I don't know how many former clergyman are in this group, but I proudly consider myself to be one after 20 years at the altar as a priest in the Anglican Church. It was a gradual process for me, but the one seminal event in my life happened when my wife and I lived in Hyderabad, India for 4 years. While we were there, I thought it would be a perfect time to study all sorts of religions besides my own.

In 2012, I traveled alone to the eastern coast of India to a town called Puri...and a 1,200 year old Hindu festival known as the Jagganatha Rath Yatra. I must say that most Americans are not used to seeing 1.3 million people crowding onto one main street in a small town. In India, or anywhere else!

While I was there, I was surrounded by professional Indians, doctors, lawyers, professors, librarians, you name it. And there they were, worshiping a God that I knew nothing about. They were sincere. They were devout. They were worshipful. And yet the nagging, still small voice in my head kept saying, Hey! You are a priest! Shouldn't you be telling all these people that they're going to hell because they don't worship Jesus? I answered and said to myself, Yeah. Right. That sounds kind of ridiculous doesn't it? And that was the whole point.

I began to question whether or not my mythology was any better than Hindu mythology. Turns out, it's all mythology. All storybook stuff. Day by day after that I began to make my way clear to not practicing as a Anglican clergyman anymore. I am now retired, and living happily as an atheist. I have a lot more free time on Sunday, I'll tell you that!

George Carlin, he allowed me to laugh at something which was always held in high regards. Once you can laugh at authority though, questioning it soon follows.

The day I lost all faith was in a dream. I was a teenager being chased by a monster. Suddenly something clicked in me. I stopped, turned, and roared back at the monster. It ran from me then. I woke, and began laughing. From that day I never felt fear again. Which incidentally is what religion relies on. So I no longer believed in religion, or as I call it, fantasy, again.

The Mormon church has all its teen members read the bible over a period of two years, old testament one year and new testament the next year. It is supposed to help one's faith. Ironically fo rme, readign the bible just made me conviced it was only a bunch of made up stories. Of course I always had doubts.

I think for a person who has doubts, readign the bible will only confirm and enlarge the doubts. However a person who believes it to tbe true without having read it, will not be bothered by wha they read so much when (or rather if) they do ever read it.

I came to my senses after recovering from a suicide attempt 8 years ago and going off my psych meds. My mystical bent completely evaporated.

I enjoyed that book!

Ticks.

I always thought of religion and going to church as a chore. When I gained a choice on whether or not to spend my Sunday singing songs I don’t like or playing video games the choice was clear to me. After getting a little older, I considered going back to try learning faith again, but the feeling to learn about a faith that has a very judgmental core really didn’t appeal to me. Nothing really clicked with me and I let go of it, in a similar way that Bill Burr described his method of quitting. That being said, I think faith is good for some people. I don’t mind hearing someone’s excitement nor do I mind seeing the positive inspirations that religion can give.

My "run away from jesus" moment was when my 9 year old autistic brother was diagnosed with cancer. Flash forward 5 years later all is well except a kidney MIA. As a freshman in highschool I couldn't understand why a "loving" god would give a child cancer, troubled me for years and pushed me to question things. The deciding factor was reading the bible, nothing made any sense, if that was supposed to be god's word he's a homocidal maniac.

The book that turned me against Christianity, or any other organized religion, was by Thomas Paine. I finished Age Of Reason on a friend’s patio because my younger brother was threatening my life at home. When I closed the book I sighed and was done with that question. At the time I was a baptized Mormon of 4 months. Eventually, and by threat of being mean to any visiting Missionary, I got out of the LDS Church. I’ve never looked back but settled on Zen and become a Dudeist Priest.

Cosmos. I read the book the same time the series was on PBS, I was 14

I try not to let my mind get sealed. Once I do that - I can't learn anything new.

I was born a skeptic.

I 'drifted' into atheism fairly early from a Catholic upbringing. I went through a "new Age" phase, still somewhat searching. I was always interested in scientific discoveries & science-fiction, so leaned to a more rational outlook even during my teen "woo" years, which were also filled with psychedelics, so there's that!
I ended up a non-believer, with some philosophy under my belt, but it was sorta just there, something I would usually state as just "I don't believe the stories". After reading Dawkins, Hirchens & Harris, & then Dennett, & now many others, my atheism came into focus. I am a proud & active atheist, with much more grounding & a solidification of what was before very inchohate.
Those books weren't necessary to my unbelief, but they did aid greatly to understand why I didn't & to realize I wasn't alone!

The book God is not great... How religion poisons everything... Christopher Hitchens... Sealed the deal for me... raised luthran... NEVER accepted it... not to mention (when I was young) I was scared shitless of Hell...

A well-written book may help some to find heir voices on what about religion bothers them. I did not need a book. Simply experiences merged with reasoned analysis to provide a sound basis for rejecting religion.

When I started school I was given a set of encyclopedia and a dictionary.
That, along with life itself, solidified my nonbelief.

Growing up and being a very socially awkward kid.and taking a little longer to read than most kids. When I finally learned I couldn’t stop. I started picking up books way beyond my years. And I had an obsession with the Middle Ages. Knight in shining armor ideaology. But the books I read were real. Showing the truth of the church and what they were actually like. And throughout the years always studying and questioning I started seeing inconsistencies everywhere with the idea of a single god. And even the people that choose that idealism. That life was only about the morals you chose. Not trying to be moral for yourself but for a unknown life after death led to more immoral decisions than if you only believed in being kind because it is the right thing.
So when I was about 13 I made the decision that I will live as moral as I can. But I will not do it to the immoral code of Christianity. And I will spend the rest of my life trying to figure out what is truly right. But I will be the “knight” standing against the tide of major religions and their evil for those who choose smaller ideals.

I have not heard of that book.

A deceit, not in my own religion, but by a Mormon, that was the final nail in the coffin. However, for my entire life I never really believed, early on it was, if they teach kids there is a Santa Claus isn't that the same as teaching there is a Jesus... or a Moses,,, or Joseph Smith.

For me it was a gradual thing. I left Christianity a long time ago (50 years), but still believed in God, though not a personal god. I messed around for a long time with various new age type things, then fell in more with Zen and Taoism, which don't refer to god, but I still believed. But then gradually, through much reading of philosophy and science, I quit believing.

Few have heard of Charles Templeton.... he was a right wing theist and suddenly he wrote the book... was a big surprise to to us here in Canada... A long time ago...

For me it was in 4th grade. I could not articulate what happened to me then, but I remember being shocked and stunned when told by our parish priest during a class disucssion on avocations, that only men could be priests but that girls can grow up to be nuns as brides of Christ if they wanted to. I didn't want to. Being seen by my religion as "less than" made me confront every single "god is all loving" concept I was ever told since birth. It showed me that religion was created by men for men. Ideas and (MY) beliefs came forth as I grew and allowed me to evaluate my relationship with a deity. I have great faith in many things, but I have no faith in religion whose essential need is to identify and diminish my place in this world.

Religion is a business and I am not for sale.

My deconversion was a long and slow one. I tried, really tried to believe but now that I think about it I always had doubts. I wanted to believe because all of my family and friends believed so it must be true, right?
I thought the problem was with me. That I just didn't have enough faith. Now that I reflect back I can see what the problem was.
I have always been logical and pragmatic. Studied engineering and architecture. I realise architecture is about imagining and creativity but I was( am) a builder first. I studied E and A to better myself at building.
So the whole god thing always had to sit by itself outside of the real world that I worked and lived in on A daily basis.
Finally, the evidence won out and I abandoned my belief. Lost family and friends over it but that is what Jesus said would happen. Right?
Yep. Exactly.

Like someone else said, I think I was born skeptic. I was raised in a Christian home, we went to a Methodist church. But from the time I was really young it never made any sense to me. It wasn't until I was a teenager that I learned what agnostic meant though, and atheist. I was an adult before I became really truly comfortable in myself and my beliefs though.