When and why did you become an Atheist?

DublinWriter

For me it was in the dark days of 1982. It was just after my confirmation and I had made out like a bandit. Seventy pounds in old money back then was nearly enough to buy one of those new-fangeled Sony Walkmans.

Being 12 and an Atheist in Ireland back then wasn't the done thing. Bear in mind that this was just three years post our own version of the Nuremberg Rallies when the usual Irish attitude of "ah shure we'll do it tomorrow" was abandoned en masse (no pun, etc) to construct a national stage fit for a three day Papal visit in as many weeks.

I was a young idealist. I declared that I didn't believe in God much to the distress of my devout right-wing Mother and to the chagrin of my trade-unionist left-wing Father. She consulted the local Parish Priest and was told that I'd probably 'grow out of it'.

Fourteen years later the same Parish Priest died of a heart attack in a gay sauna club in Dublin City Centre brought on by overuse of amyl-nitrate 'poppers'. Twenty-nine years later I'm still an Atheist.

irishh_bob

DublinWriter wrote: »

For me it was in the dark days of 1982. It was just after my confirmation and I had made out like a bandit. Seventy pounds in old money back then was nearly enough to buy one of those new-fangeled Sony Walkmans.

Being 12 and an Atheist in Ireland back then wasn't the done thing. Bear in mind that this was just three years post our own version of the Nuremberg Rallies when the usual Irish attitude of "ah shure we'll do it tomorrow" was abandoned en masse (no pun, etc) to construct a national stage fit for a three day Papal visit in as many weeks.

I was a young idealist. I declared that I didn't believe in God much to the distress of my devout right-wing Mother and to the chagrin of my trade-unionist left-wing Father. She consulted the local Parish Priest and was told that I'd probably 'grow out of it'.

Fourteen years later the same Parish Priest died of a heart attack in a gay sauna club in Dublin City Centre brought on by overuse of amyl-nitrate 'poppers'. Twenty-nine years later I'm still an Atheist.

i grew up in a devoutly catholic household but it was also a very dysfunctional household , life was unhappy but despite this i kept strong and kept the faith , i went overseas when i was twenty and something terrible happened which changed my life to this day , this event made me reflect and become a thinker for the first time in my life , within a year or so i came to the conclusion that whether god existed or not , in my experience , thier was nothing more useless , i realised that the only single valid reason i could come up with for believing in god was that if i didnt , i would be punished when i die , who would want to worship something that allowed thousands to die daily of hunger and disease , frankly when studied , this god guy isnt so hot

DazMarz

Household growing up was Catholic, but not overly religious or anything. Mass was not something we attended all that often, Easter and Christmas mainly.

I still considered myself Catholic up until I was about 14/15 or so, when I started to question how such awful atrocities that were committed by and at the behest of the Roman Catholic Church could be so callously allowed to happen. The Christian Brothers not being so Christian... the Sisters of Mercy being anything but merciful and so on. Thankfully, I was never made an altar server, nor did I attend a religious run school, so I was never a victim of any form of clerical abuse. But it still horrified me, as it should any normal person.

I also became enamoured with science at this time too, finding out about the wonders of the natural world, and often wondering "all this was created in 7 days???? GTFO!!!". Or wondering how fossils could be hundreds of millions of years old, yet the Earth and the Universe are only supposed to be thousands of years old? I tended to trust the kindly, eloquent scientists and doctors, rather than the fire-breathing, evil sounding priests and preachers.

The atrocities committed, the sheer illogical standpoints of all major religions and the pure reason of science all 'conspired' when I was 15 to make me question things more, but it wasn't until I was about 18 that I dared to 'come out' as an atheist. Much happier for the experience too.

Beruthiel

DublinWriter wrote: »

Fourteen years later the same Parish Priest died of a heart attack in a gay sauna club in Dublin City Centre brought on by overuse of amyl-nitrate 'poppers'. Twenty-nine years later I'm still an Atheist.

LOL
Brilliant.

I can't put a finger on an exact time, but it was during my middle teens.
By that stage I was meeting up with my b/f instead of going to late mass on Sunday morning. The parents used to go to the earlier one.

Anyway, they decided we were not devout enough and started making us say the rosary at six each evening.
I kicked up a fuss (which you didn't do in our house as the wrath of my mother is legendary). There were many rows. They gave up forcing us, but it was the death knell for me. I no longer saw any point to it.

kylith

I don't remember when I became an athiest, but I remember realising that I was one. I'd probably have considered myself a catholic out of sheer habit until I met my first athiest when I was about 15. Before that I'd never known about athiesm, or that it was a choice.

I'd grown up watching nature documentaries that talked about evolution, so I never believed in Genesis, and I distinctly remember realising that priests were full of shít when one of them started pontificating about how to raise children. After that it was just a matter of putting a name to it, I suppose.

Thanks, Jack, for helping me not to be one of the blinkered masses.

Penn

No particular event or time caused it. Mass was always a chore rather than something I wanted to do. I did believe when I was younger, but it just gradually grew out of me as I learned about science and history. Still went to Mass weekly (well, not by choice) until I was about 17 when I got a job, but my cousins and I used to play games at the back of the church like "Count the comb-overs" and have staring contests with small children who were looking around to freak them out.

When I got a job, I worked Sunday mornings, but my parents had started going to Saturday night mass just before that anyway (What happened to keeping the Sabbath day holy? Huh?). So I started pretending I was asleep when my mother came down to ask was I ready. After that, just stopped going altogether.

So yeah, no traumatic event or anything. Just as I became more interested and amazed by the real world, the 'magic' world seemed less magic

magicbastarder

when? in my mid teens.
why? because there is no god.

Misty Moon

Late teens/early twenties. I was fairly religious before then and used to really enjoy the calm feeling I got from mass (although there were plenty of times when I didn't go to mass and just spent an hour hanging around the local video shop instead). When I was a kid I wanted to be a nun and when I was five or six I asked Santy for a statue of Mary as my present (actually three, I remember the second one was in case the first one broke but cannot remember my 'reasoning' for having a third one). I was very unquestioning and accepting.

A couple of the main things I remember that changed things are:

When I spent six months in Germany after second year of college. I went to mass a few times but just didn't get that same feeling. I understood all or most of the words but it just wasn't the same. Which led to the slowly dawning realisation that it might be more the chant-like repetitiveness of words I'd said a thousand times before that were inducing that calm state.

A few years later my dad died and I was quite distressed to find that I didn't get the same comfort from the thought of him being in heaven that I had gotten when my mum died ten years earlier. I realised that the main difference was that he didn't believe in god at all but she had been fairly religious and that seemed wrong because surely it should have been MY faith which dictated how I felt.

All of this of course, interspersed with plenty of thought, learning how to actually think for myself and not just accepting as gospel (see what I did there, isn't that a nice pun? ) everything I was told, not to mention all the awful stories of clerical abuse that were starting to emerge. I was quite confused about it all for a number of years, to be honest. I also had thoughts that I wasn't really being a good catholic a lot of the time and that I should really make more of an effort. I think that is one of the major problems - most catholics aren't aware of the things that their religion actually demands of them. As I was looking into it more and more the ridiculousness of it all kept shining through. For a while I thought I just needed to find a new church or religion and did a bit of reading about various other religions, in particular the various types of paganism, which I'd kind of always liked the thought of (mother earth type hippy dippy thoughts if you know what I mean). And what I realised from that reading was that I was really, really uncomfortable with the idea of anything being worshipped.

Probably one of the biggest moments though, came when I started spending time with my young nieces and nephews and friends' children and realised just how impressionable children are. Followed by the realisation that what I thought I had had and then lost, namely faith, wasn't that at all, it was just indoctrination. That realisation kind of helped me make sense of a lot of the confusion I felt.

I had stopped going to mass after my dad's funeral.* But it still took another few years before I was really ready to accept that I just don't believe any of it.


*Except for weddings and funerals. I do go to them. I have real difficulty with christenings and am thankful I am so rarely invited to any because it just makes be angry to be present watching another innocent being caught up by the church (by parents who've never been particularly religious but are just doing it because it's what you do, to keep their parents quiet or simply because if they don't have religion to fall back on how are they going to be able to explain things like death to their kids).

sbsquarepants

Can't remember exactly when or why, without sounding facetious I think it coincided with developing a bit of cop on! I remember my communion I was a believer, probably believed in santy too! Come confirmation I was convinced it was all nonsense, both santy and god!
There was no one big event or eureka moment that lifted the veil for me though. I kinda feel cheated now, that would have been some mind bending realisation I think:D

smokingman

I can't honestly remember ever believing there was a god.
I was an altar boy but it was a "job" and not any kind of calling.
I was in a choir because I enjoyed singing.
I had my communion/confirmation because I enjoyed money.
When people did religious things around me as a young kid, I kind of said to myself, "that's some kind of grown-ups thing I don't have much interest in".

I don't know why this was but I suspect it had something to do with the two sets of encyclopaedias my parents got us when we were very young.
I loved going through them and remember very early noting that there were loads of religions and "gods" in the world.

I never really thought too much about it until I was about twelve when it struck me that, in the convent I went to for secondary school, the nuns led a horrible life being totally subservient to something made up.

That started my distaste for religion but I only heard of the moniker "atheist" years later.

MagicMarker

Deep down I always was because there's no reason to be anything else.

Undergod

I don't know when exactly I lost my faith, because I only admitted it to myself gradually, out of fear and a sense of "belief in belief". Around 17 I figured out I was an agnostic, and a few years after that I thought about the nomenclature and decided I was an atheist.

Roger Hassenforder

I distinctly remember in religous class (a redemptorist school), aged about 12, and the teacher was asked what is the unique about RC and the competition.
He prattled of a few points, but one was the "we believe our Lord died and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven". I just remember sitting there thinking what a crock of schit. it all went uphill into the light from there.

PeefsPixie

Im almost 21 and I would consider myself to have been agnostic for about 6 years. I remember saying my prayers every night even as a teenager but I think one day I just realised that nobody was listening. Theres no proof, show me some and ill gladly believe in god. The bible is the biggest pile of maddening ****e to ever exist and people are religious because theyr afraid of death. Id prefer to do something about my problems then lying awake praying for some man in the sky to make everything better

robindch

Well, I opened my heart and there it was.

Kivaro

It was an epiphanic moment for me .............. a sort of terrific revelation, when I realized that I could live life for the present and not devout my life to the slimmest of chances (and against all empirical odds) that I could live for eternity.

Heed not Tomorrow, heed not Yesterday; The magic words of life are Here and Now
- Omar Khayyám (May 18, 1048 – December 4, 1131)

Lawrence1895

I was around 12 years of age, heard in school (History) about the role, both main churches played in Nazi Germany. And thanks to that, I left the church with 14 years of age (according to the legislation in Germany) and 27 years after that, I still have no regrets whatsoever.

Galvasean

No definite event or 'moment of clarity' for me. It just gradually happened. More of a, "Hey, I suppose I am an atheist actually" kind of deal. During my teen years IIRC.

Adamantium

This summer around mid July, its something I had pondered for a while as I'm only 20 years old and suffering from a pretty debilitating soon to be resolved problem for the last two years, constant pain.

cue angry rant about existence

One Sunday, I read a quote somewhere on the internet that said
"Everything is unknown, so why would you would you give your power away"

that same day,I also watched the "holy trinity:rolleyes:" of George Carlin(Religion Is Bull****), Fight Club, The Matrix. BEST IDEA EVER

And then that evening i sat in the car with my parents and siblings on the way to a blessing of the graves followed by mass in the church

I was high that week as I was processing as these new ideas and philospophies regarding religion, existense, science and it felt like my brain was going to melt from the over processing, so dizzy. sort of like adjusting to the first week of college weird ya know?

And then it came to a head in what I could only describe as one of one of those movie like epihiany moments, i remember standing up in the packed church along with everybody else and looking around slowly just thinking "WOW, these people are ****in idiots, and would gladly remain ignorant even if i tried to explain why it just DOES NOT MAKE ANY GOD DAMN SENSE FULL STOP" and thought of this line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXQozTxQSiE

As a family we are/were fairly religious but open minded, but I know if I came out and told my parents they would simply not compute and I've tried to broach the subject a few times.

"You've got to have a faith, any faith", they've said

I genuinely believe religion is just a childish coping device in the face of death and if you can cast it aside you'll finally accept responsibility, "real" responsibility and create the best life possible for each other. Its not easy, but the rewards are worth it.

You alone are just enough, you're worthy, you're whole, God or whatever imaginary delusion is not necessary-- I found this so much more comforting than the fear and dogma of the RC that is dressed up in peace and love by the clergy.

Funny how if I didn't have my condition, I may have never have gone down the rabbit hole

Dades

Great post.

That dawning realisation really is like a skinny dip. That illicit burst of freedom...

Curly Judge

A performance of Arthur Miller's play The Crucible in Canada in the late 60's set me thinking along atheist lines.

irishh_bob

the only thing that causes me to have lingering doubts about my athiesm is when i look and see the rotten luck some genuinly hard working and decent people endure , god is afterall a sadist and the way luck is dished out unevenly suggests to me , thier might be some great puppet master at work

[Rasta]

I was lucky enough to have enough common sense from a young age to know to stay away from religion, believing there wasn't much point to it. All the religious stories, parables, miracles and whatnot did help me steer away from religion.

Dudess

In recent years - after being agnostic for a number of years before that. The usual reason - all the horrible stuff going on (much of which is not human-made, thus rubbishing the "free choice" notion) and the idea of a higher power watching over everyone being pretty ludicrous to me. All happened gradually - no defining moment. Boring.

A lot of contributors to this thread seem to be still in that stage where they conflate gods and religions. I used to be a bit like that as well many years ago.

For me, the seeds were sown to some extent by my background. There's a bit of a mixum-gatherum of different and dissenting views of religion in my family. Ultimately, my mother and grandmother were significant influences on my atheism, something of which neither would necessarily be proud, both being quite strong believers.

Politics had a lot to do with it as well. A lot of the time, atheism can first be defined as - or has its genesis in - opposition to the dominant religious ethos. I developed my opposition to the dominant Catholic ethos in the early 1980s, and my experiences campaigning in the 1983 (Eighth) and 1986 (Divorce) referendums helped to consolidate my political stance on religion.

I'd love to be able to say that I was a "mature" atheist in those days, but that wasn't the case. I was happy enough to let my philosophy be defined more by what I was against than what I was for. It was enough to be somewhat childishly anti-Catholic and anti-Christian, not unlike much of the guff I read from so-called atheists on this forum. It was anti-cerebral, and in truth it couldn't really be defined as "humanist", but it suited me well enough in those days. Ach, feck it, we have to be immature in the first place so that we can achieve maturity, so maybe that wasn't such a bad thing.

Anyway, I suppose I can trace the beginnings of a more reflective and adult approach to atheism to one simple, profound and awful event that happened in my late twenties. I won't bore you with the details, save to say that it wasn't anything like as bad for me as it was for the person to whom the event actually happened. Awful as it was, one thing it taught me was that faith can - quite literally - save lives. I watched as someone who suffered an appalling loss preserved her sanity and re-built her life, mainly because of her Christian faith. That faith wasn't for me, and there was no way I could accept it or believe in it, but it would have flown in the face of reason for me to deny that it was of incalculable benefit to her.

It took a long time, maybe over ten years, for me to fully absorb the lessons of that time in my life - and watching the effects of faith on other people was undoubtedly a huge influence on me. For what they are worth, the lessons are straightforward, though perhaps not that simple. Gods, religions and faith are not the same thing, so don't mix them up. You can call yourself an atheist if you deny gods, but you can't call yourself a humanist if you deny religions or faith.

That's where I am these days, philosophically speaking. I wonder where I'll be in a few years from now?

meoklmrk91

I never remember believing in God, both my parents were fairly big on going to mass when we were younger. Then my grandmother died and my mother stopped going. I still went with my Dad who is very devout and goes to this day. My mother still believes in God, says her prayers and such every night before going to bed.

I remember before I made my confirmation wondering if I was doing the right thing and such, I was the only one in my class who refused to take the pioneer pledge, thought it was stupid, and was also the only one who didn't actually do any of that stuff before I was 18 (Not a conscious choice, just had no interest really). I was 13 when I told everyone, Mam and Dad especially were not pleased, they thought it was a phase, I'm 20 now and I have never once not even in the hardest of times got the urge to turn to God. It just doesn't cross my mind.

If I have had kids they would have no involvment in the church unless they chose to, that ruffles a lot of feathers because it is the done thing. My Father and I no longer discuss religion, he gets really mad at me and asks me where do I think the world came from so?, I have tried on many occasions to explain evolution but he doesn't get it and he is a very intelligent man, I guess thats what Brainwashing does to people. Sad really.

MrPudding

robindch wrote: »

Well, I opened my heart and there it was.

hmmm, sounds messy.

I did the whole altar boy thing and went to mass several times a week. The beginning of the end for me began, I can't remember what age but I think very early teens, when i forgot to say my prayers one night.

I woke up the next morning and was terrified about what was going to happen. Nothing happened. Of course I went bad to praying, religiously if you will, but the damage was done. I started to experiment; what would happen if I did not pray two nights in a row etc.

So once the praying stopped everything else tumbled.

MrP

kylith

Adamantium wrote: »

"You've got to have a faith, any faith", they've said

My answer to that was "I do have faith. In myself."

Sarky

Slowly, over a long time. I remember really looking at some of the prayers I was required to say at mass one day, and remembering that I'd been brought up saying this stuff since before I knew what half the words meant, and thinking "'We believe in one god, the father, the almighty'... Really? Do we? Why? I've never seen him. I'm pretty sure my parents would have mentioned meeting him..." My parents delight in telling me what an awkward child I used to be, with really fiddly questions about an all-seeing god, angels, and how could god be my father when my dad was right there in front of me, and clearly was not god.

College helped too. It explained away a lot of things. Used to have an amazing lecturer who taught me a great deal about complexity and chaos. Combine that with the fact that I didn't have everyone in the local parish back home breathing down my neck so I could actually stay in bed on Sundays. The world refused to end with my grievous sinning, and in fact my life started visibly improving as I developed better friends, lost all the nasty Catholic guilt and met lots of people from different religions and backgrounds, none of whom had ended up in hell either.

Somewhere in my undergrad I ended up accepting that it was all more than a bit ridiculous, but I was headed that way for a long time, just because of natural curiosity.

Darksaga87

My overly Catholic grandparents ruined it for me.

"Believe what the man in the dress says or ill beat the crap out of you."

Eh.... no.

Liamario

I consider myself a logical thinker and always question things. I never felt anything was beyond reproach, including religion.
So obviously, as I analysed my "chosen" religion, it became so blatently obvious that it's all a load of lies. Fairy tales and fables.
Some of the many questions that arose:-
Why did god send jesus 2000 years ago. Why not send him now?
If people believed in heaven, why do they cry at funerals.
If people truly believed in god, why do they live their lives full of sin
Surely god just needs to show up and the whole world would be at peace?

The answers to these questions all have the same answer...

kelly1

I remember asking the same question of atheists on this forum a long time ago and several atheists said that their loss of faith in God came soon after they heard Santa wasn't real. :eek:

Galvasean

kelly1 wrote: »

I remember asking the same question of atheists on this forum a long time ago and several atheists said that their loss of faith in God came soon after they heard Santa wasn't real. :eek:

To be honest, there's probably more evidence to suggest Santa is real than God...

Presents.

You can't explain that.

Sarky

Santa actually gives you tangible, practical gifts in exchange for belief and worship just once a year. When you find out he's a lie, it hurts far more than with some guy you have to pray to every day, but who never answers.

kelly1

Galvasean wrote: »

To be honest, there's probably more evidence to suggest Santa is real than God...

Huh?? Atheists generally pride themselves on their rationality/logic. We know for certain that Santa is a legend that originated with St. Nicholas. We can't say the same of God.

Delirium

kelly1 wrote: »

Huh?? Atheists generally pride themselves on their rationality/logic. We know for certain that Santa is a legend that originated with St. Nicholas. We can't say the same of God.

I sat on Santas knee when I was 7 and have witnesses/photos. Seems Santa is better able to breach the walls between fantasy and reality. Maybe he could help God make a long over due appearance.

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

We know for certain that Santa is a legend that originated with St. Nicholas. We can't say the same of God.

The christian deity is a legend that was lifted straight from the earlier deity, Jahweh, as you know yourself.

The editors added a lot of stuff pilfered straight from Greek philosophy, created one or two minor ideas, repackaged the whole lot and called it christianity.

Unfortunately for the religious, it is very easy to say where the christian deity came from.

kelly1

robindch wrote: »

The christian deity is a legend that was lifted straight from the earlier deity, Jahweh, as you know yourself.

The editors added a lot of stuff pilfered straight from Greek philosophy, created one or two minor ideas, repackaged the whole lot and called it christianity.

And you somehow know this to be fact do you?

Galvasean

kelly1 wrote: »

And you somehow know this to be fact do you?

About as much as we *know* Santa's origins.

irishh_bob

Sarky wrote: »

Santa actually gives you tangible, practical gifts in exchange for belief and worship just once a year. When you find out he's a lie, it hurts far more than with some guy you have to pray to every day, but who never answers.

plus santa seems like a fun guy , as home simpson once said about god , no wait , he,s always mad

kelly1

Galvasean wrote: »

About as much as we *know* Santa's origins.

Santa's origin isn't the point. :rolleyes: We know that Santa is a myth don't we? Nobody can say with any certainty that God is a myth/fabrication.

MagicMarker

kelly1 wrote: »

Santa's origin isn't the point. :rolleyes: We know that Santa is a myth don't we? Nobody can say with any certainty that God is a myth/fabrication.

Why can we say Santa is a myth with some certainty but not God?

Galvasean

kelly1 wrote: »

Nobody can say with any certainty that God is a myth/fabrication.

I'm sure most atheists can say so with a certain amount of certainty.

kelly1

Galvasean wrote: »

I'm sure most atheists can say so with a certain amount of certainty.

You know as well as I do that absence of (scientific) evidence isn't evidence of absence. I think there are many compelling philosophical arguments for God's existence (which I'm not going to get into here).

Galvasean

kelly1 wrote: »

You know as well as I do that absence of (scientific) evidence isn't evidence of absence.

This old chestnut? You probably know that does not mean in the absence of evidence we can believe in whatever made up stuff we like.
Aaand we're back to Santa

kelly1 wrote: »

I think there are many compelling philosophical arguments for God's existence (which I'm not going to get into here).

And equally compelling rebuttals which negate them (plus a lack of scientific/physical evidence )

spankadamonkee

God only knows!

kylith

When you think about it Santa is every bit as much of a deity as any God. He rewards the good and punishes the bad. People pray to him and offer sacrifices (milk/whiskey/biscuits/mince pies) to appease him. In a way he's more real to his believers because praying to him has tangible results.

robindch

kelly1 wrote: »

robindch wrote: »

The christian deity is a legend that was lifted straight from the earlier deity, Jahweh, as you know yourself. The editors added a lot of stuff pilfered straight from Greek philosophy, created one or two minor ideas, repackaged the whole lot and called it christianity.

And you somehow know this to be fact do you?And you somehow know this to be fact do you?

In terms of the origins of the stories, er, yes.

Go read up on Zoroastrian, Jewish, Babylonian, Mesopotamian and Sumerian beliefs for the origins of the stories about the christian deity, and read up on Plato for the thin patina of philosophy that was applied towards the end of the first century by writers who were unlikely ever to have met Jesus.

kelly1 wrote: »

Nobody can say with any certainty that God is a myth/fabrication.

And christianity is similar to most religions, in that it's designed so it's not possible to prove anything one way or the other.

In respect of the stories that purport to describe the deity, all we can do is simply point out that they're virtually identical to other, much older stories. And many christians will simply produce the "well, that's prefiguring" response which is frankly, a bit silly.

You're aware -- to take one well-known, non-controversial example -- that the story of Moses and the ark was lifted directly (save for some convenient name-changes) from the Epic of Gilgamesh, a much older Sumerian legend?

pH

kelly1 wrote: »

You know as well as I do that absence of (scientific) evidence isn't evidence of absence. I think there are many compelling philosophical arguments for God's existence (which I'm not going to get into here).

Yes it is, if given an event, the existence of evidence could be logically deduced and that evidence is absent, then that is indeed evidence for the absence of that event/occurrence.

For example if someone claims that a bomb just went off in a room, and I walk around that room and see nothing broken, no scorching, no destruction, then to be fair absence of that evidence (destruction) is indeed evidence of absence (a bomb went off in there).

Galvasean

robindch wrote: »

Go read up on Zoroastrian, Jewish, Babylonian, Mesopotamian and Sumerian beliefs for the origins of the stories about the christian deity, and read up on Plato for the thin patina of philosophy that was applied towards the end of the first century by writers who were unlikely ever to have met Jesus.

It's a pity they never do...

MrPudding

kelly1 wrote: »

I remember asking the same question of atheists on this forum a long time ago and several atheists said that their loss of faith in God came soon after they heard Santa wasn't real. :eek:

My daughter believed in santa for about 30 seconds more than god.

MrP