I think that most of us who started out as Christians felt uncomfortable with how Christian doctrine made us feel about ourselves. Then, coupled with that, we bean to see contradictions and impossibilities in the doctrine and in the Bible. That left us open tloreason and real evidence, leading us to total disbelief.

I let go in 82 or 83 after the first Rwanda massacre. I remember thinking how could any”just” god allow innocent babies to be bayonetted or drowned. I was on the edge before, but that was the end.

Nothing specific for me. I think I was born skeptic and never really bought in.

I just wanted to say though, that I am grateful for the Internet as it made connecting with other nonbelievers much easier.

Questions and doubts had accumulated for years, but it was studying Spanish in college that was a bit of a tipping point for me. I asked a friend, who was from El Salvador, and with whom I would practice speaking Spanish, how to interpret something from English to Spanish; she didn't know exactly how to interpret it. Neither did her niece who was also there.

This made me wonder about how we could trust that the Bible had been interpreted correctly. I mean, if two people, standing face to face, in modern times, couldn't work out a translation, how could we know that those who interpreted the ancient manuscripts got it right?

I had also learned about Lilith and this got me to wondering about other Jewish myths that were not in the Bilble as we knew it. A professor, who was a Catholic priest, had also made a comment about Catholics viewing the Bible as a "product of the Church."

Two books that I read early on were: "Who Wrote The Bible," by Richard Elliot Friedman and "101 Myths Of The Bible," by Gary Greenberg. They were absolute eyeopeners. They led me to realize that the Bible was a man-made book--a collection of often contradictory and competing stories.

Floodgates open, I began reading all kinds of book and in later years began watching/listening to You tube videos/lectures on the subject from various people-- some lifelong atheists, some ex-believers, some of them liberal Christians like Shelby Spong. I read or listened to: Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Robert Price, Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, and the list goes on.

It was when I began to learn science, with an open mind, that I realized that there is no evidence for a god of any kind, and there is no need to insert a god in order to explain how the universe works.

At the beginning of my journey, I prayed to the god I believed in--begging to to not let me get led astray.

Now, I have been an atheist for over fifteen years; and NOT ONCE during this time have I ever felt any kind of a "tug" from the god I once believed in trying to call me back.

Does this mean that it is impossible for any kind of creator god/consciousness to exist? No, it doesn't; but I still have not come across anything that makes me think that one does, or might.

Reading the bible as homework in Catholic school made me question religion. That shit just didn't make sense to me.

I am not sure if it was WHAT I read so much as WHO gave it to me... one christmas, my dad actually gifted me with two books, both of which seriously questioned christianity: "A New Christianity for a New World", by JS Spong (inspired me to read its predecessor "Why Christianity Must Change or Die" ) and "A Communion with God" by ND Walsh (about the ILLUSIONS one has to swallow to be christian).

Like you, I questioned as a child. (The god of the bible sure resembles a petulant, insecure toddler a bit too much to be a supreme being. Why didn't others see it?). I am VERY glad to find others who escaped that insanity.

Reading the Bible, and comparing its "prophecies" to history, is what freed me from religious scams. In religion, there are no ethics. They only teach people to listen and obey. Only when I became free from religion did I study ethics and apply it to my actions. I am much happier and more ethical as an atheist.

The most immoral book I have ever read. The Bible.

Yes, all the bullshit in the bible in every book from Genesis to Revelation.

I was fortunate in that religion was not forced on me when I was a child. When it was present (and how can it NOT be; we're steeped in the stuff in the US culture), it was inconsistent and in short bursts.

However, eventually, I did dabble in a variety of BS (belief systems) and, also eventually, found each of them wanting. I craved the community and sense of belonging above all. But when I got to the point I realized I could have a community and belong somewhere without the BS, I cheerfully surrendered my faith, trading it in for confidence and just kept studying, learning and improving my mind.

And what a wonderful journey it has been!

I don't think I ever bought into it at all. Just did what I was told when I was a child and when I become a teenager I made up my own mind. When my mother sent me to church on Sunday I simply went somewhere else.

I think I've always been too rational to be a believer even though I was raised in a religious family. I also realize I can be good without god ( I realize that term has already been taken). I'm pretty open about my Atheism but haven't mentioned it at work.

I was a non believer in my early teens. I later read Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian and I then felt even more comfortable with my beliefs. Coming out?? I never went around announcing to everyone that I was an atheist, but when or if it came up I was honest about it. Some push back once and a while, but nothing bad No family members turned against me and I never felt my career was ever in jeopardy.
I was told by some acquaintances I was going to hell, but no one close to me.

The Age of Reason as a boy caused me to ask, shall I say VERY pointed questions in Sunday School. My life circumstance ushered more pointed questions, enough so that at 10 the reverend came to my home and told my mother no more sunday school for me, I could attend adult services if I wanted, but too many pointed questions meant I was a seeker and would therefore find, but all such questions were to be directed to the Rev himself.

I very much believed in a god, an amorphous all powerful something, I had been raised with this belief, but I did not believe men had a real clue, at least not that one . . .which led to lots of reading and study and travel (there was no internet), and eventually to my asking myself why I assumed the God notion to begin with?

I had no good answer for that.

At this same juncture I had an head injury from a fall resulting in a TBI. The resultant neurological experiences I went through made me question all my preconceptions about life, the universe and everything" My experience was surreal, I awoke on a fine spring morning when the previous day had been late fall. Like walking into a salvador Dali landscape "this is not possible", only to be informed I had had a mild edema, during which I was up and walking and talking and not recalling anything, for a couple months. Not worth the infection risk of drilling in those days, better to wait and see unless it is critical.

This made me rethink everything. If "I" was up and walking and talking for a couple months, with no recollection at all of it, is that really me, or some other me"?
What am "I" really?

So I, like most of us unfortunate enough to have been raised by the indoctrinated, evolved over twenty years, from a Puritan (congregationalist, they re-branded in the great awakening), to a Deist, to an Agnostic Deist, to an Agnostic Atheist, to an Ignostic
Where I stopped a quarter of a century plus ago.

I hope you enjoy it here as I do.

I've told the story a few times here how I was around 6 or 7 years old sitting in church one Sunday, as my mom always had us there, and the preacher announces only people have souls, and only the soul goes to heaven so no plants or other animals would be there with us. I then thought how terrible it will be without my dog, Penny. That made me angry at God for not letting our pets go to heaven with us. It was all down hill from then on. Throughout grade school and college, I really didn't think about it much, but by the time I was in my mid 20s, I started thinking about it again, and in a few months I figured if there was a God that started everything, it (S/He) certainly didn't have anything to do with us here on this planet we're on. And the only other option was the big bang theory, and there was no God at all.. Didn't have to do any reading about it really. I did talk to people I respected about it, and asked them questions that helped me realize I was not believing what the preachers were telling me. Funny how we have all evolved to this point a little differently.

I was a kid. The only people I felt I could use as a sounding board were my priests and my Dad. Sunday school teachers? Please. That would have just caused my parents strife. I do wish my arguments to my Dad had contained a little more grace. So it goes. Found out that he questioned his priests on the regular later in my life. Father Cook referenced it at his funeral. I had never heard that at a catholic funeral before. Get em Dad. As far as I know he died a believer. I cannot square this but he was certainly a good man. What I think helped me was about when I was already convinced I saw/heard things like George Carlin's "class clown", XTC's "dear god" and Rush's "Freewill", and more. It was incredibly helpful to know I was not alone. What really did it tho was the nicene creed. Sometimes poor Dad got a quiet, "No I don't" right there in church as the din of that prayer faded. Wish I'd refrained for his sake. I would've ended up here regardless of grace to him.

Stopped going to church at 14 and kind of drifted into non belief in my early 20s.

There is NO reason to "come out" as anything, even especially at a job! Why would you even think about it? SO not appropriate

Welcome to the asylum. Enjoy your stay.

I was born an atheist. Reading the bible convinced me I was 100% correct about that.
Just be true to yourself. You don't have to "come out" if you don't want to.

A College philosophy teacher showed me a paragraph in Thomas Paine's Age Of Reason. It was about the inane logic of a God inventing original sin and then killing Thou's son to release us of the sin Thou created. I read the whole book in a weekend and, when done, I was no longer a Christian. I was a Deist, then moved into Taoism, and now Zen. Tao and Zen are life practices, as well as a great Facebook page, so I don't think of them as religion.

Not sure there was any one thing I read or heard that made me realize I was atheist, but just a combination of many things since childhood.

I do remember, when the internet was new, how delighted I was to find discussion forums for people like me, kind of secretly atheist, and needed to see others and hear their stories to embolden me to stand up for myself when feeling forced to "worship" in inappropriate settings.

I especially enjoyed the lists of famous people who were well thought of by the average person, but just also happened to be atheist, agnostic, freethinkers, or what have you. I don't mean the militant and outspoken ones, but just highly respected people of the past and present, showing me I was in good company!

Welcome to this site, where you will find many like-minded folks and support when you feel smothered by religion, and encouragement if you need to stand up for your rights not to believe. We're here for you!

That I was agnostic really came to be obvious the summer in high school when my parents sent me to church summer camp. At the end of the week everyone was "invited" to chapel for the (unstated) purpose to accept Jesus as their savior , etc, etc. and I just stayed outside by myself. But funny enough, I did not feel alone as i was there with the trees. As a teen, I didn't have a way to express what I felt, but knew it was right for me. Never looked back.

I was born this way and never had a reason to change