Atheists: How did it happen?

I grew up in a conservative evangelical Christian home. I considered myself a Christian until high school. That's when I started questioning/doubting/etc (more then I did before anyway). I stopped considering myself a Christian, went on a hiatus of all things Christian (impossible at first, didn't occur until I moved out of the house at 18), did lots of thinking/questioning/research and untangling of what I had been told with what I was researching. It was with the intent of either going back to Christianity or believing in something else.

I became an atheist by my second year of college. Simply because I see no reason or need to believe in any gods, and no objective evidence or proof of their existence.

Nothing 'happened'. There was no tragic event. No bad experience.

Wow... what a tale....:

I'm pretty sure I've always been an atheist, but my first experience involving atheism at all was in a Calvin and Hobbes comic... Calvin prays for snow... expectedly, nothing happens. He asks God if he wants him to become an atheist. I asked my mom what that was, and she gave me the simple answer, "...Someone that doesn't believe in God."

A little after that, I asked my mom a pretty much unforgivable question: "Where did God come from?" I don't remember exactly what she said, but I know it was a bullshit answer... At that point, I just lumped God into the same mental file as Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.

After that, I just said I was a Christian because I didn't really care, and I thought to the effect of, "Hey, people don't like others who don't believe in God... why cause problems?" I've since become much more confrontational, and, I would argue 'therefore,' more rational, contemplative, and intelligent. I'm now a militant atheist, not necessarily trying to disprove the entirety of God, but, rather, a literal interpretation of the Bible.

So you see... I was born an atheist... when I was 6, I found out I was an atheist... when I was 17, I began telling people I was an atheist... and now, still 17.5 years old, I'm spreading the Word.

I think whether or not you become an atheist has more to do with your brain chemistry, and whether you are a skeptic or a believer in the supernatural. I'm a skeptic. I require more information to accept something as valid, and I'm more interested in knowing the actual facts, and reality of a situation, whereas someone willing to believe in the supernatural may value their own motives higher than that of reality.

As a child I felt like religion was a big game I was just going along with. When i got older, I asked too many questions, I didn't like things that didn't make sense, and I didn't like believing in things without proof, still don't. That's why I'm an atheist.

I've always been an atheist, even though I was raised up Catholic and attended Catholic schools. I would hear stories about god doing incredible things and I just shook my head and wondered why are these people punishing me for acting stupid in class when they tell these incredibly stupid stories. By the time I was a teenager, I was struggling with it because I didn't believe in it for a moment and I was concerned about what was wrong with me. I studied theology and history for years in the hopes of finding some indicator of god at work in the world, but I found none at all. Then one day in my twenties, I realized that it's not bad that I don't believe. I was miserable because I wasn't like everyone else, and the best thing I could do was accept myself for what I am. I renounced the church, and I was so much better for it.

i was 6 years old, i had some loose understanding of what churches where and what they did there but never payed it much thought, i had just started religion lessons at the school i was attending, the teacher started telling us all these stories about heaven and hell and jesus and all the rest of it, and something about it did not ring true to me, i had no adult arguments and was not even aware of that other religions existed, so it was not that i had doubts such as "what religion is the true one?" or things like that, it was more obvious than that, more basic. i remember thinking things like "there is no way anyone can possibly know the things this guy is claiming".

one day i told my teacher that i did not believe any of it, and he said "oh so you are an atheist?" i asked what that was, he told me it was someone who did not believe in god, and i said yes, im an atheist. that was the day i learned the word and have been calling my self that ever since. im now 27 years old. but, i have always been an atheist by default, as i never believed any of it anyway.

I was always skeptical as a kid. The initial thing that led me to atheism was the existence of other religions besides Christianity. That always confused me when I was younger. If Christianity is the correct religion, and we're all going to hell if we don't believe it, then why do we even have Islam or Buddhism or Hinduism? Where did they come from? Why does God allow them, if only *one* religion is correct? And why can't even the Christians themselves agree on many things? They're all reading the same book, aren't they? It's just an endless series of questions, one after the other, and religious people never adequately answered them. They still haven't. And so I'm still an atheist.

Raised by an atheist and a Christian, the Christian parent really pushed religion on to me, but for as long as I can remember I always thought the whole idea of religion was ridiculous. Even in pre-school (at a church), when they would make us pray/tell us stories I never quite got in to it.

OK, as this is asked quite a bit, I've no qualms about copy/pasting my answer:

Brought up as a Christian, I had increasing doubts as I got older. The more I learned of science the bigger the doubts became. It got to a stage where I felt very conflicted, as my head went in one direction, accepting scientific method as sensible, but my emotions pulled me to continue believing the religious claims without question. Such is the power of indoctrination.

I sought to resolve this by asking lots of people and reading the Bible to try to make sense of its claims, but the conflict just grew greater. I tried to find real evidence of this god I was supposed to believe in, but couldn't. The science side went to great lengths to provide evidence for its claims, emphasising the importance of accountability, while the religious side just pressured me to believe without any evidence, just anecdotes, flawed reasoning and emotional persuasion.

The final straw was when some Christians tried to get me to believe in an upcoming 'doom' scenario due to a planetary alignment, and how prayer was needed to avert disaster. As an astronomy geek I knew that their claims were nonsense, but they just wouldn't accept my arguments or even look at evidence.

It was in one moment while drinking a coffee, thinking over why they didn't care, in a flash of realisation it dawned on me that that's what religion was all about - perpetuating claims without question, and simply refusing evidence that contradicted them. It was about wanting to believe certain things and bending evidence to suit, not forming understanding from the evidence we find.

So I finally lost complete confidence in the religion. It was like a fog lifting and bright sunlight shining in, replacing all that earlier conflict and confusion. It had been a long time building up, but I finally reached a real sense of enlightenment.

I've been an agnostic atheist ever since.

BTW the planetary alignment happened, no doom transpired, and the ones who warned me were convinced it was only their prayers that had saved us!

I've always been an atheist to the extent that I have understood the concept of God at all. I just never saw any convincing evidence that any real deities existed.

I started to become familiar with the bible and heard stories "god is all loving" kinda stuff, I became agnostic at twelve when my grandmother died, I could only think "how could an all loving god allow this to happen"

naturally it grew, I became increasingly aware of the contradictions in the bible,

You've been touched by Imperfectionist