Raised Lutheran, Catechism one night a week for three years in my teens. The pastor required a two page book report every week using meaningless teen religious books. If you did not do this your parents would be called and you would be sent home. My embarrassed mother smacked me across the face. Ahhh... Christianity, Altar boy, and Confirmation. Not long after that while sitting there during a sermon and another empty prayer. The thought came to me "This is a bunch of bullshit" . All of this since birth and I feel nothing? I have no idea if there is a god or not? That is where it started atv16 Figured out I was really an Atheist at 49. Finally.

Raised in a catholic family but felt early on the absurdity of it all, probably 8 or 9... At that point, no one could get me back to church, to my grandmother's despair. My teen years and early adulthood was quite something for the others in the family as I was very vocal about it and I had an uncle who was a missionary in Africa (White Fathers) and an aunt who was an nun (can't remember what congregation)... Family reunions were, interesting to say the least...

I’ve been a skeptic most of my life but I didn’t come out as an open atheist until I was in my 50’s.

When I was about 13 I think. I remember going to one of those big "run up to the front and pray!" things, going up to the front and then thinking to myself, "What am I doing? This is dumb." For a while after that I felt kind of bad but that's just because of religious conditioning that I'd had forced down my throat ever since I could remember.

I started drifting away in my teens, but didn't abandon religion (any kind of religion) until my early 30s. Weirdly enough, I think my Dad knew I was an atheist before I realized it.

10 yrs old, i asked my Catholic school teachers "if there was a god?" never got a straight answer and i already by then could sniff out liars.

I was a late bloomer ... about my 50th birthday.

I decided at age 32 after a college girl taking religion course mentioned that there were hundreds of religions in the world, each insisting to be the one true religion.