30 People Share Their Shocking Truths Of Why They Left Organized Religion, And It's Unbelievably Eye-Opening

Taylor Tomlinson said it well in her Netflix comedy special, Prodigal Daughter: "[Religion] can be interpreted in so many ways. Like, you can say to a room full of people, 'Jesus loves you no matter what.' And a lot of those people will hear, 'Jesus loves me!' But some of those people will hear, 'No matter what?' And that's the problem, right? Religion can be used as either a weapon or a tool."

She goes on, "'Cause if God exists, he does not exist to make you feel better than other people. He exists to make you better for other people. And life is so ******* hard. Whatever makes you a better person for other people, that's what you should be doing. We do this weird thing that we forget that everybody's struggling." So yes, there is no right or wrong answer about the topic we're about to discuss — we are just sharing people's stories.

Over on Reddit , people who've stepped away from church are opening up about their reasons. From negative personal experiences to sudden fallouts to inner doubts, many are sharing honest reflections on what led them to leave. Take a look:

Please note that these submissions don't reflect a universal experience of religion. Everyone's story is different.

1. "I stopped going to our family church when the pastor told me I was not allowed to divorce my husband over domestic abuse...unless he cheated on me. I left him anyway."

— Illustrious-Tale683

2. "I left the church when they said my mom's cancer was God 'testing' my family and me."

— InspectorMadDog

3. "I slept in one Sunday, and I loved it. I never went back to Sunday School. My oldest is in med school, and my other kids are great kids and students. When people ask me how my wife and I raised great kids, I always say that they always got enough rest."

— Chemical_Defiant

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4. "I left because of their constant focus on appearances. It seemed like no one actually gave a **** what went on behind closed doors as long as they weren’t forced to acknowledge it. It felt like nobody would care if their back teeth were rotting out just as long as the front looked nice, so to speak."

— ThatsAmoreMyGuy

5. "The many evangelical churches I attended in my area were purely social clubs. Everyone came to show off their clothes, babies, 'holiness,' or whatever...and then they'd go back to being horrible when they walked out the door."

— nndscrptuser

6. "Around 2003/2004, we got these two sermons in back-to-back weeks in Massachusetts: 1) Being homosexual is an abomination against God and is a horrible sin that goes against nature, and it's a disgrace to the Lord that these heathens legalized gay marriage. 2) Although these priests were caught molesting children, we should forgive them as Jesus forgave. After that, my entire family could not be part of the Catholic church anymore. The hypocrisy was palpable."

— WilmaTonguefit

7. "They seemed to want money more than anything else."

— GeekyBookWorm87

"My mom stopped going because every sermon ended with the importance of giving."

— AnnualLychee1

"My mom’s former church had a spreadsheet of everyone’s tithes. My mom gave every Sunday, but didn’t use the envelopes. Someone leaked the spreadsheet, and its existence understandably ********** a lot of people. My mom never attended after seeing $0 next to our names — all because she didn't put the money in an envelope and sign her name."

— Fishtacoburrito

"My parents were having financial hardships and using food banks to feed our family, and the church guilt-tripped them for not donating."

— SongsForBats

8. "It started to feel like modern Christianity is a folk religion where guns and prosperity doctrine are literally a part of the faith. They basically preach that if you love God on your own terms, and you can literally do whatever you want and still be holy and forgiven."

— SpikeRosered

9. "I'm a bisexual transfem and my dad was a Pastor. The refusal to ever acknowledge it, talk about anything, and always maintain that outward appearance caused me so much fear, guilt and shame. I left because it stunted my ability to emotionally deal with things."

— Ankoku_Teion

10. "My cousin died by suicide, and the priest told the hundreds of people at the service that God loved my cousin so much he couldn't wait for my cousin to come home to heaven. No. My uncle emotionally abused his family so much that my cousin wanted it to stop. God didn't help in the 20 years of abuse, so why did God suddenly step in to 'save' him then? On the one hand, they preach that if God like you, he will 'bless' you with a long life. On the other hand, God 'brings people home to heaven' at a younger age because he likes them more? So which is it? Does God give people he likes longer lives or shorter lives?"

— ValleyOfDoggos

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11. "I grew up in the '80s, and my parents were Jehovah's Witnesses. So I had them telling me the world was going to end, and at the same time, we were doing drills in case of nuclear war at school. Every night on the news, they talked about nuclear war. I remember just being a wreck. No child should have to be burdened by those things."

— Padashar7672

12. "When asked what happens to those never heard about Jesus, one 'explanation' I often heard went something like: As long as someone is doing what they know to be right according to their conscience, even if they don't know God, they'll go to heaven. But if that's the case, then why do I need to profess the name of Christ? Now, even if I do everything right, the fact that I'm burdened with the knowledge of Christ means that if I DON'T profess his name, I'll go to hell anyway. It just seems kind of ridiculous and highly unbalanced, and also, a wild scare tactic."

— nlightningm

13. "I left because of fear. Religion is largely based on — and wouldn't function without — the fear of hell and 'eternal damnation.' That fear has been used to control the masses. Historically, if authorities couldn’t enforce appropriate social behaviour through threats of death or physical punishment, then the idea of burning for eternity would do it...and it has. Of course, religion has evolved and adapted over the centuries, but this core element hasn’t changed, and I think it’s what keeps people believing. Community plays a role as well, but I’d argue that if you removed the fear of hell, religion would largely disappear."

— MarionberryOk2874

14. "I stopped believing when I asked my pastor about dinosaurs. He laughed and said, 'Maybe there were dinosaurs on Noah's ark?' That was the moment I realized, 'Oh, this is all made up. He’s just making it up as he goes along, and I’m supposed to believe whatever he says?'"

— improvised-disaster

15. "I stopped going after I realized that only about 10% of the people in there were actually religious. Everybody else was because they were too ashamed to be the one person in their community who didn't go to church. When I started to have doubts growing up, I was just told to shut up and believe. Church just didnt resonant with me. If I ever go to church, I want to do it cause I enjoy it, not because I need to make appearances."

— Academic_Study5487

16. "I quit going to church because of the religious platitudes I received in respect to my cancer diagnosis, treatment, and remission. They were all some iteration of 'god has a plan' which really rubbed me the wrong way. I was very religious prior to this, but never believed in determinism. I always felt that determinism cheapened the necessity of free will and dumbed down god to this Santa Claus character in the sky that only granted wishes if you believed and prayed hard enough. Meanwhile, funeral homes were hauling off dozens of corpses a day from my cancer center, many of whom prayed plenty hard enough and died anyway. Then the thought that a magic genie god cured me really cheapened the fact that dozens of doctors and nurses were treating me with drugs developed by thousands of researchers working millions of hours to figure out how to scientifically kill my tumours with chemicals."

— uniballing

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17. "My experience with religion differs quite a lot compared to most people. During my childhood, I went to church only when tradition required it — such as Christmas, baptism, weddings, etc. At no point was it about religion. I grew up believing that religion was just a part of history, but not something people would take seriously. I believed the only reason people went to church was for tradition's sake, not because they actually believed in it. It wasn't until I was 10 years old that I realized people actually believe in religion,"

— TheAdagio

18. "I think I was in my early teens when I realized I didn't really believe the stuff that was being taught in church, but my dad was a deacon, so we went every weekend. I struggled for years trying to figure out what I believed and convincing myself that I wasn't bad for not believing in a god. When I moved in with my mom at 16, I never had to go again because she didn't go. My mom told me that she used to go to church when she was married to my dad, but didn't believe it either, and went for him. Then, when I moved out, my dad stopped going. He told me that he felt like it was his job as a dad to take me to church, but since he didn't need to play the father role in the same way, that job was over. And he's never been back. It's funny that we were all going because someone else thought we needed it."

— lightningusagi

19. "I begged to stop going to Synagogue when I got bat mitzvahed. I argued that since I’d be an adult according to the laws of Judaism, I should be allowed to choose. But after I was bat mitzvahed, my parents said it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t go while my brother had to. So I had to wait three years until he was bar mitzvahed. I think his service was the last one I went to. I was questioning religion since I was seven. Having me still go until I was 15 didn’t make me more religious — it just made me hate and loathe it more. My kids have only been to religious facilities for weddings."

— minicpst

20. "My mom said we didn't have to go anymore once we made our confirmation. So I did it, and that was the last day I went. Shortly thereafter, our family friend, who was a priest, was threatened with excommunication for being a whistleblower on the ********* priests. After that, my younger siblings never had to make their confirmation."

— SpecificRemove5679

21. "I feel like I was born the most skeptical child imaginable, and when my dad wanted me to go to Sunday school, he gave me a copy of the Bible annotated for children, and I read the whole thing cover to cover, and I was that little ******* that kept asking inconvenient questions. I probably went for 5–6 more sessions until I told my parents that I didn’t wanna go anymore because none of it made any sense. My mom‘s always been an atheist but never said anything to me about it, my dad grew up Catholic, and I think my strenuously objecting was the opening my Mom needed to cease my attendance, which she had been secretly lobbying for since I was born."

— Himajinga

22. "When I was going through my divorce, my pastor called me and told me he thought it would be best if I didn't come back to church until I 'got my life together.' My ex-wife, she stayed and was welcomed with open arms. So, I'm a little disillusioned."

— trey74

23. "One of my four sons is gay. I love him without reservation. The church said he’s a sinner because of who he is. I was immediately out."

— Purpleappointment47

24. "As a kid, I was told not to believe everything on TV and that I should question things. At the same time, I was fed stories of a man who walked on water and fed hundreds of people with one fish and one bottle of wine. It didn't make sense. And when I questioned Bible stories, I got chastised — but the seed was planted."

— StarPlantMoonPraetor

25. "I stopped going when the 'holier than thou' pastor was screwing his secretary for years while he was married.'

— hawken54321

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26. "Going to a religious elementary school made my anxiety way worse than it would have been had I gone to public school. So much 'God is watching and will know if you sin' probably f*cked up my (already not great) brain as a kid."

— Karsa69420

27. "I never really could connect with anyone in the church — they were too...churchy. They didn't seem capable of having conversations that didn't revolve around the church or the Bible, and I couldn't just talk about that 24/7."

— TinaSparkles

28. "I left because there's such a lack of evidence for 'basic biblical truths.' And there are mountains of evidence that contradict things claimed by the Bible!! It breaks my brain."

— nlightningm

29. "I stopped going because I started to realize I felt guilty for things that weren’t truly wrong and didn’t negatively impact others. I now don’t need the interpretation of good and evil from others; I just do my best to be a good person on my own terms."

— thefastestfridge

30. "I left the church because when you really get down to it, it’s just people telling you they know what happens when we die. I’m not basing my life’s ideology around something that’s impossible to know."

— Gooch_Rogers

31. And finally: "I left because I read the Bible. And after reading it, I came to very different conclusions than those I was taught in church.

— JT_Hemingway

Now I want to hear from you. Have you stopped going to church? Why did you decide not to go anymore? Tell me your stories in the comments below. Or if you wanna keep it secret and private, that's what the anonymous form is for.

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Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.

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