The bible was actually something that "enhanced" whatever beliefs I held at the time. While I was a Christian, biblical passages were a source of inspiration for me as a sign that the religion understood what I was doing and who I was. It wasn't until I started my major in History that I started objecting to inconsistencies between those passages, as well as the importance of the passages that people don't quote as much about slavery and self-depreciation. Eventually the bible became a source of atheism for me, but it took time to get there.

I grew up in Denmark where the protestant peoples church covers some 95% of the people. The citizens are very secular though so it's mostly the basic functions of major life event that are practiced - like babtising, marriage, funerals that make people go to church. Basically everybody knows that the myths you find in the bible are just that. Personally I never started believing and am baffled by those who do. I feel Christianity is so nasty and oppressive .I see it as something the rulers of Europe could use to control the population. They had a hard time getting people to pay taxes but people would be happy to pay say 10% of their income to the church and voluntarily believe that they are bad people. In countries like Denmark and Germany there is a church tax that is part of the income tax.

Not the bible per se...but the arguments against the bible made me skeptical

No. The idea of an eye in the sky is what made me disbelieve.

Splitting hairs I know as I understand your meaning but....

How does reading the bible convince someone that Thor doesn't exist? Or that Hinduism isn't a valid belief?

Reading the bible certainly helped to convince me that it was nothing but bullshit, which knocked out all of the Abrahamic religions, but didn't make me an atheist.

The fact that I've never seen any good evidence that anything supernatural actually exists is what makes me an atheist.

No, the opposite: common sense

It certainly didn't tempt me to change my mind!

The Bible had nothing to do with me becoming an atheist. I just came to the conclusion at about the age of 16 that it didn’t make any sense for a god to exist. But that wasn’t a very good reason at the time. I got older and more educated about things and stuck with reality. And to follow up what I thought as a kid, no holy book explains how it happened except by pure magic. Creationists need to think of how a god could create a universe from nothing. It’s questions like how, why, what, when, and where. That lead me to the atheist position. Just questions and the terrible answers that follow.

Short Answer; Yes. Long Answer; It was mostly because it was f-cking boring as a child. As I grew, I developed a deep doubt of everything, even the value of life itself. Really screwed me up. Anyways, once I hit High School I had torn through the thing a few times and found that the more I read the more I felt like I made the right decision. Nowadays, I enjoy some of the stories but write it off as old and spiritually valueless drivel.

Yep

To me, I will have to say, it was my birth. The first time I went to church I thought it was bullshit. That was about the age of 10. The thing is, my mother was a religious nut.

No creo en Dios!

Growing up Catholic the Bible had a small par in our lives. Ours was a benign life as far as religion goes so I stayed until my late 40's. It was actually a combination of a period of time coupled with a religious group. I saw a big contradiction and left. Later, I met and married an Iranian. She was a lifelong atheist and really influenced me to the anti-theist I am today. BTW way I still see many charities as harmful to society and the environment.

I think we're born atheists. Some people backslide.

Never read it. Came to agnosticism through simple age and maturity.

No, it only ended my theistic thinking. My further reading and observation caused me to make the move from deistic thinking to agnosticism.

No. Believers did. ?

I started at the beginning but I couldn't get past the part where people are instructed to make slaves of other people.

No.

I was an atheist long before I had the bible read to me.

I mean it wasn't the deciding factor but it was a consideration for sure.

Reality made me an A-theist.

It didnt make me an atheist wholly and directly but it strengthened my opinions along the way. Definitely a major contributing factor, along with being abandoned by the god I thought I believed in. I was left with no other choice but to stay angry at god or realize it doesnt exist. Never attribute to malice what can be explained by stupidity, even if it's your own.

Between what is written, and what the people that say they believe it to be the word of God do in life... They don't match up. Or they do. It depends on what verse you want to read. But basically by their own actions, they don't really believe it either, or they would be really really good people. And they're not!!! So it's not just the book that is full of contradictions and horrific treatment of humanity. It's the the people that blindly perpetuate it and are really bad examples of humanity...wait, do you see a correlation? Maybe they do get it, and being a horrible person is like being god!?

It does seem ironic that the very tool used to enslave the masses is the source of freedom for so many that actually engage in it.

No - as a former Catholic, we never read it or paid any attention to it. It was all about what Mott the Poople had to say about things. I think it was JP 2 at the time.