Reasons

[Kyuuketsuki]

Why I am an atheist?

OK, using Christianity as my model, it is (as others have said) primarily about evidence i.e. that there is none. It's also about the nature of the claims, the standard Christian ones being:

• There is an invisible man in the sky (otherwise known as "God") that no one can see, test or in any other way, demonstrate! This "God" fellow is eternal & all-powerful ... he has apparently created the universe & everything within it (including the Earth) and he loves all of his creations especially humans (his "special creation") who were created "in his image".
  
• There exists a place called "Heaven" that cannot be seen, tested, or demonstrated ... it is a place of light, happiness, joy & pleasure and the place where "God" resides.
  
• There is an invisible man under the ground or in some hell dimension (otherwise known as "Satan") that no one can see, test or in any other way, demonstrate! "Satan", despite not being as powerful as "God" still exists and works his "evil" upon the world and will continue to do so until the final conflict known as "Armageddon". "Satan" was once God's most powerful angel known as "Lucifer" and was cast out from "Heaven" for some reason or other.
  
• There exists a place called "Hell" that cannot be seen, tested, or demonstrated ... it is the complete antithesis of "Heaven" i.e. a place of dark, misery, anguish & pain and is the place where "Satan" resides.
  
• All humans have "souls" that are their essential essence and that cannot be seen, tested or demonstrated! "Souls" cannot die and leave their human "hosts" when the physical component of a human ceases to function. It is "souls" that separate us from the beasts and raise us above them.
  
• "God" has published his will in a book known as "the bible" which is the story of various events concerning his actions & the actions of other characters acting for or against him and contains his primary commandments (typically referred to as "The Ten Commandments"). Not keeping "God's commandments" (obeying them) is referred to as a "sin" and those who do not do so are referred to as "sinners". None of the essential happenings within this book can be verified as being factual outside of some historical background events (and some of those are wrong).
  
• The souls of those who have "kept" "God's" "commandments" will find their way to "Heaven" and live with him for all eternity.
  
• The souls of those who have actively not "kept" "God's" "commandments" will find their way to "Hell" and will live there for all eternity.
  
• There may or may not be a "halfway-house" known as "Purgatory" where those who are either mild sinners or who have not heard "God's word" (the Bible) go.
  
• It is unclear whether there may or may not be future opportunities for those who exist in either "Hell" or "Purgatory" to transfer to Heaven because despite the apparently huge (well actually all) number of "Souls" that have gone to one of the three places non have returned (well except for some batty old nun a long time ago).
  
• At the very beginning of creation (or shortly thereafter) there was a wonderful place ("The Garden Of Eden") where the two original humans "Adam" & "Eve" lived. God gave Adam & Eve free will and (near enough) simultaneously created "The Tree Of Knowledge" that he said they couldn't touch ... with inevitable results!
  
• Because of Adam & Eve's tasting of the fruit of "The Tree Of Knowledge" we (the descendents of Adam & Eve) are now tainted with their sin known as "The Original Sin".
  
• About 2000 years ago someone, supposedly the "Son Of God", was sent down to earth in the form of a human (considered to be "the word made flesh") in order to absolve us from "The Original Sin" and "save" our souls usually involving a ritual with wet heads and empty words.
  
• This "Son Of God", quite apart from being born (against all other known instances in history) of a virgin subsequently dies on a cross & then resurrects again in order to take upon himself the "sins" of the world and thus provide us with the opportunity to go to "Heaven" which, tainted with "the original sin" (which none of us had actually committed anyway), we were denied.
  
• He (the "Son Of God") is here today and we only need to follow his lead (believe in him) to be saved and get our eternal reward in "Heaven".

So yes evidence i.e. the fact that no essential religious claim is testable and that when the rational investigative process is bought to bear on some of these claims it inevitable fails to be "miraculous".

Then there is the fact that all religions make claims, that their claims are mostly mutually exclusive (if they are right the others are wrong and they always claim to be "the chosen ones") so logic tells me they all can't be right so why not assume they are all wrong until one actually demonstrates they are right?

Then there's the deceit (fraud) and disingenuity side of it ... religion, let's face it, is big money, it's power, it's status and with such things goes money, deceit and attempts to control others. I recognise the need for law and for police (spit) but a society simply doesn't need religion to control its populace.

Then there's freedom of thought ... I value my independence of thought and I would rather have a custom-built meaning of life (with commonalities based on basic human psychology) than a stock off-the-shelf version that theists appear to favour where someone else attempts to define what may or may not be acceptable.

Finally there's the incompatibility of science and religion ... yes I know that religionists and liberal atheists like to think that science addresses the real world and religion the immaterial but the fact is that nowhere, no-when has anyone ever demonstrated any of this immaterial world to be real (yes I know that doesn't give the immaterial world an edge in but I see no reason to do so) whilst everything science has explained (even if it later turned out to be wrong) has been understandable in light of the available evidence, technology & understandings of the time.

I genuinely believe that accepting any religious view as being of real value without evidence is the first step towards illogic, irrationality and insanity. To some people that make me hard, inflexible and closed minded but the truth is I am none of these ... I am flexible, I am open-minded I just won't believe any old piece of crap. Ultimately that makes me free ... free to view the universe as rational and free to try to customise parts of that universe to something better than they otherwise were.

Kyu