How Old Were You?

[Guest Zenobia]

Someone once told me it is mostly young men under age 30 who "rebel" and leave christianity. So I thought I'd find out what the consensus is here.

 

I was 25 when I broke all ties with my church, and female.

 

What about you?

[Kuroikaze]

I was about 24-25 as well, I'm 30 now.

 

He is actually probably right in that most people who leave Christianity are probably in their 20's. Younger people won't have thought deep enough about it mostly, and older people are either CINO's or too invested in the religion to be willing to leave.

[Thurisaz]

I was 25 when I broke all ties with my church, and female.

 

What about you?

 

Male, 33. Although I was never a member of a morontheist cult - mainstream German lutherans tend to be pretty liberal (at least all those I got to know).

[Vomit Comet]

*Puts on his sociologist's hat*

 

The age brackets, especially the early ones, are too wide ranged.

 

For example, between 18 and 22 are the college years, which is perhaps the time period when those who do abandon their parents' religion (or the religion they adopted as young teens) are most likely to do so. It is an intense time of transition, as are the post-college years (23-29) when you're pushed out into the real world. The age bracket of 21-31 glosses over all of that. For all we know, 85% of the respondents who choose "21-31" did so while college aged, with only 15% having done so in the post-college years.

[Deva]

I was raised in a strong fundamentalist home. I would have called myself a Christian in my 30s and was attending church. I was in the process of deconversion, but still trying to make chrisitanity work for me some way. By age 42 I was out of church and pretty much finished with the process - that was nearly 8 years ago.

[Legion]

I am a 35 year old male. I was roughly 17 years old when I left it behind. And that was no accident. I had been aware of the truthfulness of evolution for some time and so there was already a conflict with the majority of the church. But when I realized how repressive and controlling the church was about sexuality that was it.

 

On one hand I was aware of their denial. And on the other hand I was aware of their attempts to control. Putting the two together was insufferable. One or the other by itself might have been tolerable for me, but not both. For me trusting the church was like trusting a blind man to tell me where to steer my car.

 

My advice... Just say NO to those who refuse to take an honest look at the world and yet would tell you what to do in it.

[hereticzero]

Male, close to 40.

[Rhia]

Female, 19.

[Vigile]

I started to have serious questions at 25, but it took me a few more years before my deconversion was complete.

 

I have always been the questioning type who went against the crowd. Before 25 that tendency funneled it's way toward trying to find a "real" relationship with god. I wasn't trying to find true religion or anything, I just wanted to have an experience that was real myself. I worked at it hard, but obviously since there is nothing there nothing ever happened.

 

TBH, I think my IQ improved as I grew older. I've always been a late bloomer.

[RankStranger]

I started having serious doubts when I was 11. At the time, all I knew for sure was that the rules, as explained to me, were contradictory and impossible to follow literally (Among other things, I had only just realized that I liked looking at girls' asses... and I wasn't about to pluck my eye out).

 

I finally let Jesus go for good when I was 13. I suspected that all of Christianity was a crock of shit... but even if it wasn't, I couldn't be saved anyway. 'Cause I just didn't believe it. And there was no sense trying to fake it to a Gawd who knew my every thought.

[MathGeek]

Male, right around 24 I guess. My wife had a miscarriage at that time and it took that long for the real hatred to manifest within me. Going to church and seeing all those beautiful young children while my wife and I were without our own was and is still too much to bear. I emotionally checked out after that and by the time I was 26-27, I was something of a deist-agnostic-atheist, but I was full-blown anti-Christian.

 

Only after that event did I question what I really believed.

[IndigoShe]

I was 12 when I was Baptized into the Baptist faith. Dunked at a nearby lake in a community park, I remember coming up for air and thinking; now I'll fit in to the cool kids clique.

 

Wrong! The cool kids were just jerks who used church as a meeting spot to feel smug and superior just like every clique does. But when I was a very little girl I remember the Bible stories sounding so warm and cuddly. Especially Noah and all those lovely animals.

 

Then I finally admitted to myself, shortly after the dunking, that it simply wasn't where I wanted to be. Church, conservative judgmental faith and practice. Pastors saying if I wanted to speak to god I had to come to church if I expected him to hear. He was made to sound like the strict authoritarian violent parent I was missing in my real life. And only in my later years did I one day take a long look at what I'd left behind so long ago. The myth, the conditional love and all the rest and I felt free to acknowledge none of it made sense. In fact it was outright bullshit designed to enslave the mind to self-deprecating traditions that, once accepted as one's personal truth, made one a servant to the religion that promised to save them if they only had faith first that they needed to be saved.

 

So now people I know say I should still respect the Christian religion. And I reply I don't have to respect an institution that at its very core has no respect for me or anyone else. It doesn't deserve respect and so I am not obligated to give what it wouldn't appreciate.

[Mysteries' Child]

I was 20 when I officially split. I was then and remain female.

 

I think, actually, the final straw was going to a college Baptist group, listening to all these kids talk about God's unconditional love, and then watching the guys use it as a place to pick up girls and watching pretty much everyone but the pastor reject me outright on account of me being shy and awkward and not trendily dressed.

 

Stupid crock. Makes me glad I'd been swallowing at least a suppressive dose of anti-bullshit pills all along.

 

For all I know, I may still subscribe to a load of bullshit-- but at least it's my bullshit, not someone else's centuries-old feces.

[Guest Zenobia]

For all I know, I may still subscribe to a load of bullshit-- but at least it's my bullshit, not someone else's centuries-old feces.

 

Damn straight! I totally agree with you on that one. "To Thine Own Self Be True..." There is so much wisdom in that.

 

In our wonderful little One True Church TM®... I was also kind of awquard when I was young (I was a late bloomer) and the guys who were hell-bent on being big-shot ministers stayed the hell away from me. It was no different than the "worldy" public high school we were supposed to be so different from... the quarterbacks didn't date nerdy little girls.

 

Of course, we girls were supposed to go out with any church guy who asked us, no matter how ugly or weird he was. Once, this 40-something bachelor with nasty little scabs all over his face was asking all the young girls to dance at some church function. He was also picking his nose very obviously... I was really grossed out and turned him down when he asked me. OMG the other girls just scolded the shit out of me for telling him no.

 

So there was quite a double standard. Guys could pick and choose but us girls were supposed to go out with whatever guy asked us. The ministers always said "God works through the man." *shudder*...

[upstarter]

I think I began questioning at birth. LOL But by 14 I was seriously asking questions, out loud. But I struggled along, got baptised by immersion at 21. I think that was my last ditch effort to feel whatever I was supposed to feel. When I was 23 I moved across the country from my xtian family and that was really the big break. I went to church for a few more years, mostly because I wanted to sing in the choir. Once I found a secular, community choir to sing in the break was complete.

 

Now I'm 42. And I am female.

 

Heather

[Dhampir]

16, then 19. The latter was for real, and for good. I guess I had questioned in some way for years prior to that, and when I was sixteen, I left mainstream christianity, and ended up being a nominal member of a cult, but then that got boring and I was basically a lapsed christian, or perhaps just apostate till I was 19, whereupon I began doing serious research and made the conscious decision to walk away from it all for good.

[Comanche]

I had doubts pretty much forever. Became an agnostic around 11, fully atheist last year (13). The 'rents are pretty much liberal Christians (I have inklings that my dad is agnostic or atheist, being a chemist and all) who are only that way for the social life, so leaving was pretty easy for me. I've pretty much always been an unknowing agnostic. I cringe to think of all the times in elementary school that I said I was Christian because I didn't really understand the labels or I just assumed I was because everyone else was. That's why I always get annoyed as hell at people who say things like "Christian Child" or "Muslim Child." They need to make that decision them self, when they're old enough to understand what it entails.

[MesaGman]

2004 I was 26 and male. We drove the Mormons from my "country".

[LtJayson]

I was 23 when I really started...now, at 24...I am well on my way...don't know when I will be completely done! I did have a great realization that seems to be a step in the right direction! I realized that if I found out that I was going to die, I wouldn't care to go back to the invisible man...because I know that he does not exist! It is a great feeling to be past that barrier!

[Brother Jeff]

Someone once told me it is mostly young men under age 30 who "rebel" and leave christianity. So I thought I'd find out what the consensus is here.

 

I was 25 when I broke all ties with my church, and female.

 

What about you?

I was 34 years old when I experienced my glorious deconversion in early 2000. Glory!

[MQTA]

I challenged Genesis in Kindergarten

[Crazycatlady]

18, female.

 

I came to the conclusion at age 7, but pushed it from my mind for about 11 years.

[Vomit Comet]

I bit the bullet just after my 29th birthday after a couple of years of being progressively alienated from it. And I'm still 29 years old!

[Neon Genesis]

I was 22 when I deconverted from Christianity and I was 23 when I made the final leap to atheism.

[Jincks013]

I am in the under 13 catagory. I was however 14 by the time I had a word for what I felt about the whole bloody religion. Now I am 39 and still hate and despise that religion, send them all on a new 'ark' into the sun!..