What has been most disappointing after your initial interest?

What has been most disappointing after your initial interest?  Religion. As a child I was fascinated with Oral Roberts on tv, then the ceremonies my parents took me to on certain holidays, then in my mother’s second husband’s religion. Jumped in hook, line, and sinker. Took classes in high school, went on a mission, paid my tithing, obeyed all the rules, became a leader, then by age 48 had a mid-life crisis—wanted to die from the stress of “be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect” and the hundreds of other commandments. I decided to start over and began reading widely including things we were told not to read. A whole new world opened up—cosmology, evolution, evolutionary psychology, particle physics, mental illness, changes in “eternal” laws, equivalent passion evident in many different religions, hypocrisy—and religions all became clearly to me large mountains of mythological rubbish being foisted on defenseless children worldwide. My reading and study eventually culminated in an attempt to provide a science-based alternative to the world’s scriptures, A Song of Humanity. A Song of Humanity 600 pages, 20 pages of single spaced references, 920+ footnotes tracing the origin of the Earth and the rise of Homo Sapiens—a rational guide for living that parents can read to their children. Presumptuous, I know, but I couldn’t die without trying to provide an alternative. I never believed in complaining without providing an alternative. In the end, religion of all sorts (I’ve traveled all over the world and read the Koran, Bagavagita, Tao de Ching, Book of Mormon and others and encountered their adherents) seemed to me localized mythology passed on by parents who never challenged what their parents taught them—generation after generation. Religion turned out to be the biggest disappointment in my life. SO attractive early in life, so unfulfilling later in life, and so difficult to leave when you once believed in the horrors to be put on those who step away. When I looked at the violence that various religions have foisted on the world over the millennia, I was appalled and eviscerated. Mustering the courage to question my “truths” was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. People like Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Infidel) have my great respect. It’s a very difficult thing to break out of one’s early childhood imprinting and choose a different path. Historically, millions have been killed for trying to do so. Posted on Quora.