I was raised Catholic and I had to go to church every weekend and did the whole First Communion and Confirmation things.

As I got into my teenage years, the whole thing just faded away for me…I don’t think anything necessarily “ruined” it, but I just realized that it wasn’t going to play a part in my life moving forward.

But that’s just my story.

AskReddit users went on the record about what ruined religion for them.

1. Not good enough.

“The non-answers to all my questions as a kid.

“You just have to have faith” is a dumb way to respond to an inquisitive mind.”

2. This is ridiculous.

“In the third grade my teacher (who was a good person) didn’t believe that cavemen existed because they weren’t mentioned in the bible.

My teacher gave my class a lecture about how cavemen didn’t exist despite there being a lot of evidence. In the fourth grade my teacher was required to teach the theory of evolution to the class by showing a documentary she also gave a lecture on why evolution was fake.

During my time in middle school i realized that it was all crap.”

3. Hypocritical.

“How hypocritical the people in church were.

They would judge you and condemn you for drinking as a teenager yet I would see the pastor and all the deacons out drunk and driving home at friends houses whose parents went to the church.”

4. Wow.

“My family went to a large church when I was young.

One day the pastor was on the news because it turns out he lived a second life at strip clubs and got arrested for kidnapping and pistol whipping a guy who owed him money.

That was the first time I questioned my faith. How could a person act so stone-cold confidently on stage about everything he was preaching and be a total fraud?”

5. Your eyes were opened.

“The first world religions class I took in college.

Realizing other people in other faiths also believed their religion was true gave me the courage to consider maybe Joseph Smith didn’t really see God and Jesus in a forest in 1820 a few years before sticking his head in a hat to look at magic rocks that helped him translate golden plates inscribed with the history of Jesus visiting North America and a Jewish family sailing around in a wooden submarine lit by rocks god touched to make them glow.

Then I thought, “yeah none of that happened”.

And it was all over for me.”

6. The last straw.

“I grew up very religious. My father killed himself when I was young. We were back in church before my sister and I went back to school.

The first day back at church, it seemed that the sermon was tailor made for us, as the preacher went on about suicide being against God’s will and there was no chance to repent, so those who commit suicide had no chance at redemption.

Essentially: “Don’t kill yourself. You end up in Hell. Your family will never see you in the Kingdom.”

That was the last thing a teenage, rebellious, Shagnasty needed to hear. I quickly disassociated myself from the organizational part of the church. I occasionally went to Church camp and other events with big groups of kids my age, but I never went back to church again.

As one final middle-finger to that pastor, I later banged his daughter when we were on a trip to Ichthus Festival.”

7. All about the money.

“I was a freshman in college in 1995 at Clemson.

This was the inaugural season of the Carolina Panthers, and because the stadium in Charlotte hadn’t been completed yet, they played their home games at Death Valley.

It was cool, the town is well equipped for tailgating and stuff. But not on Sunday. Sunday is church day.

I was a Methodist. I well recall the pastor of the Clemson United Methodist Church allowed himself to be quoted in a a newspaper, complaining that the Panthers organization owed all the churches in town for the donations they didn’t get on Sunday because everyone was at the big games.

The donations. Not the souls that weren’t saved. It was the money.”

8. There’s a lot of that.

“That people would try to force their religion onto me and make me feel like I was a bad person if I didn’t have the same beliefs as them…”

9. That’ll do it!

“Was told that dinosaur bones were planted in the ground by Satan to trick us into believing in evolution.”

10. That’s rude.

“Learning that my Mom got alienated and bullied after she tried creating a single mom’s club at our church.”

11. Blind faith.

“My parents told me at a young age that I would go to hell for asking the question “how do we know god is real.”

They could have simply said to read the Bible or something like that.

But instead they told me that I would go to hell, I guess it was the idea behind “blind faith”.”

12. Terrible.

“My infant brother’s death.

I was very little when he died at 3 days old, but it always bothered me being taught that Jesus was the only man that ever lived without sin. I thought “what could this helpless little baby have done that was a sin? He never even cried?”

When I asked my very catholic grandmother about it she told me to watch what I say because I was being blasphemous.”

13. Shattered faith.

“When I came to the realization that trusted authorities did hurt and damage children and gaslight the communities that literally supported the church through personal sacrifice and sincere generosity.

It was the absolute definition of disgrace and I am in agony that it was ever even tolerated.”

14. That’s extreme.

“Being kicked out of Christian school prior to the third grade because my Mom bought the wrong edition of the Bible.”1. Awful.

“Someone telling me that it was God’s plan for my unborn daughter to lose her life after her mother was pushed down stairs by an openly racist man.

If that’s what faith in a religion gets me, then I’m out.”

15. Yeah, okay…

“The arrogance in believing “god” works like Santa Claus just started sounding ridiculous to me around the age of 16. “I got a new job – THANK GOD”

“I almost got into a car accident – must have been god looking out for me.”

But this deity ignores genocide, starvation, and cancer in children but waves a wand to give you a .25 hourly raise. And this is allllll part of the plan too.

Yeah okay….”

16. Ruined itself.

“Religion ruined religion.

So many rules.

Like why can’t I just be a nice person and not do harm? Why do I have to go to a building every Sunday and listen someone drone on while surrounded by a bunch of fakes?

Why do we shun those that make mistakes? Or reject those that don’t believe exactly what we do? Why can’t we embrace the differences and just say “it’s ok we don’t believe the same, we both do good and don’t hurt others – team religion!”

But nooooo. We kill in the name of God, because of differences, enforce rules that are almost impossible to keep in modern society and then act like we are following those rules even when we aren’t.

It’s all just gross.”

17. Don’t believe anymore.

“I was fully committed Southern Baptist and filled in at times teaching my adult Sunday class.

I then read The End of Faith and The God Delusion. Then I had a realization that all of medicine and biology is based on evolution. I prayed for God to make himself real to me and really wanted to believe. Now I realize every evidence of God I saw in 40 years of church was just confirmation bias and placebo effect.

Can’t tell my family I’m atheist it would kill them. Still go to church to see and make friends.

Edit to follow up: I wouldn’t be ostracized. But I would cause them unnecessary pain since they would think I’m going to hell don’t feel like putting them through that. I’m not wanting to be on everyone’s prayer list.
Funny thing is I like the typical USA Christian way of life.

In my experience it works. In my extended family everyone is fairly happy and out of 10 marriages we have no divorces and my kids 20+ cousins are all doing great. I don’t think casual s*x, drugs, or excessive drinking is a good way to live.

I’m not sad, just not able to believe anymore.”

18. Hypocrisy.

“The hypocrisy, the hate, the shame that’s directed towards humanity.

My last experience was with a fairly middle-road church- I went to the high a school aged youth group service with some classmates. The services started with singing worship (cringe just saying that), and everyone around me was sobbing with their hands held in the air, swaying, singing to a song about how we are so unworthy of love.

And I was like… holy sh*t, what is WRONG with all of you?! I barely survived the rest of the evening.

Never went back.”

19. Time to question this.

“Learning about original sin in church school when I was 9.

I couldn’t get over the unfairness of it, and that started me questioning the whole religion thing.”

20. God’s plan?

“That God’s plan involved the trauma my family endured over the years.

It’s all part of God’s plan?

Well, that plan sucks, so I’m out!”

21. The depths of HELL.

“The idea of Hell.

I was brought up mainly in Asia. Most my friends and their parents were irreligious, some would go temple but no one took it seriously, it was more about respect for your elders. Learning that all the good people in my life who had heard the “gospel” but didn’t follow it were destined for an ENTIRETY of suffering was abhorrent to me.

It is inherently evil to think that most the world just because they do not believe what you believe is destined to an INFINITE amount of harm.

The logic of it never felt right to me. I had a mother who was sent to convent school in Ireland so Catholicism was rammed down my neck with an iron rod.

At school when we had to write our own accounts what happened to Jesus in Religious Education about when Jesus was resurrected, at the age of 12 I already knew that wasn’t possible so I wrote a story about a big con Jesus had with the women who opened his tomb. My school teacher called my mother and told her.

When I got home she screamed like a banshee at me for hours saying I was ungrateful for what Jesus had sacrificed for us but I was thinking well he was God, he knew everything and is all powerful so actually his sacrifice is meaningless.

One life as a human doesn’t make you great, we have billions of humans life. All human life has more meaning than an infinitely powerful eternal being pretending to be a human for one life. It’s like an instagram influencer showing up for good pics at a BLM march.”

22. Hmmmm…

“That my church kicked out someone gay.

That my church was so racist that they campaigned to get a black African priest removed, and when Jesus get removed, half the church left in protest.”

23. That’s bad.

“When I was 5 years old, after we walked out of a prayer, a beggar approached my mom asking for $5 for food.

As my mom reached into her purse and about to hand him the money, she asked the man if he was muslim, he said yes.

She asked him if he was Sunni or Shia, he answered wrong and she put away the money.”

24. Non-believer.

“Raised Catholic.

The idea that one religion is right and all others are wrong, the idea that so many people suffer on a daily basis but “God loves us”, the idea that we must love each other but religion teaches you to hate those who aren’t like you.

And above all else, the idea that some invisible, all powerful being exist somewhere in the sky. I stopped believing when I was 13.”

25. A lot to deal with.

“Overbearing people while I was exploring.

I have a Jehovah’s Witness grandma, Wiccan mom, atheist dad, and a solid set of gay Christian friends. Everyone stuck their noses in and I just said “f*ck it, there’s something out there and as long as it doesn’t kill me, I’m chill.”

Just… kinda respect the world and go with the flow.”

26. Saw it in a new light.

“I think it was probably reading the Epic of Gilgamesh in a high school literature class.

It showed me the Bible was qualitatively no different from other ancient writings.

The alleged sacredness was not in the text itself.”

27. See you in Hell.

“Being told that every good non-christian person will go to hell.

I decided then and there that I’ll happily burn next to Gandhi and buddhist monks.”

28. Scientology.

“Scientology ruined my religion for me.

I’m an actor, and they hired me to do some instructional/education video for them and paid decent. I know they’re kinda kooky, but I thought “Hey, I’ve worked for crazier people in this industry” so I met with them on their super secret ‘Gold Base’ in Southern California.

I shot there for several days, and got to know the staff/volunteers who have dedicated their entire life to serving Scientology. I learned a lot about their religion, as I’ve been genuinely curious about all faiths.

I remember driving home after my final day on set, and thinking to myself “How can such normal, nice people believe in something so obviously false? I mean, their founder, who has been historically documented as a scoundrel and a crook, literally wrote a book, got a huge influence of people, and then convinced them that it was the one true way to live!”

Being a fully practicing Mormon at the time, you can imagine my shock when I immediately realized that’s the exact same thing people say about my religion.

How do you feel about this?

Does religion play a role in your life?

Or maybe it used to but not anymore?

Talk to us in the comments and tell us what you think.