Just going through the motions

this exactly describes my childhood view of religion

I tried so hard to hear God. When I finally talked to my pastor about my doubts he said that reading the Bible would help. Reading the Bible made me doubt even more.
- i always laughed at the "oh, you're a nonbeliever? let me throw some bible verses at you" approach
- Wasn't raised Christian, but had a similar experience. But I definitely believed in God, heaven, etc, because they seemed like facts of life. I just thought there must be more to it.
  Anyway, precisely because I took these metaphysics seriously and at face value, and because I wanted to know more, I kept digging. And as any seeker of truth knows: if you keep digging at a lie, you will reach the bottom in short order.
  I only had to wait long enough for my youthful incredulousness to fall away. What a waste of time... I couldn't been studying music theory or something...
- I was agnostic until I've read the Bible. That made me an atheist. I was 12.
I clearly remember the moment when I realized that other people (other than weird fundies) were taking it seriously. I'm not sure what I had thought was going on, my best guess is that I thought praying and going to church was just a weird thing we were all supposed to do out of politeness, like not putting our elbows on the table.
- I had the same thing when I was younger! In my head, it was like a thing people do just for tradition(or something?) that everyone knows isn't real, but we play along for fun. Like when you knock on wood or wish on a star. Or when adults talk about what "Santa" brought them (and I don't mean the people that genuinely believe in that shit). I dunno I had the concept well developed in my head like it was all some sort of metaphor and then my mind was blown when I learnt people actually think jesus was a real life wizard
I remember being confused about how I was supposed to distinguish between my own thoughts and god trying to tell me something 🙃
- one of them is you. the other one is also you
- Well, it's interesting to me that the people who claim God spoke them always hear something that they wanted to do anyways.
Came here to write the exact same thing
Lemmites try not to bring up religion challenge
- not exactly sure what you mean, but i'm doing the shit on religion all day every day challenge
- why would someone be constantly trying not to bring up religion? what, are we supposed to all just agree to never talk about any religion ever again?
Same.

I blame the aphantasia, a lotta y'all's weirdness made a lot more sense once I learned you can just make up pictures in your head

The fact that a lot of people can't actually terrifies me.

As a French, it's not in our culture these "imaginary friends". Kids don't have them (at least I don't know anyone that used to have one), we don't speak about it, we don't have stories and fairy tales about them....
I think it's an American thing. The new movie "IF" is uncanny for me - It's like the girl is batshit insane and I was waiting for a twist with here being in a psychiatric hospital or something.

Not French but francophone so maybe it is an English thing, because I heard so many anecdotes from Anglophone relations about their imaginary friends growing up, and mon doux jesus I tried to have an imaginary friend, but sadly found myself impotent in that regard.
- It seems to be a swedish thing, but sweden is loving US/UK culture so maybe we hear about it but doesn't have them.
  For what it's worth, I grew up there and never met/heard of anyone having an imaginary friend, but I do remember it from TV. Hmm, maybe a german film? What's about you, germans?

No, I was a lonely nerd so I just had imaginary friends. I think I stopped having a specific imaginary friend when I was about 5 and moved on to playing out larger imaginary scenarios. In high school I got into tabletop RPGs, and today I still play them now and then, and I like to write stories and do other creative activities.

I feel like my imagination has enjoyed a long and varied career, and I look forward to several more decades of day dreaming.

No, but I intentionally mispronounced spaghetti because the kids who couldn't say it correctly got more attention.

Yes! Everyone was talking about theirs and I just made up one but felt like a fraud. I literally had to take a real animal toy of mine to base my "imaginary friend" on.

I did not have imaginary friends, but I imagined lots of DBZ like battles in my mind IRL scenery, does that counts?

My imaginary friend was dripped-out Goku as well
Did that with DBZ and MegaMan
- Which MegaMan version?

None of my friends had that, so neither did I

Me too! Drop Dead Fred made me think it was a thing! Also Phoebe Cates is so convincing

After playing Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Rescue Team Red for the first time and getting a Cubone from the test, I always imagined a Cubone going with me to school and keeping me company. Never told anyone about it, though

No, but I definitely had the thought that, "Wow, it'd be really cool if I could imagine something that strongly like everybody else. I want a pet blue eyes ultimate dragon"

No

I thought I was adopted before I've heard or understood the concept of it.

Were you really?
- Not really. It's just my parents had a hard time when I was born (russian 90s + medical issues) and I lacked contact with them working long irregular shifts. When I was failing in something or just sad, it was easier to imagine I'm of alien origin and don't belong there, than to talk this out with them. It's probably not on them, and far from the worst stories other lemmings can tell, but it did hurt.