What does it take to make you disbelieve?

So in a random convo we were having about atheism, Danz mentions he's basically three steps from atheism (which is weird because we've called him everything from pentecostal to jewish). He also warned me that he'd never join the dark side so I can put the cookies away *sad*

I'm not sure what he is but it seems at the very least he's in the humanist realm, probably agnostic like fecking everyone. I'm sure he'll figure it out eventually if he chooses. When I asked why I couldn't convince him to join the Sith--I mean atheist legions, he said something along the lines of he didn't want to disbelieve.

Me, lacking that "belief gene", am all too willing to disbelieve but I cannot nor have I ever been able to believe. In fact, I think everyone should join the Sith and destroy the republic, and perhaps it'll happen some day, maybe it won't. I hate people who want to play Pascal's Wager, like a lot dude.

But, that's always been the curious thing, to me, about agnostics and people who are generally non-believers but aren't quite atheist (yeah it can happen).

What would it take to make you disbelieve in a deity?

Not to try to sway folks to my own side, but I've always been curious. Again, I don't think there's every been a point in my life where I've truly believed in a god of any sort so it's always puzzled me. Religions puzzle me--why is this one right and this one not? How is it possible that such and such created the universe but never makes himself known? How have these beliefs been held for centuries?

I mean, I have my theories, since as an atheist it's my unofficial job to spend my every waking, and some sleeping, hours pondering about theology *canned laughter* but I've never really gotten a solid answer on what it would take to make a believer disbelieve.

I've seen it happen. I've seen evangelical Christians suddenly turn over to atheism and preach the gospel of godlessness for various reasons or another, usually something involving utter disgust with religion. But you can believe in a god without actually belonging to a religion so, what keeps that belief going I wonder?

On the other hand, I also wonder what makes staunch atheists suddenly start praising almighty _______. I've seen that happen a lot too and it's always kinda...weird.

I think my best bet is, in both cases, you were probably never really atheist or religious to begin with and whatever property in you was just...latent, then at some point you finally felt brave enough to embrace it. But is that really it? Huh.