At what age did you become an atheist/agnostic? And what brought that about?

[YodaMom2]

40. I was raised Mormon

...though arguably neither of my parents were really Mormon, more "jack" Mormon (both smoked, drank tea/coffee, drank alcohol, and to my knowledge never paid tithing). BUT, as a child I went to Primary every Wednesday and to Sunday school most weekends (more to get me and my siblings out of the house than to ensure our proper religious training). Even as a child I knew I didn't quite believe what they were teaching, but I kept it to myself. When I was a teen, as part of a Mutual* (*Mormon program for young adults) exercise, I even memorized the Articles of Faith - word for word. I can still recite a lot of it, some 40+ years later. But it was merely rote memorization on my part - none of it truly spoke to me. I was more moved by Christmas songs, or by watching Ben-Hur.

When I was in my 20s, I acknowledged to myself that I wasn't a Mormon, or even a Christian (God sent himself to Earth in order to be sacrificed to Himself for humanity to earn His forgiveness for "sins" He made up in the first place? Made no sense.). I researched other religions to see if perhaps they made more sense, felt "right" to me. But the more I read, the more I came to see that it was all just a bunch of myths made up by men (quite specifically by men) to explain what they couldn't understand (which, at the time, was almost everything) and to justify their horrific behavior. It was all make-believe. I realized then that I was atheist. I shared this with one of my siblings at the time and she acknowledged that she, too, was atheist (though I already suspected she was). Many years later, my other siblings acknowledged the same (the oldest did so only last year).

I'm still moved by Christmas songs, and by Ben-Hur. I'm also moved by West Side Story, Bonnie Raitt, ASPCA ads, and a bunch of other things. But they're not deserving of my worship either.