Actually something good happened I just didn't know it at the time. My mother was a fundy in the Nazarene church but she always allowed me to question everything. Big mistake, I left god and the church at 18 and never looked back. I am 75.

Reading the Old Testament..so much rape, stoning ,pillage, human sacrifing, and general smiteing that it struck me as very strange as a child...and as an adult..so full of contradictions and hypocrisy...all seemingly encouraged and sometimes perpetrated by God or who ever he happened to be directing his will at the time. Just dreadful nonsense....

On the flip - nothing ever happened to turn me to religion.
Never had it or saw any reason to.

Yes, something did happen when I was young that turned me against : the frontal lobes of my brain became fully developed! But not to make light of your question ( which is a good one), there seems to be a pervasive message coming from many in the religious community that trauma, damage, or at least some sort of confusion took place somewhere along the line that made people "turn their back on God." It's that patronizinly beatific smile you receive when being spoken to by someone who clearly believes you are misguided and in need of saving. I'm sorry about the real trauma you experienced and even more sorry that the messages you received from some were that you were clearly broken and in need of fixing as a result of that trauma, which must only have added to your sense of isolation. But kudos to you for developing your critical thinking skills and forging a rational path to peace of mind for yourself!

No.

Never believed so didn't have to have anything bad happen. But always knew that good without god is the best way to be.

Yes I was introduced to God and that ruined my free will so I let god go.

Over religious people who tried to talk “God” into me 24/7. Going to church with my grandparents. My over religious friends. My athiest family/friends.

No and I thought the adults in my life were stupid for believing in fairy tales.

No. something good happened. i discovered reality

It’s hard to say. For me it’s a combination of my childhood experiences, my personality, and the family situation I grew up in. I can look at all those things and see ways in which each one of them influenced my decision to leave organized religion behind.

Nope.

No

Yes.

I was born a catholic and we had some not so nice nuns and a very arrogant bishop where I came from. Not that I had to suffer from it. For me common sense tells one that there cannot be a god as it says in the bible.

Well, many things, good & bad happened to me as a child, but none of it had anything to do with my atheism. I loved Science Fiction & Fantasy (still do), but I early on realized the difference between fiction & fact, or at least reality! Tho I didn't become active for years I just stopped believing the "story". It made no sense to me. The actions of the nuns & priests in Catholic school didn't help bolster their claims, either, but that is not what led to my unbelief. I just could not reconcile the narrative with what I observed, & the more I observed & the more I learned, about anything, the more this was so.

yes, being sent to Sunday fucking school when I didn't like the normal school that much.

Honestly I looked for god didn't find either him or anything else so I looked harder and saw the truth gave up hope embraced nihilism

Somebody tried to convince me about a belief system that was the dumbest thing I ever heard of.

my father disgusted me on so many levels. he was a phoney, crazy, religious person. enough said.

Bad things did not make me an atheist. However, bad things encouraged my journey toward being an anti-theist

There wasn't any one particular experience. More like a long procession of people behaving in a decidedly un-Christian manner, such as when I worked for a bishop who was verbally abusive and threatened me with things like, "I WILL make you cry." I tend to be absurdly loyal so I blamed myself for not being good enough well into my twenties. And a good part of my thirties. Sometimes I battle it still.

I wrote you a book and deleted it. Yes i didnt believe in god as a child. Personal reasons.

David, your comments about the reaction to that Pharisee's judgment of you for having been abused makes me angry on your behalf. It is such a cheap shot. Many many children are abused. Most remain religious, so his assumption explains nothing. If you had told him "no" to his question, he would have fished for another experience to blithely explain your coming to sanity...or what he surely considered your loss of holy Truth, with a capital "T." Parents divorcing, death of a family member, being bullied, struggle academically, family financial hardship, and on and on. Nearly everyone has gone through something. And ass-wipes like this guy would grab at any of those excuses just to dismiss the possibility that, just maybe, you came to a logical conclusion based on principled reasoning. It is quite obnoxious on that guy's part.

My husband did. He was 8, 9ish I think? He was very studious and religious, haing read the entire bible twice over by that time. His church caught on fire and he couldn't reconcile how a good, just God would just let that happen. It all went downhill from there...