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How old were you when you declared yourself an atheist?

I remember telling my dad at 14 or so. I did not come from a religious family so he was a little bummed but not distraught or anything. This has helped me be free-spirited in all of my thoughts.

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Permalink Reply by Jedi Wanderer on July 29, 2011 at 12:41pm

Pretty cool, Brian. I also began to call myself an atheist at age 12, but this was only as far back as '89. Good to know there were many before me, and still many more to come.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel PD on March 23, 2012 at 5:58pm

Woah, you had to live in the dark ages of atheism? Congratulations on keeping your sanity.

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Permalink Reply by Joshua Chase on July 29, 2011 at 1:35pm

I was about 18. After a brief flight of fancy when I was 16 or 17 about going to seminary I started paying closer attention to my faith. What I found were a lot of questions, not a lot of satisfactory answers, and a huge amount of rationalization. I would say a series of realizations, events, and reflection transformed me from believer to agnostic to atheist to just shy of strong atheist. Though due to problems of definition I still consider myself a technical agnostic because proving a negative is quite challenging.

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Permalink Reply by damian on July 29, 2011 at 8:24pm

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Permalink Reply by David Anam on July 29, 2011 at 8:52pm

I wasn't really raised religious, but I was probably around 8 or 9 when I started realizing that Christianity was a load of crap. That led me to my Buddhist phase, until I acknowledged to myself that I didn't know anything about Buddhism. After questioning my previous assumption that everyone has a religion, I began my life as an atheist... except I had never heard the word "atheist" until I was 17.

So if you want to be technical, I was 17 when I declared myself an atheist.

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Permalink Reply by Daniel PD on March 23, 2012 at 5:56pm

brainless christian - 1992 - 1999

Skeptical christian - 1999 - 2002

Methodist (Don't ask) - 2002

Skeptical christian - 2002 - 2007

Agnostic - 2007 - 2008

Atheist - 2008 - present

I thing i just got a high score or something.

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Permalink Reply by SuperNova on April 2, 2012 at 1:30am

I am a closet atheist for 18 years. I am still waiting for that day I can "out" myself.. am in no rush, though. :)

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Permalink Reply by Jonathan Christie on April 2, 2012 at 3:09am

I think I was lucky in that sense, I never really was a xtian. Too much bs.

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Permalink Reply by Indian Chimpanzee on April 2, 2012 at 3:22am

I was 8. Well I did not know what atheism was then but anyway I said there could be no God or gods at 8.

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Permalink Reply by Idaho Spud on April 2, 2012 at 10:52am

Age 67 was when I declared to myself that I was an atheist. Two more years before I came-out to my family.

It's still embarrassing to admit it took me that long to see the truth. The only reason I can see is that I was thoroughly brainwashed as a child into the cult of Mormonism, and the fear of satan and hell kept me believing for 67 years.

I had doubts as far back as I can remember (age 8), but I put them on the back shelf. The doubts started coming off the back shelf and flying around my brain strongly at about the age of 50. I stopped going to church, but still had lingering fear that satan might be deceiving me.

I finally overcame my fear enough to study evolution (a big no-no in Mormonism). I found evolution much easier to understand than I thought I would, and it became obvious that's how life came about.

I watched several hours of Richard Dawkins lectures on evolution, and read The God Delusion. Dawkins was the one that finally convinced me absolutely that there were no Gods. I now have no belief in or fear of hell, satan, or death.