There's been a perception of a bit of an exodus from religion for the last several decades. But humanity has gone from no organized religions to oppressive religious regimes to rebellion and back again over the last several millennia.
But is the 21st century when religion finally fails to bounce back?
In the past, people often converted—or were forced to convert—from one religion to another, sometimes swapping deities in the process.
However, more and more people are becoming atheists or agnostics, indifferent to the existence of any gods and unwilling to attend a weekly meeting for one.
Reddit user lowly_shepherd asked:
"People who have stopped going to church, what made you stop?"
Appearances Are Everything
"The focus on appearances. It seemed like no one actually gave a sh*t what went on behind closed doors as long as they weren’t forced to acknowledge 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
Social Clubs
"The many Evangelical Christian churches I attended in my area were purely social clubs."
"Everyone came to show off their clothes, babies, 'holiness' or whatever and then go back to being horrible when they walk out the door."
~ nndscrptuser
Dinosaurs
"I stopped going when I was 14 because two different people, one of them the pastor, told me that dinosaurs never existed."
"I really went home that night, sat on my bed, and said to myself 'I can’t let myself ever get that stupid' and I never went back."
"I was going 4 times a week, too—it was a big part of my life."
~ Not_Cartmans_Mom
The Great Flood
"Noah's Ark was definitely the breaking point for my 12-year-old brain and the catalyst of my doubt of all religion."
"I distinctly remember the moment that I thought, 'Wait, where did all the water come from, and where did it go? How did they feed all the animals, especially the carnivores? How did they send undiscovered animals back to undiscovered lands and only mention the known animals? Why are some parasites on some continents and not others? Why is there not a massive fossil record of any of this?'."
"Just a *ahem* flood of questions that made me realize that all the other stuff was equally likely to be completely made up to keep people less panicky about dying and more fearful of being punished for being bad."
~ JSTFLK
God's Will
"They said my mom’s cancer was God testing me and my family."
~ InspectorMadDog
"This one gets me incredibly angry each time."
"If God really is 'testing' people with these horrible situations, then is he really a good God? He has the power to make people's lives better, but a majority of people have immense suffering during their lives whether related to abuses around them, medical diagnoses, financial hardships, etc...
"So he doesn't care to improve people's lives, just to 'test' us?"
"My cousin committed suicide, and the priest told the hundreds of people at the service that 'God loved my cousin so much he couldn't wait for cousin to come to heaven'. No."
"My uncle emotionally abused his family enough 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?"
~ ValleyOfDoggos
Hypocrisy
"Holier than thou pastor was screwing his secretary for years while he was married."
~ hawken54321
"A church that I live about 2 miles away from had a huge scandal last year where the pastor,youth pastor, and both of their wives were swingers."
"Admittedly, isn't nearly as bad as other churches."
"But when you teach staying within the boundaries of marriage and then behind the scenes you're sexually promiscuous and committing adultery, people don't take kindly to it."
~ bman123457
Money Hungry
"They seemed to want money more than anything else."
~ GeekyBookWorm87
"This is why my mom stopped going. Every sermon ended with the importance of giving them money."
~ AnnualLychee1
"My mom’s former church had a spreadsheet of everyone’s tithes. My mom gave every Sunday, but didn’t use the envelopes the church gave out."
"Someone leaked the spreadsheet made based on the envelopes and its existence understandably pissed off a lot of people, but my mom never attended again after seeing $0 next to our names."
~ Fishtacoburrito
God's Love
"This always gets me: 'God loved this child so much he gave him an agonizing death of cancer'."
"So if God loves you very much, he kills you so you can go to heaven early? How does that make sense?"
"My grandma was over 100 when she died. Did God dislike her so much that he kept her alive just so he wouldn't have to meet her?"
"When people pray for a long life and happiness. Are they essentially praying, 'dear God, please don't love me very much, I don't want to go to heaven and experience eternal happiness just yet. I'd rather watch TikTok all night, before going to work a double shift at McDonalds in the morning'."
~ Ogloka
Literacy
"I read the Bible. Came to very different conclusions than those I was taught in church."
~ JT_Hemingway
"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 a**hole that kept asking inconvenient questions."
"I went probably five or six 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."
"I think me strenuously objecting was the opening my Mom needed to cease my attendance which she had been secretly lobbying for since I was born."
~ Himajinga
Freedom Of Choice
"I stopped being forced to go."
~ Keypenpad
"Same! 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 when I was 16, I never had to go again because she is an atheist."
"She actually went to church when she was married to my dad, but she didn't believe any of it either."
"Also, my dad stopped going a few years after I moved out, because he said that it was his job as a parent to get us to go and that job was over. And he's never been back."
~ lightningusagi
God's Plan
"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 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 tumors with chemicals."
~ uniballing
Anxiety
"I have a working theory that going to a religious elementary school made met 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
"I grew up in the 80's 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
Helping The Rich
"My family stopped going to a church that we'd been going to for ages. My parents were having financial hardships—we were going to food pantries at the time."
"The church guilt tripped them for not donating money we didn't have."
~ SongsForBats
"The pastor at my local megachurch drives a customized Lamborghini Urus. One of a handful of Lambos in the entire city."
"He and his wife couldn't give a rat's a** about anyone else."
~ theaviationhistorian
Guilt Trip
"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
Have you stopped attending church? Why?
