Questions for the lapsed

[Bounty]

Roman Catholic.

I was getting more and more desillusioned with religion through high school, and my religion teacher pushed me over the edge. He valued critical thinking and intellectual honesty above all else, and made it perfectly clear that you can't force people to be religious and that, in the end, every human being has a choice as to what they believe. He made me realise that I only believed because I was taught to believe.

I first went from dogmatic-catholic to loosely christian - if only because it was a convenient term for a range of NT values I appreciated - but then I came to the conclusion that I didn't need the framework. Over time, what I used to consider as "devine" in the world became mundane and explainable. My belief in all things supernatural just dissappeared. A very...calming experience.