I was raised as a catholic however have grown up to become an atheist. The main reason for this is that religion felt very forced and fake to me as I got older and I hate the very idea of believing in something that seems so far fetched.
So pretty much I wanted to ask what your opinions are on the reasons why people stop being religious/believing.
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Since childhood I was brainwashed to love god. I spent an enormous amount of time trying to find this god, all the while mentioning a personal relationship with him. First I would eagerly listen to philosophers and spiritual teachers drone on and on about his mercy and love and greatness and I was sold on this great and wonderful thing called god. Later as I grew older I began to be indoctrinated in the way of my particular religion and my particular God (Islam/ Allah respectively) and as usual when I was told of the secrets to my religion I ended up with more questions than answers. Hailing from India I was also exposed to other religions most prominent being hinduism which led me to more questions. All of them had one thing in common; they seemed to defy common-sense even in the most mundane of stories. Whenever I would raise a doubt I was told to sit quietly and not argue as god and religion were above question. But that did not satisfy my curiosity. Since I did not personally associate myself with any one particular religion I sought god out in all the books I could at the time. So I read the bible and translations of the quran and geeta and parts of the vedas (online).
It is amazing how fast reading a hoy text converts you from a believer to a non believer. I could say the absurdity of their books was made me disbelief but that would be untrue. I was disillusioned by the very concept of god. such inherent contradictions could not exist.
Since religion is advertised far better than irreligion I spent a lot of time still seeking a god, maybe one that was some ancient obscure version that could fit the profile, but the more ancient the civilisation the less obscure their form and the more ridiculous their god. Not only that but it turns out that those ridiculous gods were what inspired the modern ones. Zeus imagery for jehovah, mithras as osiris inspired the tale of christ and many more.
Finally frustrated i picked up my first text on irreligion and realised it made more sense. It seemed to say just one thing. Its ok not knowing, theres no reason to bluff.