I asked the counselor at a bible camp “how do we know there is god”, when I was 8. The response was “ you just know”
I found that woefully inadequate and my doubt only grew from there. Left the church at 13 and became agnostic, evolved to atheist in early 20’s.

When I was a child there was short period of time when I asked everyone I could why they believed in God and none of the answers ever made any sense and were self-evidently false.

I was in grade 3 and came home for lunch. My father was home and I asked him "what religion are we" Mrs. Smith asked everyone what religion we are. Dad answered "tell Mrs. Smith we aren't superstitious". I did and she wasn't happy. My Mother wasn't all that happy either. My Father thought it all very funny. I did too 10 years later. I do remember my teacher being angry with me a lot. Sometimes for no reason. I had realized about Santa Claus so this wasn't a big jump. My mother went to church for the community and the good work they did helping those with less. She never fussed about Christian values or rules and lived by the "golden rule" do unto others.

I don't think anything specifically happened, per se. I just had too many questions that couldn't be answered except with blind faith. No thank you.

All I know is I was like 12 sitting in bible school learning about the great fall and suddenly I was like "um I don't actually believe in this" and got up and left and never went back.

The harassment, abuse, assaults, and hatred I got for it only further cemented my stance.

An idiot preacher told me that after I was saved my life and the lives of those around me would all change for the better. I learned very quickly that it would not fix my Dad's alcoholism, make my grandfather well, stop kids from teasing me about being the bootleggers daughter and a myriad list of other things. Thanks to the Carnegie Public Library I stopped reading dog and horse stories and started investigating other solutions and religions. I eventually realized I had no control over fixing anything but me.

Living in utah and watching the hypocrisy.

When I was 13, Michigan had a long, hard winter. Drifting snow covered the first floor of the house on the lake side.

Bored and restless, my 10 year-old brother and I decided to read the World Encyclopedias. Reading about rational philosophers Descartes and Spinoza fired my mind.

I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men.

At age 13, I became an atheist. I chose rational thought over magical beliefs.

Also hypocrisy. I was appalled by Christians who removed their Sunday manners with their Sunday clothes.

Got borned

I read the bible.

I found out there was no Santa Claus.

It was my priest actually in our one on one cathesism classes. I had many many questions about religion and the Bible.

I stumped him on the last one, about Cain, what happened after he got kicked out of the Garden and where did the people come from?

He said Cain found the Nubians. He went on to say, "that's where faith comes into play." I was chastised for my eye roll.

I left the church unconfirmed. That was in 1965, when I was 15.

I'm not sure I ever did.

i just stopped one day to reconsider everything i believed in because i found out that something my folks had always told me turned out not to be true (they hadn't lied; they were just wrong). god went out the window pretty fast. it wasn't traumatic or anything.

g

Reading religious texts.

Freshman year in college, philosophy 101, a book on the existence of god

Reaching the age of reason.

I was raised in Christian school and actually read the Bible, devoted myself to studying and understanding it and listened intently for god to speak to me and all I ever got was the ringing silence of a head that’s trying too hard. Then I continued learning the taboo knowledge of how and why the Bible was written, who revised n decided what made it in etc. I explored eastern religious cosmology, learned a lot about myself through psychedelics, yoga, and music, and discovered a lot of destructive thought patterns implanted at an early age by religious teachers.

It was only when I realized that god didn’t cast us from paradise, that we punish ourselves and each other by teaching this abusive shit and accepting shame for being human, that I finally experienced what the Bible calls “the peace that passeth understanding.” It wasn’t anything that happened to me to turn me atheist; I hadn’t been allowed to be me before, and it just so happens “me” is an atheist.

I decided to transition from male to female and found all believers hostile to that.

It's hard to pinpoint an exact time where I was like "oh shit i'm an atheist wheres my infant I need breakfast also hail satan"

But I always have the same thought when I think about becoming an atheist.

hits joint

So, you know like ... that part in Revelation, where like, there's fuckin' ... a dragon. Then there's this two sentence battle between the angels and the dragon and some other angels. Except the dragon has seven heads and is actually fuckin' Satan haha what a twist God. Anyway, in the middle of all this there's a woman who has like a baby and fuck if I know what happened to the baby but she goes out to the woods to live for exactly 1,260 days for some reason. I don't know why the g-o-single-d picked that number but it appears too specific not to be significant.

So devildragon with 10 horns loses and decides he can't win and he's like "fuck this man I'm gonna kill that bitch" Well I'm paraphrasing.

Anyway, god's like "nah you really ain't" and all of a sudden the woman has great eagle wings so she can fly to the forest for her 1,260 days. But after this, for some reason, even though this chick could clearly fly at this point. Satanserpentdragon unleashes a goddamn river from his mouth right. Like, literally enough water to be a river it's very descriptive. Anyway, he seems to think this is a good plan. And apparently, even though this chick can fly god felt the need to intervene in that because the earth opens up and swallows all that water like this weird porn video I saw once but that's not important.

So the dragon got pissed and declared war on the woman and all her offspring, who are apparently the ones who are keeping god's commands i don't know.

And it only gets crazier from there.

Point is, if I want shitty fantasy novels I can read George R.R. Martin.

Never really did believe, never was in a religion. Slowly over a long period I lost all interest in the thought that I could be missing something, decided I must be agnostic but became more hardline over time.

I read the bible cover to cover while awake.

I've always been one. The books I read when I was little about dinosaurs and nature just made a lot more sense than the concept of a magic wizard in the sky.

My friend had told me about how the story of Hercules mirrors the story of Jesus in many ways, yet predates it by 500 years. That got the ball rolling. Once that veil was lifted, I started reading and researching what other stories were lifted. I also went through and actually read the entire old testament..not just the Sunday school stories.

Live birth pretty well covers it.