I didn't "turn my back on religion". I just slowly realized more and more of it didn't add up, didn't make sense.

Was not an event was common bloody sense, LOL the world is not 5000 years old

I was a liturgy reader at mass (Catholic) and one day I read the first reading and the priest turned his sermon into an anti-gay rant(which was not what I believed the reading was even referring to). I am pansexual and was dealing with my own cognitive dissonance of supposedly going to hell and this was the last straw for me. I walked out of the church during the eucharist and never went back.

When I was a young child, about 11, a good friend of mine had a younger brother. I knew that his brother was very sick and subsequently died. One day I asked my friend how come he died? He said it was god's way of punishing his family. What! Why would an all-powerful and forgiving god kill an innocent child, I asked. From that day forward I turned my back on religion, and that was 60 years ago.

I was 6 and realized church was silly.... simple as that., I continued for years going and pretending but knew all along it was ridiculous even if the people were nice and the activities fun.

Growing up my mother allowed me to attend any church I wanted with friends etc. She was a believer, but never a church goer. She always encouraged my curiosity. I remember, even as a young child, wanting to go and find a place where I belonged and fit in. Even with the desire to be apart of some group, I couldn't get the nagging feeling that it was all crap out of the back of my mind. I wanted to believe. I wanted to be "normal", but it never felt right. As a young adult, I started saying things like "no one knows for sure", and "we'll find out when we die", but that still felt phony to me. I was saying because everyone around me was a believer and I wanted to be the same. A few years back, I totally embraced my true feelings and just openly admitted to everyone I'm an atheist and I think religion is made up fairy tales that are holding us back. Maybe not the most popular opinion, but it was the beginning of my journey to being completely happy for the first time in my life. I'm no longer trying to fit in. It's amazing.

My first doubts came as a child when revelations that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny weren't actually real, led me to start doubting other things i had been told.

When in high school, at church we were readign the old testament, while in school we were studying Greek mythology. I noticed similarities in the way the stories were beign told. It thin clicked that all the fairy tales and folk tales of my childhood were not all that different from the stories in the Bible, but for some reason, people believed the Bible to be true, but none of the other stories outside of hte Bible, even though they all were fantastical in nature. In the Bible there are withes and magicians (wizards), just like in fairy/folk tales was well as fictional creatures.

Giving up religious beliefs was not as hard as giving up the social community to which I was raised and accustomed to. It is a lot harder to leave the feeling of "community" in a religion than it is to give up the beliefs... at least that is how it was for me.

I realized in 2nd or 3rd grade that the other kids in Sunday School believed the stories we were told to keep us entertained while our Moms were upstairs in church. So I never believed. Just suddenly realized others did and from then on I knew I was the different one.

Becoming a scientist.

Again, initially not getting my pony that I prayed so hard for. But actually, as I grew older I saw the horrible, mean, bitter Bigot my mother was and I thought, "Oh Jesus! If this is an example of a "good" Christian.....I didn't want to have anything to do with Christianity. Also, what's in it for me? They bait you with promises of immortality, but I don't want that. Infinity in "heaven". Really? Prove it? There has never, nor will there EVER be anyone who returned from heaven and can PROVE it exists. I can prove my theories....go prove yours.

To be honest, it wasn’t one event. It was becoming more educated that did it. And I researched all kinds of different religions- and was Catholic previously. After years of education, I came to the conclusion that science is real, god is wishful thinking.

Too many guys like Pat Robertson. Greedy people saying GOD told them they need a private jet.

I reach the Age of Reason

I became educated. There is not other reason than that. I studied anthropology, evolution, Darwin, Marx, geology, became a critical thinker and religion faded away at that point.

Reading

There was no single event that caused me to back away. It was a process and a series of events starting with my childhood where I was physically and emotionally abused by my mother and sexually molested by my stepfather. I started wondering what kind of god, the father, could allow those things to happen to innocent children. When I had children of my own, I was absolutely convinced that NO parent, let alone some god, would want those things to happen to their child.

Further, I have always had a scientific, reasoning and logical mind so I asked a lot of questions. When I was told that I simply must accept things on faith, I was flabbergasted. That was so illogical to me and totally unacceptable. I wanted proof--factual, verifiable proof. I'm still waiting but I'm NOT holding my breath because I don't believe it is even remotely possible.

I never really had an event - the closest I can remember was trying to "reason" with the god I'd been told existed and getting absolutely nowhere. I dallied with the idea of karma but rapidly realized it was simply my brain finding patterns in random data. I was probably only four or five at the time.

A total realization that god just doesn't exist, I've been fooled (mostly, by my own self ) It happened one summer as I was cleaning the house and talking to my father on the phone).

I just started questioning religion and the more I thought about it the more I realized it was fake

I'd say it wasn't a singular event as much as it was an overwhelming catalog of things. My entire family is religious, but they're also incredibly fucked up. The things they chose to do didn't make sense as to why a god would reward the behaviors and actions. The other thing was the older I got, the less sense it made and the more I required evidence for everything whether religious or not.

I grew up in a very catholic environment. We went to church every Sunday. I had a run in with one of my nuns and the next day my Father took me out of the parochial school and I found myself in a public school. One of the best things that ever happened to me. I was twelve years old. Thanks Dad!
It wasn't a single item but a litany of unanswered questions which set me free. I had to many questions and the answer never felt right nor did they make sense. Have you ever wondered how Noah got the kangaroos back to Australia after the floods subsided? Federal Express of course.

It was a process that started in 2010 with reading a book called Love Wins by Rob Bell, a pastor. Bell challenged the traditional view of hell, and was ostracized by many Christians because of it. But it struck me as a very honest book. About the same time, I reconnected with an old friend I used to go to church with who had left "the faith" already. He never pressured me, but always asked questions that really made me think. The final straw was listening to the audiobook of The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (read by him and his wife Lalla Ward). With that, I was "cured" of the religion bug for good.

I realized I didn't believe in God(s) when I was in the 1st grade, while going to a private catholic school. I was never religious or a believer prior to that point.

Facts...

considering woman not human enough as man