For me the Christianity deal-breaker was meekness
I was raised Catholic, became agnostic around 13, stopped thinking an afterlife made sense at 15, and noticed I was no longer religious at 16. But I still spent the next ~12 years in pretty close proximity to Christianity. I did religious studies at school, I studied philosophy and theology at university, and most importantly I sung in church choirs, which meant I was regularly attending services. I also wasn't crazy about the label 'atheist', as I didn't think my beliefs had much in common with famous or 'new' atheists (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, AC Grayling). I often found their objections uninteresting, as they dealt with claims concerning things like 'metaphysics' and 'theodicy' that most Christians I knew didn't really care about. For those Christians, religion was more of a spiritual commitment or a decision to live a certain way, and, for example, their conservative approach to romance seemed like it could be valid even if the Church couldn't explain why God lets evil exist. But if what you're doing is following a set of practices that are at most loosely inferred from a set of community texts and a history of community tradition, why take the extra step of identifying as Christian? Why not just say 'hey there's some good stuff in here, and I'll join in with the good and leave the bad'? What makes you want to take that extra step? During the last 12 years I've wondered if I wanted to take that extra step again, until this year, when I realized any desire I had to do so was based in meekness. > Meek: Quiet, gentle, and easily imposed on; submissive. > - https://www.lexico.com/definition/meek Meekness is praised in the Gospel: > Blessed are the meek, > for they will inherit the earth. > - Matthew 5:5 Not to mention that in the most important story in the whole Bible, the Son of God gives himself up *for death* without putting up a fight. He knows he will be betrayed but he waits for his captors to come and arrest him. Meekness is a big de