what led you all to either deconvert from a religion or to simply not become religious in the first place?
I will just repost what I said.
I had quite a mix of religious influences in my life. My mom was Catholic, my dad came from a Catholic background but ended up a sort of deistic Buddhist, my grandfather again from Catholic background but converted to Judaism and back later in life, my grandmother also Catholic (much more traditional then my mom). I was also exposed to many religious views, several forms of Christianity, Wicca, Urantia (which is based on Christianity), Unitarian views, VooDoo (which is a combo of Catholic and African tribal beliefs), Satanism, and a smattering of Native American beliefs. My dad always encouraged me to question everything. Even when it was something he believed to be true.
I first tried finding truth with just one religion, Though every one seemed not hold the answers they claimed to. With such a wide spectrum of religions to look at I thought perhaps each religion had a piece of the truth that when found could be put together like a jigsaw puzzle. Evaluating and reevaluating my position became part of my belief system, and in many ways still is. After trying this for quite a while I found what I had was no better then any single religion.
I also saw how my mom reacted to her religious indoctrination. She would often start talking about the negative experiences she had with religion such as the nuns in her school. But when I would speak ill of religion she would react with an almost rehearsed response, I saw this not only in her but in others when I went to church with her. It seemed like brainwashing to me.
I had misconceptions of what atheism was at the time, seeing it as a stance that God defiantly did not exist. I saw this view as no better then religion claiming that God defiantly did exist. I still held the belief of some sort of higher being along with many other metaphysical beliefs. The hardest of which to let go was the belief in an afterlife.
I eventually stopped challenging my beliefs like I once did, until one of the last talks I had with my dad before he passed away. I asked him what he believed since he said his beliefs were hard to explain. After trying to explain it the best he could and deeming it "meism" he then asked me if I believed in a god. I thought about it for a moment and said "I don't know", he replied with "good answer".
That talk got me thinking about it again. Without my parent to talk to about it like I once had I turned to the internet. I began viewing videos on religion from both perspectives. Each video that I watched I would then use my father's advice "question it" So I would research what they said. One of the videos gave a definition of what atheism was. Double checking what this person said, I realized I had been an atheist for some time and didn't know it.
Another thing that came into play, I began to really question the beliefs I held and finally went to a forum and created the mother of all random religions points threads ever (not on here), it was basically just a bunch of my thoughts poring out. From that thread I was able to gauge the responses given from both atheists and theists. After seeing each sides response I realized I couldn't so easily divorce a belief in god from a religion, and since I already saw religion as false I had to also throw away the concept of god.
As I found other more likely explanations for things I slowly began getting rid of each of my metaphysical beliefs.
