A question, if Omega doesn’t mind the slight hijack:
When you wrote these responses, did you feel a sense of smugness? For some reason, I can’t think of a synonym that doesn’t have the negative connotation.
Do you feel that your “eye-opening” (per Nametag) elevates you above those who still believe?
Was it so at one time? Has that feeling happened, and now retreated?
From an Atheist raised by Atheists, so no patronizing view intended!
***What religion were you a part of, and what are you now? **
Was generic Christian, now atheist/agnostic/occasionally have feelings of philosophical deism. Didn’t believe in denominations, even when I was religious.
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
I was very, very religious between the ages of 12-15. “Believed in God” but didn’t give it much though before age 12, and became very very hardline atheist shortly after my 15th birthday.
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
I “lost” some friends, not in the fact that we came right out and “dumped” each other, but we just failed to have much in common anymore and sort of drifted apart. I guess that happens around that age anyway, so it’s hard to tell if religion played a major part in it. One thing that still surprises me to this day (and that I’m happy about), is that my few friends who were atheists all along never really busted my chops or threw I told you sos at me after I “converted”.
Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
Free thought, and sex. Not only was I scared to death of sex before marriage, I was scared to even think of it (or any other sin), because I was taught that Jesus knows your thoughts and thinking of a sin was just as bad as committing it. I really tortured myself over that one. Oh, and I was able to use the always handy term “goddamn” afterwards.
*** Also, how would you feel about becoming religious again?*
Incomprehensible.
Regarding Cemetery Savior’s question:
I know too many intelligent and liberal-thinking religious people (married to one, in fact) to feel smug or superior. The only beliefs I’m qualified to question are my own.
I have no bones to pick with religious people, until they try to legislate their beliefs.
I’m one of the few in this thread who doesn’t claim to be “new and improved” as the result of no longer being religious. I don’t feel that I was any more ignorant, closed-minded, etc. when I was Catholic – but if I had been, those would have been personal failings, not failings of my religion.
No problem, feel free to add questions that are related to the OP.
Nope
Nope, the change being personal and has no outside referents. I think *I’m * better off than I was, but not better than others who are still religious.
Yes,I used to be a very self-unrighteous atheist for a few months. That’s past.
I was an Episcopalian (C of E, to Dopers in the UK).
Currently, Deist.
I was very religious, & considered the Ministry. I was a altarboy.
When I moved to the American South, I encountered evangelical sects, & I was shocked.
I began to read the history of religion, to try & understand things.
I learned about the excesses of organized religion for the first time, & I left.
[
***What religion were you a part of, and what are you now? **
Raised as as Methodist by a former Roman Catholic father and former Seventh Day Adventist mother. (have a sister that converted to Judiasm, brother that is agnostic, another sister dabbled in Unitarian and now a Methodist) I went to a private Presbyterian college and dated a Mormon there. Experienced a miracle while in medical school that led me to be part of The Way International (considered a cult by most denominations) for 22 years. Out of “The Way” for almost 5 years now, consider myself a Non-denominational Protestant.
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
As a Methodist, not very religious, as a participant in activities of The Way International, I was very religious.
***Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting? **
Lost alot of legalism and regimentation that was developing in The Way International.
***Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion? **
Still consider myself “born-again” and still attribute things happening to me to be part of God’s plan for my life.
*** Also, how would you feel about becoming religious again? Is that something that you’d prefer did/didn’t happen? etc.
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**
Still consider myself to be religious, but more realistic about it. Would not mind finding a group to be a part of, but have certain criteria that make it difficult to find the right group. (don’t believe Jesus Christ is God, don’t believe the dead are alive now)
I’m just curious… what types of things are you talking about?
*What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
I was a Roman Catholic church-going atheist. Now, a garden variety atheist.
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
No.
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
Though I hated it as a kid, I now look back somewhat fondly on actually going to church. . .seeing the same folks every week, the same people my parents had known forever, old guys making jokes about how much you’ve grown, that kind of stupid stuff. The "peace be with you"s was always kind of nice. Sometimes the priest has some interesting stuff to say in his sermons. . .sometimes he’d ream out the parishioners.
I also liked all the accoutrements: the decorations and the candles and the windows and the gold and the music and the robes and the bells and the books and the cruets and all that shit. It’s really kind of a crazy vibe in a crazy pad.
I always liked chatting with the priests, too. I was somewhat inquisitive and confrontational as a kid and the priests seem to dig it a little more than teachers or relatives.
So, I don’t miss it, but I don’t resent it, either. Notice I didn’t say anything about actually missing the “faith”.
*Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
An extra hour per week.
It will never happen again. I was only “religious” because I was forced to go to church.
was Protestant, now atheist (Adamsian branch 
)
nope, was forced to go as a child, hated it, even then, i just had a gut feeling it was illogical
haven’t lost anything, never had anything there in the first place, can’t lose what you never had
a keener, more analytical mind, and a love of science, sciences called to me even from a little kid, a healthy dose of cynicism
never gonna’ happen, too many inconsistencies and idiocyncracies, if i had to chose a religion, it’d probably be an Eastern religion like Taoism or Buhddism, to me, the ideals there just seem more…enlightened
besides, i’m already a member of the Cult of Macintosh, and the Cult of Singlespeed bicycles, but they’re the good kind of cults
*What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
Protestant - first the United Church of Canada, then the Anglican Church of Canada. Now I’m an apatheist.
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
No. I only ever went to church because my mother said I had to. At the Anglican church, I was a choir boy, and took part in some ceremony where I wore a robe and carried some utensil around the church before going up to the altar and sitting by the organ pipes. I have no memory of any of the hymns and couldn’t quote you one now. Whatever “it” was, I never, ever “felt it.” What concept of religion can a kid have? As soon as I developed a concept and started looking at what these people were saying and doing, my first thought was, “you have got to be kidding!” But they were deadly serious about it, and if you weren’t one of them, you were lost and to be pitied. That was the first red flag.
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
No, I was never bound to it in the first place. I had nothing to lose but my gullibility. I’m missing out on the guilt and fear, and being a Stepford Person who can only associate with other Stepford People.
*Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
I gained a healthy fear of people who think that if you don’t believe what they believe, you are evil or insane and dangerous to their way of life. Now that those people are in charge, I fear them even more. My opinion is that there may be something to faith, but it isn’t going to be found in organized religion, which is just a racket masquerading as the road to salvation.
It’ll never happen.
*What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
I was dumped into the Maryknoll system from an early age. I’m pretty sure they’re Catholics, but I’ve never really doped out all the microscopic differences between the various denominations or divisions or whatever. Today, I see myself as a “having way too much fun now and will deal with the issue when the time comes-ist”. 
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
No. Never. I was aware on some deep level of the need to ritualize the belief in a higher power, but the whole business just never struck me as that honkin’ big a deal.
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
I didn’t deconvert or excommune or disunionificate or any of that junk, I just grew disillusioned with the whole stupid waste of time and stopped going through the motions. A lot of Maryknoll faithful would be surprised to hear that mumbling tedious canned speeches over clasped hands and interpreting an outdated work of fiction isn’t very appealing to a teenager with real problems. Anyway, I never anguished over my decision…can’t lose what you never had.
*Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
Yeah…I got a lot more free time and no longer had to participate in classes that were of absolutely no use helping me get smarter, become more aware, and eventually get a job, *which is the whole freakin’ point of school, you…*sorry. 
*What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
Was Christian/Baptist, now atheist/agnostic.
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
More than passingly, but not quite very.
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
The only things possibly lost would be bad things.
*Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
An open mind and much keener insight into the world.
Frankly, I don’t see it happening short of a mental breakdown and at that point, what can you do? If it happens, it happens.
You might be interested in finding a Bible Students group that studies the writings of Charles Taze Russell. They are kinda JW-lite. OR if you can locate a Christ-believing Unitarian group
May I ask- Armstrongist group?
*What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
-Raised Roman Catholic. Deist/new ager now (it varies from time to time, I’m currently more deist)
*Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
-No
*Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
-Not really, though I do somewhat miss it. I feel like I’m not as spiritual as I used to be, and do miss that, but on the other hand religion never really filled that very well for me to begin with.
*Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
-Freedom. There’re things the church teaches that I don’t believe, and never did. Sitting at mass listening to the liturgy sometimes bothered me, if the preist was advocating some position that I don’t agree with.
Well, in the first category, it was mainly the prohibition on the ordination of gay ministers. In other demoninations and more evangelical Presbyterian churches women are also seen as unworthy of leadership in the church. In the second cataegory you can put, well, homosexuality, premarital sex, and reproductive rights.
What religion were you a part of, and what are you now?
Both parents were fairly religious. My father was raised with beliefs somewhere along the lines of the Seventh Day Adventists, but went to various different churches growing up due to moving around a lot. My mother moved around even more than dad did, so she had a more generalized exposure to Christianity. I think my mother in particular was looking for more spirituality when we were growing up. I got the impression that, while she’d always been generally religious, she was going through a hard-core Christian phase when I was a kid.
The church I ended up spending the most time at was a Pentecostal church. Before that was a Baptist or Gospel one, I think. I was pretty young when I was going there. The Pentecostal one left a bigger impression anyway. People speaking in tongues, prophesying, and “healing” each other makes for some pretty unforgettable experiences.
Now, I’m agnostic to atheist.
Did you consider yourself to be very religious before?
Yep. The 'rents were religious to the point of being more than a bit loony about it and I went along with it willingly enough for the most part. There was a phase where I wasn’t allowed to participate in holidays, including birthdays, because they were “pagan holidays.” We listened mostly to Christian rock because regular music was a “bad influence.” We went to weekly bible studies in addition to church. A bunch of stuff in our regular lives related to religion in one way or another. I didn’t stop going to extra-service church meetings and activities until I was in my last year or so of high school.
Do you feel like you’ve lost something (good or bad), or are missing out on something as a result of deconverting?
The only things I lost were some heavy and harmful pieces of baggage. I was a little prig when I was about thirteen or so because of the religious teaching about sex, which cost me some early sexual experiences and possibly was the cause of some dysfunction when I finally did start doing it. If I still thanked god for anything, I’d give him many kudos for letting me have a gay friend, K., when I was about sixteen. Finding out that he was gay made me really think about sex, and he helped me deal with what sex meant to me, and eventually helped me break out of my introverted shell. I ended up more sure of my sexuality and hetero orientation because of early exposure to gays through an older man who became my mentor for a few years. (Hear that, religious right? Not only did he not “recruit” me, he didn’t molest me either.)
It cost me a bit in the development of social skills due to being too sheltered. I’m now kind of pissed that I was further crippled socially by my parents with the religious stuff on top of the moderately high IQ, abnormally large vocabulary, crooked teeth that eventually were mostly corrected by braces (which added their own social stigma), and slightly late physical development. I also had to wear cheap clothes for a while since we were pretty poor during most of my childhood. Thanks mom and dad, on top of unfortunate physical and financial stuff you can’t really do much about, you had to make me into a Flanders kid too.
I missed out on some really good music in the 80s until I started doing my own thing and dumped all the religious stuff. I’m just glad that my mother’s devotion to learning was greater than her religious inclinations, so I didn’t miss out on much literature.
Did you gain something (good or bad) as a result of deconversion?
Gained: Freedom. Being able to engage my brain. A much better class of friends.
Lost: Lots of guilt. Annoying, superior, “I’m saved, you’re going to hell” attitude. The ability to listen to religious rhetoric without feeling sick to my stomach.
Could never happen.
I actually started to question religion back when I was a little kid, but fooled myself into believing things so that I could fit in better with my family and their friends with the church. I got into trouble a few times for being disruptive. I was asked not to come to the sunday school classes because I challenged the teacher a few times. (It’s not a good idea to bring up other mythologies and compare them to the Christian ones when you’re a 10 year old. Credibility and authority issues get in the way, even if you’re right. Especially if you’re right.) My family was not really supportive in these situations, which confused me because they encouraged me to think for myself most of the time. It was just in relation to religion that they asked me to accept without questioning.
As is the case with many people who deep down actually doubt something, I tricked myself into believing it more strongly than I would have otherwise. This self-deception broke down in my teens when I began to be unable to stifle the inner voice that said, “These people would be called ‘f^¢#ing nuts’ if they weren’t talking about God along with the lunacy.” So, I decided that it would be a good idea not to go to youth groups anymore. At the time, my attitude was more that I didn’t want to be a disruption, rather than that I thought it was bad for me. I stopped going to church altogether soon after.
The last thing that broke the back of my remaining faith was the chaos resulting from my mother’s breast cancer. All the faith healing was about as effective as Wiccan magick, but not as cool, and I felt weird about having these people who I never really liked or trusted much intruding into something that I felt was private. When she died, religion was no consolation to me, and I started really resenting her religious friends for the manipulative attitudes they’d had toward us kids. After quite a bit of introspection and self-inflicted agony I decided that I wasn’t a Christian anymore, and hadn’t really been one for quite some time.
The last time I went to anything church-related was a prayer group about 6 years ago when I was still finishing up with university. Besides the fact that a hot chick asked me to go, the reason I actually went to the meeting was to see if religion had any appeal for me. I spent the evening feeling a bit weird, and it took me most of the meeting to figure out why.
I realized that, though for everyone else there it filled some need, I didn’t have that need. I felt sad for a while after the meeting and, again, I didn’t know why I felt that way. I found that I felt sad for them because they needed religion. They couldn’t stand on their own.
Silly as it seems, the Animatrix episode “World Record” nearly made me cry because the religious symbolism in the ending scene made me relate to Dan in a very personal way. It made me think of this church group incident, where I realized that there are so many people who are still lost in the “matrix” of religion and have never seen the real world.
I don’t think my beliefs are necessarily superior, and I don’t miss religion at all any more, but it makes me sad that so many people need it for some reason. It really upsets me when people try to push their religion onto people, particularly if that person is me. Evangelical sects bother me because the idea of recruiting people into being salesmen for their god is especially disturbing.
I was raised a fundamentalist Mormon in Provo, Utah. Great-greats-greats fled across the country from upstate New York and the Midwest to establish Utah, that generation and my great-greats were polygamists. You can’t get much more Mormon unless you’re Brigham Young.
Being born into the religion and the immense cultural sway it has in Utah Valley, there was no other choice but to outwardly believe and perform the belief. Inwardly, however, even as a kid it never seemed that I felt the same way as everyone else who really, really seemed to believe. I faked it good for 17 years until family catastrophe (divorce) finally set me free to be queer and not attend church 18 hours a week.
I do still carry with me and believe in many of the ethos that Mormonism promotes: honesty, community, work ethos, goal-setting, family, abstinence from most mind-altering substances. I still think of myself as spiritual and frequently find myself doing what might be classified as praying/private kinds of worship rituals.
I do miss the community the religion provides. Mormons take care of their own with their private welfare system and also have a lot of organizations that encourage participation and selflessness. I don’t miss the subservient position of women, the smug belief that “we’re the only true church on earth” and the knee-jerk conservatism.