I got a special interest in theology in my early 40s. That was tangential to me getting so desperate that I turned to religion as a means of trying to get rid of an alcohol abuse problem. I figured I had tried everything else (including 12 stepping, which is just as dogmatic and crazy as any other religion), so I'd try to "force" myself to believe so that "God could fix me." (This was before my autism diagnosis).

Of course, belief doesn't work like that. And so I went from one denomination to another, which meant one theology and biblical translation to another, trying to find one that made sense. Of course, the apologists will do all kinds of mental gymnastics to explain away the contradictions--or any other thing in scripture or church dogma that is repugnant to rationality or basic morality--but I guess that eventually, I always saw through it and moved on.

In the end, I gave it all up as a fool's errand, as there was no way I was going to satisfy myself that any of it was ultimately justifiable. I did give up the bad booze habit, more or less just outgrew it (I never met the formal definition of "alcoholic," whatever that is, but as someone who was using it as a coping mechanism, it caused a lot of trouble for me). And I got my diagnosis. And I'm happy to remain atheistic, albeit not in a way where I feel obligated to undermine anyone else's beliefs, no matter how irrational they seem to me.