[Serious] Atheists who have become religious (or returned to religion): why?

I remember being eight years old and believing that we all just had to play along, lying about how there was a god for the sake of children. Like god was Santa Clause. Like EVERYBODY knew there wasn't one, but you had to keep on pretending because those are the rules of society - we lie to kids.

But then I turned fourteen and had this weird Bible-fetish all of a sudden. It was probably some kind of coming of age thing, trying to figure out my thoughts on morality and stuff - not caring at all about what comes after death or how Jesus died for our sins (because he obviously didn't, I never bought into the mystic aspects of Christianity). I did go through with my confirmation, but thought the priests were lame (why were they still lying to us about god and Jesus, we weren't kids, we knew the truth, etc.) and most of all wrong about what kind of relationship you can have with god, how you can't be pragmatic and stuff like that. Then, just as suddenly, I went back to being a strict non-believer.

I still have this weird thing about the Bible, but part of that is because I'm interested in languages, language history and translation, and the Bible is important in those fields. It's not sacred at all to me, but it's an interesting and valuable document that we can learn a lot from.

But now...at first I liked Dawkins et al. but for the last few years I've really come to despise the anti-theists. I've always had issues with organized religion, but never with religious people, and now the new atheists are giving us a bad name. They seem to lack empathy completely and are acting much in the same way as those they criticize.

I say us, but now I identify more as agnostic, probably because I'm older still and more humble. I know I don't know, and I think I'd like there to be something "more" even though life and universe is pretty magnificent on their own.

I know it's not what you asked for, but to me, being agnostic is pretty much the same as being religious.

/r/AskReddit Thread