I was introduced to extreme evangelicalism around eight years old. That was when I learn about hell. The idea of endless torture scared the "hell" out of me. From that point forward, I tried to do whatever I could to avoid going to hell.

My family and I attended church twice on Sunday, Wednesday evening, Friday for the Youth group, and Saturdays for band practice. In addition, my parents enrolled me in the church's school. The school used the Accelerated Christian Education system. So, we learn more about the bible than about science. I was at church a lot. It was my whole identity. In one service, we had a guest speaker. He singled me out of the audience and said that I would be a great prophet and that god would use me to heal the sick.

They had me pray over a bunch of people who all claimed to be healed, even though some of them still walked with a limp and struggled with sore backs, but at that time, we were taught to look at the positives and ignore anything that went against what we were told to believe. At the age of fifteen, we moved to another city. My parents enrolled me in a regular high school, and that's when we found out that the school I had been attending wasn't accredited by the government, and I had no high school credits. I was midway through the eleventh grade and had to start over at grade 10.

The new church we started attending was even more focused on purity culture. My parents were obsessed with me masturbating. They had me meet with the head pastor to discuss my sinful behaviour. It was humiliating discussing something so private with a big imposing adult. My parents got me a purity ring and had me sign a purity contract. I was very proud of never having PIV sex until I was married.

I eventually met my future wife at the church. We were both active in the children's church. During our pre-marriage counselling sessions, the pastor asked my wife if she would be quitting her job once we were married. Neither of us made much money, and we both needed to work. My wife indicated that she would need to continue working. He told us then that we would no longer be heading up the children's church ministry.

We settled into being regular attendants at the church, and one Sunday, we decided to stay home rather than go. We enjoyed our Sunday to ourselves and slowly attended less often.

Eventually, we stopped going to church altogether. During that time, when people asked me what my religion was, I would say, "I follow what Jesus said: Love the lord your god and love your neighbour as yourself." I said it, but I no longer had any conviction behind it.

Around this time, I started to learn about critical thinking. One of the first things I realized was that homosexuality occurs in nature. We were taught that only people could be possessed by the devil and that being gay was due to demonic possession. Learning that it happens in nature made me re-evaluate everything I had learned in my Christian school and in my subsequent bible college.

I then learned that new earth creationism was easily debunked, and my mind opened even more. 

My wife and I didn't talk about religion for at least ten years. One day, we started talking, and I asked her if she still believes in god. She said, not like we used to.

I confessed that I didn't believe in god at all. Any god, as a matter of fact. It was such a relief to say that out loud.

Once I gave up all religious ideals, I became more ethical and honest. I was a terrible person when I was a christian. I would steal from where I worked and would just ask god for forgiveness and then do it again, comforted in the knowledge that god would forgive me every time.

I love who I am now, but I struggled early on with my fear of hell. Two things helped me to overcome that fear. First, I learned that the modern concept of hell isn't even biblical. It is based on Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri. Second, someone asked whether there is a situation that you could envision where you would willingly send a loved one to eternal torture? I realized that if a god existed and they loved me, they would never subject a person to eternal damnation.