First I stopped believing the Christmas story. Then I stopped believing how preachers twisted the words of the bible. Then I threw out the bible all together. Then I started questioning the idea of a God.

Then I just gave up rationalizing a bunch of stupid ideas tied up with a bunch of lies and propaganda and picked up the aithiest label.

There is not credible or sufficient evidence that any god exists. In fact this world behaves just as I would expect it to behave if there is No God.

I can't pinpoint it....I called myself an agnostic for years before I finally admitted to myself that I was an atheist. I am very proud of the fact that I do not believe in the fantasy of an All Knowing Loving Father looking down on mankind, however, I DO NOT go around trying to convert others to my belief.

...the only path to Atheism is self-driven through self-realization.

Our job is to show that we exist, and that it is Ok to be an Atheist.

Atheism isn’t a set a beliefs it’s just non-belief. It is an epiphany for some and a default for others. A safe place to be with others that have questions or have already come to a conclusion for themselves is good.

I act in an ethical manner because I care about people the earth and myself, not because I am threatened by a god or religion.
What I do in life I take responsibility for not the devil or a god.

They still gotta look around for themselves.

When I argue with idiots who like to argue with atheists, it's not to change the idiots' minds. It's so that the spectators might go "Hmm."

I'm just turning on the lights, man.

I’ve converted people to atheism.

I didn’t do it by dragging anyone to a science meeting or haranguing them. I just dropped little bombs in their arguments and minds that they couldn’t shake free of.

One guy, it started with him saying he’s Catholic, because if he did things that weren’t so great, he would be forgiven.

I simply asked, “Why do you need a third party involved in something you’re responsible for? If you can, seek forgiveness for a wrong you did with the person you wronged, and if they won’t forgive you then why not forgive yourself?”

So some of it I got from my Jewish heritage, but the rest is simply common sense.

Anyway, the Catholic came back to me a few months later, and said he couldn’t shake what I’d said, he kept going over and over it, and realized it was true: he didn’t need the church for forgiveness. And with that delusion shattered, he was starting to question what he needed them for at all.

With a few more little bombs dropped in a similar vein, he became an atheist in no time at all.

...could you post some of your wisdom 'bombs' around here? They're sorely needed.

I was in 5th grade. I had parents of two religions, so I was raised with Christian and Jewish holidays and traditions - no formal religious training. My parents didn’t push me in any particular direction, but let me make up my own mind. I hadn’t really committed one way or the other on whether there was an omnipotent omniscient bearded dude on a gilded throne with flights of angels hearing every sparrow fall, but one day a girl in class asked me if I believed in God. I said "No." She asked me where I thought the universe came from if god didn’t create it? I asked her "Where did god come from?" and she got a glazed, pious look in her eyes and chanted "He always was and always will be." I thought "This is bullshit." (or the ten year old kid equivalent of this is bullshit).

My mother is xian, but my Jewish grandmother begged her to have us kids learn Judaism, even after my parents divorced. So I had both, although after I finally went to Temple and Hebrew school, I much preferred it to the xian cult, and became ever more insistent about Judaism being enough religion on my on time, thanks very much. Bad enough I went to a xian school, but to sit through their hate cult meetings was intolerable to me.

Judaism was a big reason why I became atheist. I connected with it and its community better than I ever had the xian cult, but that wasn’t what unsettled me. The shock of realizing not everyone believed the same things had me questioning if either one of them knew what they were talking about.

And then came that day I was doing homework for my parochial school religious class, about the 10 silly rules, and the textbook said that we could have no other deities but HaShem, because HaShem was a jealous god.

For all of my life to that point, every adult had drummed it into our heads that jealousy was a bad thing. And nearly all of them had also told me that HaShem was perfect. But if he was jealous, and jealousy was bad, then he couldn’t be perfect. Because jealousy was bad and a perfect being couldn’t be bad...right?

And the light bulb came on then and there: All this guy in the sky stuff was bullshit, just like Santa Claus.

I never again believed in the invisible space buddies. Yeah, I went hardcore Judaism for a while in the 90s, but that was a “connecting with my heritage” thing, not religious. I haven’t been to Temple in at least 20 years now, and it’s been even longer since I’ve attended a xian ritual. Maybe the 80s, when the USAF tricked us into attending the holy roller service during basic. I got even by spending the rest of Sunday mornings sitting outside and smoking until a service was over. Nobody was ever the wiser for it.

I was about 5 years old and concentrating on my feet, trying not to slip on the shards of broken sidewalk between our house and the church. I had been bored with the sermon and I was wondering why they only told one story. Ever. Every time we went to church it was the same old thing. And then, I remembered the main pitch of the story, "Whosoever believeth in the lord JC will surely be born again." And my thought was, I sure hope I get a better momma and daddy next time.

When I was a teen, my aunt who taught bible class, invited me to just leave the church, "If I couldn't stop asking questions and just Believe." I knew my whole life, but I was released from any pretense forever after.

I never "realized" I was an atheist, I simply was one. Even as a child I heard all the nice stories about various religious gods from Zeus to the Almighty Christian god, and I found them interesting, sometimes quaint, but I never took them seriously.

My atheism wasn't reached through a process, it was the default. I started there and never encountered anything persuasive enough about any religion to convince me otherwise.

Kinda similar situation. I raised my kid that way. It has always been a default.

Organizing around being an atheist never appealed to me. It would be like joining a club for people who don't climb mountains or people who aren't deep sea divers. It's not an interest, it's a non-interest, and it's so broad that there's no real commonality with other people who hold that same non-interest. In all other respects we could be diametrically opposed.

For people who left their religions, I think there actually is more of a perception of common experience. That whole process of absorbing, then rejecting, a certain set of values and principles and assumptions can provide shared emotional histories. But I can't directly relate to that myself.

I do, however, see the need to fight against specific intrusions of religion on my secular life or violations of the separation of church and state. So although I don't participate in organization that are focused on "being an atheist", I have contributed to specific causes in which religion has impinged on my civil liberties.

When my father took me to space museum in San Diego, I started getting very interested in space and realized just how small “we” are.

I've been there once or twice.

and tried praying to Jesus to come into my soul, and it felt like a farce (9 years old)

Being told by a priest that birth control was out of the question.
My parents had 8 children, this was not going to be my fate.
I started questioning all of it.