How long did you take to decide?

My path, as this kind of journey should, took me many years. I have always encouraged people to ask many questions, read lots, and never be afraid to talk to others! Find your spirituality should be a journey, not something that is just given to you and demanded of you.

May your path lead you to happiness!

Blessed Be

I realised in mid-teenage that faith was based upon nothing but itself, that science explained nature satisfactorily without needing supernatural beings, and that religious beliefs were no different to those of ancient beliefs in gods and goddesses.

When I first had doubts about my faith I thought that maybe this was a test of my faith. So I made the effort to accept it even more so. But the doubts came again, and I wondered what would happen if we took faith out of the equation; the world and nature still made sense, so I saw no reason to get back into it. At the time this was difficult intellectually and emotionally (I was a teenager, after all).

That was getting on for 40 years ago, and my escape from faith has freed me to embrace what science has to offer, which I consider far more plausible than belief in the supernatural, and is the nearest we can get to the truth about how nature and the universe work. I've felt a sense of freedom ever since, and am happy and at peace with this.

I have an interest in religions, mythology and related matters, and am fascinated that people still believe in things that to me are just not true.

I was around 8 when i started to realize that I really didn't believe in anything that was taught at my church. I was raised catholic. I got baptized and I did my first communion but I always hated church. Both me and my big sister did. I stopped going to church and started taking out books on all religions from the popular to the almost unknown. Even with the ones i didn't connect to I'm glad I researched them. It made me less judging now that I know what they really believe. I'm still researching religions but right now but I have mostly decided. It took me 6 years.

I had an encounter with Jesus Christ in my mid 20s that radically changed my entire life.

Prior to that time, I had always been taught that Jesus was a liar, a deceiver, possibly a lunatic, but above all else, very definitely dead!

I keep saying, "It's amazing how that once you actually meet Someone, you can no longer deny His existence," and I met Jesus (spiritually speaking)!

I could no longer deny His existence without committing intellectual suicide, so I had to change my entire way of thinking.

I am now thoroughly convinced that Jesus is exactly who He claimed to be, the very Son of God, who died on a cross for my sins after having been brutally beaten 39 times with a cat-o-nine tails and a crown composed of 2-inch thorns shoved into his scalp, then died, and buried, and resurrected again the morning of the third day just as He said He would, thus proving once and for all time that He is exactly who He claimed to be, the very Son of God.

I was raised a Christian, going to church and helping out. I loved the church, but once we moved to PA, away from that church, I started to realize that it didn't make much sense. After a year or two of pondering, I decided to find another religion. My friend and I were discussing religions and which made the most sense. We both came to Buddhism and agreed on everything.

We have been practicing Buddhism for about 4 1/2 months now.

after being raised christian for the first 12 years of my life, i decided to be atheist, but then decided not all religions are as bad, just the structure people build up around it, and if it works for some maybe there is something out there. so it took me about a year to decide to be agnostic.

if there is a right religion out there, im waiting evidence of its truthfulness to fall in my lap.

Most adults will tell you that their beliefs develop, and continue to develop all of their lives. Until a person has sufficient life experiences beliefs cannot mature.

It took me 2 years of heart wrenching honesty and research to give up on Christianity.

I bacame aware that religion was a scam at about 8 years old, but it was not until my late teens that I became an atheist.

Christianity made total sense until I was about 8, then I struggled to fit my knowledge and observations of reality to the religion for a number of years. Faith disappeared around 18, Atheism set in at 20.

Wow SuperAtheist I am super jealous. When I asked questions like why is the sky was blue my uneducated fundie parents had some very interesting answers...