The growing number of "nones" makes it easier. Was a lot harder in my day. That's why I can be proud.

It's not a given that someone raised from birth in a religion and subjected to all of the indoctrination will think for themselves and make an informed decision to leave.

I'm not sure what that means.. im not angry about it. Just indifferent.
I don't think church or belief is evil or anything. Just don't care one way or the other.
I'll say I'm catholic if it makes life easier. But no belief there.

I was taken to a couple of different Protestant churches as a child. I didn’t know the word hypocrisy then, but I knew it when I saw it.

I was the quiet child with her nose in a book. Very easy to ignore. But I had big ears. I would pretend to read while eavesdropping on everything going on around me.

I heard the snide comments about what people wore to church. Saw the smirks as the people with more money noted what the people with less put in the offering plate.

Squirmed on a hard bench that felt like punishment for sins I hadn’t committed yet.

And decided it was all BS the only purpose of which was to get money out of people. At ten.

I have not come across any reason to change my mind since.

pulling strings on this one little planet amongst untold trillions.

If a god does exist, one would have to conclude it's a monstrously cruel asshole of a deity. It causes or allows countless horrors -- wars, genocides, slavery, plagues, pandemics, diseases (including childhood cancer), accidents, droughts, famines, monsoons and hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. etc., -- and thousands of years prayers have done zippadee doo dah in the face of all those horrors and suffering. Where was that dickhead when 6 million Jews were being murdered or Stalin was "purging" untold millions or native peoples in the Americas were being wiped out en masse by European diseases and violence or Africans were being stolen and enslaved into unspeakable misery (if they survived the slave ship voyages) for hundreds of years? At least "God" has a good excuse for not intervening --- it doesn't actually exist.

It's one thing to have "faith" in this nonsense if you're a medieval peasant living in a tiny isolated village or something like that, a place where the priest is the authority on everything. It's quite another to continue to believe these convoluted mythologies when we have instant access to the combined total of human knowledge of science, physics, biology, etc. in our freaking phones and other devices. There is zero reason to look for answers in that stupid patriarchal Bronze Age book of goatherder fairy tales.

Nature is breathtakingly beautiful and awe-inspiring. The Golden Rule came about long before Bible stories poisoned our planet. Do Unto Others makes a lot of sense for a species of highly social primates who need to cooperate and share in order to survive and thrive. Why does anyone need anything else?

As we know, basic goodness isn't part of some people's makeup. So they engage in control instead of caring.

Kind of thought it would be higher for some reason.

I'm, "I don't think about it" which is probably under their nothing in particular heading. Interesting how much of their unaffiliated still retain various quasi-religious views.

I do think religion is programmed into the human brain. Not in an organized religion sense, but in our psychology and penchant for pattern recognition, meaning, and simplification of complex concepts.

Even with some of the most hard core atheists I know - sometimes especially with them - you can scratch the surface and find they've merely transferred their religious impulses to something else. It can be an ideology, a lifestyle choice, whatever you please. But the lack of willingness to question, examine, and be self-critical is still there. Being critical of religion - which is very easy - doesn't mean being critical in other areas.

People are people. At the end of the day, don't be an asshole and try to leave things better than how you found them. That's my religion.

I'm not an agnostic or a "None" but I respect those that don't want to make a point of their non-belief.

I also respect those that want to follow some unverifiable entity that issues various rules to (usually) men who demand fealty to these rules (but usually to the men.) Just keep your stuff to yourself. Gather together and waggle your tongues, arms all you want. Keep it in your little/mega "houses of worship". Don't interfere with my life or anyone else's.

Faith and belief are fine and personal. As soon as it becomes organized it becomes a religion. A religion needs converts and money to survive (just like slime molds.) Eventually religion tries to take over regions and countries and if it could, this world.

They might say that they're agnostic, which is more socially acceptable.

when my lay teacher at the Catholic school I attended told me to never think for myself and just believe what I was told. Hard no on that one. My parents still made me attend but I was done with that religion and never looked back.

Becoming a none took a bit longer. I read numerous religious texts of different faiths, including the bible, searching for answers. Anyone who actually reads the entire bible cannot help but notice the incest, barbarity, and cruelty in the Old Testament and the contradictions in the New. The other religious texts and tenets all suffer from lack of proof of any god. I came to recognize we are on our own and we’d do better to work toward making our world a better place for ourselves and others than to pray to god for that outcome.

I remember the exact moment. CCD class in the second grade preparing for First Communion.

Back then I still thought adults knew shit so I asked teacher why we were even created. She immediately escorted me outside the room where I had to stand for the remainder of the class.

Thank you, Catholic Church!

If there is a god, there's no reason to suppose it must be good and loving. it's just as likely to be cruel and sadistic.

My mother in law, bless her heart, would ALWAYS try to persuade me to have blind faith in whatever it was her religion said it was. This went on for years and years and years. Her husband did the same.
She and my Father in law both got old/sick and my husband and I took care of them for the last 5 years.
I loved them and it wasn’t a problem.
Her ‘good Christian’ son and his wife rarely showed up even tho they lived 2 miles away. “Too busy”.
Anyway, one day she was yammering away about her Christianity and was really pressuring me. I stopped and asked her how she would feel if I spent as much time trying to convince her she was absolutely wrong about God and everything she believed. Two could play this game. I explained that trying to convince someone out of their beliefs was disrespectful and actually hateful. I was a grown woman and wasn’t going to change my mind about it. I asked her if I spoke to her that way, treated her like a child who didn’t have enough brain power to figure out what I believed, if she would change her mind. She admitted she wouldn’t. I said ok, then. She said “ well, I just know we are gonna be together in heaven someday”.
I responded, “if you see me in heaven, one of us has made a big mistake.”
We both had a good laugh that day and never discussed it again.

I'm proud of who I am whiteness and all. I was also raised Catholic, did the whole school thing and church. I never got into my religion and I consider myself to be spiritual. I'm 66 years old and I also like my age

I’m wary of anyone who’s bought into the fantasies. I keep my distance as I’ve found believers are cruel and tribal.

I truly wish one’s religion or lack thereof was a private personal matter but I’ve learned from bitter experience that public performative practice is demanded by the faithful. Best to keep one’s head down and avoid the fanatics. I don’t lie about my lack of belief but I don’t trust religious people at all and won’t volunteer that unless specifically queried. Ever.

of the church goers say that there was an old lady who lived nearby who was a atheist. He said "I thought we should go over and beat her up, maybe kill her". If that is what a religious man thinks, I wanted no part of it. I've been reluctant to go ever since,but did attend my husband's parents church when we visited them, out of politeness.