The bible itself, and of course Bertrand Russell

I have a great respect for Krishnamurti when he was primed to be the new world teacher by Besant and Leadbeatet, stood up at their congress, and totally renounced everything that The Order Of The Star had prepared him for.

I think it was something to do with the death of his brother that made him renounce the Messianic role that they had placed upon him, but blot too sure.

For me it was getting old enough smart enough to read science textbooks. It did not take me long to realize that science is real and faith and belief is not.

I was 13 and it just seemed logical there was no god.
Philosophy class, psychotropic mushrooms, and Pink Floyd finished off any doubts I may have had by the time I was 18.

My experience was a little different than others here. When I started thinking for myself at around 17 or so questioning the Bible was painful and a bit scary. I had no one to talk to about my existential crisis. I rode the storm by myself. It was difficult - similar, I suppose to breaking from a cult. “The Awakening of Intelligence” smoothed that ride for me quite a bit.

“The Awakening of Intelligence”, J. Krishnamurti sounds great.

Figured out religion was BS when I was in early elementary school. Didn't read a book to make that observation. I noted contradictions with faith based assertions and reality so I figured Church was nothing more then a glorified Santa Clause with a stick con game adults used to keep kids scared and obedient.

Many years later when I realized many old people still believed in their imaginary sky daddy, my expectations for a good outcome for civilization was greatly diminished.

The King James bible ....the Jacob's Ladder was just too stupid for me to swallow along with obvious lies alleged vaginal virgins don't birth alleged baby gawds in dirty donkey stables ....too stupid like Santa Claus coming down our 6 inch chimney....I kept looking for boy Easter bunnies laying candy eggs on dogshit lawns in the bible...that lie I refused to even sniff....my dreams were real and bible lies were a cruel joke on us kids in Sunday school

James Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man had a big impact on me at age eighteen.

Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock. Helped me realize the writers of the bible had no clue what was going on in the world, much less "divine guidance" in writing it.

I wasn't "religious" at the time, but it helped me away from belief in any type of god--Godel, Escher, Bach, by Douglas Hofstadter.

In 1957, a book comparing the various xianities, then a book comparing the major world religions, and finally a book about the various origin myths helped me transition from Catholicism to agnosticism.

Honestly, I didn't really read anything during my transition. I had kind of a rough time due to coming from such a religious family and environment. I spent a lot of time looking for people that could relate to going from a devout Christian to being atheist. Took me about 3 years to actually accept I was agnostic/atheist, because I was struggling with cognitive dissonance. But once the mind battle was over, reason and logic won. I've just been embracing who I am over the past 6 years. But I am currently working with Dan Barker on a music related project. He has some books and videos on YouTube that were inspirational to me.

Carl Satan's 'The Dragons of Eden' was terrific.

It was Crisis of Conscience for me, written by an ex-member of the governing body of Jehovah's Witnesses, Raymond Franz.