I sort of find myself where you are. I dropped out of the Catholic faith about 15 months away from the indoctrination of family and religious schools. Didn't take long. I found myself differing in belief from some of the core principals of Catholicism. Didn't Jesus throw the hypocrites out of the temple. I realized that attending Sunday mass was hypocritical because of the way I was thinking. The general foundation of a Christian education and upbringing can be good for character building and turning out good adults. But any religion is also built on the brainwashing of the masses by other men, to the religion. Religions are man made and not made by God. If you believe in a particular religion, fine. If you try to convince me of your beliefs you are intruding on my beliefs and wrong. If I ask you about your religion you are free to tell me about your religion and feel somewhat free to convince me to join it. But it is always MY choice.

My current belief is that there is one God. I look at what we know of the known universe, and realize there might be a trillion other unknown universes out there. I look at the complexity of science, biology, chemistry, physics and have to believe that it is all to much to just happen by chance. Why and how it all happened, I'll never comprehend, and neither will anyone else. I call that mystery God. The only problem I have beyond that is, who or what created God. Now that is a real mystery.

This God I believe in is similar to what so many believe in. All good, all powerful and all knowing. Which makes praying nonsensical to me. You just lead a generally good, peaceful life contributing somewhat your share and don't overtake other's shares. The golden rule, somewhat. People pray for various reasons. Something they want from God. He already knows that and all of the praying in the world won't change his mind on whether you will get it, undeserving or not. Something they are thanking God for. He already knows that and knows if you are grateful. Again unnecessary. And some pray to God to pay homage to him. No God of that magnitude could ever create a bunch of beings for the purpose of paying homage to him. That would be beneath him. If God created humans as a superior being, he did not create him for any of these reasons. I believe he created us to enjoy this beautiful planet, to live in peace with others, to improve the spaces we have, and our relations with them, and the rest of earth's inhabitants. Enjoy this life in freedom and happiness as much as possible with what he has given us, jointly and personally, including our personal trials and goals. To stop this enjoyment to pay homage to him is betraying what he gave us. A limited life. Only a low life human who achieves celebrity or power or control could stoop so low as to want and expect homage from other equal humans. And we are all equal.

Now I'm off my podium. Time for lunch or something else. Cheers.

An atheist is an extreme disbeliever, rabidly anti-God and anti-religion - the wackos. The Sutherland Springs murderer is a good example, though somewhat extreme. A****a and other similar factions have the same mindset. The left tend towards this extremism, as they favor anarchy.
A true believer does dev**e time to God, and the easiest way is through organized religion. Different sects have different beliefs, as to what degree their God controls their lives. The right tend towards this, as they believe there is a supreme being at the head, as they favor orderly leadership.
The group in the middle do believe in a God, the Creator, but have come to realize that organized religions can often be a sham, using God and His power, to exercise control over the congregation. Many turn away from things spiritual altogether and become agnostic - not caring if there's a God or not, disenfranchised.
I was part of this middle group, and I still will not follow any organized religion, but I do believe. I prefer the Christian ideals and tend to lead my life using Christianity as the model. I'm conservative, not republican.