Just going through the motions

this exactly describes my childhood view of religion
- I tried so hard to hear God. When I finally talked to my pastor about my doubts he said that reading the Bible would help. Reading the Bible made me doubt even more.
  
  i always laughed at the "oh, you're a nonbeliever? let me throw some bible verses at you" approach
  
  Did you attempt to analyse the Bible in a logical way though? I don't believe in it personally, but someone I know is very adamant about being a Christian and thinks that the Bible essentially proves itself to be true.
  The Bible is generally quite boring to read from cover to cover. A big part of the reason for this is that large sections of the Bible just tell you long family trees. The old testament also includes a lot of prophecies about Jesus and essentially what is supposed to happen in the new testament (if Jesus was really the messiah). Sections of the Bible like this aren't necessarily supposed to excite you that much, but if you think of the Bible as one compiled historical document, you can check its internal consistencies and think about where information might be missing.
  As an example, Jesus' betrayer (who it wasn't said in the old testament would specifically be Judas), was predicted to get 30 silver pieces for betraying him. This was a quite specific prediction, especially if you knew he would be dealing with Roman currency. It's a bit like if we made up a new religion now and said that our messiah would appear in America and the betrayer would get $500. If that actually happened, it would be some evidence for our religion (or Christianity).
  Of course we could say that 30 pieces of actual silver would have similar values across most (silver-backed) currency, which is unlike basically every world currency today. That might have been a reasonable prediction for what you would get for sending a criminal to be executed anyway. Also, we don't really know if Judas actually got 30 silver pieces if we're not gonna totally trust the Bible.
  If you haven't checked out any of the "cross-referencing" of the Bible and just think it's an airy fairy thing about there being a God who performed miracles, then you're denying the Bible from a lot less logical of a position than the Christian I know who is always banging on about this stuff to me to try and convert me.
  As a side note, I believe there are a limited number of other historical sources relating to the time period of the Bible, although most of these would either be quite irrelevant or they would be deemed Satanic by Christians.
  
  Wasn't raised Christian, but had a similar experience. But I definitely believed in God, heaven, etc, because they seemed like facts of life. I just thought there must be more to it.
  Anyway, precisely because I took these metaphysics seriously and at face value, and because I wanted to know more, I kept digging. And as any seeker of truth knows: if you keep digging at a lie, you will reach the bottom in short order.
  I only had to wait long enough for my youthful incredulousness to fall away. What a waste of time... I couldn't been studying music theory or something...
  
  I was agnostic until I've read the Bible. That made me an atheist. I was 12.
- I clearly remember the moment when I realized that other people (other than weird fundies) were taking it seriously. I'm not sure what I had thought was going on, my best guess is that I thought praying and going to church was just a weird thing we were all supposed to do out of politeness, like not putting our elbows on the table.
  
  I had the same thing when I was younger! In my head, it was like a thing people do just for tradition(or something?) that everyone knows isn't real, but we play along for fun. Like when you knock on wood or wish on a star. Or when adults talk about what "Santa" brought them (and I don't mean the people that genuinely believe in that shit). I dunno I had the concept well developed in my head like it was all some sort of metaphor and then my mind was blown when I learnt people actually think jesus was a real life wizard
- I remember being confused about how I was supposed to distinguish between my own thoughts and god 🙃
  
  one of them is you. the other one is also you
  
  Well, it's interesting to me that the people who claim God spoke them always hear something that they wanted to do anyways.
- Came here to write the exact same thing
- Same.
- Lemmites try not to bring up religion challenge
  
  not exactly sure what you mean, but i'm doing the shit on religion all day every day challenge
  
  why would someone be constantly trying not to bring up religion? what, are we supposed to all just agree to never talk about any religion ever again?

I thought imaginary friends were just something in the movies. Kids actually have them?
- When we were kids, my sister (4 years old at the time) had a friend named Jennifer who “lived down the street” none of us had ever met. She went to play with Jennifer every day for hours on end. We moved to a new town and my sister again disappeared for several hours. When she came home she said she had been playing with Jennifer because Jennifer had moved too. Sister later confirms that Jennifer was an imaginary friend, but has no idea where she was going every day or what she was doing. Now my parents are so much more worried about where the grandkids are when they visit. My sisters and I tease them about where the concern was when we were growing up.
  
  This convinces me further that imaginary friends are only supernatural if real at all
  
  I imagine a lot of kids would use this excuse to just go play by themselves in the woods or whatever. Or, they could have been hanging out with other kids. So in this case it's less an imaginary friend and more of a fake friend.
- Where do you think religions came from
  
  Mental illness and greed.

I blame the aphantasia, a lotta y'all's weirdness made a lot more sense once I learned you can just make up pictures in your head
- The fact that a lot of people can't actually terrifies me.
  
  Why?

Welcome to being autistic. Except it has nothing to do with imaginary friends and everything to do with culture.
- What a weird thing to say.
- I'd like to know more, please do tell!
  I don't understand what you are trying to tell, sorry.

As a French, it's not in our culture these "imaginary friends". Kids don't have them (at least I don't know anyone that used to have one), we don't speak about it, we don't have stories and fairy tales about them....
I think it's an American thing. The new movie "IF" is uncanny for me - It's like the girl is batshit insane and I was waiting for a twist with here being in a psychiatric hospital or something.
- Not French but francophone so maybe it is an English thing, because I heard so many anecdotes from Anglophone relations about their imaginary friends growing up, and mon doux jesus I tried to have an imaginary friend, but sadly found myself impotent in that regard.
  
  It seems to be a swedish thing, but sweden is loving US/UK culture so maybe we hear about it but doesn't have them.
  For what it's worth, I grew up there and never met/heard of anyone having an imaginary friend, but I do remember it from TV. Hmm, maybe a german film? What's about you, germans?

No, I was a lonely nerd so I just had imaginary friends. I think I stopped having a specific imaginary friend when I was about 5 and moved on to playing out larger imaginary scenarios. In high school I got into tabletop RPGs, and today I still play them now and then, and I like to write stories and do other creative activities.
I feel like my imagination has enjoyed a long and varied career, and I look forward to several more decades of day dreaming.

No, but I intentionally mispronounced spaghetti because the kids who couldn't say it correctly got more attention.
- When I was 5, I went to a speech therapist for an S lisp. I remember first thing they told me was that I'm meant to keep my tongue behind my teeth. I had to say, "Sammy the silly snake slithers by" and nailed it. I forget all the other stuff, but never had a lisp after that very brief and distinct moment.
  All I remember before that was adults saying to me, "No, like this." and would just hiss at me. Who'd have thought a few seconds of explaining something would actually work.
  
  Most of the time people don’t think about things thoroughly enough to describe them usefully. Or they don’t have the language to describe them.
  
  Most people can't articulate how things are done, it takes a professional. That's why a lot of scientific and mathematical discoveries seem so obvious. Knowing how to do something, or how something works, is not the same as being able to define how it is done in a provable and repeatable fashion.
  Edit: congratulations on overcoming your lisp!
  
  I was in speech therapy all through elementary school. The only thing I remember was being told "smile when you pronounce your R's."
  I honestly should've taken a class on how to hold a pencil. Instead of teaching me properly, they just let me type my assignments. It wasn't until high school that I learned to actually write by staring at a classmate's hand as she wrote and copying her form. My handwriting is still shit btw. I just don't get cramps as easily.

Yes! Everyone was talking about theirs and I just made up one but felt like a fraud. I literally had to take a real animal toy of mine to base my "imaginary friend" on.

I did not have imaginary friends, but I imagined lots of DBZ like battles in my mind IRL scenery, does that counts?
- My imaginary friend was dripped-out Goku as well
- Did that with DBZ and MegaMan
  
  Which MegaMan version?

None of my friends had that, so neither did I

Me too! Drop Dead Fred made me think it was a thing! Also Phoebe Cates is so convincing

After playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team Red for the first time and getting a Cubone from the test, I always imagined a Cubone going with me to school and keeping me company. Never told anyone about it, though

I thought I was adopted before I've heard or understood the concept of it.
- Were you really?
  
  Not really. It's just my parents had a hard time when I was born (russian 90s + medical issues) and I lacked contact with them working long irregular shifts. When I was failing in something or just sad, it was easier to imagine I'm of alien origin and don't belong there, than to talk this out with them. It's probably not on them, and far from the worst stories other lemmings can tell, but it did hurt.

No

No, but I definitely had the thought that, "Wow, it'd be really cool if I could imagine something that strongly like everybody else. I want a pet blue eyes ultimate dragon"

Yeah no