I was raised in a pretty conservative religion that listened to right-wing radio and news. However, I recently deconstructed religion entirely and can see it for the sham it is now. Once I did that my political ideology completely changed to the opposite. I’m now pretty progressive and happier than I’ve ever been.
Severe abuse by the church made me firmly anti religion for most of my youth, and then meeting religious people of varied faiths who weren’t monsters softened my feelings as I realized it wasnt all entirely evil. Then studying some of my family’s roots brought me where I am now: vaguely pagan while still acknowledging that I’m always going to be culturally Christian. I like to just tell people I’m a “recovering Catholic” for brevity and a laugh.
As for my social and political views, it was seeing all my friends come out as queer and realizing that I could either keep the far right views my family taught me, or I could learn to get my head out of my ass to keep my found family. Once I started forming my own opinions, I realized I got fed a load of shit my whole life(and also I’d wind up coming out too lmao)
- Raised Catholic - was pretty religious when young.
- In adolescence, started questioning things that didn’t make sense to me (e.g., why would God not want people to use birth control if they couldn’t afford kids? Why would he make people have a strong urge for sex but not want them to have it except for babies, and all the more typical things).
- Struggled more and more with things that didn’t make sense to me as I i got older (if God created everything, knows what’s going to happen, etc., how does it make sense to pray for something? Should he changed his plan because I asked really nicely? Etc.).
- Finally realized that all the myriad things that didn’t make sense to me disappeared if it turns out there is no god.
- Free from that notion, everything has clicked into place for me and the world makes more sense. It’s been 40ish years since then.
Being poor and being treated poorly was radicalized. Serving in the military reinforced my world view.
Somewhere in there, I even considered myself a libertarian. Then I realized how childish they were, learned how manipulated they were by rich, greedy people, and since gone further left than most.
