Since I can remember, there has been little religion in my home. Sure, we celebrated Christmas, Easter, but it's understandable for any American family to celebrate Christmas or Easter. We also celebrated a few Jewish holidays because I am technically Jewish through my mom's side, but it was more so for me to learn about my heritage.
My dad is from an irish catholic family (in new mexico), so it is quite large and it was pretty religious. Being the youngest, he was more rebellious and after too many run ins with the wrong crowd, he slowly changed (it took until when I was around the age of 9 when he finally quit smoking and drinking). He used to be a christian of sorts, but turned to more eastern philosophy and spirituality; so it's hard to say exactly what he is now. As far as I know, my mom never cared. Her dad (my grandfather) grew up in a fully kosher home, but from what I gather he became an atheist as he never truly believed. Her mom on the other hand, was Jewish and was against materialist ideas, so it was interesting growing up for my mom. She currently claims she is an atheist, though.
I didn't start out as an atheist or a christian, I just mindlessly believed in a god because my friends did. My parents taught me about religions, but I never really wondered what I believed. It was a little rough being that way as a child, as I was very interested in science. Evolution was something I accepted and was clueless why my friends really seemed to hate or mock it. At that time I identified myself as being Jewish, despite the only Jewish thing I did was celebrate Hanukkah.
Around the age of 7, I began to have nightmares and hopeless thoughts about what truly happens when I die. I never had a firm foundation on what I believed and no god(s) or religious afterlife to turn to, so I continually had dark imaginations of myself lying in the ground, thoughtless and lifeless. I turned to distraction and became further introverted and I always turned to my fantasies. I never really accepted the idea of no afterlife at that time.
Over the years, I turned to religions like Christianity, but I never fully connected or believed in god, so I learned about more eastern philosophies from my dad. It became easier to cope with my mind through meditation and the such and I never held a certain point in my beliefs. This left me in a more... suggestive state of mind. I still didn't believe in god, but I believed in ghosts, demons, aliens, etc...
Before the time I entered middle school, I joined youtube. I remember when I was searching stuff about ghosts, I came upon a "reverse emp" video. To make the story shorter, I basically joined an online cult. We believed that reptilian aliens controlled the planet along with greys, the aliens replaced people like Bush, reversed speak was always true, and the world was ending in 2009. It was all sorts of crazy, but I believed every word, even the idea that there was a celestial god/hivemind known as the One with a female counterpart called Eve. I began to lose faith after a while, and began to question the site and did my own research. I turned once again to spirituality and drifted some more.
This site actually helped me break free from the cult, I don't know how, though.
A while later, I found the amazingatheist on yotube and became a militant atheist in 7th grade. People were obviously annoyed by me and it took me a while before I could respect other peoples' religion. Because of a good friend, who convinced me Christianity wasn't evil, I softened up. I again looked back on eastern philosophy and began to understand it more. I asked questions and did outside research about logic, subjectivism, Nietzsche, etc... It took me a while, but I also began to notice I was taking philosophical ideas from a fantasy series, Elric of Melnibone about the ideas of chaos and order in conflict.
Maybe around 2010, I fully completed my own outlook on the world. The truth of the world no longer mattered to me, as it is logically impossible to prove that anyone other than my own mind exists. I no longer cared what existed and what didn't, I only cared how to live a good life. I knew that I never believed in god, but it didn't matter if he or anything else supernatural existed.
