I was raised Catholic, and my mom was very involved in the church. I think she had had a lot of questions earlier in life, and had gotten some smoothed-over answers from a somewhat "cool" priest. She believed that God was all-loving, and that all of the Bible stories where it seemed that God had told people to do immoral things (like telling Abraham to sacrifice his son), it was simply that Abraham assumed that that was what God would want, because that is what people used to think Gods wanted from them? Or some crap like that. Whenever I had questions, I usually went to her, and she would tell me what she was told when she had asked those questions. When I was 10 or 11 (?), I wanted to be a priest. I am female. Naturally, that wasn't going to happen. I asked my mom who made that rule. She said the pope. I asked when we get a new pope. She said when this pope dies. I asked if I could be a priest if I killed the pope. She said probably not. (lol?) That was the first serious damper on my relationship with the Catholic church. I chose to be confirmed as a member of the church (big ceremony, preceded by lots of classes, similar to a bar/bat mitzvah but not quite as intense or expensive of a party) when I was in high school. Ever since First Communion (at age 7), I was required to go to church every Sunday by my mom. When I moved into a dorm at 18, I stopped going. Some might say it was laziness. (There were a lot of college classes I was skipping as well.) But I really think it was because I no longer had any interest. I visited a number of different religious institutions (a different Catholic church, a non-denominational Christian church, a synagogue, a Mormon church) over the next year or two. Some might say it was shopping for a religion or church, but really, I was just kind of doing research into what other people believe. I already knew I didn't believe in a God of any sort. I found beauty in some church music (I had enjoyed performing it in church choir, high school choir, and community choir), and was a little bummed to feel I had lost some of the meaning behind it. But I can still appreciate it the way I appreciate musicals - the music has meaning in a fictional context, as part of an emotional story. At age 21, a Christian boy I was quite seriously dating broke up with me because his minister told him he was spending too much time with me and not enough time with God. He later further justified the breakup by bringing up a discussion we had had about raising children together. He would want to tell them that they would go to hell if they didn't believe in Jesus. While I might tolerate the teaching of some religious stories (in the context that they may or may not be true), I would never allow anyone to tell my hypothetical future children that. Next I dated an atheist for a couple years, then a Catholic, and then a Jew. I am now in a serious relationship with a Christian, and it's not a big deal right now? When we first started dating, I went to his church with him to see what they said there, and to have an opportunity to discuss it with him afterwards, and get his thoughts and feelings about it. I felt satisfied with our discussion. We have very rarely spoken of it since, in almost a year. (It has not been a major issue in our relationship.) The only concern I have now is if we were to want children in the future.