Religion

raised Catholic - altar boy and all that including 12 years of parochial schools.

Serving Mass I would see the folks from last nights parties taking the wafer the next day. Priest skimming a little from the collection basket. Lots of alcohol being drunk by the church leaders. So on and so on.

My school had a principal who still has lawsuits wandering through the court system for child molestation. One of the priests was the go to to buy beer for the high schoolers. On and on.

The espousing of beliefs to help the poor, not be bigoted etc. which was pretty much ignored by all. Just seemed like it was all window dressing with nothing behind.

This caused me to dig deeper into the "beliefs." That just made me believe it was so much hokum.

The deeper I dug the less there was. Eventually I sort of became an atheist by default. With the advent of the internet and access to all sorts of different thought, atheism became the only thing that made much sense.