My favorite atheist story, so far, comes form Ricky Gervais.

http://www.vido1.com/QWxEFeSdVMtN1MW1WU ... and-being-

I wish my de-conversion story was as elegant as that.

For me, there was no catalyzing moment that stands out clearly. I remember that the last time i actually tried to believe was in 7th grade. i was outside, looking at the stars, and i started speaking to the sky. I promised that i would try to pray once a week, just to try to keep in touch, because i thought i really hadn't been doing my due dilligence in regards to flattering god about how great he was.

That was the last time i can remember thinking i was actually speaking to god. Then, i just started to make connections as i learned things. They used to ACTUALLY believe that Zeus was real. They didn't treat the subject like mythology. That was their god. Being a science fiction kid, i thought, well what happens in seven hundred years and humanity has to re-build after the alien invasion and they come across the bible? They will look at that and say, they actually BELIEVED that this guy was a god!

I think it was empathy, the ability to put myself in other people's shoes, that told me there was no god. Every practicioner of every religion thinks they are following the truth. The ONLY truth. They can't all be right. These thoughts came to me long before i started comparing the claims of religion against reality. This was just a mental exercise. Millions of native americans lived their lives without ever having heard of Jesus... so they never accepted him... so they are all in hell. No matter how good a person they were, they are burning in a pit of fire because of their ignorance.

Foolish, short-sighted ideas like this made me realize how limited, and self--centered the biblical narrative is. There is no conception of what other people might have been up to, or that important things might be going on somewhere else. It is just so plainly an imaginary story that i could find nothing to stand up to my scrutiny.

Belief fled like a shadow, wherever i shone the light of inquiry.

What's your story?

Before leaving to conquer Troy, Agamemnon was held ashore because of bad weather. The troops all wanted to set sail but the weather didn't permit them and they assumed it was a sign from the gods. Agamemnon appeased the gods by sacrificing his daughter, Iphigenia. He killed his daughter in the hopes the gods would grant his army fair weather for their crossing. We probably descended from these people. They are nuts. We are nuts.

I think I stopped believing in god after one of my wrestling coaches brought me to a christian gathering aimed at young people. There was rock music and it was entertaining. He was so into it. I have joy because I do this for god... I do that for god... I do for god. I dunno. God always struck me as just out of my reach and the older I got the more ridiculous he became. I always felt on the outside looking in and deathly scared I would catch whatever bug some of these people had. I participated for a while because I loved the comradery and the community. The people were so happy and friendly while they were there. It was like being in a world where everyone lived far apart from one another and then gathered once a year to say hello to everyone else. They all put their best foot forward, adorned nice clothes, and went the extra effort to make a good impression. They also enjoyed that you did the same and reveled in it all. It was a great time full of happy people. Whatever... it was all bogus and fake but the feeling of holiday and fairy tale is a happy and delightful one. It's shallow and it ends when the clock strikes but it's fun while it lasts.

Today another christian came to me while I was cleaning my car. I had on my dirty "Beer, because everyone needs a hobby" t-shirt. He introduced himself and his very cute daughter, Rosie. She was adorable. He asked me... awkwardly... how I felt about all the global warming (hahaha - the laugh had me thinking he didn't believe a single word about global warming) and the world coming to an end. I focused on him hoping he'd keep talking so I wouldn't have to speak. He moved closer and held out his bible. He was very nicely dressed in slacks and a tie - despite the heat. He began to read Psalms something - I tried to remember the numbers. It said something along the lines of when the world ends those who believe in Jehova will be saved. Something along those lines or maybe his previous talk about the world ending has altered my memory or interpretation.

Now I can't find the passage on the internet. There isn't even a 'Jehova' when I did a find. Anyway, I know it was Psalms because I saw it on the top of the page. Anyway the passage stated that those who believed in Jehova would be saved.

Of course, I thought about all the people that didn't believe in Jehova. All the good people. I also thought how a kind god could allow good people to burn in hell just because they didn't believe in someone who didn't present themselves and prove themselves. I also didn't like how there was an ever lasting life - that seemed wrong and unnatural. Everlasting anything seems wrong and unnatural.

His daughter was very cute though in her long dress and pinned up curls. She was as quiet as I was the entire one-sided conversation. I thanked her Father and sent him on his way and thanked her, too. What a beautiful pair of people. Very nice, dignified, and respectable... going out of their way to show others what they think will be their salvation. They are trying to help people. That's a wonderfully tragic thing.

It's such a pretty package. It's pretty and inviting and wrong. It's the most beautiful bane of humanity.

I have never believed in belief. At scripture classes in school I could not stand it when preachers tried to convince us to believe claims that lacked evidence. When I then read The Gnostic Gospels by Elaine Pagels many years ago, it helped me to see that belief has been hotly debated within religion, but those who focus on knowledge (gnosis) rather than belief as a framework for ordering their understanding have been cast to the margins. This social bias has gradually changed with the rise of science and reason, as the status of knowledge has increased. Belief has the social advantage over knowledge that it can unite ignorant people, who accept claims on authority in order to participate in community. Rejecting belief involves criticism of believers, and that is often a hard path. Where this relation between belief and knowledge becomes problematic is that often belief has an origin in knowledge, but the knowledge has been lost and people accept the belief as the ultimate truth. People who rely on evidence then assume that the belief is entirely without foundation. It is like believers have climbed to the top of a ladder (knowledge) and then kicked the ladder away and forgot it was there. Richard Dawkins suggests that this destruction of earlier foundations could be present in the evolution of life. It is interesting to analyse the Bible against this evolutionary framework, to ask what was the genuine knowledge that inspired the false beliefs, and can we reconstruct it.

Yes, let us all bare ourselves, and tell our stories. Here's mine for what it's worth.

I don’t think I ever stopped believing in God, I never believed in the first place. I don’t really understand how this happened to me. Yes, I went to church every week, I sang in the choir, went to bible school in the summer. I loved the songs and the stories, but for me, as a child, religion was only that, stories. Maybe attending a Methodist church lended itself to how I felt, church was fun!

My father was Catholic, my mother, agnostic. My mother demanded of my father to convert to Methodist before they were married. Religion was important to my father, my mother’s intention was to keep religion in the family for his sake, but wanted to change brands, change to a less enthusiastic brand of religion I suppose, but religion was never discussed in our house. However, I did witness the cruelty of my grandmother towards my mom. My grandmother, Russian Orthodox Catholic, she hated my mother. I can still see my grandmother's ravaged angry face, screaming in Russian. My parents elopement by a justice of the peace, and my father's conversion surely had something to do with this. This may explain my own mother in laws feelings towards me, my husband and I eloped as well, but my mother in law screamed in English!

Organized religion completely left my life at age 11, my parents divorced. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer some 20 years ago, she asked to be cremated and to have her ashes scattered in the ocean. She said, “I want to go back to nature”, I love these words, I loved my mother’s words. She said, she wanted to be fish food and travel all around the world. I did perform my mother’s last request, and every time I visit the ocean, and smell the sea air, I hear her words, and I know she is where she belongs, were she was meant to be, she went back to nature.

OK, I get it from my mom!

I certainly don't have anything poetic or meaningful to offer, but I suppose it began with the Easter Bunny (who, uh, "exists" in Germany as well): I certainly couldn't figure out how the anatomy of a rabbit made it possible for it to carry eggs without breaking them. Nor could I figure out why in the world a rabbit would want to carry around eggs to begin with. After badgering my parents for weeks, they finally gave in and admitted that the Easter Bunny did not exist. Its tracks leading to the nest of moss outside in the yard had been provided by my mother using 3 fingers dipped in flour. My parents did not attend church. I then went on to assume that any creature doing odd things not keeping in line with its speicies most likely did not exist, especially if one could not see it. And so I slipped effortlessly into not believing in god/s.

What a wonderfully sweet story about your Mother, Suzanne. I am sorry about your loss. But how wonderful to remember her when you go to the ocean.

See? That's an amazing thing. Holy days that have turned into holidays with a theme are fun and can bring families and communities closer to each other. The myth makes it all the more fun and wherever the rabbit came from... that just makes it awesome. Easter is a great holiday for families! There's so many opportunities for fun with your kids. It's that way because Easter is a mixture of other great holidays such as Christmas (morning surprise of Easter Basket) and Halloween ( hunt for candy and dress up like a bunny) and it has some of its own original fun like coloring eggs!

Good holiday. Your Mom wanted to make you happy and I bet she felt something special. She got a chance to spread around some of that magic Mom's have.

It's all completely absurd but I believed in the Easter Bunny! I don't remember when I stopped believing but I don't think I harbored any ill feelings at all for being duped. The holidays don't have the same appeal they used to as a small child.

I think the understanding that belief is different from the truth is what did it for me. I remember believing in god when I was young, but after I'd learned that santa claus didn't exist. I remembered back to when I believed in santa, and how real it all was. Then it dawned on me that the same thing could apply to my belief in god, that even though I believed he was real, it was only belief, and the truth is often something else. So I started questioning everything, even my own beliefs. God didn't survive my examinations, he's been gone ever since.

You're not believing hard enough. 2 +2 = 5. Just keep on repeating it.

In a Catholic Church during a Sunday mass was when I finally admitted I didn't believe a word of it...LoL I did cringe down a little bit like I thought I would get struck by lightning. I already didn't believe in religion, but my (now ex) husband wanted our children to be raised Catholic. After his annulment, our marriage was blessed, our youngest was baptized, we began attending weekly services. The parish did NOT welcome us with open arms, it was difficult to socialize with these people, but we persisted, I sent my children to the school (it is a FAR better education than you can get through public schools and it is very cheap) My ex wanted us to all go together and I did for a while. It got harder and harder, and during the sermons I was questioning everything when I was listening at all, and then I realized it was pointless to go at all, so I stopped going. That didn't go over well at first, but eventually we all got used to the new routine, and I appreciated some quality time with myself every week.