2010 even though I was never a believer growing up Catholic. That's when I started to call myself an atheist.

Began to realize life was just what it is at the age of 25, when I unwillingly broke up with my ex on the bases that I am not from the same country or share the same believe with her. It was quite awful as an African being dispair by the same race, same religion fanatics who keep saying "god was love"

At the age of 7, saw a kid shot by military...I asked everyone why didn't God prevent that from happening if he could ? Why allow such a thing in the first place ?

At that moment, when no one could give me an explanation of this thing; I identified myself as an atheist.

Rather recently starting by late 2016. It was a long conflicting process for me to be an atheist cause of my very religious background and family but eventually, I couldn't avoid the truth.

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.

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 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.

12

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

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

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 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.

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

Ten years old.

At age 8 when I stopped believing in Santa Claus.

1st grade. While attending a private catholic school.

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.

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'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

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".

never believed.

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.

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.

My journey was a slow and gradual slide that I often think of as having started in 2008 and culminating in 2014 when I very suddenly transitioned from soft agnostic to hard atheist. It was such a major transition in my life that I remember the exact moment it happened.

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.