Around 11 or 12 I think. It was then that I started to question the practicality of the whole deity thing. I never really thought about it until then. Before that I wasn't religious or actively practicing but I never really thought about logistics of religion as a whole. That is also when I decided to read the bible not just the passages that make it look good.

I went to a private baptist high school and it was probably around sophomore year when it was really cemented in me. I'd always questioned religion and god but when I could never get any answers that made sense, and just kept being told that I shouldn't question it, I realized for certain that it was all bullshit.

Our family initially attended a Baptist church. When my father discovered their hypocrisy, we stopped going. A few years later we began attending a Congregational Church where teaching was consistently supportive of American capitalism. I simultaneously attended a catholic high school because the education was superior to the public schools. I was the token tax evasion ("open to all regardless of race or religion" ). By my sophomore year i began my revolt against the catholic church, irritating heck out of my teachers. By college I was seriously questioning the entiore religion thing such that when my high school & college sweetheart and I were getting married, the Lutheran ministoer almost refused to do the ceremony. To avoid shooting at the Vietnamese, we spent a couple of years with the Peace Corps in the rain forest of west africa. During the heavy rainy season, I did a great deal of reading and thinking and arrived at the conclusion that religion is, as Marx wrote, "the opium of the masses." Especially of late I have become even more convinced of the delitorious effects of religious beliefs -- all types. In many cases, it provides s veil or curtain behind which the so-called believer can convince themselves of the reightiousness of their disgusting and severely harmful hatred. I am also convinced that churches should not be except from any of the taxes to which other institutions are subject.

never believed.

When I was young I was very active in my church but, also very curious. I grew up as a non Mormon in a Very Mormon town and I questioned the validity of secularization. I attended many "different" religions and discovered far more similarities than differences. I questioned why "Christians" would judge and even kill others who didn't think the same as they did.
I 1st questioned organized religion, then became agnostic when I was 14.
After much more experience I knew that there is no God that controls. If we all could enjoy the similarities we share and embrace the differences, the world would be a "heaven".

I'm from a traditional Filipino American family home. So from my parents to my extended family are all are Catholic. So being Catholic as a kid was more traditional then devotion. I can say not till my mid-twenties After reading Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris books I didn't fully realize that I was an atheist and revealed to everyone that I didn't believe in god.
My family think i'm the devil but they still love me. LOL

I don't know that I ever really believed. I'm glad that both of my parents were Christian, but never tried to push it on me. We never went to church, or talked about religion. I think when I was younger, I sort of hedged my bet, played it safe and sort of pretended to believe, just in case there really was a god. And really, I never really gave it any thought, beyond it just being a label. I think it was around the time I was in the 7th or 8th grade I started more or less identifying as an atheist. The more I've lived, the more and more ridiculous the idea of a god seems to me, and the more frustrating it is seeing otherwise rational people believing in something so childish and obviously man made.

I grew up in a christian household, but never once actually believed despite my family's best efforts. I was passionate about my comic books, sci fi and cartoons and even as a child could immediately tell that the bible was pure fiction. Literally just another story book, and not very good what with all the merciful murder going on.

I remember rolling my eyes through sunday school classes and getting legit creeped out during church services seeing the grownups weep with joy and convulse at what was obviously pure nonsense. It felt like being locked in a madhouse.

Despite all that I did end up becoming something of a Buddhist years later and was pretty passionate about it even though my busy brain could never bloody sit still enough for meditation.

7 years ago my dad kicked the bucket out of nowhere which changed my life forever.
I wanted to know what had happened to his soul so began a 3 year INTENSE investigation into....well, everybloodything....religions, science, history, philosophy. You name it, I probably researched it.

Long story short I arrived at the conclusion that atheism, science and humanism are the only honest, logical and believable roads to take. Since then I've been out and proud.

1st grade. While attending a private catholic school.

I grew up going to church, etc., but thankfully got away from that. I started saying I was agnostic when I was maybe 19-20, and became very confident with calling myself an atheist when I was maybe 22-23. It seems like it’s been longer than only a few years since I’m 24 now.

Ten years old.

In the time leading up to my so-called confirmation, so 11-12. Being an atheist in a Catholic School board sucked.

always, actually pantheist describes me better

I identified as atheist for as long as I can remember until I wrote a paper for my 9th grade religion class (I attended a Quaker school at the time). At the end of the paper where I justified my atheism, my professor wrote "so just because Ben hasn't directly observed proof in a god means god doesn't exist?"

It got me thinking about how I was atheist because I believed science and the scientific method to be the best possible belief structure because of what humankind has been able to achieve with it. However, as I understand it, the scientific method cannot be used to prove something - such as a deity - doesn't exist. As a result, I've identified as agnostic ever since.

Seventh year of Catholic School. It was hard to believe what they were teaching when they didn't practice it themselves most of the time.

I remember a time in my 20s in the military. Our mail was delivered to us at work and was in the break room. I was in the break room getting coffee, and noticed some kind of atheist publication in a coworker's mail slot. I was a little shocked. I talked to him about it, and he made it seem like no big deal. I remember thinking "I don't really believe in god, but I'm not an ATHEIST!" LoL!

I don't know if I ever REALLY believed. I know there was a period in my teens when I really WANTED to believe - I went to church and youth group regularly. But it just never felt right. Then, I didn't really think too much about it for a long time.

Years later, when I was almost 40, Dawkins published The God Delusion. That was the turning point, I guess. Then I discovered the Atheist Experience podcast. I binge-listened to every single episode they made. I worked mostly alone in an office at the time, so it just played all day long. Sometimes, I'd put on headphones. The year after The God Delusion, Hitchens came out with God Is Not Great.

So, it was around 2006-2007 that I became OK with the label "atheist."

Mine was a gradual process, and finally realized in high school, that I don't believe in god.

From a very young age, round about 7 or 8, it just never made sense to me at all.

12

My mother raised me going to Christian day care facilities and Sunday church. They made me memorize quite a few of the more popular verses. But everybody there seemed fake. I had questions and their answers were robotic. They were frequently easy to confuse and anger when challenged. Always deferring to "You just have to have faith." ## puke ##

I was probably about 8 when I openly defied the existence of God. I remember sitting outside yelling loudly and daring "him" to appear.

I knew since my last couple of years in CCD (catechism). I was like, umm.. nah. Don't believe any of it. That was me turning Agnostic. I wasn't ready to say there was no higher power, but I knew the formal, mainstream religions weren't for me. At about 20 yrs old I gave up trying to force myself to believe in any of it and went full athiest.

I'll be 43 next month, and I cannot remember there ever being a time where the mythology made sense to me. My parents did not push religion on me, and I thank them for that.

I remember questioning my mother about Methuselah being 967 years old and things like that. She told me to study the Bible and pray about it and I would understand when I got older. I really wanted to believe but the older I got and the more I knew the harder it got to believe. At age 41 I was forced to accept that the Bible didn't make sense.

When I was 19. I had moved an ocean away from my parents and was free of the continually religious atmosphere. I did try to hang on to my faith by going to church, but I could not quieten the logical war that was waging inside me. I felt like a traitor to myself and ultimately abandoned religion. Best decision I ever made.

I believe it was when my family started bringing me to church with them just before I started high school. I never believed in any religions, but had started researching the options once it became relevant to my life and realized that there was simply no evidence for any gods. This is when I began watching a lot of debates and thinking seriously about the topic and began labeling myself as an atheist and a secular humanist because the religious apologists never made a single good argument or had any evidence.