I grew up Mormon, and I always had doubts about my faith. I could never shake this feeling that the religion wasn't real. I always erred on the side of science for what can be known about the universe, and it just came more naturally to me than what I was taught at church. Eventually in this doubt I found atheism and I discovered that there existed a whole world of people who had my same doubts. I started watching a lot of "New Atheist" content on YouTube and what they had to say really resonated with me. It made sense where religion did not. So, c.2020 I delcared myself an Atheist, both to me and my friends in a Discord call. This was no surprise to me or my friends, because by that time I had been a de facto atheist for around 2 or 3 years, but it was when I made it official that I forsook my religious identity. I could no longer pretend to try and reconsile the two. What I knew to be true and what it taught was true were irreconsilable.
During this time and the following years, I became more of an anitreligious anti-theist, though I was never very militant about it. I believed religion to be a tool by the elites in society, whosoever they may be, to control and manipulate the masses and bend them to their will through obedience to dogma and tradition, to outdated and unscientific models of the world that kept them ignorant and in the dark about how the world could best be known to work in reality, whether knowingly or not. I followed the logic of "Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities," to quote Voltaire. I believed that at best, even the most well-intentioned theist and practitioner of religion was at odds with reality and that that alone made their beliefs dangerous.
I've since largely abandoned this thinking. "But why?" I hear you ask? Well, I kept learning about religion.
Lately, I've been learning about and interacting here and there with folks from other religions, smaller religions, even heretical religions. From Heathens to Unitarian Universalists to Atheopagans and even Demonolators. What I discovered in my journey was that these folks seemed to not have many of the issues I faulted religion with, and I became more aware that what I ascribed to Religion™ was actually only applicable to a vanishingly small number of the thousands of religions that exist. Namely: Islam, Christianity, sometimes Judaism, and possibly Zoroastrianism.
I thought religion was bad because of the concept of Hell, because of the obedience unto some divine tyrant, because of the inherent belief in the supernatural, because of the dogma and the hierarchical structures that serve to create systems of command and obedience that strips autonomy and freedom from individuals. I thought it was bad because of how the belief in an afterlife blinded people from caring about this life. I believed it was bad because of all of these reasons and so many more.
And yet... I always was able to find a counterexample when I looked. Hell? That hardly exists in most religions. Most religions have a more peaceful afterlife and even the ones with underworlds are usually meant just to be where you go to die, not necessarily good or bad, just that's where you end up. And even in religions with punishing afterlives, it's very often the case that it's very difficult if not nigh impossible to even get there, often with the barrier of entry being on the level of murder.
Obedience to a divine tyrant? Atheistic religions exist! From forms of Buddhism to Atheopaganism, to the open nature of Unitarian Universalism with regards to such beliefs, all the way to atheistic Satanism and atheistic Luciferianism.
Supernaturalism? Pantheism is purely naturalist, and Deists(while perhaps not a religion) also often conform to a very naturalistic world-view. And again, Atheopagans, atheistic Satanists and Luciferians for the most part, and many others.
Dogma? Lots of religions don't have dogma or have very little. The entire Left-Hand Path is rather lacking in this field.
Hierarchical structures? Lots of religions aren't organized and many are individualistic paths, again, the Left-Hand Path hardly has any hierarchy, but so too does Unitarian Universalism, Pan(en)theism, Atheopaganism, and many others.
Belief in the afterlife doesn't always blind people from the here and now, either. Jews are often a great example of this. Despite their belief in the afterlife, the focus is on the present, not the hereafter. But many religions don't even have an afterlife. This life is all you have.
For every reason I blamed on religion, I found that religion was not so cartoonishly evil or black and white with its approach to these things. Religion has incredible diversity and most of this diversity lacked one or even many of these vilifying attributes I thought I had inherent to it.