OK a few points:
-As stated, I have some deeply held principles about how I don't care about my culture or heritage and just want to do things my way. That's something that would likely be consistent no matter how I was raised (also why I know I wouldn't follow Jewish rules if I was born Jewish, barely any Jews in the region here do, so why would I of all people be the exception?)
-I actually converted to my current religious affiliation, I wasn't born into it. So me converting to it from something else isn't a stretch.
-I grew up in a conservative part of North Dakota and still ended up "all liberal all the time". So I'm not a product of my environment in that sense.
Do you understand that people can be products of their environment through their inclination to take the opposite stance of their environment?