I've been an atheist from the age of 14 (I'm 25 now). Previous to that, though I believed in God without question. I never went to church. I just considered myself one of the normal Church of England kids who used the label for the sake of convenience (after all until you reach Comprehensive school you are not taught of the miracles of Science). It really all began in one of my first Religious Education lessons. The first subject we took a closer look at was (of course) was Christianity in its many guises. I remembered thinking that this was odd, after all, if Christianty was the one true religion, how come they all believed different things? Why would Catholics believe in the 'miracle' of trans-substantiation whereas all of the many Protestant groups did not? Why can Protestants personally pray to God where Catholics could only do it through a Clergyman? To this day I have yet to hear of a good explanation for either aside from the usual Catholic 'Protestants just like to be rebellious'.
The next step was in the same subject perhaps two years later. By this time I still believed in God but had no time for religion and their 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude.
It all started as a practical joke from our English teacher. As part of the curriculum, we had watched a film about a boy living in a house with a mischievous poltergeist. After which we wrote an essay about the characters and the plot. This particular film was viewed over April fools day and the English teacher thought it would be a good idea if we all wrote a spooky note to the RE teacher in the style of several notes seen in this particular film. Upon returning to Religious Education class, the teacher screamed hellfire down on us and suggested that if we continue our dark ways, the devil would claim our souls for eternity, that we were dabbling in the occult and she prayed for our souls. It was scary to be preached at like witches before the Grand Inquisitor, but equally, it was hilarious.
The only thought that went through my head was 'As I walk through the valley of death I shall fear no evil.' What a ludicruous phrase this is, Christians seem to fear everything that do not coincide with their beliefs.
Equally, my lifelong love of ancient history started to reveal its dark secrets and really made me realise just what evil religion can do. I looked deeper into ancient belief systems and learned that much of what we know we've learned in spite of theist attempts do destroy it. Again I thought 'The Aztecs, the Inca, Persians, Babylon, Native Americans' many of these people and more were destroyed in the name of modern religion. I realised that not only Christianity was responsible. Judaism, the so called 'tolerance' or Islam and so many others have all been responsible for genocide of epic proportions. Love God? How could I after all that?