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.

I never became an Atheist, I always was one. It was always obvious that the magical claims of theists were ridiculous.

Breaking away from childhood religious training is a very admirable thing, requiring intelligence, awareness, and courage.

The fact that many Christian Churches set forth a set of ridiculous and unbelievable lies and invoke fear and guilt to make you believe those lies—that in no way is proof one way or the other of the God question. There are some very deep and overwhelming mysteries concerning existence and the nature of reality.

In the face of these staggering mysteries, my response is total bewilderment. I do not presume to label myself.

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 think unavoidable would be more accurate.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

One of the easiest things I've ever done.

No. It wasn’t difficult. It evolved over the course of a few years as a natural progression.

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.

Not for me it wasn't. As soon as I understood what the word 'atheist' meant, I
knew I was one.
I was raised catholic, forced to attend mass every Sunday, forced to go through some of the sacraments, and forced to follow the dictates of the church.
That lasted until I was about 13, and figured out how to make it look like I'd been to mass, while I spent the collection money on breakfast at the Dunkin' Donuts across the street.
I'd always known everything I had been hearing seemed false. The older I got, the more I knew it was all bullshit. There are members of my family that didn't, and still don't, accept that I reject all gods and religion. I don't talk to them anymore.
I don't miss them either. They can take their judgment and shove it.

I've been completely comfortable embracing my natural default. I was born an atheist. We're ALL born atheists. Everything else has to be taught.
Btw, I've become a pretty staunch anti-theist as well. Seems only logical that
I would. All religion is dangerous and is a threat to humanity.

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.

We are all born Atheist, we are trained at an early age to believe in the B.S. handed us by our parents as they were trained by theirs and so on. But even as a youngster I never believed it.
The real question should be 'was becoming religious difficult?' History has shown us, yes, it is very difficult, and often deadly.

It was easy when I became an atheist after being a very devout Christian. I’ve always been doubting. I was raised as a Catholic all my life and left Catholicism at 13 and became non denominational. I questioned and became angry at an invisible entity many times when I still had faith in a sky daddy and I lost so many loved ones. The last straw was when my favorite cat ended up getting hit by a car and I found him at 5 am on my way to work. I renounced any god and have been super anti theist since.

No, as a matter of fact the conversion was quite easy. No getting dressed up to go listen to some hypocrite drone on for an hour. No dunking involved. I get to sleep in every Sunday. (To be honest I was never all that much of a believer to begin with. I quit going to church at 16.)

Not at all. I was lucky though. The most attempted doctornation that I went through was at school. Every Wednesday we had to walk to church and do a bible school type situation. It was/is bullshit, but I made it through it. My family only went to church for weddings and funerals (and my baptism, fuckers), so it wasn't a transformation for me, it was a realization.

Not hard at All, I’m not from a religious family, we are all atheists.

I was brought up Catholic but I never really fell for the fairytale. Went through all the motions; catholic school, alter boy, confirmation, etc.. all without belief. My family was very accepting when I told them I was a non-believer.

For me it was a natural part of growing up. I was too busy agonising about girls to waste much energy worrying about my loss of religion.

I do think growing up in NYC was helpful for me with this. Most of my friends were Catholic or Jewish but not really religious. It was a non issue. Now when I moved away, that's a different story.

I was pretty much raised atheist so no difficulty.