I grew up with a devoted, no questions asked, catholic mother that forced me to go to church every week. Fortunately at the time I could go there by myself, they already invented mobile phones with games and internet so I just went outside and waited for one hour and got 1 Euro in exchange cause I never went to the church and would never give them the money anyway lol. She also forced me to take religion classes at school (they are a part of curriculum, 2 hours per week from 1st grade till the last year of high school unless the parents sign a paper and you can even take SAT like test on religion too lol).
She also made shitload donations to the church over the years, although anonymously, I knew everytime it happened because she was keeping the cash at home in her hiding places so my father does not know about it (because he used to earn like 5 times more than her but he didn't spend almost anything and she was in charge of the money) and at the same time I had literally 2 t-shirts I could wear to school or when she literally refused to give me money for food when I was like 13 and I had to borrow from my friends (I've been vegetarian since I turned 10 and my family used to eat meat for every meal so the only thing I could take from them was bread and butter).
These were not the only occasions where my mother was spending the money that she either didn't have or didn't belong to her on church. I had ONE birthday party in my entire life before I was on my own and I had to beg for it for months. I stopped getting Christmas gifts when I turned 3 (I gave my parents deodorants every year but they didn't get the point ;P). In exchange my mother took a loan to give me communion party I didn't want (costed only 3 monthly salaries). Actually, the only time she cried because of me was when a nun told her I missed one of 10s communion rehearsals and she even took taxi home (she didn't give me money for taxi to hospital when I had concussion so I had to go the bus stop 10 minutes away from my house when I was 15). Also she sent me to private, expensive preschool run by nuns (this I actually recollect really well, they were extremely easy to manipulate, I hated laying down during the naptime after lunch so me and my friends, we were always making trouble before the lunch so as punishment we were forbidden from eating together with the rest and we were waiting till they finish and 3 of us were eating while they had their nap).
Funny fact- once when I was about 4/5, at a lake next to my house, an older guy approached me and ask me to "pee in front of the camera so he can show the pictures to his children". I told him to fuck off and said I'll go to the police so he run away. Few months later, when we were eating lunch, the cook has been visited by her husband. It was the same guy. But I already knew better, my mother would never believe me anyway so I kept my mouth shut.
Although I've never been sexually abused by a priest, one time when the priest was "hunting" our house after Christmas as a part of neverending quest to beg for as much money as possible, he trashed me, called me every possible name and when I went back to my room, my mother let him drag me with force back to them (I was maybe 10 at the time).
Anyway, I grew up hating the catholic religion with my whole heart, I felt disgust and spite like never before and after. I became extremely anticlerical. We had this Facebook-like website in Poland that had all kinds of people there and I joined multiple Christianity related forums and argued and trolled priests and other devoted catholics with a group of friends I met there (someone of them still sent me birthday gifs :*). The name of this forums were like "why young people don't love Jesus anymore" and others. It was really fun hobby. Our "opponents" were interesting too, once a priest tried to perform exorcism on me on Skype, another time one of the fanatics shared how to fully take advantage of pregnancy and have sex two days after labor because she equated contraception with killing babies (this forums were made for catholics and we, anticlericals simply raided them, back in the days when there was no censorship nor the moderation).
With years, I grew out of being anti religion. I actually kind of envy people that believe in something. I find them gullible and immature but they probably sleep better than me lol.
To wrap it up, I think everyone should be able to believe in whatever they want, as long as they are not imposing it on anyone else. If charity can be tax deductible (is it the right to say it?), so should be contributions to religious institutions.
Religious fanatism is what I hate and will fight against. Whether it's Judaism, Christianity or Islam. I also refuse to ever visit any Arabic state with Sharia law again (I've been to Oman and UAE twice but I don't feel like getting lashes or going to prison for being gay or wearing Speedos and I'm guilty of both). Also I'm not kidding, when I was in Dubai the last time someone put a bag with something that looked like cocaine in my back pocket, fortunately no one saw it fall down when I reached for my wallet and I spent the next two hours washing everything that might have been in contact with it. And it proved useful because before boarding, security took swabs of my whole hands, clothing, legs and even socks and put the swabs under some fluorescent light thingy. I doubt that any civilian would risk his own freedom just to spite some random tourist (I know it sounds like a believe it was a conspiracy against me, but I swear it really happened and if this bag really had drugs in it and I haven't noticed, I could be sent to prison for like 10 years +)
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