I was a junior in college. I enjoyed penn jillette as a kid, and a coworker got me into Christopher hitchens. I found myself agreeing with almost everything. It knocked me on my existential butt for a few days. The last nail in the coffin was penn jillette pulling a definitional move. He said belief is active. So if you're not convinced and not living as if though there was a god, you're atheist.

I was raised reformed Jewish, but always allowed to question. As I got older, organized religion just made less and less sense to me. I'm open to all beliefs and non-beliefs, as long as people aren't judgemental and critical and don't hide behind their dogma.

I was born this way ! ( as everyone is ) My parents were not religious. Nor my grandparents. Never went to church. Never read one word from the bible. Never had an interest in religion whatsoever. So happy my son chose my path also.

I never felt comfortable in church. We went every Sunday. My parents tried to raise a "good catholic girl", but I was as skeptical about God as I was Santa Claus. Unfortunately for my parents, the harder they pushed, the more I rebelled. It's just my nature. It pushed me to learn more about other religions and form my own thoughts and opinions, rather than blindly follow theirs. I was 13 when I "came out" as atheist, then dabbled a bit in paganism, but have long since defined myself as agnostic. My family doesn't really talk about religion. I think each of us feels differently about it, so to avoid arguments we avoid the topic altogether.

I was raised a Catholic. At age 15 I became an agnostic after taking a comparative philosophy class. It opened my eyes as to the ridiculousness of it all. I became an atheist a few years ago. I really identify with humanism.

Mine is emotional. I hit absolute rock bottom and looked around, there was only me.

I was raised by Jewish parents who wanted to instill the fear of god in me as a child. God will punish you. Stopped believing and declared myself aetheist at 16-shipped to Israel on Bible Study Tour. Still a non-believer.

One day when I was in 5th grade we were at bible study and reading about God casting the angels from heaven for siding with lucifer who only wanted free will, and even casting out the angels who did not choose a side and I said "God's a dick! I don't want to worship some abusive asshole who demands you love him or you're evil." And never went back. 11 year old me was woke af

I was born into a white, working-class, lower-middle-class, strictly Catholic family in rural Northern New York. We had the necessities, though times were lean throughout my childhood. I went to a parochial elementary school (k–6) and then public school (8–12). I attended church every Sunday morning, and I was an altar server from 2nd grade through 12th. I then attended an all-male, very Catholic college (run by a monastery, including a school of theology for seminary and theological graduate studies, in addition to the undergraduate program). It was a really small school (which closed at the end of my junior year due to poor attendance). The college had what was called the Five Formations: academics, spiritual, service, wellness, and character.

*Academics Similar to other colleges, we had degree requirements, core curriculum, etc., and had to meet the requirements set forth by the accreditation agency. It was actually a really good education, though there was a focus in some of the core curriculum on theology and church history, so it differed from some programs in that regard.

*Spiritual We were also required to do all of the church stuff. Being Catholic was a requirement for attendance, but that's only the beginning. We needed to attend morning prayer every morning (M–F) before classes. We were required to attend evening Mass every Tuesday and Thursday after classes. We were supposed to attend most evening prayers on the other days (MWF) after classes. We were required to attend Sunday Mass on campus every week (though missing occasionally could be permitted if it was rare). We were encouraged on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday to attend the noontime Mass (though this was entirely optional, and I almost never attended). We also had a spiritual advisor we met with periodically, but I really didn't get much out of that and rarely bothered with it. Each spring we took a weeklong religious retreat, too, which was actually rather nice and relaxing, but was mandatory and part of the spiritual formation program.

*Service We were required, as part of the degree requirements, to engage in a significant amount of volunteerism. I can't recall exactly how many hours were required per unit, but six units were required. For my service, I was the dining hall banquet coordinator for five semesters, I engaged in a trip to a worker farm, I coordinated meals for two such trips, and I was a peer tutor for writing and mathematics my junior year.

*Wellness Two units (broken into four half-units, for some reason) were required for wellness, including two college physical education courses. I focused on exercise, though also could have done something more meditative, I think, for mental health.

*Character This was a throwaway formation, as it had no defined boundaries. It was, I guess, just about being an honorable person, not cheating, being truthful, etc. I felt like character was just implicit to the program without any real definition.

*Self-evaluation As part of the five-formation program, we were also required each year to write up a self-review, with some basic questions we needed to address, about how we were progressing in the program, what challenges we faced, etc. It wasn't terribly difficult, but it felt very much like homework.

So, after sharing all of that, I think you can see that I was up to my neck in Catholicism and I took it rather seriously. I mention it all, because I don't think it's clear how difficult it is to separate from something that ingrained unless you have an inkling about what was involved in the program and my upbringing. As Jim Gaffigan would say, I was a "Shiite Catholic." Oh, and I was such a judgmental prick. Outwardly I was generally a nice person, but in my mind it was nothing but judgement for anyone I thought wasn't living life according to my values.

The tipping point for me was during my junior year of college, when I took courses in Catholic Church history (learning that the Bible's collection of canonical works and many aspects of doctrine were politically motivated, voted on with majority rule, etc., not the "divinely inspired" process I'd been led to believe) and Church doctrine and theology (where I learned that only the means mattered, and the outcome was irrelevant). Having learned this history and deontology, I realized that I didn't agree with the Catholic Church and couldn't take it seriously anymore. I spent a little time that year and the following year (after I had transferred to another college) considering alternatives, but Christianity no longer seemed viable at all, and I never seriously looked outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, realizing that no faith had anything serious to back it up. I took an introductory philosophy course my senior year, which dealt with things like personal identity, whether there's a soul, whether there's a God, etc., and that helped me to eventually cement my resolve. I was still in the "agnostic" camp for a while after, but eventually realized that I didn't accept the claims made for the existence of a God and that I couldn't deny that I'm an atheist. I'd say the entire process from considering myself Catholic to being an atheist was between two and three years. It was a difficult process, because my religion had made up such a big part of who I was and it's painful to have that ripped away. But within a couple of years I felt stronger for the experience.

I'm sorry this recounting is so long. If you've read through to the end, I thank you for your time and patience.

Was born and raised Catholic. But, as an adult I experienced things from choices I made. Bad and good. And realized that God didn't help me, I helped myself. Suddenly realized what a crutch religion is. And then seeing all the hypocrisy.

I never was religious and always loved animals.

If you will scan previous posts, you will find out that a lot of people have already done that.

@ZenLife81 -- Nothing exciting here, my friend. To the best of my recollection, I began asking questions for which there were no rational answers forthcoming sometime around age 6. Around age 10 - 12, I was thoroughly disgusted, but didn't announce to family and world in general until 17.

My mother took it beautifully and surprised me by telling me she had always felt the same and only continued to maintain family unity because of "me". Imagine the time I could have saved. Anyway, that was over 60 years ago, and I've been forthright and outspoken about my position ever since.

Raised catholic, religious instruction twice a week, Saturday afternoon confession, Sunday morning church service. My sister and I used to have long rambling discussions trying to make what we were being taught thru the church square up with reality and what we were taught in school. Pretty much left me a firm nonbeliever before I got to confirmation.

So, I refused confirmation. It was pretty shocking to my family and I was on the hot seat for a while with my family. A couple years later my older brother came out as gay. My immediate family evolved, at least, enough to allow everyone to do their own thing.

There is still the occasional but "why don't you at least try" conversation every now and then from one relative or another. I generally shut it down pretty hard. I'm too old for that Bullshit anymore

My mother was raised in the church, but as an adult she did not go to church except on Easter. She used to make me and my brothers go to church with her sisters. I always felt like I did not belong and sometimes church members made me feel that way. I hated to hear the phone ring on Sunday mornings, because I knew it was one of my aunt's asking my mother to get us ready for church. Sometimes I would cry. Yep, going to church made me cry. When I got to my twenties I became extremely skeptical of religion, especially the church that I was forced to go to. The extreme hypocrisy is what made me say that I was done with religion and I did not need it to be happy.

Great question! I actually didn't grow up going to church. Being in a town of 2,000 in central MN I felt VERY out of place being the only one not going to church. I always joke my hometown had 2 "races" the Catholics and the Lutherans. My mom said when they moved there and went to the bank to open an account, someone even asked them if they were catholic or lutheran!

My mom is/was catholic but became disillusioned with the church for a number of reasons. I don't think she's outright atheist but definitely not happy about the church. My dad is Lutheran but he worked overnights a lot during the week and didn't want to go to church on the weekend. Anyways, when I hit about 8th or 9th grade I started going to the Catholic church in town with friends. Didn't take me long to realize it was BS. By the time I was a junior I considered myself atheist. I wish the internet would have been around back then because I didn't meet another "out" atheist until about 10-15 years ago.