Studying science and developing my critical thinking abilities to apply scientifically.

Lack of evidence for a god or gods. It’s that simple.

Comon sense, logic and reasoning

Wrong way to frame the question. Nothing "made" me an atheist, I was born like that and stayed like that.

We're born atheists, so you'd revert back to atheism. I never accepted religion, so I maintained my atheism. ?

Religion

Nothing 'made' me become an atheist. It was the natural evolution of prolific reading and international traveling.

I had no reason to be anything else.

In one world “logic”. At 12 I read the King James Version of the Bible and had a lot of questions. As I got older it just didn’t add up. From Genesis to Revelations it wasn’t logical and nor was it historically inaccurate. For me it was an easy decision.

I was raised Pentecostal, went to church with grandma on sundays. Always believed, but it was so hellfire & brimstone. When I got a little older & had questions that they couldn't answer reasonably, I started having doubts. I stopped going to church when I was a teenager & parents stopped making me.
Science & biology have always made sense to me & god never has.
I finally "kicked the habit" at about age 37.....

For me it was gradual. I belonged to a religion that discouraged close relationships of any kind with those that didn’t believe the same way. So the first time I had a realization that there are good people.. like really good people.. that didn’t believe what I believed caused a crack to open up in my wall. Then I began to look harder at the way the organization was run, how they wanted women to be, and then finally the Bible itself. Once the questions began it was inevitable.

This seems to be a recurring question. Nobody made me an athiest. My experience with existence precludes the slightest thought of a god. I can't even imagine what it means to believe in a god, or why anyone would end up there. I have never heard anyone explain to me what it means to believe in a god in such a way as to compel anyone to do so. Why? What for?

When my life turned to crap and religion did exactly squat for me and I actually saw it doing more harm than good. thats when.

I was 13 and looked at how absurd the world worked. 1970. Wars, people starving, people killing each other with impunity. Kids dying of cancer. In my mind, either you had a god who didn’t care or was inept. Or he didn’t exist. No matter what I was done.

Observing reality and the way nature works.

I have never really been a believer as i was fortunate to have a father who called himself a freethinker. He encouraged us to read everything we could growing up, and that included the bible and other religious and secular philosophies. I have never found a reason to change my mind and in fact am more committed to a Humanist philosophy now than I ever was.

When I saw two sides of the planet seeing the same deity in two different lights that contradicted each other and condracticted what was going on in nature. Also a little bit of science that explains the things religion sums up as a “gift/punishment from god.”

I think one of the biggest moments was when a teacher at my Catholic high school tried to tell us that thinking about doing something was the same thing as doing it, so if we thought about hurting someone, in "god's" eyes, it was the same as actually hurting someone. My head about imploded at the sheer stupidity of that. I just wasn't able to wrap my head around that one.

I had already been questioning a lot of Catholic teachings that made no sense, weren't founded in the bible, and the fact that the bible is contradictory and obviously not written for modern times, but that teacher really made teenage me start to reject the idea that religion was in any way true. There was so much that made no sense. Taking classes in early Biblical history in college sealed it for me - I realized that this was all man-made. Just another elaborate mythology.

Mainly - Evidence.

I was introduced to Christianity at age 11 by my father - who was himself an atheist. He saw me as a troubled kid, and figured sending me to church might help.

Unfortunately for him I actually read the bible, pouring over it for weeks to see what all the fuss was about... And it was pretty much nonsense. People like to point to the Old Testament a lot, but honestly I found the New Testament to be pretty insane as well. Like Jesus being crucified causing earthquakes and zombies (Seriously, look it up Matthew 27:50) or that time Jesus got pissed at a tree so he cursed it. Think that was also in Matthew.

So once I started applying logic and critical thinking skills... I never stopped. Seemed stupid to go about it any other way...

I started life without beliefs of any kind and the beliefs I picked up along the way have just never included the supernatural. I am an atheist, but never "became" one.

Learning to read early, spending time at the library an reading the bible, then accidentally belittling the clergymen and being excommunicated by first grade?

My parents were both university professors. To the best of my knowledge, I cannot recall a time when religion was discussed in my home. My folks dismissed religion without comment. Personally, I was stunned as I grew up that most people have the whacky belief that there is some great arbeiter in the sky that is watching you and your actions. Seems just as crazy as people can imagine...yet it holds great sway...I haven't the slightest reason why this is the case.

I've never really been religious, but it's only recently when I heard David Attenborough talking about the mythologies of the world and how unlikely it would be that the Judeo-Christian mythology might turn out to be right, that I realised that atheism was closer to the way I now felt. It was one of those pivotal moments.

But I am mostly agnostic towards spiritual attitudes, I grew up with a lot of that around me and although it is unlikely that all of it is true, it is also hard to rule all of it out.

I don't claim to be an atheist. I do have an agnostic outlook. I've always been an enquirer about most things. The nature of life and why people do what they do has been a lifelong fascination. I don't know if becoming an atheist is a conscious decision like giving up smoking or a sudden realisation that it is a path you want to follow. Can anyone enlighten us on this?

1. A total lack of evidence.

2. A lack of any significant difference in the behaviors (atrocity and criminality-wise) of people of all the different faiths. If any of them were actually true, wouldn't we be seeing some kind of difference in the behavioral results of that faith's adherents?