Let's see....

My parents weren't religious but my grandmother was, so I went to church from a very young age. I went to a religious college, and had a fair number of Bible and theology courses. At college, I also met the girl I'd marry.

Long story short, the marriage was terrible. I was constantly berated, the sex was terrible, she pretty much loathed me and later admitted that she married me mostly because I was her first boyfriend and she didn't want to end up single (I had had other girlfriends previously, she hadn't had any prior relationships).

Three years later I was severely depressed (a definite rarity for me), and due to a ton of factors I'll skip here, the marriage dissolved.

Our friends (all the ones we went to Church with, anyway) got super awkward and any help we did get was focused obsessively on preserving the marriage, when I was miserable, and she asserted that the things she did that made me miserable weren't her fault because I deserved it by virtue of being unlovable.

So, split happens, and even though it was never really expressed, it was hard to feel welcome at church. (Seriously, singles at church are usually treated as total oddballs, and divorcees, total pariahs.)

After that it was just religion having less and less of a place in my life until I realized that I either needed to "get back on track" or admit it was done, and that was that.

this fairly tale was too sad

I didn't choose not to believe in God. I posted reasons in the earlier thread - What made you stop believing? But I do believe this is different than sexual orientation. Beliefs can change, in some cases quite easily. And we can choose to challenge our own beliefs, or accept them as they are.

Also, beliefs vary in intensity. For example, one can believe something after an exhaustive review of available evidence, or because you heard it from a usually reliable source. The evidence needed to change that belief could be quite different in each case. And when someone is close to the fence - they see evidence for both sides - I can see them choosing to believe one side or the other based on factors other than evidence. In that case, though, I don't see them posting about it.

When I realized it makes no sense at all.

I was raised a Christian, but had a real hard time believing it when I reached my teens. It wasn't that I thought it was false, I just had serious doubts in it. This wasn't all that fun, since I thought if I didn't believe I was going to burn in hell for eternity.

When I got older I realised that the Bible wasn't *actually* the word of God. Some religious leaders had just decided the eventual texts were the word of God, and included them. With some of the obvious BS that was present in the Bible, I questioned whether it was inspired by God at all. Either way, I decided I wasn't going to take the word of some other dudes that it was the word of God 'cos they say so.

Since the whole of Christianity and every other religion is based on a "holy" text my belief in religion went out the window.

I continued to sort of believe in a God for a number of years, basically depending on what my mood was like at the time. When I read "A Guide to Rational Living" by Albert Ellis and Robert A. Harper it opened me to the idea of rational thinking, and I concluded there probably wasn't a God. After all, there wasn't much evidence to suggest it.

Strangely, the universe seems so much more wondrous to me now than it ever did. I guess the idea of this vast expanse that just exists for no particular purpose makes it more awe inspiring. Especially when our intelligent life just happened to come about in one small corner of it.

I could choose to have faith that God did exist and the accounts of the Bible were true. So technically I could choose to believe. But I'd still know that doing this would be really stupid.

I dont believe you.

I believe in a supreme deity and also in no supreme deity. I think these beliefs are mutually compatible.

There's the possibility the Bible is the literal word of God and that Jesus was crucified for our sins and was resurrected. So while I don't think it's particularly likely, I could have faith in this small chance and believe in it.

I'm never ever going to do this though, so I guess Turn Prophet is right.