and grew from what he discovered.
That is not the usual response.
My own experience was not much different from that of the author.
My parents had six children, I am the oldest son. As a result I did things with my dad that my siblings never got to do: go fishing, build cabins, be his gofer.
I am from a mixed marriage, that is, my parents did not share the same faith. My father was a self-converted Catholic and my mother's family was Lutheran (she was an atheist and a scientist but never revealed her attitude toward religion until after my father's death). She attended mass each Sunday with the rest of the family, so as a kid, I did not recognize that there was any fundamental difference between the two.
One weekend morning as dad prepared a rustic breakfast, on the cast iron stove, he shared with me a dream (nightmare) he had had about my mother being condemned to hell for eternity (actually he said limbo, I suppose to soften the horrible revelation).
I was nine years old.
My mother was clearly the less flawed character. They were both good parents but he was an Irish poet and she was a German biologist. he drank and had fun she didn't. If God were to reject one of them it would not have been her.
That was the moment I rejected the Catholic God and the Universal Church. I went to church each Sunday until I left home for college but since, I have not been into a church, other than for weddings and funerals or as a tourist.
Experiencing cognitive dissonance so early in life has allowed me to adapt to new information and different perspectives easily.
I would not call what happened to the author, of the above piece, suicide. I would call it rebirth.
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