Sure, good idea.
I grew up in an orthodox neighberhood in a (mostly) orthodox city and went to an orthodox school. It was quite some time before I met anyone who disagreed with my indoctrinated thoughts, longer until I understood that there were Jews who didn't follow the faith for philosophical reasons (I'd thought they were just too lazy to adhere to all the rules and restrictions of orthodox Judaism) and even longer than that before I started to doubt my indoctrinated ideas myself.
At first, when thoughts like "how do I know that the '
talmud' is the word of god?" started occuring to me I chastised myself for having them. At first I tried sharing my doubts with my parents, teachers or friends but quickly gave that up when, in the best case scenario, they let me talk to some rabbi (who was supposed to have all the answers to my questions, but I usually just ended up with more) and in the worst case started treating me like I was a leper.
What followed was a difficult period where I tried suppressing these heretical thoughts, and kept telling myself that I was being tested, and failing, but the thoughts and questions persisted. Inidentally, I get really annoyed at people who accuse me of leaving the faith because of laziness since it was, hands down, the most difficult and traumatic event of my life, but back to the story...
So, during this difficult period of guilt and conflict I came across a short story by Isaac Asimov called "The Last Question". In the story (skip to the next paragraph if this sort of thing bores you) mankind builds increasingly powerful computers, and in every several generations asks the computer if it is possible to increase the entropy of the universe (thus preventing the end of the universe by the "big crunch") and in every generation the computer gives the same answer: "insufficient data for meaningful answer". Thus pass the generations until, to prevent their extinction by the end of the universe, humanity decides to unite itself with the ultimate computer, the AC. Just before the last human unites with the AC, he, one last time, asks the AC if it is possible to increase the entropy of the universe and once again recieves the answer: "insufficient data for meaningful answer". The last human unites with the AC, the universe collapses, and for several millenia the AC ponders the question until it finally finds the answer to the question, but with no one to report it to, decides to reveal it by reversing entropy. The story ends with the words "and the AC said 'let there be light' and there was light".
So, there I am with my doubts and general feelings of crap, and I finish this story, and... it's like something suddenly just... clicked. It finally occured to me that you just can't know. You can't
know if god exists. If he does exist, you can't
know what, or who, he is. You can't
know if he cares about you, if he actually stands behind this or that religion or holy book... you simply can't
know anything about religion is true, and I finally understood that I simply can't believe in something I can't
know is true.
From there it was pretty much a downhill race. I had some difficult moments (some harsh, like fighting with my dad about going to temple, and some downright comical, like being scared of dying the week after the first time I violated the sabbath) and I wasn't sure what I was going to end up as but in the end of the process it turned out that what I believed in was atheism. It was ok though, by then I was content with just being... myself.
