As a child, I was brainwashed to be a Moron (oops, Mormon). I played the role of a good Mormon in order to please my parents. In my late 20's, I did some research and proved to myself that the founder of Mormonism (Joseph Smith) was a false prophet, and that the Book of Mormon is fictitious. I took my discoveries to the leader of our local congregation, and I asked him to show me where I had erred. Instead, he had me excommunicated (thrown out of Mormonism). When I was excommunicated, my Moron (oops, Mormon) wife took our two children and disappeared. Later, I was served with divorce papers. It was sad to lose my family, but I got over it, and I am now glad that I followed the truth and kept my personal integrity intact. Later, I did similar research on the Bible, and discovered that it, too, is fictitious. It is good to be free from such scams.

Christianity was the excuse my parents used to abuse me until I graduated high school and joined the military to get away. I would have ran away, but lived in the woods of Alabama and knew no one that might help me.

I was raised in a strict Christian faith, with a peculiar certainty that it had 'the truth' regarding God's divine word. I began to see inconsistencies in my youth, but did my best to ignore them or explain them away with the tried and true, 'God's ways are a mystery that will be revealed in his time.' But later, much later, the cognitive dissonance caused by that 'still small voice' of reason became overwhelming, and doubt began to grow, particularly over the 'problem of evil.' The questions kept bubbling to the surface. I prayed for faith and sought to return to the source, but when re-reading the Bible carefully as an adult, found it to be an intellectual and moral outrage. Still too stubborn to admit that I was wrong, it was the simple hiddenness of God that, in the end, completed my de-conversion, some 40 years after the initial questions arose.

I was a very passionate Mormon who put all my energy into doing exactly what the church told me I should be doing. By 35, I was really messed up with things only getting worse. I began looking for solutions and my efforts led me to begin questioning my church.

I realize now that it took a lot of effort to continue believing. I had to dismiss and explain away things all the time to keep my belief in the church and in my belief in god. Many of my changes in belief came from simply no longer doing that mental work. Once I stopped actively making myself believe in Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon, god, etc, those beliefs just gently faded out of my life.

The whole transition took years and I am only now starting to feel comfortable with my new beliefs. For some time I was paralyzed because my whole life had been dedicated to my church and belief in god. I didn't know what to do with myself when I let go of those things and was even suicidal for a while. I had to gain a new sense of purpose in my life and rediscover the things that I loved.

Was devout christian for 10 years, then I read the bible from cover to cover, that made me leave christanity. I became a pagan for 23 years. THen I became an agnostic for a few years, then became an atheist.

I was raised in the Baptist Church, by parents who weren't fanatically religious, and it never made any sense to me, though I unconsciously assumed it must be true somehow because all the adults said so. At around 14 years of age I had a friend who introduced me to atheism and it made more sense but left a vacuum.

From that point I started my own, slow but deliberate, inquiry into the nature of reality, leaning ever more heavily upon the philosophy of science, and eventually came to see religion itself through that scientific lens. Now I see how fiction plays a critical role in the development and functioning of Homo sapien societies, and how those fictions can be translated from metaphor into rational tools for the relief of human suffering. Thanks for asking.

I was raised in a largely secular home, meeting few Christians, but as a child I naturally grew up hearing about Christianity, and being childlike assumed that people who held such beliefs must be really good people. My anti- religion stems in part from the deep shock I experienced during education, when I met many Christians, (education in the UK was still religiously controlled in those days, ) and found that they were some of the worst people I could meet, often pedaling shamelessly sick ideas which even then I knew to be wrong.

I was "pressured "into going to church under threat of hell and an ass whipping. I noticed that most of the folks that was proselytizing were noticeably absent from church. I thought if I could read the bible all the way through, that I might get a better understanding of all these talking animals, burning bushes, sacrifices to the thing that was supposed to have made everything.

   Well I forced myself to red it all the way through, from the first page to the last. It was a slow, agonizing, boring, self imposed duty that took me a couple of months because if I could not understand something I went back and re-read it. 90% of the time I still didnt understand it, didnt then, don't now, and gladly never will.

         I finally came to the conclusion that it was all crap, for a long time I thought that I could not understand it because there was something wrong with me. So I asked the elders, they informed me that II had to pray for understanding. I did that, Oh did I pray. I even thought you had to "assume the position" to pray. I would fold my handsand start off complementing that bastard that I had never seen or witnessed anything that I could directly contribute to it being something it did. I thought this might be a good approach.

             That didnt work either, no matter how urgently or feverishly I prayed, the end results were the same....NOTHING. I tried to "believe" and have "faith" but no, same results, big ZERO.

             After a few years of trying that, trying to make myself believe, I started studying theology and, all the different religions. The more I read, the more it all seemed like bullshit. Then I finally came to the conclusion that ALL OF THEM, are BULLSHIT. I was only correct about one thing, I could not understand the religion I was born into because it was not understandable. The readings were unfalsifyable, ambiguous, and, the thoughts of my fellow man. I now feel better than I have ever felt about what happens after death, you ROT, thats it. 

             I would like to hope that there might be reincarnation, but that is, I am reasonably sure, is a pipe dream as well. The way heaven was described to me I wouldnt want to go there anyway.

I was never devout anything although I was an altar boy but only because I could skip some classes. I was always skeptical of bs and every time I heard illogical crap from any religion I questioned so much that once I was expelled from school for a week for blasphemy, because I questioned the virginity of Mary after having a child. We had just received in the same catholic school a lesson in human sexuality and my question was really coming from the mind of a kid who was told one thing by a teacher only to be completely contradicted by another teacher (all nuns).

I grew up LDS (aka:Mormon). I started questioning things at an early age and by the time I was 16... I was just going through the motions to keep the peace at home. I did know I didn't want to be a glorified baby machine for the church. I moved out as soon as I turned 18 and never looked back.
I read the Bible 5 times cover to cover trying to figure out what it was about the book that made people feel love, spiritual, connected to a God. It never made sense to me.

Had questions....read Bertrand Russell at age 12...what a revelation in logical thinking!

What happened was that I grew up. This took a long time for me but it also involved waking up and a lot of bible study. Imagine for a moment that the world has many religions and men have written about them and put them in books telling you what god wants you to do. The catch is that only your god and religion are correct. That should be enough for anyone.

I have an alternate story where I claim to have quit believing when Jesus did not bring me a pony.

Can't say that your query/question applies to me since I was an Atheist from about 8-9 years of age.
My Dad was a Full on Atheist and did his best to get his kids to think for themselves, my mother, on the other hand, was, what I like to call, A Christian of Convenience who strove to force us to attend Sunday School and School Scripture Lessons at every turn.
A project, I may say quite thankfully, that she failed at miserably when it came to me.

It was mostly the claims that were made within and what others claimed........The Heaven, Hell belief, and bible stories such as the Red Sea parting, Noah’s ark. Adam and Eve with the “Talking Snake”. Just sounds like dreamed up tales.

Raised Catholic

ha well i started actually reading the Bible, although "fairy tale" doesn't carry the same weight as "mythology" i guess?
"The best cure for Christianity is reading the Bible" SClemens

I had to go to church every Sunday it was torture for a child's boredom i stopped believing at the age of 34 it was liberating.

I was going through a divorce at 32 years of age. My kids weren't living with me during the divorce and it scared me to not see them every day. I worried about them and prayed for their safety daily. I believed god would take care of them. Then on March 28, 1991 my son was killed in a car wreck while my soon to be ex wife was driving. I blamed myself at first and reread the Bible trying to see what I did wrong (when you're a Christian it's always your fault). I came to a verse that basically said "if you are living for me, and I am in you, ask and it will be given to you". I knew from my recent experience that was a lie or a mistake. Either way it wasn't the word of God as I knew him.
That was the first of many threads. Once you start questioning, it doesn't take long for the whole convoluted thing to unravel. That led me to look into other religions, which didn't take long. I ended up an atheist, and I'm happy I did.

I believed then had supernatural experiences and found out Jesus is Angelic lord of host Lucifer the devil leading the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshippers.

I would, however, I would have to write a book there is no simple explaination, it was a series of events a happenings over a span of years dealing with very personal things, and I'm not inclined to talk about in a public forum.
All religions are false and so are the demonic gods they worship.

What changed my way of thinking was the death of my partner, after she passed I thought she was in heaven, then I identified her body at the hospital, and just before her funeral I seen her in the coffin I picked out.
And stumbling on a video by James Randi...
That's what I took for me to no longer believe.

lost interest actually in Sunday school and as an early teenager