I don't believe I've said anything about myself here, so here goes.
I was raised a Jehovah's Witness from birth. My family's invovlement in this particular religion began with my great grandmother, a rather lovely woman who lived a long life who made homemade oreos which I had the occasion to enjoy once; she died firm in her beliefs. My grandmother was subsequently raised in this religion, although not all of her brothers and sisters were, as far as I can reckon. My grandmother had three children, two of whom left the Jehovah's Witnesses. My mother herself stayed in and was quite devout despite many difficulties in life.
For reasons mostly unkown to me, my father converted at around 20 years old from Anglicanism to Jehovah's Witnessism. It seems as if my father isn't so much intersted in religion as being anti-authoritarian; he also enjoys conspiracy theories (though not in a nutty way; he's enjoying the Da Vinci code right not), which may explain his attraction to the WTBTS. I really have no idea how my parents met, but I suppose I could ask.
I grew up on a steady diet of religion and regular meeting attendance, even though most of the time I spent on the floor (when I was smaller) or in a chair (when I was older) sleeping through the drowning voice of that day's speaker. I grew up with a deep interest in religion and felt that this religion in particular was the absolute truth.
I was also highly embarresed about being a Jehovah's Witness, especially as you are liable to get beat up or made fun of because you are different. Therefore, I quickly learned how to hide my religion from other people, as best as I could. That was the big dilemma of my life growing up: I believe that the WT was the absolute truth, but wanted to hide it from everyone. Although, in order to create a realisitic view of the author, I myself also engaged in childhood and high school taunting as part of the pack, so I don't feel that my hands are clean in this regard.
I was also very apprehensive about going out in field service for what would happen if a classmate saw me? My embarresment also made it difficult for me to make strong friendships as my mum always wanted to talk to the parents whose kids I was going to visit at their home as I figured she was going to discuss religion; in reality, she was trying to make sure that it's a safe environment for me to go to. On the other hand, I was also deeply embarresed about people coming over to my home because of all the WatchTower literature scattered all over the place.
While I believed the WT to be absolute truth, it wasn't very present to me. Many JWs can fantasize for hours and hours about Paradise; I couldn't because, having reflected upon this, I believe that although I believed this religion, it wasn't all that real to me.
As I grew older, I started to hate going to the meetings; they felt like such a great waste of time. So I found ways of avoiding them: faking being sick, homework excuses, and faking being asleep on Sunday mornings. I don't think they bought it when I faken being asleep as they were quite persistent in trying to wake me, but as long as I stayed in bed for hours on end, they couldn't get me dressed to go to the meetings.
But then around 10 or 11 years old, I decided to take a greater interest in the WT and began going to meetings more regularly and less grudgingly and I even started going out in field service, even though this was an extremely difficult thing for me to do. I even started the process for baptism at 11 years old and went through all the questions.
I was turned down for baptism because I didn't put enough hours in field service. Apparently 4 hours a month wasn't good enough, they wanted something around 8 or 9, an almost impossible goal since I was extremely meticulous at time keeping; while lots of people count the coffee breaks, I didn't and at one point I was so legalistic, that I didn't even include the time spent travelling to the territory in the car (which is what psychologists would call scrupulosity, a form of OCD; they say Martin Luther had it). At the time, I was extremely devastated by this news. I especially grew angry because the WT magazine was always claiming that people only had to do what they can with regards to field service and I was doing what I can. If the WT can lie in this regard, in what others ways? I grew disinterested in this religion and the hypocrisy, so I eventually (and it took a while) became an atheist. Rather childish and rebellious reasons for doing so, perhaps; now I see that being turned down for baptism is the best thing that happened in my life.
I grew depressed, though, as I saw no reason for life or living as an atheist. I had what one might call a "conversion experience" and decided to believe in god again; looking back, I feel that I did this because of emotions. I then began a look at other religions, although I always saw it through the JW lens (IOW, in terms of human hipocracy). After a long journey of looking through various religions. I became formally divorced from JWism after research on the net. I decided on Christianity again, not so much because I felt there was a way of knowing it was more right than the others, but because it was familiar. I looked at tonnes of Protestant sects, but I found that Catholicism had the best philosophical and historical answer. Long story short, I became a Catholic.
Being a Catholic and a scrupulous person is not a good thing psychologically. In Catholicism, one "bad thought" will send you straight to hell. But I wanted to believe in some religion, so I went around with a great amount of guilt all the time. I got quite interesting in the history of the Church and learned that all those lists of historical quotes that Catholics put out are usually taken out of historical context, intratextual context, and only show one side. In reality, Christianity had many viewpoints, even among those who are considered "Orthodox." So I became disillusioned, disbelieved in God, depressed, then theistic again. I swear I went through these cycles at least once a month. All the while I was buying tonnes of religious books, especially really expensive ones, to try to convince myself of religion. Then in university, I bought "Why I am not a Christian," an anthology of works by Bertrand Russell. His atheism rang true with me and melded with the philosophy I was learning at the time. I eventually came to the conclusion that you can never really know if god exists, so is it rational to really base your life on it? Moreover, even if you can know that god exists, it's impossible to know for sure which religion is of god without direct intervention from the almighty himself.
But guess what, I decided to give religion one more go. I looked into Eastern Orthodox, Protestantism, Catholicism again. Started trying to be religious with the hope that god, if he exists, would give me faith. Deep down, I wanted to believe, but I knew I coudln't; I also, as shallow as this sounds, invested much money in religion, having spent just under $2000 in religious books and I felt really bad about letting all that money go to waste.
I kept looking for reasons to simply justify my belief in god, but my philosophical training could shoot these down in a matter of seconds. Religion, throughout my life, has been an emotional crutch; it seemed to be the one constant in a world of variables. For a person who suffers from irregular bouts of depression, I suppose that I turned to religion for hope.
My depression kept getting worse, especially in the light of the fact that I didn't have any friends anymore (the ones I did have were in other universities). I also couldn't make any new ones as a) I seriously didn't know how to and b) I was too nervous too even talk to people on most days. I became extremely suicidal at the end of this year's term and finally decided to see the doctor. This was the first in my entire life that I talked to anyone about my feelings. I was given Effexor and the sent to the university's counselling centre. Luckily though, once classes stopped, I stopped feeling depressed, so the doctor took me off the meds. I realized that this horrible feeling I get, is not because I lack god, but it's because (now this is my own psychological analysis after reading some texts) I've isolated myself in order to not face socially embarresing events and I've probably got a good measure of subconscious self-hate.
I've come to the realization that I don't really believe in god, trying to convince myself otherwise is just creating a lot of conflict that is easily resolved by simply ceasing to try. And hey, I'm looking towards new opportunities. I was brought up on the religion, it's wrong to deny that it's a big part of my life. I'm not only going to specialize now in Classics, but also Religious Studies. Many great philosophers have pointed out that truth is the highest thing one should seek, and i believe that to be true. In a field such as RS, I can spread the truth on religion itself, while being balanced and fair. I may still be isolated, but hopefully counselling will change that (it's also great not feeling a lot of guilt about religious things).
I don't think I told my story very well or clearly, but here it is.