how or why you have no religion ?

My family aren't particularly religious... We used to go to mass every Sunday, but it was more for keeping up with the Joneses, and for my mam to have a gossip afterwards. I never liked mass cos it was boring (I never gave it any deep thought as to whether I believed it or not), and from about 14 I kept saying I wasn't going, but was coerced into going. When I was getting close to 16, it was just accepted that I wasn't into it and no fuss was made. We'd still all celebrate Christmas, Easter, etc., and we still do! But as an excuse to get the family together and drink, eat, etc. -- nothing religious about it.

Anyways, when I was about 15 or 16 I started getting kinda profound and philosophical in my thinking I was getting frustrated with not understanding where everything came from... "Okay, so the universe was created by the big bang... but where did the initial gas and crap come from? It had to come from somewhere! Okay so god made it... but where did god come from?"

I was hung up on the idea that at some point something had to have come from nothing. But eventually when I gave it more thought I started to realise that we didn't always have the level of scientific understanding that we have today. Einstein only explained relativity in the 20th century, Newton only explained motion in the 17th century....... yet humans have been on the planet for thousands of years. So I started to appreciate that the question of "why are we here? how did we get here?" is the biggest question possible really -- for a scientist or a lay man. It is asking quite alot for humans to be able to explain every single thing ever when science has only started to formalise in the last few hundred years.

Anyways, that was the catalyst, and I was an atheist from about 15 or 16. When I gave it a bit more thought I could see the pattern in human evolution and anthropology that lead humans to project divine qualities onto nearly everything they don't understand. You only need to look at all of the gods of Greek mythology to see that. But it's replicated in cultures all over the world and has always been. I realised that by worshipping something as elaborate as the Judeo-Christian god would be falling into the usual human mindset of worshipping the unexplained.

I also started reading a bit more into evolution, and that certainly sealed it for me. It gives you perspective and makes you realise that we are just another animal on this planet, and when we die, just like the rest of them, we're finished.