They lied about Santa. They told me not to tell my younger sister. I watched them laugh as she believed. I knew they must have laughed at me. They even left presents to trick me...... That's when I knew. I was nothing more than a fool for their entertainment. I set forth and devised a plan to get revenge. I told them that God didn't exist. They cried. I won.

(Did that sound psychotic enough?)

"The Emperor has no clothes - can't anyone else see that?" - I still seem to have this issue. lol

I was one of those freakish kids who actually believed in beign good for its own sake.

From around the age of 8 years I started asking questions, the responses, etc, I got from both Sunday Schools ( which I was FORCED to attend by my 'mother' were either so vague or double-talkish that I was EXPELLED from every single Sunday School of EVERY Xstian Religion around the town and Public School Scripture Classes as well.
My first strides along the road to Reason, Logic and atheism I do believe.

I was fortunate enough to have not have been brought up in a religious household.
So, I was never a believer.
Although I have to note that some of my friends were/are religious, or at least believers, and have always got along just fine with me and others I know who are not believers.
But I have also met many over the years that are religious, or believers, and have disowned some of their own family for not believing.
Those kind of people I have not, nor will call "friend".

Once I realized that these voices in my head were thoughts, I have embraced them. One of my first lessons was to question everything. Then the next step is not to believe some answers until I personally validated them with heavy consideration and investigation. This has allowed me to be the person I am today.

Well, When I was a Catholic (family choice) little girl I was extremely curious and I asked to my mom when God will come to visit us? Then she said: "He is here" Where? I asked. God is everywhere and he is watching you. So, I want to find out where was God ? I went to the kitchen and I ate the last piece of sweet bread. Later on my mom came to the kitchen to eat her snack (sweet bread ). She started to ask to my siblings and me about her sweet bread. Everybody said maybe (name) or (name) ate it. So I said to mom "God came to our house and ate your sweet bread. Mom went silent.

It took me years to question any of it because it seemed that all of the adults believed in a god long after they stopped believing in Santa. Both good and bad adults claimed to believe in a god, so I assumed it must be true. Naive as it is I find this to be the same attitude that keeps people going to church today. People want to believe because people want to belong.

When I was a kid, used to think that I wanted to be grown up.... Now that IamOld, I think how I wish to be young again..... I call it the cruel joke of life

My parents let us go to church or not...I went to all sorts of different ones with friends...I never thought of it as a belief system...I liked the songs, stories and rituals but they had no meaning to me except for something to do...I was baptised three times, all different, out of curiosity...I was over any kind of religion before I reached high school...got married in a church because it was cheap and there weren't a lot of places that would marry us without a lot of religious stuff...the minister used Kahlil Gibran readings at my insistance...I wondered who started the earth and thought of all this stuff....like who invented our digestive system ...but too many things didn't make sense if people told me it was god...so I researched and learned science...

I was way too busy with other pursuits, one of them was to make my mother love me or at least feel that she did so that was not high on my agenda.

I always thought that it was an awful waste of time and scary and mean and awful and boring and really really boring and dumb and uncomfortable and itchy and hot and sweaty and boring and boring and unbelievably weird and boring and fucked up and scary and boring. Did I mention it was really really boring?

I thought this as a child, I told my family I was an Atheist when I was only 12, and have not changed my mind, if anything my beliefs have only gotten stronger.

I was fascinated with my body. I wondered who or what I was and what life was all about. I wondered where the world came from and why it exists. I wondered why I was me and not somebody else.

I still wonder about that stuff and I’m no closer to having answers. It’s mind-boggling.

I didn’t think I’d live very long, yet here I am, still a kid at heart, still mystified.

I always knew it was bullshit.
Indoctrination didn't take.

I remember when I was 3 or 4 years old, my mom said that Jesus wasn't like Santa, and that I needed to understand that. I said that I did, and I thought I did, but all I remember thinking was that Jesus must have been more special than Santa somehow, lol.

I also remember thinking that there must be some reasons why all these adults believed this thing, and that someday I would be old enough to understand what those reasons were. Once I was old enough, more and more I found out that there were no good reasons.

When I was a kid, I spoke like a kid, I thought like a kid, I reasoned like a kid. When I became a man, I gave up kidish ways (mostly) ... but I had a fantastic time.

i first stopped believing in santa then the tooth fairy & god wasn't far after.

I quietly thought there was no god or if there was, he/she/it did not care about humans one bit. I kept my opinions to myself. There would have been terrible screaming arguments, punishments and hurt feelings if I said what I thought. I lied all the time to keep the peace. I would not want anyone to grow up this way.

Frankly, I don't remember what I thought when I was a child...

I always thought it a bit odd but didn’t have an alternative narrative. It was never an imperative in my life to go to church etc. so just took it at face value until early teens when critical thinking kicked in!

Until my late teens, I totally believed the Christian story. I thought God spoke to me--that I could "feel" what he (definitely "he" ) wanted from me. I thought what I knew of the Bible was "gospel," and I expected to live eternally in heaven.

I was not raised with religion however it was exposed to me in various ways. When I was fairly ignorant to it all but noticed through media how religion seemed to be a 'norm'.
Which is a fun story, because I was often brought over to a friend's house, who was religious although at the time I didn't know and did such things out of habit I suppose. I remember in their kitchen, and always questioned why they had a woven stitch thing of clapping hands above the dinner table. Later on to find out they were praying hands and it was like an ah ha moment in high school when someone tried to recruit me for church and I finally connected the dots.

I was raised in a Moron (oops, Mormon) bubble. When my Dad told me that God was real and that the church only told the truth, I believed him. Critical thinking was discouraged. Only when I became an adult did I think for myself and discover the truth.