Did you choose to become an atheist, was it a sudden transformation or did you grow into one?
962958
It was a slow and often painful transition.  In fact, I set out trying to BUILD my faith in God and Jesus, not lose it.  If you knew how many times I went into the church after hours and alternately screamed in rage and humbly begged Jesus to give me one TINY sliver of evidence or proof, you'd be able to count to a very high number, considering it took many years.\n\nIn the end, the proof never came.\n\nI didn't choose to be an atheist.  Religion just stopped making sense.\n\nStill, I'm glad to be where I am, it feels as right now as Christianity felt before that painful transition period.
1065700
I would be surprised to find an atheist who did not accept evolution. So as an atheist yes I do accept evolution. I also deny  the existence or supernatural forces.
596759
I was baptized Catholic and attended Catechism a few times but even at the age of 7 I didn't believe in "God". I believe the "higher Power" is within each of us and that we are all connected on a subconscious level. Now I worship nature.
291455
Yes, I was raised Catholic and converted to Wicca when I was 21.  I had become increasingly unhappy about some of their theology and will be honest the way the sex scandal was handled was my last straw.  At that point I still did believe in Christianity.  But when I searched for the sect that mirrored what I thought I read the bible more and more and things just didn't make much sense any more. Then the more I read and looked the inconsistencies and contradictions jumped out.  The OT horrified me beyond belief and I couldn't understand the shift from the OT to the NT, it was as if God had a personality transplant.  Then I began finding out the changes that had been done to it, stuff taken out, re-written, gutted, etc.  and my disbelief grew.   The end finally came while I was watching George Carlin, believe it or not.  When he did his skit about how God and Santa sounded about the same, I was floored.  I sat there as that played through my mind and it made sense.  My faith officially died.  After that I read the books of many faiths from around the world.  Wicca matched what I believed best and my journey ended with it.
1026066
I blasphemed god, and he turned me into a newt.\n\n\n\n...I got better.
757356
You bet I did. I've probably been atheistic in my beliefs for 10-15 years, but only managed to truly embrace it this year.\n\nI struggled off and on with my doubts fo years, too, since I was a teenager. I grew up in a small Midwestern town of less than 1500 people. Everybody knew everybody else and everybody was either Lutheran or Catholic. Growing up, I didn't know ANYBODY who wasn't either, let alone didn't believe at all. Kids made FUN of those who didn't go to church every week. No, I wasn't one of them, I just knew kids who did.\n\nThe atmosphere here is still, in a way, like things were back in the 50s. People are generally polite, friendly, and trusting, honest folk, God-fearing. People unfortunately also keep some of those lingering prejudices from those days, even those that are my age. For example, my best friend in high school is a devout Catholic. Nothing wrong with that, was never an issue. However, within a year or two of graduation, she was pregnant out of wedlock. This was a gal who, as a teenager, denounced her own parents to me because they had her older brother out of wedlock. She loved her son and the father stayed with her and they eventually married.\n\nBut the point is, they didn't have much money to get married right away. When I saw her maybe 6-9 months after her first son was born and she showed me her engagement band, she told me that her son "would now have a father". Didn't outright use the b-word, but you know damn well what she meant. I don't know ANYONE my age who would still call a child of theirs born out of wedlock a b-strd, nor insinuate it. But she did. So that's an example of some of the outdated things people still have around here and it's worse for atheists.\n\nGrowing up, having another faith besides Christianity was bad enough, it was worse to NOT have faith at all. There was a stigma(and still is to a point) that atheists are selfish, sinful people who like to drink, smoke, do drugs, sleep around, etc. They also have the lovely stigma that atheists are Commies(more proof that people still think like it's 1954 around here at times), worship Satan, sacrifice babies, and burn Bibles.\n\nTo a point, I grew up thinking that atheists were angry, dark, evil, frightening people. When I started doubting, I fought it and I fought it hard. I didn't want to be associated with that sort of stereotype. I didn't want people to think I did those things because there's no WAY I'd do any of it. I'm not that kind of person.\n\nSo I doubted and desperately tried to find faith, find any reason at all to believe in God and like what I was taught. Didn't find it. So, seeing as how I was grown up, in college, had lots of friends from bigger cities who were of different faiths, I tried that. I tried looking into Buddhism and Wicca, hoping that if I couldn't find God in Christianity, I could find it somewhere else. Didn't work either. I was scared of being stereotyped, scared of letting the family down, scared of letting God down if he existed, wondering at times why I was made to doubt if God created me and wanted me to believe in him. The usual stuff.\n\nAfter several years of it, I just gave up caring and trying. I figured I'd let religion find me instead of exhausting myself trying to find it. Figured that sooner or later, if there was a religion for me, I'd find it. Lots of fights with the family, lots of humiliation and strife over me being "not Christian".\n\nThe final "puppet string" as it were, I suppose, was my cousin. Up until this February, I kept it quiet, just didn't care or worry about it. I've dealt with lots of nastiness in the family about being not "good enough", even when I WAS a believer and my cousin and his mother were the two biggest instigators. They were the ones who kept attacking and demonizing and humiliating me in front of the family.\n\nMy aunt,
346862
It was a process for me, over time. I stopped going to church, after my mother died, and *they* {the christians} told me she no longer had time for me, and I shouldn't 'try talking to her...so followed no path, or religion for many years after that.  Was pretty PO'd at God...didn't matter which one..\n   After I got married, and was pregnant with my son, my husband and I started going to a little baptist church. I can't really say I had any problems with that church, the people were nice, good to us. But it just didn't ..DO anything for me..\n  I started reading up on other religions...and realized, they were all saying, pretty much the same thing. Just said or called it by a different name. And came, again to the relization, that I'd had as a child, that I really don't think any ONE religion...is Right, or Wrong.  They all have the same message...underneath..it's just how the 'People' interpret it..and they allll interpret everything, in about 20 different ways or more..LOL \n  So then they add 'rules' 'regulations' 'laws'...until the real message, get's lost in a jumble of un-related context, which confuses the heck out of everyone, until their numb in the mind and just follow blindly along, out of fear.\n  The Power's that be, gave us..FREE WILL for a reason..So that we can think for ourselves, and seek out the truth on our own. I think everyone's Truth, is their own...I think everyone's journey, is their own personal walk through this life, and every life. It's what you do with it.
353392
when i was 15, 2 very close friends were killed in a car accident, i was miserable and confused. i discovered that it wasn't that god had abandoned me, he never existed in the first place. i have spent a lot of time reading about it and discovered what a bag of shite religion is,\n\nsince loosing my faith, my life has improved ten fold, instead of wasting time on a false deity, i am living life for me.\n\nconsequencially my fiance wants to get married in a church, but i refuse.\n\ni kinda upset my parents as well!
701060
I am very respectful toward people who are Believers.\n\nEveryone in my family believes in God, but even if they didn't I would still be respectful.\n\nI've come to being an atheist after years of searching and trying to believe but not being able to convince myself....so this did not just happen over night.\n\nPlease do not paint us with the same brush. All atheists are not the same nor to we want to be.
476760
I changed my faith to Hinduism from what I was brought up with, after YEARS of studying all I could about various religions, the Bible, and other Scriptures, ancient and world history, archaeology, etc.  I also "studied" myself.  I prayed a lot and came to understood that Hinduism is the religion of my soul, the religion I was when I was a child, before I was told what to believe.
764615
i was raised Christian and when i began to question things i became agnostic verging on atheist ( when i was about 17 )\nthis lasted for years ... but i did study during those years\nand i researched the paranormal and all those things that i questioned since young due to my own experiences\ni started going to spiritualist church only a year ago ... but have held the same beliefs as they do for the past 7 years ... so it seemed a natural progress for me to take on spiritualism as my faith
734439
It actually occured over time.  I was raised a Methodist, but by the time i was in Sixth Grade (now 27 years ago), I began to see there was more out there, at least from the scientific side.  I began to be pretty heavy into science in high school, then began to study religions in the last two years I was in high school.  I had an English teacher than encouraged me to continue to study about them (as a comparative-type study, not a theological path).  \n\nWhen I went to college, I took a major in religion.  I mainly wanted to study world religions, but wound up taking a lot of classes in the Bible.  By the time I had left college, I had read quite a few of the sacred texts of the world's religions (including most of the Bible).  I had even read some of the apocryphal Bible (Old and New Testaments).  I began to believe in Deism during college, but didn't really have a name for it.  \n\nI am a firm believer in Deism today and I really can say I have no nagging questions.  It is a very logical, reasoned religion without a sacred text.  For me, it works.
919797
i was born an atheist (without belief in god(s) as everyone is, taught Catholicism (Christianity with saints), and then born again atheist for 20 years.\n\nbelievers are born without belief also, but they are taught to believe in one form or another, usually starting at early childhood.\n\nit's hard to shake the effects of brainwashing when it starts so young. some, like myself, are lucky to break free of the superstition.
1158382
My not believing in god comes from me. I was raised to think, believe whatever I wanted. I was exposed through my life to most religions, beliefs, sciences, and theories. After looking at all, I chose. I used logic, and observations to make my decision, atheism was the choice. I came into life a clean mind with no beliefs, and over time made my own, but only after many years. Most of the theories I believe are my own, and I am the only one who believes them. The only influence on my beliefs is me, my thought.
843465
I just cant make myself believe it...I tried, tried very hard indeed for years and still could not overcome doubt. I was raised christian but no matter how much I tried to force myself to believe, in my mind I knew it wasn't truth, wasn't reality and sounded more like a fairytale than anything else. I finally gave up and accepted myself for the Atheist I am whose mind was and is apparently not weak enough to throw logic and science out the window and buy into the god theory.
1105655
Catholicism.\nAnd yes I have, which is why I'm an Atheist.
768271
Non religious to Christianity: A friend took me to church with her and I liked it for a time.\n\nChristianity to Agnostic: People of the church were disappointing.  They judged a lot more than "enlightened".  I was considered a trouble maker for asking questions.  I found that any place that tries to hide answers has a reason to do so, and that's never really a good thing when they're taking your money.\n\nAgnostic to Atheism:  Over time, I just felt that the concept of God was not logical and not for me.  I prayed so hard for many weeks for him to allow me to believe in him.  I was miserable for a time after realize he didn't exist, but I began living for myself and being truthful to myself and I just became happier than I ever have been.\n\nThis entire process was over the course of ten years.