I don't count the time that I believed in the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause... because, as soon as I was old enough to figure it out I realized it was bull$h¡+.

I don't go around telling people I am a recovering from hyper-materialism mixed with touches of European mythology.

My family was sort of religious and I went to church some as a child. I got more into Christianity in college and in my 20's. I went to a protestant-affiliated college and was active in religious organizations. In grad school I got invoved in a charismatic group but I was kicked out because I believed in evolution. When I married and had kids, my husband and I were still attending church but we found it hard to find one that fit. We tried a Unitarian church for awhile but it tried to be everything to everyone - Christian,Jewish, pagan,wiccan etc. so it didn't feel right either. I began to have more doubt, as did my husband, but one of our children started going to a church that her friends went to. We tried going there because she wanted us to, even though it was conservative. The last straw for me came the Sunday after 9/11. The minister said in his sermon that there were a lot of people in hell that had died in the attack because they weren't "saved". That pushed me over the atheist edge.

When I was young I went to every church in my town. I had to check them all out, or I had friends that went there. I tried Sunday school, I prayed, I believed the bible stories... Then I lived with an ex nun and an ex priest and their three children. I was 16 at the time and billeted with them as I was from out of town and moved there to train as a competitive athlete. I was also starting to deal with depression and the fear of being gay... They taught me that being gay was a sickness... They also wanted me to become Catholic because I had never been baptised. I lived with them for two years, and those two years scarred me for life. I contacted one of the children later in life to ask if her parents still thought that homosexualaity was a sickness. She told me that their thoughts were slowly evolving with the times and wished me well... I never really thought much about religion for many years after that. I travelled around the world and saw many religions being practiced. I saw opulent churches, synagogues and temples, next door to poverty and begging. In my 30's I officially came out as an athiest. It all seems so ridiculous to me now. I do love the art and architecture of religion but that is all.

I never really thought about it much until I was an adult. My parents were married in the Catholic church and I was baptized,but that was the extent of religion in my upbringing. The only time we went into a church together were for weddings and funerals, and we never talked about religion. I really never cared if there were or weren't a god, honestly.

I never believed, even in the indoctrination camps of my childhood.

I was indoctrinated by my parent's insistance into Reform Judaism. Forced to go to 10 miserable years of Sunday School I managed to avoid Hebrew School which I later regretted. I was ostracized by my fellow classmates and not invited to any of their Bar/Bat Mitzvahs, a social event. I was one of three kids who got up and denounced god at our confirmation from Sunday School, a big deal to our families. Angry and humiliated my parents punished me by shipping me on a Bible Study tour for the summer.

As a child I didn't know any better. Eventually unanswered prayers and asking simple questions lead me to atheism. It stopped making sense and just started to really seem foolish.

I don't see the need to shy away from that fact. It's because of my religious upbringing that I have the knowledge of religion that I have. It's because of this knowledge that I fell from religion. It's because of this knowledge that I remain atheist.

I don't think I ever truly believed in a god. I was always skeptical and questioned everything at church.

Even as a child, being raised in the catholic church, before I even heard the word 'atheist' or knew what it meant, I knew it (religion) was all bullshit.
When I finally knew what atheism meant, I was so relieved and embraced it immediately.
Even if I couldn't be "out" about it early on, I knew I didn't believe.

My parents tried, I remember that much. But I believe I was pretty open about calling BS before I even stopped the whole Santa thing. That’s my earliest religious based memory of arguing.
Christian neighbor kid who was a few years older than I was told me there was no Santa.
So I told him the was no Jesus.
He cried. I laughed. I got grounded. He went to church more. Now he’s a pastor and we’re friends again. Haha.