I asked this question: A question for atheists who were theists. What made you decide to throw out your religious brainwashing? Here are some of the answers.

When I was around 40, my faith was wavering so I decided to look at the evidence for the Bible. I looked at the science behind both creationism and evolution and initially I had to force myself to be very objective and through with both -- I tend to just accept any creationist claim and reject evolution. The more I learned, the more that switched to accepting evolution and dismissing creationist claims. It didn't take too long to see that creationist authors were blatantly ripping off Christians.

I did further research into other Biblical events that should have left lasting evidence. For example, while I would not expect the Noah's ark would have lasted, clearly a world wide flood would have left massive evidence both in geology and in genetics, but nothing remotely similar was to be found.

Now there is some supporting evidence for parts of the Bible, but none of it directly or indirectly suggests that God exist, it just suggests that the Bible does contain some history and geography.

I know that many people claim that the earlier events in the Bible are "metaphorical" or "allegorical", but they are not written that way, other writers in the Bible refer to them as real events rather than metaphors and it was not until relatively recently that more than a handful of people started to claim that they were metaphors or allegories

I think the last straw was asking a question about the Star of Bethlehem on R&S, but when you might actually get some serious answers. The answers I got confirmed what I had already found out, i.e. the herald of the most important event in history had not been noticed by anyone but the wise men, even though it led them for up to two years.

-- Pirate AM™

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Fighting in a series of several religious wars did it for me. In all truth.

-- Veschengro

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I was raised/indoctrinated into Protestant Christianity. But once I learned about other religions, I realized the chances were small that I had happened to be born into the correct religion. Then I learned about mythologies, that they were religions that people stopped believing in. It seemed obvious that all religions were simply myths people still believed in.

This was about 35 years ago, and nothing I've seen or heard or read since has changed my mind or even made me doubt that all religions are just man-made myths.

-- Anonymous

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When I was about 17 I decided that I wanted to be a better Christian by thoroughly studying the Bible and learning the historical context. It didn't have the result I expected.

-- God of Thunder

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There is nothing true about the Judeo-Christian teachings. I simply couldn't believe a pack of lies any longer. The supposed messianic prophecies were the nail in the coffin for me.

-- Troll

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I was raised Christian, spent over 20 years believing in God, loving Jesus, going to church, and reading the Bible.

I wanted to get closer to God so I started studying the Bible in-depth. But that study showed me there is no proof God exists.

-- Anonymous