Okay well unlike most folk here I'd imagine my situation to be slightly different in that I didn't have much trouble coming out as an atheist from my family. They are religious themselves, we're African and they're Catholic. I was raised Catholic and went to a Catholic school.

  But they never made a big deal out of going to church all the time or revolving their lives around the church like so many of my peers familys did. My dad was a believer but the last time I saw him praying was with a priest who came to his bedside to give him his last rights. Before that I can not remember. My mum... some Easters and Christmasses she'd make an effort to look the part in front of her many sisters and if her mum was around she'd go. But again while she was a believer she wasn't pious.

  I do have some very religious people in my family but even they are like 'eh so what' about it. They'll do them and I'll do me. So I never had a fight to assert myself as an atheist at home. I face no ostracisation and am still involved in all parts of my family life. I know full well as a black man that is uncommon for atheists.

  Becomming an atheist wasn't an epiphany or eye opening moment or big event or book or person that made me suddenly realise.... nah. It was just a slow process of realising that I probably always thought none of this made any sense. I mean at first I tried toying with other religions because I figured it was just Christianity that made no sense to me. My friends parents were NOI and always had tapes playing and had meetings at their home so I was exposed to that and NOI preachers talking about how Christianity was a slavery tool and so on... but that only got me thinking more about why isn't the NOI just a tool too? Why so many rules? Who for? And I tried Nuwabianism and other silly things (sorry I was young) but they all smacked of sillyness and superstition.

  I got annoyed with what I saw as the self serving nature of religion the more I looked and learned about the world. People testifying how god healed them or saved them just made me think of the starving and suffering billions and the self indulgent narcissistic mindset it takes to imagine and omnipotent supreme being gives a !@#$%^&* about you. Or whether I ate shellfish and what building I sat in on the Sabbath. That's even before I started questioning whether it existed.

  Also, there's something perculiar to me I guess. For some reason I don't know, the cadence and voice that so many African and African American preachers use when talking or lecturing leaves me stone cold. It makes me think bullshit. It's kinda why I'm cold on Barrack, he uses that voice. The organised feeling people have in a church pew as well... for many I get that this is THE main draw for religion. Communal joining and being together, losing oneself in the many. I hate that. I hate call and response and being directed in what to do in formation. As for miracles and the holy spirit... you can probably by now see where I'm going. The FEEL of churches and so on just isn't for me.

  Questioning the existance of God merely came from a long standing interest in astronomy, scifi and physics. I'm an engineer btw. The more you read and learn... the less likely imo a supreme being seems.

  Struggles I have now with atheism, I guess are rather specific. Day to day I live in a country (UK) where although people identify as this or that relgion imo they're truly atheists. You talk to people and they won't have that god's plan talk. Or be bothered to do anything religious (weddings/funerals excepted). Christianity is a cultural identifier not actual belief. My trouble is dating!

  As a black unbeliever who generally wants a black SO and only so far has had black SOs.... it's hard to find a black woman tolerant of somebody who expresses that they have no faith and would not like their kids raised in any faith either. Once women hear that things begin petering out I've found. So yeah, that's a thing.