Questioning our history makes us stronger, not weaker – I know this through personal experience

My loss of faith was a personal decision but confronting my own views and biases with the facts put in front of me changed me for the better, writes Katy Brand

When I look up at the night sky now, to me the universe seems bigger (iStock)

When I was 13 years old I very suddenly and very fervently became a full-on evangelical Christian. This lasted until I was 19, when I lost my faith in Jesus, or at least the idea that Jesus Christ is the one Saviour of mankind and the only route to eternal life.

This is not a new confession – I wrote and performed a live stand-up tour in 2016-7 called I Was a Teenage Christian (I like straightforward titles) about this very subject, and then in 2019 I took part in a Pilgrimage: The Road to Rome for BBC2, met the Pope, and declared myself an Atheist (on camera I mean, not directly at The Pope – that would have seemed rude).

I am not here to denigrate people's faith – this was a personal choice. But the point is I changed my mind. I went from being a four-times-a-week Holy Roller to someone who sees no need to believe in anything more than the beauty of science and nature. And the great catalyst in becoming an Atheist was studying for a degree in theology. I arrived at university full of faith in Jesus, and by the end of the first year, I no longer attended church at all.