Good question; I will give you my answer:

I studied all religious and inspired texts that were available to me; the first "religious" book I ever read was Tao Te Ching and it was a helpful touchstone for me in late adolescence when I dropped the religion of my parents (Christianity) and founded the atheist/secular club at my university. The timeless wisdom of Tao led me to a deep appreciation of the mystery of life and the universe; eventually, I found the truth that I was seeking, but it was a lot of hard work to remove the last layers of cultural brainwashing and like I said: I studied all texts that were available to me, so I came to my own conclusions only after I knew what each faith actually taught; Tao helped by teaching me that patience and openness are virtues; my atheist friends did not really talk about virtue so I distanced myself from them. As a science student, I was very interested in the origin of life and the universe; this was one of the mysteries which drew me into my spiritual studies; it led me to examine the nature of reality by reading all of the authors and texts which attempted to answer that question so that I could find and discern the truth for myself, without any outside mental conditioning.