How did u become an atheist?

[Ravenshire]

I never became an atheist. I simply quit looking for the gawd who wasn't there.

[zebo-the-fat]

Like everyone I was born an atheist, a new born child can know nothing of religion. I was sent to church, but by the age of about 12 I realised that it could not possibly be true, that was it.
Never saw any convincing evidence for any gods, demons or pixies.

[mlmooney89]

When I was a teenager it just stopped making sense. My step dad said I was going through a rebellious phase and I would come out of it. I did try to be Christian but the logical side of my brain wouldn't allow it.

[downbeatplumb]

I posted my story on how I left Islam.
I would like to hear other perspectives.

I was born, never believed, kept on going.

[Chad32]

The short of it is that I grew out of religion. Though I'm sure older theists wouldn't find that answer very acceptable

The more I grew up, and started thinking about things, the more I realized that I didn't agree with a lot of the things that were in the bible. I grew up with a belief in the kinder version of god, that wanted me to come to him willingly, so we could be buddies in heaven, so I wasn't really afraid of the fire and brimstone wrathful type of god.

So I figured if I didn't agree with most of what was in the bible, then there wasn't much point in me worshiping. especially after someone told me about the verse saying "If you're lukewarm in the spirit, god will spit you out". I couldn't dedicate me entire eing to the lord, and if he wasn't going to accept anything less, I may as well not be a Christian anymore.

I considered other faiths before becoming an atheist, but since there were no local bhudists, that I knew of, I figured I wouldn't bother.

[vorlon13]

I became aware of the hostility most religious franchises had to homosexuality (Campus Crusade for CashChrist) when I was in college in the 70s.  People I was meeting in the gay orbit didn't seem all that evil to me, but the Christer's sure did when they bared their fangs.

Didn't decon all at once, but started the process.

Around 1980 joined up with the UUs.  They weren't big on God/Jesus at all. 

Jim Jones and some televangelist scandals in that time frame cast considerable doubt for me over the entire concept.

As for really cementing attitudinally for me, since coming here and seeing the straight up lack of anything the religiousites have in the way of actual proof as opposed to belief, is when it all started coming together.


My AIDS experiences in the 80s and 90s really put a dent in the entire God thing too.

[Edwardo Piet]

I became an atheist by being born.

Well actually, to be honest, I never believed before I existed either.

[Mister Agenda]

I'll just copy and paste something I've said before, in the most condensed state I could find. I've shared this more than a couple of times:

Reading the Bible cover-to-cover twice got me started. Figuring out that one's beliefs ought to be justifiable helped. Growing skepticism (I believed all kinds of crazy stuff, God was the last of those I gave up, not the first, I just couldn't keep giving the God idea a free pass), I realized how much you want something to be true has no relationship to whether it actually is true, I started valuing truth over comfort, I learned there are naturalistic explanations for the origin of the universe, and I learned about logical fallacies and burden of proof. My religion professor wouldn't cover atheism for a reason that I realized was fallacious, so I did my own research. So about 15 years after my 2nd reading of the Bible, I realized one day that I'd become an atheist, though I can't tell you exactly when I stopped believing. I just know that one day I checked the contents of my brain and realized the sort of tenuous, 'I want to be open-minded and know I can't prove God isn't real' space for the God idea I had been maintaining had disappeared entirely so I no longer had even the faintest concern that God might be real left.

[The Valkyrie]

In all honesty I started questioning at age eight. I went through a VERY devout period for a while and then simply announced I was no longer a believer when I was thirteen or so and stopped going to church.

[Athene]

Life circumstances (unrelated to religious faith) demanded that I make a concerted effort to do away with wishful thinking. Loss of faith was an unintended consequence of that decision; Collateral damage. It was a bit of an "Oops...uh-oh!" moment, at the time. And, once the switch had been turned off, that was that; I couldn't put the cork back in.

After a while, I stopped caring to.