Read the whole bible. Instant atheist

Gradually, I began to understand that the Christianity was as nonsensical as any other mythology, and it was nothing but an instrument of control. In other words, I grew up.

I never really had faith. I mostly just went along with what my parents/family said until I got older and figured out that it was all unbelievably stupid. I didn't pay attention much in church while we went. Thankfully, we stopped going when my parents divorced so I was able to form my own opinion.

I was born into a religious family... It wasn't so much losing faith as it was an inability to accept the beliefs as true. My innate reasoning abilities were just too strong.

It wasn't about faith, but about stories that did not make sense to me. I do not accept something just because I am told to just have faith and believe, when it does not make sense to me. I am a thinker and I like to figure out things.

I was in church and the pastor went on a rant about homosexuality. I know and love gay people. The more I listened the more the sermon sounded less Christian and more hateful.

I decided to think for myself at the age of 9

At age 13, I realized the Bible is just a book of stories written by men.

Never was a strong believer. My mother dropped off us kids at Sunday school, shoving us into the arms of the Lord. She went home to bed.

My parents were fine with my decision. Dad never went to church. Mom became an atheist in nursing school

"I realized a woman cannot be turned into salt," she said.

At age 14, a friend took me to her church where people were speaking in tongues, shrieking and falling on the floor. Horrified, I thought they were insane.

My faith died from 1,000 cuts. From disappointment in answers from any religious source about core human nature to conspiracy theory-level distrust in evidence-based reasoning and science to defending overtly morally reprehensible positions to the common a la carte selection of which part of the Word were important and which were not that were suspiciously already what they believed in before using religion as a defense...it was just too much.

I briefly surveyed other beliefs but found them as empty of meaning. Dabbled a bit in philosophy to help organize my thoughts better, or at least expand my thought horizons.

I found the most rewards in evidence-based knowledge in psychology, biology, neurology, anthropology, cosmology, history, astronomy, and evolution. Even interpreting literature and myths has a clarity like never before. There’s a common thread across these separate but interrelated disciples that provides me the most satisfying answers to the big questions I’ve been searching for so long like who we are, what does it mean to live a “good life,” and what purpose our lives can have in the vast ocean of space and time.

How about you?

I read the Bible as a teen. Then read a lot of literature that was open minded, some of it critical of religion - The Way of All Flesh comes to mind. As I grew in my thinking and realized that atheism was not unthinkable I began to consider what I had read in the Bible. And I saw how so much of organized religion, especially fundamentalism, was about judging others and intolerance. About that time I began to get into philosophy a lot and realized that it was intrinsically absurd and that it made more sense to consider religion from a historical paradigm rather than something outside of history.

It started when I actually read my bible.

You cannot lose something that does not exist, you simply realise you never had it to start with, people kept telling you that you did.
Classic case of the Emperor's new clothes

Reading Genesis

I was raised catholic, at about 6years old started questioning the logic of asking for money when by looking around it seemed that they have plenty, the history of the church finished the job.

I just kept reading.

Education and an open mind.

Reading a lot of books and speaking with an atheist friend and his atheist Dad. Then reading the bible again with critical eyes...this last was the cream on top of the change.

Seeing all the sex scandals, and learning the the violent, overreaching, and sexist, history of chrisianity. I felt I’m a better person without it.

My parents forced my brother and I to go to church. We did not like this. Often my parents would stay home but we had to go to church.

When I was about 8 or 9 we were learning about the Great Flood. And there was a poster of a mother and in a tree while waters swirled below them. My thoughts were how cruel! Killing a mother and by drowning? And these people thought it was okay and actually a good thing?

After that I was baptized and part of a church group which played basket ball at the church but I was always a skeptic.

I gave it up for reason and knowlege when I was eleven. Studied the history of world religions for two semesters because my father said it was too difficult to understand history without also knowing the history of religion. Knew I had made the right choice.

I read Bart Ehrmann's books. He became a Bible scholar and soon rejected it all. His work changed my life.

Never really had one, so it was easy to lose to say the least.

It was a long process. But basically I started challenging everything and followed stories to their origins; realizing they were made up.

Being raised Catholic and Baptist. I've noticed that most people raised in duality of Christian faiths tend to fall Agnostic to Athiest.
I was actually fully Athiest by age 15 but as l learned more science it seemed that the existence of an extra-dimensional gate keeper and/or creator held plausibility and thereby I couldnt rule it out. As such I'm Agnostic.