Atheism exists.

(May 17, 2016 at 3:51 pm)sk123 Wrote: I am curious what some compelling reasons are for becoming an atheist. What are some reasons that have been the deciding factor?

I wanted to be a Christian because I knew it was expected of me.  But I couldn't figure out how to distinguish the bible from Mother Goose.  Christianity did not seem to be true. 

Nonetheless, I hoped--silly though it seems in retrospect--that, once they deemed that I was ready, the Christians would send someone to explain how to make sense of the bible. 

So I was an atheist, but I didn't like it.  I wanted to get over it. 

But time kept passing, and no Christian came to me with the secret that made Christianity believable.  Eventually, I ran out of patience.  I had heard of the ontological, cosmological, and teleological arguments, so I went to the city library to look them up. 

They were so stupid.  I realized that Christians had no good arguments.  If they had a single good one, they wouldn't keep these garbage arguments in circulation. 

Thus I quit expecting to become a Christian.  There was no reason to want to be on the side of the stupid arguments.  There was no reason to expect theists to ever field a good argument.  There was no reason to try to justify the Hellfire as moral.  There was no reason to think an omnipotent god couldn't defeat iron chariots.  There was no reason to think a god could be both possible to see but not possible to see.  There was no reason to think three gods is one and one god are three. 

I became content in my atheism.

(May 17, 2016 at 7:07 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote: The mean kids at school were gonna put bugs in my hair if I didn't stop believing in God, so I stopped believing in God.  So, you know, they wouldn't put bugs in my hair.  The mean kids.

(I'd give a more serious answer, but the OP positively reeks of eau de troll).

Boru

Yeah, I'm thinking this also.

(May 17, 2016 at 3:54 pm)sk123 Wrote:

(May 17, 2016 at 3:52 pm)The Valkyrie Wrote: Not believing in deities is all you need to be an atheist.

Right, but what made you personally decide that God did not exist, and the arguments for atheism were ultimately outweighing all other arguments.

The inability of any believers in any of the gods that humanity has created to provide the slightest shred of evidence that their particular fairy tale was real.

I suspect you will fare no better.

I've never been anything but an atheist. I just didn't know there was a word for it.

People can't tell me what a god is. So I've never got past the point of understanding the question. How do I tell a god from a non-god? Seriously, if theists can't answer that, how can I make sense of the question?

If people would just say "an intelligent creator" and stop saying so much shit afterwards, I'll happily settle for "I have no beliefs about that". It's an unfalsifiable proposition as far as I can see, and therefor useless. I don't have sufficient reason to believe it is or isn't the case. Maybe this is a computer program. Maybe this is VR. Maybe this is a manifestation of an emergent process.

If we're talking specifically about the bible, it's just a stupid book. There's absolutely no reason to believe it's of any value outside some historical interest. The ludicrous claims it makes do not correlate with reality, and believing magical characters in it are real is ridiculous. It's only the oral myths surrounding it, and indoctrination, that make anyone think for a second it's anything but fiction.

I also don't care. God or no god, whatever it is, makes no difference to me.

Nobody chooses theism or atheism.
Your thoughts evolve over time and do the deciding for you.
Either logic will prevail or loyal belief to the sky fairy.

A lot depends on your parents involvement.

(May 18, 2016 at 6:57 am)ignoramus Wrote: Nobody chooses theism or atheism.
Your thoughts evolve over time and do the deciding for you.
Either logic will prevail or loyal belief to the sky fairy.

A lot depends on your parents involvement.

But you are born a atheist since you don't know anything about a god.
Then people fancy clothing and hats teach you about gawd and jebuss and indoctrinate you
into their blood/savior cult.

Yes and no. Technically, I'd say no. Because the baby's brain isn't evolved enough to comprehend the concept or the question. Ignostic?
That's like saying we're all born stupid because we don't know what 1+1 is? It's a non sequitur.

(May 18, 2016 at 8:31 am)ignoramus Wrote: yes and no. Technically, I'd say no. Because the baby's brain isn't evolved enough to comprehend the concept or the question. Ignostic?

True very true

sk123 Wrote:

The Valkyrie Wrote:Not believing in deities is all you need to be an atheist.

Right, but what made you personally decide that God did not exist, and the arguments for atheism were ultimately outweighing all other arguments.

I didn't decide God does not exist. I realized that every single argument for God I ever heard is fatally flawed and there is no evidence that points to a being creating or running the universe. Recognizing that there are no rationally convincing reasons to believe, I don't. It doesn't mean that there's no way some sort of God could exist; just as the lack of arguments or convincing evidence for leprechauns and invisible unicorns doesn't prove they don't exist. But I don't believe they do, for the exact same reasons I don't believe God does. If there weren't a single argument against the existence of God, the poor arguments for God are a sufficient reason to withhold belief in the proposition that God exists.