Gday from Australia , awesome to find such a site which I stumbled upon on twitter.

I am fortunate to come from a country where our Prime minister is a woman and an Atheist and a community of mateship in the land downunder.

Where although ever present Religion vs Atheism is neither here nor there, It's rare that the topic comes up to be honest.

I work with a Hindu, a couple of Christians about 3 Atheists a Witch a Self professed Psychic and some undisclosed lol, and frankly we all get along well and religion is rarely the topic.

The reason I even know what they claim to be is at Christmas time in Australia there are public holidays and when the Merry Christmas niceities start a few people are considerate enough to say have a nice Christmas or day off what ever it is you celebrate do you?

My opinion is as was the old days when parents smacked children (which i don't approve of by the way not that it matters) i liken the god phenomenon as a left over of much the same thing .

Yes God is a pending smack let me explain -the fear of hell and punishment are the looming smacking hand ever present should the infant step out of line creating the fear to do as one is told.

I personally think it's time to stop smacking fellow human beings hand them a book or two that is a bit newer and  full of more humane skills and get on with embracing new discoveries and nicer ways of doing things .

That's about it really apart from wondering about the age of 8  if my parents and their Theist friends were completely insane for having imaginary friends I was lead to Atheism through my own need for emperical evidence of all things in my childhood .

Yes I was THAT child, I pulled the radio apart to see if there were people inside it, opened and closed the fridge for hours to see if I could catch someone turning on the fridge light, Opened and closed the washing machine lid to figure out why it stopped when i did that, boiled eggs dry on the stove and preceded to read books about science and evaporation and anything else i could get my hands on about how things worked ! LOL it got me alot of smacks!

That's how as a little  little Atheist I  think I didn't get sucked in whilst being surrounded by Theists.

I'm curious to know if others knew so young or suspected their was not an allmighty being controlling the fridge light ? When did you realise? or when were you aware you realised ?Wwere you raised by Theists like me and how did you beat the odds?