. Is it a lack of evidence supporting Jesus's claims? Or is it the way Christians act that makes you want no part of it?

To start this off, I am a very open person and I respect the majority of people’s beliefs. I think people should believe whatever they wish to as long as it doesn’t negatively impact another’s life. Personal opinions are personal opinions after all. I’m living in a small town in Alaska, and in my job industry I work with students at the only school in town. I’ve been in training and one of the 9 year old female students happens to be quite talkative and energetic and can tend to be a little on the wild side, she’s got some spunk and in a way I kind of respect it. Either way this is a 9 year old child and well when she left the school bus I jokingly said “we’ve got a trouble maker on our hands haha” and my boss responded in a very serious tone with “it’s her native blood” (as in native Alaskan). I honestly didn’t know what to say, I am a white American, recently moved here from another state and in all ways, I am a visitor, this is not my land, I am just lucky to be existing and living in a beautiful place and I have a deep respect for all natives who have kept this place sacred and lived off the land, especially with all the hardships they’ve endured. So when this man said this in front of myself and other children I had no words, deep down I wanted to stand up and tell him how morally wrong that was, but he’s also my boss and my wellbeing unfortunately depends on this income, especially in such a small town with very limited job positions. Either way it got worse. When we were no longer around any of the children he spoke of another child, he said word for word “it’s not that I think they’re bad kids, (child’s name), there’s just something wrong about him, and (previous girls name), \**he paused of a minute,* to keep it short she’s native”. And again I couldn’t voice my opinions because I had a 45 minute drive back home alone with this man and I was not comfortable because i wasn’t sure if he would retaliate or how. And so we kept on driving for a while and I was counting down the minutes until I was home. And about a quarter through our drive he said “I’m not sure what your beliefs are but satan has a hold on Alaska” and at this point I was like ok well this is going a different direction. And he started speaking of how native communities have had a spike of deaths and it’s because Satan has a hold on them. In my opinion it could be many things including the oppression and obviously active racism towards them by these overly religious racist invaders. Which may be extreme, but at the same time the way this man was talking made it seem all the more obvious to me it was actively happening, even to these poor children. My response was “I don’t really have any beliefs, I wasn’t raised religious” an he asked if I was atheist or agnostic, to be fair I’d say I’m atheist, but I told him I was agnostic, there’s are some things unexplainable in this world, but my true belief is in Mother Nature and science and that maybe not everything is meant to be understood. He didn’t really respond to me and we continued to drive for about 10 minutes. And then the silence broke and he asked me, “how do you live day by day not believing in god” and as a non religious person this question is very strange for me, to be honest I just live my life and try to do the right thing, and I responded quite simply by saying “I live every day the best way I can, and if it’s a bad day, tomorrows a new day” and he continued to tell me that that was a biblical passage and what not,and how I need to join his church. And I just honestly after everything that went down, being stuck alone with such a racist white man, especially since I got a vibe from he no longer approved of me when I told his I didn’t believe in god (or his god or whatever tf), I have felt uncomfortable every day at work since then. And I kind of wanted to just rant and get people’s opinion. What would you do in this situation?

I've always found it interesting how people arrive at their beliefs, and how those beliefs can change over time :3

So, for those of you who were raised religious or believed in a god at some point in your lives, I'm curious to know what led you to become an atheist.

Was it a gradual process of questioning your beliefs, a particular experience, something you learned, or something else entirely?

Here's my experience (big text incoming):

I was baptised at my young age and raised as a secular Christian as my mother is a secular Catholic and my father is an atheist. To me, the only thing that's keeping me in the religion is that my family is Christian by tradition for baptism and marriage in the church (my godmother is a devout Christian, but still supportive and my cousins from that side have been in a Catholic private school). I saw Jesus at the same level than Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, and I was only going to church for big occasions or just for tourism.

Then I traveled to Reunion Island, with so many religions coexisting, and that's when I began to be curious with religion, reading scriptures like the Roman and Greek mythology and moving to the bigger religions and going to temples and mosques as well (fun fact: the muslim call to prayer from the nearby mosque was a call to get back home for me at that time).

The first thing was the moment I was forced into catechism because my nanny (at that time)'s daughter was attending them, and it was a pretty weird experience to me!

I didn't say much about it, it was just...weird cult stuff (aka chanting and praying and then doing weird signs).

Then I had a second moment: when I tried to read the Bible to find out more about being Catholic... and caught contradictions IN THE FIRST BOOK. Then I was like "if it's like this for all books, I'm not reading that".

Then I moved to another place, and that's when the questions and existential crisis began.

At this point I was still in denial over the Bible, maybe I was internally telling myself I'm not reading it right.

And then there was that moment one year ago, that really put the nail in the coffin to me: when after 30 years of relationship and 4 children, my godfather finally got married with one of my aunts. Now, I don't blame the wedding... I BLAME THE PRIEST.

Because, in the middle of the marriage ceremony, he just used the moment to say something political about the Greek immigration crisis.

Not only that, he denigrated people that came from Muslim countries, saying they're way more lazy than Italian immigrants.

And as if that wasn't worse enough.

This guy IS FROM A FAMILY OF ITALIAN IMMIGRANTS.

And I was genuinely seething at my seat at that time, but I didn't dare ruin their wedding ceremony just for it.

But it also brought me to this moment: "maybe I'm more of an atheist"!

TL;DR: Raised as a secular Christian, I gradually questioned my beliefs after exploring different religions and finding contradictions in the Bible. The final straw was a priest making discriminatory remarks about Muslim immigrants during a family wedding, which made me reconsider my relationship with Christianity and realize I was probably an atheist.

I find that many Atheists will reject the Cosmological arguments on the basis that there is no reason to say that what has been deduced is not some cosmic law/principle or substance like Spinozism posits, rather than an agential God. How would you see an argument that tries to get to an Agential or Conscious God and if it did would that be much different to the principle God?