Dear ex-theists

[Mudhammam]

For those of you who used to believe in a deity or subscribe to some kind of religion, what was it, and what was the very first thing that gave you pause? I'm not asking for you to tell your entire deconversion process, as there is a perfectly awesome corner of the forums for that. Just tell us what that first spark of inspiration was that led you away from faith.

Oh, me? I'm an ex-Mormon, and the first big one for me was finding out just by reading through it a few times (while I was a missionary, no less) that the Book of Mormon was more or less a bastardized plagiarism of the Bible. You can probably surmise where things went from there.

Formerly a fundamentalist Christian. Began reading George H. Smith's book, Atheism: The Case Against God, thinking it would help me better preempt atheists I debated online. When my parents suspected I was beginning to have doubts, they disallowed me from reading any non-Christian material. That was first time I had serious doubts but it took another 7-8 years for my old habits to die completely.

[Chad32]

My grandmother would rather I shut out everything that goes against the bible too. That should be a red flag for anyone.

[The Valkyrie]

Former Catholic here.

I think the first spark was that I have an atheist father who would let my mother take my brother and myself to church, but wouldn't let her force it in the home or get us confirmed until we were old enough to make up our own minds.

Church taught me to believe, my father, a GP, taught me to think and rationalise. Up until around the age of 10 or 11 I was one of those truly devout kids.

At the age of 13 I did what so many former theists did, I read the bible thoroughly, several times, and decided it was nonsense.

As an aside, my brother recently became an atheist and, apparently, according to my mother, that's my fault!

[Chad32]

Former Catholic here.

I think the first spark was that I have an atheist father who would let my mother take my brother and myself to church, but wouldn't let her force it in the home or get us confirmed until we were old enough to make up our own minds.

Church taught me to believe, my father, a GP, taught me to think and rationalise. Up until around the age of 10 or 11 I was one of those truly devout kids.

At the age of 13 I did what so many former theists did, I read the bible thoroughly, several times, and decided it was nonsense.

As an aside, my brother recently became an atheist and, apparently, according to my mother, that's my fault!

That sounds familiar. God taught Adam and Eve to believe. The snake taught them to think.

[Fromper]

Raised Jewish, but not religious. My family's always been fairly secular to begin with, but we celebrated the holidays, and I had to go to Hebrew school to learn some basics about Judaism and prepare for Bar Mitzvah. Ironically, my synagogue was so liberal that I remember learning things in Hebrew school that actually support atheism, like them specifically telling us that the 7 days of creation in Genesis are a metaphor for 7 steps God went through in creating the universe, not literal days.

I honestly don't remember when I first started questioning God's existence, but I must have been pretty young. I considered myself "Jewish, but not religious" through most of my teenage and early adult life until the last couple of years, when I finally abandoned it altogether and embraced the atheist label.

[Doubting Thomas]

I've always had plenty of doubt about a lot of things the Catholic church teaches, but I was so religious I just rationalized them away. But I think what really led me away from religion was reading sites like skepdic.com and Skeptical Inquirer. They taught me how to think critically and rationally, and well, naturally my faith fell like the house of cards it was.

[Tonus]

My grandmother would rather I shut out everything that goes against the bible too. That should be a red flag for anyone.

The JWs are also extremely strict about this. Reading religious material that is not from the Watchtower Society is frowned upon (atheistic material would fall under this, even if it's not technically religious). Reading anti-JW material can lead to charges of apostasy, which they treat as an unforgivable trespass against the organization. I wondered about this, but never crossed those lines. It seemed to me that if you really had the truth, then nothing could stand against it. So why be afraid of challenging it?

There was an unexpected benefit from the WT stance, in that I did not even glance at any non-JW literature or material until long after I'd decided that I was an atheist. I didn't have a period of time where I wondered if my doubts were genuine or not or 'poisoned' by opposing viewpoints. Reading such material afterwards was really more comforting than anything else, in that it confirmed what I had suspected and strengthened my viewpoint.

[ThePinsir]

Ex-Christian (non-denominational, I guess).

It was, no joke, George Carlin that led me to the Dark Side

[Mister Agenda]

In a fit of ambitious devotion I read the entire KJV cover-to-cover. Alarmed, I read it again in a modern English version, hoping I had been confused by King's English. That didn't make me an atheist but it convinced me the Bible is not an account of a theodic God. I suppose I became an agnostic theist at that point.

[Clueless Morgan]

That didn't make me an atheist but it convinced me the Bible is not an account of a theodic God.

But it is an account of a theo-dick God.