I thought for a long time that there had to be some sort of unifying explanation for everything. Everything around me had to be explained somehow, and I was determined to find out how. Over time, it occurred to me: none of the religions we had could answer every question asked about them, and there didn't seem to be viable answers to most of those. Everything we experienced every day seemed so inconsistent with the idea of a perfect deity: a perfect deity would be without desire, so why would he have any desire to create us? If he was omnibenevolent, why was there suffering? Why we were tested every day of our life? If we failed those tests, why were we condemned to eternal suffering? Why does a perfect god care about people? Christianity, Islam, and Judaism were out the window, I couldn't even begin to consider them as true anymore. Every explanation for every tangible experience we have is supplied by the scientific method, so if we can't produce falsifiable theories verifying religions, what criteria can we choose them by or even follow them by? There are countless religions, none of them more verifiable than any other, so we are not capable of ensuring that one religion, namely, the correct religon, is being violated simply by following another. At 17, I was convinced there was no way to reconcile these problems, and I gave up. There didn't seem to be any way to follow a religion logically, and blind faith doesn't work when you have no idea where to target it.
As soon as religion was no longer a factor in any considerations I made, popular morality was soon to follow. If there was no god, what reason is there to value anything? (note: this isn't meant in a pessimistic or negative sense: a lack of value is by no means negative) Why is the happiness of others valuable? When a preschool teacher tells you to share and not to kick your classmates, the only reason you have not to is to make sure you're not punished, and every other social situation in life is hardly different. Negative emotions are hardly justifiable when you are living purely for your own happiness: I couldn't find any reason to feel guilty, for example, while in the mindset that other people had no value besides the value of what they could offer me. The only reason I had to do anything was to ensure my own happiness, which, in turn, is based on completely arbitrary criteria: evolution ensures every sensory experience we have has been created only to guarantee our reproduction (the pleasure of sex, the pain of injuries, our inescapable tendency to ensure the wellbeing of others). Following these considerations, I reached my second conclusion: regardless of how much logic I applied to my life, my fundamental nature was inescapable, and the most basic of emotions, I had no ability to deny. | 
