When some evangelical pastor told me that I would feel the presence of Jesus if I prayed and asked Jesus into my life.

So I did, and felt............. absolutely nothing!!

I then observed the behaviour of those people in the church who claimed to be full of the presence of Jesus. They were sure full of something!!

When I was about 12 and decided to go to bible study and got kicked out for asking for too many questions. Like why we have bones of dinosaurs that didn't exist and not bones of giants that did exist. How did they get all the animals from all over the world to the ark? Why does everyone look different (race) if we are all made from gods image? Apparently you should not question religious doctrine.

During my sophomore and junior years (2001-2003) in High School in my vocational electronics courses, I sat next to a few very close minded people who were raised Catholic. The disgusting statements and attitudes they had towards homosexuality rubbed me the wrong way. It was then, during my Electronics class one day I asked myself, "If there's an all loving and all accepting God who accepts faults in others, why is there so much hatred towards homosexuality?" That moment right there made me question and severely doubt what religion teaches and preaches to others. Once I learned more about evolution (on my own time) towards the end of college and even more so after graduating college, that sealed the deal for me on seeing creationists as being even more full of bullshit than anything I can humanly comprehend.

I don't remember how old I was, but it was when I started learning about different denominations. They all claimed with certainty to know god and what he loves/hates/etc, and I noticed how different churches often contradicted each other. I quickly realized none of them actually knew what they claimed to know.

Probably when I was around 5 or 6 years old and my very secular Mom explained God to me. I just got burned on the Santa thing ( I loved Santa ) and this was even more far fetched than Santa, plus this guy wasn't even gonna leave me toys.

When we took a class trip in 4th grade New York Museum of History and we saw the dinosaur skeletons.

I went to a Roman Catholic primary school even though we as a family are Hindu. I remember one day coming home and doing the 'sign of the cross' and my dad said I shouldn't do that. I was probably around 8 at the time. I was taught that Hinduism superior and true. In my head I was a little puzzled as I wondered why there was so many religions. They can't all be true.

I used to ask a lot questions as a kid about religious stuff but the answers I would get left me unsatisfied. I would also get an earful from my parents saying that God will punish you for asking such 'silly' questions.

At a very early age when I realized there was no such thing as Santa Claus.

1st grade while going to a private catholic school; my first thoughts of doubt. 2nd grade, more doubt. By the 7th/8th grade, I openly told a friend I didn’t believe in any god(s).

I just always doubted it. My father bribed me with McDonald's as a child to get me to go to church ?

I don’t think I ever believed in God; I certainly have no memory of doing so. But then neither of my parents were religious at all.

I read the Bible

Prayer never worked. Church leaders made obvious errors.

I was raised religious and my parents are still very religious. 9th grade world history. Evolution vs. Creationism. I freaked out, shut my brain off, and watched hours of Mr. Ed taped off of Nick at nite. Fail. Went to college, still wary. Didn't like to be reminded of religion or lack thereof, but went through motions when necessary. Realized I knew it was all b.s. in 9th grade at about...23. Accepted all of it. Mortality. The fact most of the world is deluded. It's sad some days, but you can't chase a false, incorrect, harmful thing. I don't know how humanity will advance. Did I take the question too far?

2002 when i was 26. The Catholic church's pedophile priests in Boston because nationwide news.

I was at bible camp when I was eight years old and was having a one on one conversation with a counselor. I simply asked “How do you know there is a god?” The counselor replied, “you just know”... I’m almost positive I rolled my eyes or something. My doubts only grew stronger from there. I stayed agnostic for many years before finally cutting the cord.

I can't answer this question because I'm too busy checking out your profile. LOL! Maybe later. =]

I always questioned why we would pray before our little league baseball game. Why would an all powerful, omnipotent and infinite god care about who wins a ball game?

I was in second grade at a catholic school I'd just been enrolled in. I didn't think that the answers to my questions made any sense. There was just not enough proof to back anything up. I determined that it was just a tool to control perception and behavior. I.e. the fear of God. It couldn't be right I said to myself.

I never really believed in God, even though religion was pretty much shoved down my throat by family members. I went along with all the nonsense for a long time but none of it really added up. My parents weren't religious types even though they sent me to Sunday School on occasion but gave up after I showed little interest. Religion was pushed upon my by close relatives when I lived in the remote outback after loosing a close family member. I became very practiced at bible studies and read the bible from cover to cover. It's an awful book, worst I've ever read! On the upside, taught me to question things and eventually I stumbled upon the Skeptics Annotated Bible/Quran/Book of Moron. Never really looked back after that!

I remember in about the sixth grade beginning to wonder why the church adults were pretending that there was such a fictional thing as a "God"...after all, Santa Clause, Easter Bunny, etc., were obviously just fantasy. Of course as I became an adult, my rationalizations become more scientifically based and I realized that religion was a sociological phenomenon, not based on logic or reality but the collective norms of a particular social group.

About age 4-5 I was told to pray so I was like OK i pray if I can hear him talk to me. So i tried to hear him concentrating and all that and luckily i didn't heard voices so i was like ok it's a lie. That's it plus my dad is an atheist too so he told me simply.

I was in a Catholic high school seminary run by the Franciscans. It was on a cliff overlooking the Sandy River, at Springdale, in the Portland area. Anyway, it was during religion class in my sophomore year (early to mid sixties) when the priest/teacher, in a religion class, was explaining the difference between a mortal sin and a venial sin when it came to theft. He said the line was at $200. This seemed arbitrary and like a number pulled out of a hat. So I asked the teacher how we, as future priests, were to deal with inflation with this sin. He just stared at me, pissed off. I knew then that Catholicism was bs, with rules made to control people with fear of damnation. I quit going to communion and confession and knew what I didn't believe. It was the beginning of a life-long journey of discovery and realization.

From the beginning, I was raised catholic and when they first introduced the God hypothesis to me it made no sense.

I was very religious up to about age 18. At that point, many factors came into which influenced my beliefs.

I was living on my own, so the religious influence of my parents was significantly less. My academics at that stage had made me realised that I needed to start thinking at a whole different level if I wanted to pass exams, i.e. I had to go beyond just memorising info and following a method to work out a question. Thirdly, as a deeply religious person in a multi-religious society, I wanted to debate with my friends from other religions and have them see my view and perhaps even convert them.

It was only then I began looking into the art of debate and learned more about logical fallacies. In trying to predict rebuttals and formulate counter-arguments, I had to put my own religion up to the same scrutiny. And it failed.

At that point I could easily dismiss religion, but not the concept of a God. I began doubting but I wasn't prepared to dismiss the existence of a God. Maybe holding on to God was due to the same reasons why everyone else does, such as, fear of eternal punishment in the 'after-life', fear of the unknown in the after-life, fear of non-existing after death, strong programing in the belief of god since childhood, fear of becoming a social outcast, etc. I spent many years as an agnostic until i came to terms with those deep underlying fears and allowed reasoning and logic to supersede them.