I don't consider myself as the abandoner, but rather the abandonee. My journey started with the death of my Dad when I was 8 years old. "God took him", was what they said to me. My Dad was my world, and this being in the sky that never did anything good for me, took one of the only people who ever had. I started reading the bible and I had an epiphany, when I realized that it was like listening to my 80 year old grandma with dementia. There were total inconsistencies, and nothing made much sense to my world. I was not forced to go to church after my Dad's death, but I was forced to watch TV preachers. If anything can turn a child into an agnostic, it's the 700 club.
I started reading other religious texts in college, and I learned that organized religions were pretty much the same... Love those that are the same as you, and hate those who are not. I'm not much of a hater, I just can't hate someone because they believe in something I do not. I would say I wasn't built that way, but since I don't believe I was built at all... Paganism gave me an out, but it was temporary because it insisted I believe in more than one god. It was difficult enough to think there was one sky daddy up there sending punishment to me, and taking those I loved away. I couldn't handle several no matter how nicely they were portrayed.
Two books influenced my current belief, Small Gods, by Terry Pratchett, and Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton. Both basically say people created gods, and the gods only way to remain viable is to have believers. When belief stops, gods die. In other words you all are serial killers and don't even know it.

I tried hard to find an idea of god that made sense to me, I never did.

My family is wrong. I was grateful that my mom was nicer to me once she joined a church but entirely resentful that she quit because of "the saving grace of Jesus" rather that because it was wrong to emotionally and physically abuse a little girl. I mean 'what would the people at church say'.

Turns out on of those lovely church ladies let her husband molest her little boy. Then committed suicide when she was refused access to her grandchildren.

The most significant turn for me was when I was in an upper level history class and we actually discussed the historical facts surrounding some of the biblical settings, like Egypt. Then there was the fact that the man known as Jesus Christ (some histories don't even acknowledge the certainty of his existence) had died 200 years before the Bible was written.

And of course, I have read the Bible, the whole thing. The contradictions alone make your head hurt, if you're paying attention. If that wasn't bad enough there are the references telling you to be sheep throughout the Bible. Do you know that sheep are the stupidest animals on the planet? They will literally stand in a ditch as the water rises and drown, if there is no sheep dog or shepherd present to herd them to higher ground. To me that says they are telling you to be dumb and easily led ... nah, I think I'll pass on that. Thanks.

I rejected religion at an early age. I think it was during the third trimester in my mothers womb. Might have been earlier.

It just didn’t make any sense to me. Even though for a few years as a child, I said grace and would go to church occasionally. I always had this thought in the back of my mind that it just wasn’t adding up. Reading the Bible just felt like reading a book full of tales that were supposed to have metaphors to the unrealistic stories with the impossible in reality miracles. The creation story in genesis is what really got me. God setting up two people to fail then punish them for exactly what he knew they’d do. Cain’s Wife coming out of nowhere from Nod when we are supposed to be all linked back to Adam and Eve. God regretting making mankind when he would have already known that. God testing Abraham in one of the most horrible and child abuse type of ways. What really did it for me is the creation of Hell. Who the hell in their right mind would even think to create such heinous place, especially when god would already know who and who wouldn’t be destined to go there.

Too many things in the bible did not make sense to me. I always babysat my younger brothers and sister and cousins and family friends children. I could not accept god killing the first born of the Egyptians who were innocent children. What kind of god shows his power by killing the most innocent and the most vulnerable.

Christian Leadership training and its inability to address moral issues and problems with Christianity.

Puberty hit. My hormones told me one thing and the Church another. Both were wildly inconsistent so I'm not sure why I went with my hormones but once I made that decision I never turned back.

I’ve always been lucky.

Why most people are kept from knowing the information taught in colleges and seminaries is beyond me. People need to know that their faith is based on myth. And I realize that some people would still hold onto faith, since it's based on emotions and not facts.

Being a minesterial student, I started learning about the origins of the Old Testament and Christianity. I didn't give up my faith after college, but I had my doubts. As I kept studying these origins on my own , I realized that Christianity was just a man made religion I finally concluded that there was no god. All religions are man made.

Time, learning and one pivotal moment (too long to print here) got me on another road. The coffin to religion was finally nailed shut by my relationship with a lifelong atheist from a Moslem country.

Out of 7 kids in my family, only one is still practicing and the rest are atheists.

Science and common sense. Also a resistance to dogmatic group think.

Going to church. Seriously, church was utterly boring for a 5-year-old like myself. I was so restless and bored, and I came to see church as an hour of torture that we had to endure in order to prove that we were good people. Also, there were all these images of Jesus with happy little children surrounding him, and I thought, "What is it that these kids see in him that I don't?" I mean, it's not like Jesus was handing out candy or playing ball with them. How boring. In that sense, I don't think I ever truly believed, because, quite frankly, I didn't care if God loved me or not. Then, as I got older, I made the following realizations: there is no tooth fairy, there is no Santa Claus, there is no Easter bunny, and, quite logically, there is no God. My family was fine with my disbelief in the first three. But that fourth one? Woah!! I was really confused as to why grown ups still latched on to God even though they could so easily let go of those other three. They all seemed like childhood stories to me.

no sense, nonsense, and hypocrisies

I questioned everything from a very young age. I recognized flaws in every story I was told. I grew to trust science over myth and continue to this day.

A good education!! Logic and reason took over in 2nd year of high school! Thank you mom!

There wasn't really much talk of religious things at home, just an expectation to conform. Methodists were pretty complacent when I grew up. Questions were confusing to them and simply ignored, so I had to learn things for myself.

Hmmm... i wish we would of had something religious in our family to put some fear in my dad to keep him in check... he was such an asshole to us kids. He didnt want kids .. he wanted brats to do anything he wanted. Im sorry to say this but us little guys needed a father not a boss.

GOD made me do it

My childhood religious training was harsh and punitive. I often felt afraid to go to sleep, fearing that "god" would kill me in my sleep and I would wake up in "hell". I was repeatedly told that I was a bad person. I felt guilty and ashamed of myself. I was often told that every illness and every crisis was a punishment from god. So, I became atheist.

It actually began as a quest for a better understanding of God. I read The Bible, cover to cover. Twice. Then I read a paraphrased version of same that my eldest sister had, called "The Way." I asked questions about God and Christianity.

The more I learned, the less sense it all made, and the less sense it all made, the more pointed my questions became. The answers to those questions were very unsatisfying, such as, "The Lord works in mysterious ways," or, "God is above logic." Sometimes my questions would be ignored, sometimes I was told, "We should not ask such things," and one apparently troublesome question got me in trouble, "But how do we know Mary was a virgin?"

During about the same time period, my late teens and early adulthood, my appreciation and understanding of science began to grow. As a boy I had always had an interest, but with an immature understanding of its significance. I had a chemistry set, a geology set, and a weather station. Meteorology, in particular, garnered a lot of interest. I expanded my weather station beyond its out-of-the-box capabilities and built an outdoor enclosure for most of the instruments.

Years later, pondering college, I strongly considered studying meteorology. Instead, I decided on a Physics major and Chemistry minor. It did not go well (a story for a different time,) so I redeclared for Computer Information Systems. By then, though, I was firmly atheist. I mention it because it was the growing interest in and increasing understanding of science that sealed the deal.

Religion and science are not polar opposites, as so many are led to believe. However, they directly oppose each other in one critical respect -- religion, Christianity in particular, discourages knowledge unless it is "knowledge of God and his will." Science encourages knowledge -- and, in fact, the scientific method prescribes a methodology for obtaining knowledge.

When I was told that "worldly knowledge is evil" is when the point was driven home. The Church does not like questions that challenge its teachings. Why? Because they either have no answer or because the only possible answer would produce a contradiction.

It is dishonest. The teachings are lies.

Science doesn't mind questions, but rather encourages them. Finding a contradiction is applauded because it is an opportunity to learn. If you want to know how something is known to science, you get an answer to your question, not someone telling you, "We should not ask such things." If you ask a question for which there is no good answer, you will get a response such as, "that is a good question," or, "no-one has figured that out just yet," or something similar. You won't get an answer like, "The Big Bang works in mysterious ways."

All of this led to my complete and utter rejection of all things religious. My family, of course, was mortified that I rejected God. To this day, someone will occasionally try to pull me back into the fold.

Yeah. Whatever. Good luck with that.

I was a voracious reading in gradeschool and was on a mythology kick.I saw the overlap of various themes especially the resurrection between cultures and realized Jesus wasnt a new thing

I was writing about this particular subject when you posted this question. How I became a Fundamentalist extremist in my childhood, its affects, and how I got out.