ego. He hated the idea of something more important than him. So my choice of faith could well be biased, and somewhat intentionally.

It died for me when I was told I wouldn’t be accepted in a local church because I’m a lesbian.

I grew up in a family with a deep committed faith and felt very lucky... my Gran in particular was a cradle to grave Christian and lived her faith in the best way..doing for others. As a teen and young adult I tried to follow her path, but there were always niggling doubts.
I tried to really read around (C.S Lewis's 'The Problem of Pain' is a good read for why God allows suffering, but in the end the sheer lack of logic of Christianity..of one Jew dying for the sins of the whole word, meant I couldn't believe.

Then after my son was born with disabilities and I ended up working with severely disabled children I saw some of the worst things that nature can do to a child. Working with a child who has Lesch Nyhan syndrome.. a metabolic disorder, which as well as leaving them spastic, dystonic and in kidney failure, it compels them to mutilate themselves and they have to have their arms restrained every moment of the day. They bite off their own lips and fingers. I think it was then I realised that if there IS a higher power, it's not one that answers prayers, or can interfere in the suffering of others.
I miss my belief , I miss the community of faith, but I don't believe a word of it now and never will.

major PTSD episode after already having complex PTSD I guess I just don't see the point anymore... just another thing to fail at.

I was raised very religious by hypocritical parents. I just remember growing up never feeling good enough, church just emphasized that for me. Constantly praying and asking for forgiveness etc.

I never felt God. I tried and tried but it never worked. I found church to be cold, oppressive and very judgemental. The older I got, the more disillusioned I became. But due to the indoctrination it took me a long time to be ok to say I don't believe. I refuse to bring my children up in a religious environment.

What helped me lose my faith was seeing the hypocrisy within various religions, the constant scandals and cover ups, the contradictions within their own teachings......

I was raised Catholic abs went to Catholic schools all through. I was pretty religious as a child/teenager.

I lost my faith little by little. The first issue was the absolute judgement I felt when I feel pregnant at 19 as an unmarried mother. I am fully aware that as a Catholic I was supposed to wait till marriage before having sex. I am also fully aware that none of the other young unmarried parishioners were celibate, as we were all friends and talked to each other about our lives. But I was the unlucky one who fell pregnant and had a baby. Our priest openly judged me every single time I went to church, and so I stopped going for a long time, but still believed and considered myself a Catholic.

When I moved house I started going to mass again, at a different church. There wasn't the judgement there, they all knew I was an unmarried mother, living with a new partner, but they included and accepted us just as we were. Then, many years later, I had a miscarriage. I had prayed and prayed and prayed for my baby to be ok, and God didn't answer my prayers. I tried very hard to understand why a kind and loving God would allow such things to happen. Nobody could give me a satisfactory answer, it was all things like "God has a plan". Well in my view, either his plan is cruel, in which case I don't want him as a father. Or he doesn't exist. Looking at all the terrible things that happen in this world, I'm utterly ashamed that it took a personal tragedy for me to examine this aspect of my religion. Why didn't I come to this conclusion when faced with other people's tragedies, there are enough of them about!! I think it comes down to not having the personal experience and accepting what I was told for too long rather than actually thinking for myself.

So personal grief was the final nail in the coffin for my faith, although it had been wavering for a long time. And since I lost my faith I have realised that a lot of my beliefs are at odds with the teaching of the Catholic church. I don't believe it is wrong to be in a gay relationship. I don't believe it is wrong to get divorced if the marriage is making one or both spouses unhappy. I don't believe abortion is always a bad thing, I believe it should always be the mother's choice.

Because the people in my church clearlt disaproved of me being a single mum and never spoke to me despite all my efforts to be friendly.
After two years of this and being acutely lonely I decided if that's being a christian I didn't believe in that any more.
I joined the pagan community a year or two later through a friend and they have been warm and friendly to me for the last 20 years and I have made loads of friends.

wasn't doing that. I was just discussing, and I understand why people scorn faith on the grounds you listed. I just think: why blame God for rape, abuse, war, torture? That really abnegates responsibility from the shits who are perpetrating it. But I am not interested in having a heated 'I'm right/you're wrong' conversation. It's just a discussion. I don;t think my views are any more valid than yours, or superior to yours. Just different.

You have come onto a thread talling about why people dont believe, to explain why their opinions and feelings are wrong and explain freewill. As though people who dont buy it, dont buy it because they dont understand it.

I didn't blame God for bad things or take ownership away from the individual. God, if he actually existed could stop it. You see someone being beat up in the street and you not doing everything in your power to stop it, doesn't make you responsible. But then you dont get to claim you love everyone and would do anything for them and are an all powerful being that sees all.

I said myself, you are free to believe what you want. I said it before you. But dont try and explain religion to people who dont believe. We dont believe because we dont believe not because we dont understand it. I understand religion more than most. Having study it for 20 years, through an entirely catholic education and then further study. I know the teachings of the bible inside out, better than a lot of priests I have had this debate with. I know the theory, the different points of view, interpretations, discretion or religious and historical objects to make sure people blindly followed and obeyed. I know what atrocities have been committed in the name of God. Of many religions.

I mean are you going to tell me that if you knew your son, for example, was raping people you wouldn't stop it?

Nothing on this discussion is heated. Its words on a page.

Raised a catholic . Crisis of faith at certain times but more so following death if my daughter aged 26. However, l have at various stages in my life found comfort in my faith - so very conflicted.

For me, like others, it was reading and studying. Reading the Bible, reading about Christianity, reading about other religions (the history of which were carefully obscured at my religious school). And reading about human development, the emergence of monotheism and the drivers behind that, and how societies function and develop were all factors.

There were too many inconsistencies and retconning in Christian history, too much evidence of doctrine following and adapting and changing itself to fit social mores rather than leading them, and too many similarities in the development and spread of the major world religions as tools of social control for Christianity to be credible any more.

In retrospect it took me much longer than it should have.