How do you become an Atheist?

[theVOID]

OK, in the last thread I started I saw that the atheists here cite "burden of proof" as to why they do not believe in God. The atheist is not making any claims about the supernatural and therefore those that do make claims about the supernatural have the burden of proof. I also saw a lot of references to a belief in scientific thinking, and one person stated that their belief in science superseded belief in God. It was a surprisingly unanimous opinion and I found it to be fascinating, especially in how exactly it lined up with Modern thinking. I was hoping you could help understand a few more things.

Sure, fire away

First of all, I would like to hear what idea, concept, proof, or experience brought each of you personally to be Atheist.

I was born one. Some years later the religious studies teachers at my school told me the bible was true, and being a 5 year old not capable of thinking about it I bought into their bullshit. I figured out young that there was nothing of substance to any of it, nothing more than a bunch of assertions and myths. Being really into ancient Egyptian culture when I was young and seeing many other religious myths further convinced me.

That has nothing to do with why I'm an Atheist intellectually, that has entirely epistemic foundations.

I know that you all profess that the burden of proof is on the person making the claims, you explained that to me quite well, but the "burden of proof" viewpoint is an assumption that Atheists make, so it would most likely be something you arrived at after deciding there is no God.

The burden of proof is something irrespective of a particular situation like theism VS athsim, any person who makes a positive claim has the burden of proof, and that is essentially to say "you're the one who made the claim, I have no requirement to show that your belief cannot possibly be true, rather you are required to justify it"

It's plainly obvious that the positive claim in this situation is "God exists".

Similarly, if a Gnostic atheist claims "God's do not exist" then because that is a positive claim they too have the burden of proof, they are required to disprove whatever particular god they are talking about.

As an agnostic atheist my position is "I don't know of any valid reasons to believe in god", which is not a positive claim, it's an assessment of the dozen or so arguments for his existence (in various forms) that I know of and a claim that I can demonstrate them to be flawed, it is also an invitation for arguments to be presented.

As you are the one who is defining this concept all I can do is evaluate the specific claim that you make. To attempt to define and disprove God would only disprove one particular formulation, and since God can be ad hoced to infinity even if my formulation represented someone's beliefs it's still rather futile as the theist can simply change part of their concept.

I think most of you agreed with me that no one could argue a Christian out of faith, and that everyone will tend to believe what they believe until they are given sufficient reasons to change.

Most Christians that became atheists did so in response to an argument or through reading the bible, so in some cases you can argue someone out of an illogical position, provided they care more about intellect than emotion and experience. If their subjective experience takes priority then not only can you not argue them out of the position intellectually, but there is no point in having the debate to begin with.

So what I'm asking is what is it that made you decide to that you were firmly atheist? Or if you were raised in an Atheist home, what is it that made you decide that you personally were going to continue in your parent's (or parents') tradition?

I became interested in the debate, I evaluated the arguments for the existence of God and believe I am entirely justified in rejecting all of the arguments for his existence. If you disagree provide an argument for his existence and i'll just point out the fallacies.

Bonus question: What do you think of the work of Post-Modern philosophers in relation to your Modernist stance? To be sure Post-modernists were no fans of Christianity either, but they seriously challenge much of Modern thought.

Postmodernism is relativism gone mad, some of their relativism is valid, but they also end up rejecting some plainly demonstrable objective truths and really really like to rape definitions to make their arguments stand.

In specific I would cite Derrida's claim that everything is an interpretation, and Lyotard's assertion that meta-narratives are unreliable. For example, the Modernist meta-narrative of the single, objective, scientific truth that would solve all the world's problems, and it's corollary, the privileged status of science.

Science has nothing to do with solving problems or giving value anyway, so the whole argument is pointless. To complain that science can't solve disputes about values is like complaining when my car doesn't fly, it's not supposed to.

I really feel like the last thread gave me a good idea of the basic stance of Atheism, but there is so much more to understand. As with the last thread I'm more interested in seeing what you have to say, but if your reason for becoming an Atheist was a certain proof and you'd like me to take a crack at it, just make a note of it and I'll respond. Otherwise, I'll just be listening. I can't wait to hear from you and thank you for your input.

There are two ways you could convince me that a God exists.

1. Present an argument for the existence of God that satisfies my epistemology.

2. Falsify my epistemology and provide one that is logically coherent and can establish belief in God as epistemically justified.

If you could achieve either of them then I would be obliged to believe, else I would be a flaming cunt of a hypocrite and display the same double standards that theists use to reject contradictory experience etc.