I'm a late bloomer! I was raised in the church, went to a church school & college. I didn't start to question until my 60's!! It was gradual and until I joined this site, didn't completely realize I was an atheist.

Your views of a divine being are based on religious text - if there were a divine being - religion hasn't a clue as to what it is, how it operates or what it wants any more than anyone else does. I don't believe that there is a divine being just saying if there was - I wouldn't trust religion to describe it to me. In fact, anything that is contained within religious text I ignore completely.

Probably when I was around 8. I enjoyed summer camp and Sunday school because of the crafts and fellowship but I always wondered if the adults around me we're taking this stuff seriously. Once I found out they were I was done. My parents couldn't get me into a shirts for anything.

Edit: I was 8 was when I decided to remove myself from the church. I don't know that I ever believed. I don't remember a time that I ever did it at least.

Never had to non religious family background .Didnt relate to it at all the only thing they gave me for which i am eternally grateful

I never questioned it.

I knew it was bullshit from the first time I was forced to recite the Lord's Prayer in school assembly against my will.

The barbarity of that blatant indoctrination provided me with the first and only lesson I ever needed to see through religion.

I began to question god's plan when I arrived into daylight near a poo portal and got a slap!

Man people won't even leave pokemons alone. I was 19 taking intro to Philosophy. Had an in-class discussion about it. After researching the topic for few months, I came to realize that the god that we think of is the creation of our desire of justice that comes from our understanding of morality. And this desire is exploited by people to gain power and money.

~About 5 years old -went to Sunday School... was bored witless and then given orange drink and biscuits.Was told if I came back next week I could have more drink and biscuits -oversell -never went again ( the biscuits were stale )

At Sunday school when I was 4

It's hard to answer that because I wasn't raised with religion. My best answer would be in my late teens.

When the subject turned from god to having me get undressed...

Hi Cha,
I'm 19 and I went through a similar questioning. I am not from a Christian family, but my parents sent me to an Evangelical Christian camp and I became a Christian (note to self, do not do that). I questioned about how God could be good and especially about Romans 9, which basically says that God sends people arbitrarily to Heaven and Hell.
However, when you deepen the questioning, I realized that any notion of justice, good/evil must be grounded in something. You say that he ignores the suffering of people, which implies that good and bad is grounded in the pain or benefit it causes people. This is therefore a human-centered conception. This could be reasonable, but it is not incoherent to say that if God exists, good and bad is centered around him, and the suffering of people should not be first considered, but whether it benefits God because he is the ultimate reality.
When I came to this reasoning, I realized that criticizing the actions of the God of the Bible as evil is adequate from a particular framework, but inadequate from another.
I'm not sure if you were looking for a particular train of thought about these things, but I was personally sad when I realized I have no good argument against Christianity (which does not make it true).

As soon as the concept was raised with me.

I have never believed.

My year in a religious boarding school resulted in me abandoning that particular religion.

Since then I've been rooting around seeking what truths are being concealed. Studying the apocrypha, stories about Lillith and Jesus as a child, and rereading the Bible with a detached eye. Eventually I go with what my gut tells me is true - the God in the old testament is not a God I want to call "mine". In fact, I think the "God" they describe there is probably a bunch of higher-tech aliens messing with their minds, and not one person at all. I mean, how easy would it be for someone to stick a speaker in a bush and claim to be "God" to a bunch of primitive people and see what you could make them do if you scared them enough? God's fondness for burnt offerings sounds like someone jonesing for BBQ. Hmmm.

The Davinci Code got me feeling there may be truth there too - why wouldn't those chauvenist bastards write any women out of the picture? Why wouldn't Jesus get married and have kids? It makes more sense than other versions of Jesus. Its very easy to conclude that the bible was written by control freaks and what little truth it may contain is in spite of itself.

. I may never truly be able to define what it is I believe in, but I can certainly define what I don't believe. I don't believe the bible is the word of God, I believe its propaganda meant to confuse and control me. I don't believe women are lesser than men. And I don't believe organized religion would bring good things into my life.

Uhm? My process do not recall questioning religion. Umh? I never started, I always been, so I am as I always been.

I grew up in a Lapsed Catholic/Agnostic household. We stopped attending church when I was about 6. I don't remember really thinking about it much till I was about 12, and thats when I started questioning whether there was a God. I was going thru a pretty rough time, and really wanted to find the answers, but grew frustrated when I couldn't find any. But, over time I began to believe that there was a God, (No, I don't have any proof.) But religion scared me, and still does in some ways.

I was raised with no religion in my life. My parents did attend church, and I only went a few time to a catholic mass with my grandmother and cousin. I thought it was pretty, and loved the acoustic masses, but no, not my thing. I do like Buddhism, particularly Jainism (which is a bit extreme I admit). But I find more cosmic insight in texts like Chitrabhanu's Ten Days Journey Into the Self than in any book on religion I have ever read--which is admittedly, not a long list. Maybe some Joseph Campbell?

I loved Pokemon and still do. Sometimes I struggled with the idea of asking creatures to fight - seemed inhumane, but I realized - it's not real. It is what you make of it - so make the best and enjoy the parts that are fun and good. As far as religion - I never believed, so didn't have to stop believing. I have questioned though, and I still struggle with not knowing the anwers to those questions.

I was not raised in a religious family. I read books on other myths and legends before I got to the Abrahamic ones. None of them seemed reasonable to me or matched what I experience in life, so just stories.

I Never entertained the notion that I was specially created, despite having a mother who was quietly religious. Around the age of 10 or so I was put into an extracurricular religious instruction class. I couldn’t be bothered to memorize the Lord’s Prayer and at my ‘graduation’ the priest walked me through it in order to please my parents on the occasion. I always remember losing additional respect for the institution for that very reason. By 15 I was convinced there was no god. I’m a biology class I confirmed it to another student. When asked if I believed in the devil instead, another classmate intervened and said ‘He doesn’t believe in God; why would he believe in the Devil?’ That symbolizes my complete disillusionment with nature of human belief. Today I would call myself a Philosophical Naturalist and an Existentialist to specify the foundation of my objective condition. As people often say: there is no need to be an atheist because there is no need to call oneself a nonbeliever in Apollo or Osiris or Neptune or Quetzalcoatl, or unicorns or trolls. As Hitchens frequently said: supernatural belief belongs to the infancy of our species.

I Never entertained the notion that I was specially created, despite having a mother who was quietly religious. Around the age of 10 or so I was put into an extracurricular religious instruction class. I couldn’t be bothered to memorize the Lord’s Prayer and at my ‘graduation’ the priest walked me through it in order to please my parents on the occasion. I always remember losing additional respect for the institution for that very reason. By 15 I was convinced there was no god. I’m a biology class I confirmed it to another student. When asked if I believed in the devil instead, another classmate intervened and said ‘He doesn’t believe in God; why would he believe in the Devil?’ That symbolizes my complete disillusionment with nature of human belief. Today I would call myself a Philosophical Naturalist and an Existentialist to specify the foundation of my objective condition. As people often say: there is no need to be an atheist because there is no need to call oneself a nonbeliever in Apollo or Osiris or Neptune or Quetzalcoatl, or unicorns or trolls. As Hitchens frequently said: supernatural belief belongs to the infancy of our species.

As soon as I heard of it.
There was never any real question other than "you really believe this shit ?"

My grandparents were Lutheran and my mom and I lived with them and my 3 uncles until I was 12. My grandparents wanted us all to go to church every Sunday, but my uncles were always arguing that. I think I was 9 when I decided to sit down and read the bible to find out what all the fuss was about. Got through most of Genesis and thought to myself "who believes this ridiculous twaddle?!" And the rest was boring, so I quit reading it. Still went to church though, because I wasn't the argumentative sort; anyway my grandparents had good hearts and I just wanted them to be happy. (till my agnostic parents and I moved far far away when I was 12 and I dropped the charade)

I was twelve when I recognized, take away a letter or two, add new ones and mormon became money....and it's need of money has grown to where they troll the world, promising starving uneducated people, heaven and eternal life, which can be purchased in monthly payments of 10 % no matter how meager your income, or you children are starving...nah, baptized at 8, left at 12 and have never looked back...

Not all Pokemon are evil. Pikachu though. Watch that one carefully.