How do you become an Atheist?

[Rev. Rye]

First of all, I would like to hear what idea, concept, proof, or experience brought each of you personally to be Atheist. I know that you all profess that the burden of proof is on the person making the claims, you explained that to me quite well, but the "burden of proof" viewpoint is an assumption that Atheists make, so it would most likely be something you arrived at after deciding there is no God. I think most of you agreed with me that no one could argue a Christian out of faith, and that everyone will tend to believe what they believe until they are given sufficient reasons to change. So what I'm asking is what is it that made you decide to that you were firmly atheist? Or if you were raised in an Atheist home, what is it that made you decide that you personally were going to continue in your parent's (or parents') tradition?

Well, I think the first seeds of doubt that led to my becoming an atheist came, oddly enough, when I heard John 3:16. I'm pretty sure that you know the verse. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have eternal life." It's widely considered to be the entire Gospel covered in a single verse of 25 words. The seeds of doubt came when I realised that
it could be halved into this: "God sacrificed himself to himself to change a rule he made himself." I mean, after all, God is omnipotent and benevolent and, if he is angry with his creation, he should at least be able to forgive them without waiting (at the very least) 4000 years for people to execute one individual so that he can apparently take away some of the effects of what angered God, and only for some people. Eventually, I would read the Bible and find more problems with it; Look here for more fridge logic I found with one part of the Bible that particularly bugged me: The first few chapters of Genesis (Chapter 3 in particular). By the time I was in my early teens, I was looking into the work of Bertrand Russell, and it was his essay "Why I am Not a Christian" that had killed off the last vestiges of belief in me.