A question if you want to answer. What caused you to deconstruct from your religion.

[Americanme]

64. I was raised to be a believer, but it never really took.

Even as a child, I was doubtful. I became aware that the fairy tales from my children's books were not real, magic was not real, Santa, and the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy were not real, but the church stories? Oh yeah, those stories about an invisible, magical, eternal creator, yeah, those stories are real. I was doubtful my whole life, but left room for possible acceptance. I stopped going to church, but after I became a father, I felt like I should take my kids, so we started attending church. The preacher and the church accountant came to my home, wanting to know how much money I made, and wanted a commitment for a firm donation every week. I had been dropping a 20 in the collection plate, but that wasn't good enough. So I stopped going to church, but decided to read the bible. The whole thing, every page. I read every day, took months to get through it. I learned that half of the bible is never mentioned in church sermons or sunday school. They have preferred parts that they preach about, and they pretend the weird parts don't exist, and sometimes they will revise the bible to change it into less weird, more acceptable language. Then I learned about the history of the bible, how the council chose which books to include, which to exclude, how they changed the names of the apostles to European names so the religion could spread more easily, how they took over all the old pagan holidays, how all the different denominations we have today are watered down versions, because only radicals like the way it used to be. And now millions of Americans worship a watered down, revised, edited version of an ancient middle-eastern religion, believing all the characters were white, and spoke english. There have been thousands of creation stories, this one was spread across the world by force. That doesn't make it true. And another thought, with all the billions of people that have lived and died, if there was a heaven and hell, ain't they full by now? Yet another thought, say a young lady married, and a few years later her husband was killed in the war. 10 years go by, she marries again, lived happily for years, but her 2nd husband is killed in an accident. Then in her older years, she marries again, this husband lives to be an old man before dying of cancer. When the lady makes it to heaven, who will she be reunited with? She loved all three. Could be awkward. Anyway, I just think the bible stories were written for a different time, anything they didn't understand was attributed to a creator, any big event was later written about with supernatural explanations, like a city being destroyed, or a huge regional flood. I find myself back where I was as a child. Magic is not real. Life is good. I will enjoy it while I can, I will not worry about an afterlife. If I find myself in one, I will handle it, just as I handle this life.