Believers and atheists, when was the moment?

About 30 years ago next month.

I had just come back from a 2-year mormon mission (which I went on even though I had serious doubts about the church). My bishop had me in for a "talk," spent 20 minutes extolling my outstanding record and accomplishments as a missionary, then "called" me to be a teen teacher, so that I could "lead kids on the right path and show them a good example." Right then it hit me: I didn't believe this stuff, and I certainly didn't want to indoctrinate teens into it. That was pretty much the end.

I spent a while searching for evidence of a god, and found none, so I tossed it all. And I didn't fall for fallacious arguments from incredulity. :)

Peace.

One of the things that solidified my belief were these facts about the Bible.

1) The Bible isn't just one book. It's a collection of many books, written by many different authors, many of completely different back grounds and social status (from a king to a tent maker and everything in between).

2) These books were written hundreds upon hundreds of years apart...and yet they all perfectly coincide with each other.

3) Archiology and science is proving more and more with every discovery that this is real and the writings are true. (Dead sea scrolls to be one of the more recent discoveries)

4) There are many many prophecies in the old testament just about Jesus alone. They were all 100% correct in every way and detail (not one mistake) Remember, these prophecies were written many hundreds of years before Jesus was born. Just that alone would be like predicting the super bowl 500 years from now with the score, all the names of every player, all the stats and many other details. (Remember the wise men, they knew exactly when and where Jesus would be born from the old testament prophesies)

5) There is no other book like it in the history of mankind. Powerful people in the past have tried to destroy it but couldn't.

6) The Bible is the oldest book and most published book in the world and is also the only book to be perfectly preserved word for word. The next most published book, can't remember the name, comes a distant second and the writings and story lines have changed as time went by so no one is even certain of what the original text actually was in this book.

7) The people, places and events in the Bible are not just Biblically documented but historically documented and accounted.

8) These things alone show that a higher power put this together and is preserving it.

To Adam: Yes I've not only read it but studied and researched it. (much further than you did in Genisis chapter 1).

For many years, I believed a god of some kind was real. However, I knew that supernatural beliefs such as spirit mediums, dowsing, reincarnation, etc. were all false. Next, I learned about how and why people believe in such things that are obviously false (basically, we fool ourselves into believing what we want to believe). Finally, I realized that god-beliefs were just another form of supernatural belief, and that there was no evidence to support them. I also finally admitted to myself that I was just fooling myself with my god-beliefs and that's when I gave them up.

I don't have a moment exactly, but a slower process. I began to understand there was more to this place once my first child was born. Once I began investigating Christianity, I was fairly certain it was for me. The thing that sealed the deal was Revelation in the Bible, doing a bit of research, I can almost watch as these events are unfolding. Luckily for me, I cannot unring that bell.

It was always obvious to me that it was all nonsense. If you took even two seconds to really look at just about any aspect of it, to open your eyes and really see it, it just totally fell apart and made absolutely no sense.

Why would anyone hang an image of a bloody, tortured corpse on their wall? It's just sick!!!!

Why would you revere someone who once ordered a man to slit the throat of his own child?

It is mathematically impossible to get breeding pairs of all the animals of Earth onto an ark, and if you could, it is physically impossible for one man to build a ship that large in his lifetime.

If God made everything, then who made God? God clearly isn't the answer.

It's like fractal of craziness. It just goes on and on and on....

I was raised from infancy with a family full of believers, so heard about it all my life. Got saved/accepted when I was 11, and rededicated myself at 28, after I realized I'd almost died in a car accident on my government job, and had not been "knocked stupid", just physically disabled. My accident, at first glance, seems like a curse, but, upon examination, is a blessing in disguise.

I spent most of my life believing in God (i.e. I was a firm Christian). When my daughters entered school and were taking field trips to the Smithsonian, I wanted to be able to objectively and honestly tell them why evolution was wrong and creationism was scientifically sound. What I found out was that creationism is a cesspool of lies and shoddy claims while the evidence strongly supported evolution. I found this same pattern in claims of evidence for any Biblical event.

No "ah-ha" moment. Just a lot of little moments and years of reading and critical thinking coming together. I've always thought religion was a little bogus and then started to realize, god was too.

I opened the Bible at Genesis 1:1, and realised all religions were stories made up by people who didn't know any better.

EDIT @kumite: you're joking, right? The Bible is littered with unfulfilled prophecies and contradictions, not to mention absurdities. Have you actually read it?

The day my devoutly Christian mother told me that there were lots of different religions around the world, and depending on where you were born dictated which one you were likely to follow.

You don’t need religion to accept that there is a God.