Growing up, my parents brought us to church off and on. We generally went to church about 75% of the sundays each year, and wednesday night religion class about half the time. We started as catholics, then became lutherans, then baptists through different moves around the country.

I had always known I didn't believe this stuff but I still tried to. I think the reason I never cared much about going to church was because of how little I believed it as a child. One day when I was 17 or 18 I finally decided I was going to say it "I don't believe in God". So as usual, I'm laying in bed on sunday morning hoping my mom won't come wake me for church. Sure enough she peeks in and says "Get up, we're going to church" "No, I don't want to go" I said. She said something like "Too bad kiddo, lets go"... As usual. So I said "No, seriously, I'm not going. In fact I don't want to go anymore ever." This got her attention. She came into my room and said "Why?" I said "Because I don't even believe in Christianity anyways" "What!?" she said.

After explaining it to her more, she began to cry. She couldn't believe that her son had fallen away from God. She cried some more and finally decided that she was going to make me come with her and talk to the pastor. So, feeling bad that I hurt her somehow, I agreed to go. My Mom began to cry again after the mass, and talked to the youth pastor about me. "Now I'm in Trouble" I thought... I had to go into a room alone with the youth pastor to talk it over.

The youth pastor was somewhat cool about it surprisingly. He told me his story, as boring and cliche as it was, and then asked why I didn't believe. I proceeded to tell him that the whole thing simply didn't make sense, and was too unbelieveable. After that he basically said he didn't think there was much he could say to me to change my mind, and that he hoped I would find God in my own way one day.

That was the last day I ever went to church

You sound like you had a cool and laid back youth pastor. It's funny how the clergy can often be the most accepting about loss of faith. I've found man of them have very atheist/agnostic views about faith themselves but that they believe faith, in itself, is a redeeming quality. That concept seems a bit odd to me. Perhaps it's an "ends justifies the means" approach.

That is a really interesting story. I think it's a bit funny that your parents 'changed' religions when you moved, and didn't somehow see that this could set a person up for believing that the whole system was more than a bit arbitrary.

It's really nice that you were attending a church at the time where the youth pastor could let you go. No doubt a lot of the people there had the same feelings you did.

Thanks for sharing your story!