I was raised in a Seventh Day Baptist minister's home, with four siblings, all older than myself. I was encouraged to participate in church life, but not pushed to any belief. Our parents were all about building good relationships, being good friends, and helping people when they needed help but not presuming to know what they needed. Our parents and those closest to them believed that the natural world is God's creation and is something we should be curious about, and be in harmony with. I was baptized and sang in the choir in our parents' church (and at school), but also attended nearby S.D.B. churches, a Friends (Quaker) meeting. It was in Friends meeting that I felt the greatest profundity, because there everyone sat quietly and waited for it to come to them, before anyone spoke. Most times, no-one spoke, and that was wonderful. Occasionally someone said something, and most times, it was really worth hearing. In both settings, there was little dogma and much humanity and little or no persuasion. We were encouraged to think for ourselves. I never deeply believed in God, but liked the Quaker idea that God is within all of us and we should seek that inner light. As the years have gone by, I have increasingly observed that moral living is not limited to the religious, and is often forsaken by them. I also observed that religious dogma often does not explain the true workings of the world, so I reject it, in favor of scientific understandings, and critical analysis of philosophical constructs.

After many years of "not really believing", then holding out hope, and going to church, then "not really believing"....I finally opened my eyes to the incredibly unbelievable nonsense and decided that "I'm an Atheist".

While growing up my family "always" went to church on Sunday, there wasn't a lot of religious pressure in the house, or during the week. It was just kind of "assumed" that prayer worked. God is alive. Jesus was resurrected, blah, blah, blah. We weren't active members of the congregation.

So yeah there were those admonishments, but not much else.

When I married and we had babies, we went down the christian road. I mean, we have to save their little souls, right? My wife claimed to be a believer..... But she was little more than indoctrinated if you ask me. She picked our church. Went through all of the rituals to join......then she was the 1st to quit. After all of that we went to several other churches , to find the one that "fit us" ......MADNESS!

One day after we had not went to church for a while, she says: " I want to try the catholic church. It looks like a beautiful religion"
I replied: " You just go ahead and go for it" I knew I was done forever at that point.

It was for the first year or so... The realization that I had been living a lie that was told to and pushed unto me by the people I loved and trusted most in the world was a huge upheaval. Shock turned to anger, which turned to disdain, which turned to pity, which turned to grief, which turned to acceptance... eventually. I'm still rather bitter about wasting so much time and energy and emotion forcing myself to believe such utter nonsense for so very long. I have no way of knowing this, but I feel I'd be much farther along in life if I had never been taught to believe in magic invisible creatures instead of being taught they were just fun (and some not so fun) ideas and nothing more.

I have had many fears and hardships involving this mythical being in the sky and by 2012 I finally realized it was all bullshit. Gods are imaginary.
as far as I've been able to figure, its a combination of wish thinking, tradition, lack of consideration, or fear of death.
Those are your words above and they sum it up nicely. Most believers are going with tradition but everyone has a fear of death. Believers can tell you where we came from, where we are going, and what is going to happen in the future. I reject those claims and I once studied for the ministry.

I have never not been an atheist. Both my parents were, too, as far as I am aware. I never saw them ever doing or saying anything religious ever, anyway.

Do you know the joke about Why Jesus was Irish. I'll let this go until you want a reply.

Brought up as atheist. It’s nothing to be atheist in the UK but now I live in the Midwest, I just shut my mouth and avoid god topics. The other day at work I was sick and got touched by a woman’s hand who then started praying over me. Ugh. It feels creepy to me.

The most difficult task was to rely on evidence instead of indoctrination. "What if the evangelists are correct, and I am doomed to suffer in Hell for eternity?"

I was brought up Seventh Day Adventist, which is some no-joke, hardcore, Revelations-based BS. My one Aunt even pulled strings to get me and my sisters a scholarship to a private SDA school although we were poor. So, even though I was always inquisitive and picked up on the flaws in logic and the inconsistencies, it was a long process to admit to myself that it was all a lie. "Coming out" to family and friends has not been easy, either. But the freedom and healing I've experienced is well worth it.

I’m not sure you “become” an Atheist so much as you just kind of wake up to the lies floating around you that are built on what at best is a really bad history book. I am not sure I ever swallowed the whole praying and thanking malarkey, since it was obviously kind of a useless pastime (people still died, food was bought at the store by money earned by working, Santa didn’t bring toys). I tend to question everything and search for logic, and there was none to be found in any religious practice I could find.

It's the least important decision (and it wasn't really a decision it just evolved) that I've ever made in my life. It's about as significant as the boxer shorts I chose to wear to bed.

I guess for my formerly catholic mother it was. I always had the impression that her agrophobia was the echo of her fears that there might be some divine authority persecuting her. Thunderstorms would just scare the hell out of her. Even my demonstrations, standing outside during a thunderstorm, didn't strip her of her visceral fear.

Brought up Roman Catholic. I questioned everything when I was younger and lost my faith pretty quickly. It was easy for me to not believe but I didn't like disappointing my family.

No being an honest child it was easy saying no to Santa Claus lies Ishtar boy bunnies laying candy eggs on dogshit lawns was also easy to say no to so alleged vaginal virgins birthing alleged baby boy gawds in dirty donkey stables was just another bullshit lie in dead of winter. ...what was hard = bigotry of peers against girls, my black kindergarten teacher and my beloved JW great Aunt Mabel. ....hard for a little kid to say the Emperor has no clothes when your mouth gets washed out with soap and your great grandmother is called a SQUAW. ...bigotry is all about white privilege AND ALLEGED PURITY OF CHURCH WEDDINGS authorizing fucking on demand

I'm agnostic not athiest. My family and friends for the most part, don't know. They do know that I left the church I was raised in. Difficult isn't a strong enough word for that. I have PTSD from the experience. I'm glad to be on this side of it but it wasn't easy to get here.

I think the hardest part was the mandatory circumcision, as an adult male I found that really painful but otherwise conversion to Atheism was practically painless.

Not if you're raised an atheist

Becoming an atheist was easy. I don't believe I was ever anything else. I went to church weekly with choir practice an additional day or two; however, I don't ever remember using the word Christian to describe myself. Athiest just felt right the first time I said it.

I lost my faith when I started doing research. I started to practice questioning pre-existing assumptions to see what I thought and why I thought it. I wanted to be sure that there was evidence to support a position. The more I questioned my religious beliefs, the more it all fell away.
However, I started dropping away from being a catholic when I went to college and wasn't surrounded by the daily reaffirming messages I received in catholic school. I moved from a religion to a more deistic view that was more akin to a pagan notion of multiple gods (many paths, one mountain type of thing). I wasn't really ready to give up the idea of belief since it was so central to life in the US. I held on to that for a while until, well you already read the above.

I was pretty much raised atheist so no difficulty.

For me, it was agonizing. It still is. It has been hard to let go of eternity and the fact that there is no god who loves me beyond comprehension and invites me to foreverness. The fact that I will not see my parents again just about stopped my heart. That is still a tough one. After 70 years of belief, it is very hard.

I was an atheist all my life like all my relations so probably not difficult being one as I didn't have a 'becoming ' 'stage to overcome.

It's always tough facing fear and pressure, but not as bad as having to lie to yourself for a lifetime.

No, what would be difficult for me is pretending to believe in a fairy tale for grown ups, talk to imaginary beings, and associate with people who can read the bible, qur'an, talmud, etc. and claim theirs is a benevolent, loving god.

It took awhile for me to except there was no god and religion is bs. When your family believes one sects way is the correct way to believe in fairy tales and closed minded about letting people of there family to explore another sect of christainity. Since, all sects of christainity are almost the same, why have anything to do with them at all. It's nice to think for myself and not to be held back silly guide lines.