I was born an atheist, went through the Christian "teaching" (mandatory church attendance as parents were theists) but when I was very young, I noticed the church was teaching silly childish stories that contradicted observable reality. During "Bible Study" I managed to find biblical and reality contradictions to every lesson. The last day of “Confirmation class”, the instructor told us about the "Holy Trinity" and I responded "Well, that's just stupid". Before that time I concluded religion was nothing more then a made up mind-fuck game adults used to scare children into doing what the adults wanted them to do. It wasn't until I was older that I realized some old people did not mature to accept a world based on testable reality but maintained the childish position of depending on faith (belief without evidence dishonestly asserted as facts) over testable fact based reality.

When I was young, many of my friends drank the cool-aid (became active Christians) but all have now matured and realize religion, based on faith, is Bullshit. When I was in my lat 20’s an old childhood friend called and asked me, “How did you know?” "Know what?" I responded. “Know that religion is bullshit. You always knew. I have moved to Seattle and everybody I know, My wife and all her relatives, doctors, lawyers etc. all recognize religion is BS”. I responded, “Because religion was nonsensical it did not reflect reality. I didn’t know you actually believed in that make believe nonsense.” He now recognizes religion is BS.

When I told the folks I did not accept faith (belief without evidence) based religion they tried to assert I was an agnostic. I corrected them and said, “No. I do not accept the baseless supernatural faith based claims that a god exists. I am not a theist. Because I value truth based on demonstrable facts, and because there are no facts to support a god even exists, I do not accept the faith based god exists claim. This makes me an atheist. I was strong on my position and they had no choice but to accept my stand.

As for now, one parent is still a theist. She has learned to avoid brining up religion as I openly point out flaws with any and all religion based bogus assertion. I do feel sorry for her as faith reduces the beauty and honesty of reality.

Religion also reduces the value of the one life we recognize we have; The life we are currently living. I once knew a lovely young woman who killed herself because – according to her suicide note found under her hanging body - - “I have killed myself so I can can live forever with Jesus and my dead father in heaven.”

On a side note: As an active anti-theist, I have de-converted several theists. They have all thanked me for helping see the light of reality over the darkness of superstition. The most appreciative atheist was a Catholic who no longer has nightmares about burning in hell forever because some woman seduced a man into eating an apple and pissing off god. He now lives without nonsense based fear and is free to accept reality without the restrictions of faith and dogma. Rather sure this is the foundation of “Free Thinker” although the dictionary definition of free thinker is “a person who rejects accepted opinions, especially those concerning religious belief.” if you are NOT an atheists (one who does NOT accept the opinions of the positive assertion of a god), how can you identify yourself as a free-thinker?

grew up catholic with a long line of catholics in my family, then family became protestant. Becoming an atheist was done after moving out. Family still is christian. They have a lot of children to raise yet.