When and why did you realise you were an Atheist?

At the age of seven, when I discovered that my parents had been telling lies about Santa Claus. Having realised that not everything that my mother told me was true, I looked at everything else she had told me, and started reading about the origins of religion and christianity.

After I had finished reading The Golden Bough I realised that I was an atheist. I started to ask my Sunday School teacher some hard questions, and when I found out how ignorant she actually was about the historical origins of christianity, she became an atheist herself, and I was referred to the vicar of our church. After he was unable to counter ANY of my arguments with anything except biblical quotes, I told him it was not possible for me to believe in any god or gods. I was then removed from Sunday School at the vicar's request.

I never really bought religion. I was probably younger then 10 when I first informed my parents I didn't think there was a god, and told them why. I think they were a touch surprised, but semi-proud I'd come to such a decision at that age and was able to construct an argument for it (however childish it may have been).

I don't think you can formulate a persuasive argument with a theist. Belief or lack of in god is something I think you have to come to yourself. If you can't see the silliness of the whole affair yourself, if you can't comprehend the contradiction and are able to rationalise it all away and accept that "god did it" is intellectually satisfiying, then it doesn't matter what anyone else says, you're not going to disbelieve.

I'm not sure if I consider myself an atheist yet. I'm still thinking a lot about it, considering I was born in a Catholicised country and currently studying in a Catholic school I've been attending since kindergarten.

We recently just studied Asian religions in Social Studies (we're taking up Asian Civilization this year), and learning about the different beliefs and gods of people really made me doubtful. After learning about them, I started thinking about religion and Christianity, and how they seem more and more ridiculous to me by day. I stopped praying. I never really went to church, though. I also have an atheist and agnostic friend.

Bottom line is, I began to think a bit "out of the box."

Well my parents were Roman Catholic so i was brought up to be one, but when i was about 10 y/o (more or less) i had my doubts about God (large G signifying the judeo-christian god). I also had a small argument with my older sister where i was spurted out that "i don't think God exists", she of course was stunned.

But in high school i joined the knights of the altar (altar boy), even with my doubts. Then in the last year of my high school, i was able to shout out in a debate with my friend that i didnt believe in God.

Then I totally turned when i was in college. Maybe because in college you are more free to believe in what you actually believe.

When I was in second grade, because someone called me that when I said I didn't believe a man sat up in the sky. I didn't know what it meant at the time.

I went home and told my mother about the incident, and asked her what atheist mean, and she told me. And then asked "that doesn't describe you very well, does it?" To which I said "Yes, i don't believe in any of that junk."

I was a good little alter boy when I asked several priests different questions. They refused to answer. It wasn't that they couldn't, they just flatly refused. And they weren't questions like why does the church allow pedophilia or something, they were religious questions. I discovered the answers on my own and have never looked back.

It didn't really catch me by surprise. I started doubting Christianity when I realized prayer was a joke, that it had no supporting evidence, that it was trying to make me believe in superstitious nonsense instead of real scientific fact, and that it was nothing but a huge brainwashing scam. I drifted into agnosticism, then eventually atheism/pantheism.

It was pretty gradual for me. Belief tipped from one end of the spectrum to the other over a period of years as I learned more about the world and about religion in general.

all i knew was religion causes war and hate, and its had bad influence in my life, caused my parents to brake up and turned my had into a psyco.... then i came here and realized there was a word for non religious.. tahst when i realized i was an atheist.

i can understand why some want to believe in a god. but i cannot understand why anyone would believe in the bible or any other book or religion that is so obviously man made.

always been an atheist.