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."

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.

always, actually pantheist describes me better

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.

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.

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.

I was raised in a church of god. Soon after high school I started really looking at the bible rather than just believing what the preacher was telling me. I realized in was all just a crock of shit.

I did at an early age. I went to Catholic grammar school, and found myself questioning faith around 4th or 5th grade. I considered myself an atheist in the 6th grade, yet didn't make that public until I reached high school.

Because the private (Catholic) schools had a far better education than the public schools I could attend at the time, I ended up going to an all-male Catholic high school. This is where I started to get in trouble because of my lack of faith. I clashed with teachers that taught Religion (shocker, only Catholicism) and Morality (shocking, another bullshit Catholic class) to which I was awarded with trips to the Dean, and multiple detentions.

After high school, I no longer had any ties with forced religion. I'm lucky to have a mother, though a practicing Catholic, respects my beliefs. We don't debate religion, but do talk about it from time to time in regards to current world events.

i was 16 and one day i was a christian who completely believed in god and the next day i wasnt. i can't remember when the change happened

I already thought most religions were stupid growing up and I only went to church for the snacks. Eventually i started watching a lot of youtube and seeing all the religion debates about 7 years ago and the atheist switch was flipped.

I was about 15 when I met my first atheist who also happened to be my boyfriend. I realized about a year later that I found the idea of any supreme being being in control to be absurd. I had gone to church regularly from a young age and it never had any effect on me. I usually slept through the service or doodled on the tithe envelopes. I did become angry when I heard a preacher denounce gay people and one day in Sunday school my little brother came out crying because of something the teacher had said to him. That was the last time I went to church. I was 12.

I started leaving my religious roots in my later high school years, but it wasn't until my early college years when I learned about Atheism and famous Atheists like Hitchens and Dawkins, and found Atheist groups to attend.

Probably in my late 20s and I'm in early 60s now -- although I've never fully believed, even as a child. I went to different churches with friends and as time went by, I stumbled upon Eastern religion which made so much more sense. I haven't studied it extensively but its more about looking INward rather than praying to some "Santa Claus in the sky".