what really pushed me to atheism was finding out most of what I learned as a kid

[gay texan]

10. I feel the same way

I can vividly remember being drug to church at the age of five, in the late 70's bible belt. My other sibling and I HATED it. It was a perfectly nice summer Sunday outside and i wanted to spend the day outdoors playing in the dirt with my Hot Wheels, instead of putting on a suit and tie and sitting around a bunch of people i didn't know.

After both of us throwing a huge fit and made to go anyway, i observed something once we were inside:

1. People became zombies. They were simply repeating patterns that they had been taught since they were small.

2. I seriously detested church music and having to sing it. It grates my nerves to this day.

After 3 attempts of dragging us there, they gave up. Dad tried to quasi-punish us by making us help him around the house on Sunday mornings which ended up backfiring because we thought it was fun

As i got older i noticed that religion was used to justify hate and to control people. At about 17, in the full height of the "Satanic Panic" in the 1980's, i was talked into attending a "rock music is bad" seminar. At this point in my life, "Led Zeppelin 2" was my everything and it was expanding my musical tastes into other bands of the era. This music provided me an escape from bullying, questions on my sexuality/gender, and it just put me in a good mood.

So i go to this thing, and as it progresses i'm getting angry, i mean fucking MAD, at all the bullshit i'm hearing. Hands clenched in fists of rage as Don McLean would say. Satanic backwards masking, satanic ceremonies taking place in the recording studio, and if you keep listening to this music you will do heroin, commit suicide and burn in hell....

Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. I saw it for what it was: a power grab! These people wanted power over youth/people.

At the age of 17, the seed was planted. After numerous years of searching and reading, i discovered all of it was a truck load of prime USDA bullshit. At the age of 29, my monogrammed bible that was given to me as high school graduation present, got destroyed and placed into a recycle bin.