I willingly rejected my feelings that I was gay for the church. Once I realised I truly was born this way and I came out to those people that had been so close to me, I felt completely rejected by them! The hypocrisy is what did it for me. Teaching unconditional love but only for what sins they think fit their agenda! Picking and choosing what scripture works for them.

The bible for me... I had too many questions no-one could answer and once I read the text the answers would supposed to be derived from.. Well... I understood why no-one could answer...

I was already sliding down the path to non-belief, but my beloved philosophy prof and his class on World Religions pushed me over the edge. Huston Smith's book The World's Religions made me realize that there is no one way to enlightenment. I continued to study and saw how impossible faith is.

This guy

1 studying the whole bible beyond the standard stories that get preached on

2 the Soul of the Night by Chet Raymo

3 Alan Watts and Shunryu Suzuki’s talks/audiobooks on comparative religion, eastern vs western cosmology and Buddhism

4 ultimately realizing that the only serious problem I had ever prayed about got a big resounding fuck you from the man upstairs if he existed. I was left with two choices, be angry at god or realize he doesn’t exist.

Yes, former christian. The bible is what pushed me away.

Previously and deeply religious. The book Pagan Christianity put me on the road to atheism.

It was me getting a higher education, and learning to think independently that did it.

The Bible for sure.

No single book, but I began doubting and reading around the age of 50. Robert Green Ingersoll's lectures had a profound influence. I recommend listening to Mike Earl's readings of a sampling of Ingersoll's lectures (http://reasonworks.com), beginning with Individuality, my personal favorite.

The critical idea that I could never move past was the problem of evil. I went back and forth with my pastor on this one, and he finally admitted that 'one cannot fully understand God's plan, but one just has to have faith.' Well, that was a deal breaker for me, as I was beginning to understand that faith was not only a poor strategy, but is, in fact, a flaw in our reasoning that society has elevated to a virtue.

When I learned the truth about Santa Claus. That did it for me at 6 years old.

Not a book nor the idea but the fact that people that don’t have much money in the first place (for example, my mother) can be conned into giving that money to some religious jerk (for example, “dr.” James Dobson of Focus on the Family) that are constantly begging for your money and really only uses the money to make themselves extremely rich. This is what really what stopped me from believing in the x-ian religion. If your god is so great then why does he need to take what a family needs to survive?

I was raised in the Catholic Church I pretty much had questions from the get-go at 6 years old. To much stuff didn't make sense!

I don’t think a book caused my adjustment. I think by listening to talks from people like Jaclyn Glenn, and scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson as well as Michio Kaku helped me understand how to think about things a bit more logically, and from there, what I knew of religion from before seemed to no longer make sense.

I guess as I became more educated throughout college, I learned about evaluating evidence and being objective.

It was very gradual.

I was Roman Catholic, and was very devout. However, the 2002 Boston archdiocese scandal with them shifting child-molesting priests, started that very long road until 2011.

It wasn't either for me but a gradual realisation over time and actually thinking about it rather then just accepting blindly. The absolute end was a new priest (was catholic till about 9 years ago) who was as full of pride and love for himself along with disdain for the rest of us, that convinced me.

Religion was forced on me while growing up. I started having my doubts in my 20s then watched a free film online called Zeitgeist where they talk about the evolution of religion and the uncanny similarities between most religions and how each one thinks ‘they are the one true religion’. This turned me from agnostic to atheist. Dawkins’ The God Delusion put me at 110% atheist then Hitchens’ God is not Great made me even more so.

Was a Christian in my twenties, studied and prayed my way into non-believing. At least my belief morphed for a while. That stuff dies hard but Alan Watts, the philosophy of Taoism, these two contributed to where I am now.

I wrote elsewhere about a set of five books my parents bought for their children, The Bible Pageant. It was a retelling in plain language of the whole Bible, in order, with such individual titles as Brave Pioneers, Conquering Heroes, Kings and Queens, The Mighty Prince, and Warriors of the Cross, all lavishly illustrated with great religious art from medieval time to Norman Rockwell. We didn't go to church very much, and later not at all. I read and reread the books as a set of wonderful stories which I may have at first believed, in the way a child believes his parents, but which never became part of my understanding of real history, since there was never any mention of it in school. So however much I may have believed it as a child, I simply outgrew it as my increasing store of knowledge crowded it out along with all the other fairy tales I loved (and still love).

Reading the bible cover to cover.

Former Catholic here...

I started questioning things when I was a kid and discarded religion when I was a young adult.

It was not one thing in particular but the culmination of inadequate answers I received and my increased interest in science.

Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary Magdelene, Bart Erhman's books on the Bible, Life of Martin Luther, Erasmus and the Inquisition.

Most of us, I'd wager. Search around the site, you'll find a zillion stories.

Having Calvanists debate predetermination and predestination at me. At a Baptist university these dicks would rant for hours

Wayne Dyer, book Sacred Self prepared me.

Richard Dawkins movie God Delusion, put me over the top. At first, I was shocked by all the negativities attacks. Then realized how deeply truthful is all hypnotized and ow programed we have been since birth. Also agree with Dawkins quote. The US Nationaism today,is worst than Religion. Another shocker coming from him, my research and studies show the same.