My doubt, born of the rational implausibility of a literal god, didn't succumb to confident unbelief until I accumulated some scientific knowledge about why humans naturally tend to believe such things. It's not that they are supported by any evidence. It looks to me that we are evolved to believe. The often heard atheist's refrain that we are born atheist and indoctrinated by evil people into religion isn't particularly well supported by science. Religious belief enhances social cohesion and individual survival, reproduction, and successful child rearing. We are born believers, and educate ourselves out of it... or not.

When we finish destroying our obsolete religions, we will replace them with functional belief systems that are palatable (whether true or not) to an educated population, or our species will probably perish. Most likely the latter. I'm not being pessimistic - that's just how it looks to me, considering the evidence. There's always the chance a few dozen sturdy souls will survive the likely coming population crash, and restart the saga. I hope so. I like us.

I went to my preacher when I was 11 with serious questions that I needed answered. He kicked me out of church. So, I found the answers on my own and realized it was all made up. Over the years with more and more evidence I figured out every religion was man-made.

I, like you, had doubts about things. I was raised strict Southern Baptist. I had even grappled with becoming a preacher at one time. I found myself under the enormous weight of the judgement of virtually every congregation I’d experienced. What first seemed a “blessing” because my dad was making a conscious effort to stop being abusive toward mom and us kids, soon became another tool of abuse and oppression. After I started back to college in 2006, I found science. I found answers that through my searching for answers and guidance in the Bible, (several translations, a concordance, Bible dictionary, as well as other reference books), praying profusely, and waiting to hear the “still calm voice of the lord,” went unanswered. After finding nothing but confounds, and contradictions, I ultimately decided it can’t all be true. Neil deGrasse Tyson explained it so well when he said what he did in the following clip:

Lao tsu said " Those who know don't say and those who say don't know." Alan Watts coined the phrase " the wisdom of insecurity". There may never be a condition of certainty for people of open mind in search of truth. But the awareness of and the rejection of the pervayors of falsehood is prob a by not a bad way to begin. If one takes a block of wood and a carving knife and proceeds to remove all that is not a duck, soon they will have carved a duck.

You may already be an unbeliever, but admitting it can be hard after a lifetime of indoctrination. I fully deconverted at the age of nineteen after a struggle of approximately three years. The struggle--that period of doubt--was painful, agonizing, even. I personally feel there is a fine line between doubt and unbelief, and that maybe the latter is just the moment you find the courage to acknowledge the former. The moment I finally admitted I no longer believed brought an enormous transition to relief. I was finally able to be myself.

I figured it out over many years, an evolution of sorts. The facts, science, and common sense outweighed the fantasies of the Bible.

I just heard on NPR this morning about the unfolding scandal of Jesuit pedophilia especially in the NW and Alaska. These clergy had a captive audience and I heard that some priests left the church because of what they witnessed from their fellow clergy. Sometime it goes beyond just doubts and one pivotal even can trigger an avalanche of introspection and questions. That was the case with me.

Doubt is like dipping your toes in a river: you sense a current while otherwise you enjoy the stability on land. The more you sink into the river (the more you doubt), the more you understand that terra firma is only one state of mobility (as in immobile, unchanging, stubborn and controlling) but it remains disorienting. Once you are immersed enough that the current carries you, you become an unbeliever yet still disoriented. You will start to understanding that nothing is absolute, everything is connected and you can navigate the current while swimming. As you become comfortable at swimming, you will see more clearly how immobility is foreign, primitive and immoral. The river is cleansing knowledge. There are people that are forbidden to swim, have irrational fears of the river or simply deny it exist (religion). From the swimmer's perspective, they pity the cloistered minds of the immobile bodies on shore.
Wow that was good coffee this morning!!

I think doubt becomes unbelief when you stop justifying the open endedness of your doubt and interpretting it to mean it's a 50/50 shot. Just because nothing outside our tangible life can be proven either way doesn't mean god is a 50/50 proposition. If you're inherently skeptical in your doubt instead of inherently apologetic for the possibility of what you're doubting that's another good sign.

For a lot of people the transition will be incremental and hard to dileneate. I'd place a major milestone at the point when you stop being afraid of death or lending any credence to a possibility of hell, and when you realize that shame and entitlement is the cycle of misery we subject each other to, not arbitrary sin but the sin of denying who you are and accepting guilt from religious supposition. For me the latter happened through psychedelics and yoga. But at that time I would have called myself spiritual not religious. I still study and practice taoism and buddhism.

The moment when I fully lost any hesitation to say "fuck your god Im an atheist" happened at a critical moment when I realized I had already been to hell and any god that would put me through this and then threaten to send me back if I don't kiss his ass for it can suck my left nut. That even if the god of the bible came down and proved himself to us all he'd have to have a hell of a handicap and set of excuses before I could ever forgive him. I realized I had two choices, to either accept that god hates me and hate him back, or to let go of it all and accept that people do these things to themselves and each other. I wish I could say I made the transition solely on cold detached logic but I actually had to get quite angry at the notion of god before I was able to completely let go and call myself an atheist without fear.

Ideally when you've completely let go of the false shame laid on you by religion you'll come full circle and experience the "peace that passeth understanding" that you pretended to understand as a believer. Ironically it's that point when you truly lose your worry about tomorrow, where you consider the sparrow and the lilly of the field and are not afraid for the future. So many of the true and wise words of the bible can't reveal themselves as authentic if you chain your mind to its dogma.

My observation of church members who did bad things, yet that book of theirs said you would know them by their fruits, and others who were fellow members didn't have a problem with it because of the "god" made us this way and all we have to do is repent. I also applied that part of my college psychology class thing that said tribal instinct can override rational thought. I then quickly evolved from Unitarian, deist,to agnostic.

As you think over the contradictions, you begin to see the hypocrisy, you get nauseated.

I think the tipping point comes differently for everyone. Doubt in itself may not constitute disbelief, but it does mean you're thinking and questioning things you likely accepted on faith before. You seem to be a rather intelligent individual. Keep asking the questions you seek answers to and don't hesitate to trust your own conclusions.

The threshold is wherever you determine it to be. I didn't come from a religious family and went about my own quest for a religion and found them all wanting. The Jehovahs were just bitter and joyless, reveling in their self-imposed isolation; the Mormons were/are misogynists, looking to setup a men's club in the west. I read about why bad things happen to good people, religion as a tool for dominating populations, the god part of the brain, the book of Judas, and the history of Jesus, and decided I'd had enough. I found plenty of support for the notion that religion represents ruination, but nothing to support the existence of any particular god. I'm comfortable enough to discuss my convictions with religious people without worrying about either of us dissuading the other from their chosen path.

Well I haven't read all the Comments, but as I'm sure you are aware, you are to love God with all your heart, soul and mind. To not be 100% committed is to be an infidel. The moment you question is the moment you've sinned. And this sin, as it is prescribed in the commandments is worthy of only being comdemned. Therefore, you're already halfway out the door, do what you know is right and live for others for its own sake.

When one realizes that one's prior beliefs simply do not make sense.

For me, I can identify the exact moment when I just couldn't believe in God anymore. It could maybe be more subtle for others but for me it was a time when I finally admitted to myself that things didn't make sense and that my beliefs in God couldn't possibly be valid. It was also the moment things turned around in my life and things have gotten better since.

Although raised under a very religious umbrella, I never believed that any one religion had a monopoly on the truth. Therefore I have never had "faith" in a religion. When you follow a doctrine - whether a religious one or nonreligious, you are making a choice. It has nothing to do with what you believe. Belief is based on experience. I believe that fire is hot because when I touch it - it burns. There is no "unbelief". There is lack of experience. If I never touch fire then I haven't experienced that it is hot. That is not "unbelief." Someone can tell me that fire is hot and I can choose to doubt them or I can have faith in what they are saying. (This is totally the way I think about things and may not apply to everyone.) But to me - I don't have faith and I don't choose to follow any religion based on my lack of experience with a god (goddess). Because I haven't had the experience, I doubt it to be true. It doesn't mean I know it it isn't true. I haven't experienced it. I don't believe it. I doubt it is true. But I don't know it isn't true - so therefore I do not "disbelieve".

I came to my atheism in my mid twenties. It feels almost like an accident when I think back on it.
I grew up more or less a believer, sort of in the same way that one believes in the Golden Gate Bridge having never been to San Fransisco. That is to say, I believed because it was what I was told and I didn't really care enough to question it. It was over the course of several years of slow erosion, only after which did I wake up one morning and say to myself "Holy shit! I don't believe in God." (No pun intended there).

I am a skeptic in most things,it must be proven to me,before I will accept the idea,thought,or physical form.

Religions do not allow for doubt. The fact you doubt means you are thinking for yourself. Thinking is good ?. But why would WE tell you how to think? Find your own path my brother ?

I understand your question because I've had many friends go through the same questioning,/ doubt, and seeking answers.
For me it was different because I was never a believer. I was lucky enough to have not been raised in a religious household.

But rather than attack or belittle those whose that do believe, or whom of which are on the fence 'so to speak'. I will offer what I have gone through as a non believer, or offer some encouragment of what they might be questioning.
I honestly believe that seeds are a better offer than blatent finger pointing.

So, I will offer this.
I will gladly listen to what you have to say, or questions you might ask, if you will do the same to what my thoughts/experiences are.

even if you don't. I hope you find a sort of 'peace' in what ever you decide.

I figured out religion was BS when I was in early grade school. The church was making assertions that did not agree with reality. The wise men that saw a star rising was the final straw. Parallax error for a star located light years away makes this assertion nonsensical. Think I was in forth grade when I figured that out. I figured the entire church thing was a mind game adults used to try to scare kids into doing what the adults wanted. I figured no adult could actually believe in this nonsense: it was a game like Santa Clause. It wasn't until many years later I realized many children did not grow up and as old people still believed in their invisible supernatural (not real) sky daddy.

Proof,from many sources,helps,but the final choice is yours....