I am the one to whom Pascal wrote, "so made that I cannot believe."

Study a bit of skepticism, and then study some pragmatism. It is definitely a decision... it's just one we are not always consciously aware of. There is a lot of base assumptions we make, and based on those base assumptions, we often end up choosing an answer out of these hard questions. But yeah, it's definitely a choice, at some level of it

I grew up a New Ager/Spiritualist, and as I grew older I realized it wasn't working as everyone said it should be. Then one day I just looked at all the things my friends believed in, and thought about all the contradictions. Then it just occurred to me that if the New Age stuff worked then everyone would be doing it.

Seems logical if you believe in a Supernatural being, then you should be able to do supernatural stuff. No one can. So religion is just an Advance Fee Fraud, you pay up front in life, and you get the payoff after you die. Except, your dead.

Your perspective is not a choice in itself, but possibly influenced by choices.

It's more of a realization rather than a choice.

Logic guided me that way. If god turns up with some sort of miraculously obvious show, then I am fairly sure logic will pull one huge U-turn and speed in the opposite direction pretty fast.

Beliefs or lack thereof are not a choice. Being open minded, on the other hand, is a choice. You can force yourself to learn about different things from the perspective of people who believe those things, to understand the logic as they see it, and that may result in a change of beliefs - or not. It really just depends on whether the combination of everything you already believe plus the new idea is the most plausible of all concepts you've been introduced to.

Beliefs are not formed by choice IMO. I cannot choose to believe unicorns exist for example. Beliefs are a conclusion that best fits with the evidence as you see it. From that point, Atheism is the logical conclusion of the evidence as I see it. I didn't suddenly decide to become Atheist, it just happened.

It was sort of an epiphany. Not really a choice. If it were a choice, I'm pretty sure I'd have chosen differently to save myself a lot of grief.

My atheism is a decision of experience.

I'm not really sure what happened to me. I'm a christian, but that's because I just....believe in god xD It might be because my family raised me like that. But I think, everyone can do whatever they want, I have a ton of atheist friends because they simple just could not believe in god. Maybe its just that your naturally attracted to not believing in god? I'm not entirely sure xD This makes me feel so stupid.

funny. theists usually say the say thing.

It's a compulsion guided by logic, reason , evidence and desire for truth.

It's impossible for any of us to really choose to do or not do anything.
All our actions are predetermined the innumerable events of the past, all things affecting what we think is actually a decision.

Nobody fucks with the Jesus.