Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[pocaracas]

I can't deny that it puts a lot of things into perspective...how the religious mold their lives according to what they believe God commands, trusting in faith a lot of the time rather than human logic. Aside from being raised/conditioned into the faith, I guess another reason why it's hard for me to drop it is due to the fact there's billions of other followers of a developed religion. I should probably look into some more theist accounts on why they believe in God, and continue to look into the main arguments (logical/teleological/cosmological/moral) and likely bring them up here.

You are committing a fallacious reasoning known as Argumentum ad populum.
I still marvel at how lots of people are unaware of this fallacy.

Ok. Here is the "brass tax": do you trust people based on how they witness to what they say, or do you not?

What?! How people witness what they say?
Eye-witness testimony is well known to be the least trustworthy of all evidence.
http://www.apa.org/monitor/apr06/eyewitness.aspx
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2014/10/h...ists-weigh

The issue of the existence of God is separate. You can prove that with paper and pencil, no need look for miracles - just look for there existing ANYTHING, and realize that causes and effects, contingency, corruptible composition, and intrinsic purposes are all clear and infallibly point to the need for some First Cause which is uncreated, simple, infinite, etc., which we call "God." That God entering into creation by act (and by flesh) is something else... You are conflating the two. The first is answered by philosophy, the second by theology.

1) "look for there existing ANYTHING" - of course, how else could anything exist? Only through the existence of something else!! Of course, makes total sense!
2) "causes and effects" - proof that energy is being exchanged. Paraphrasing a famous physicist, "no god is required"
3) "contingency" - I had to check with a dictionary, it means "a future event or circumstance which is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.". So, the world is a complex one and our simple simian brains cannot grasp all the details. Big news!
4) "corruptible composition" - how do they come up with these terms? I have no idea what this is supposed to pertain to.
5) "intrinsic purposes" - Last time I checked, purpose was something in the domain of conscious creatures. What does 'intrinsic' mean in here?

Ah... all this nonsense points to some "first cause", which is magically "uncreated, simple, infinite, etc" and conveniently call it "god"... thus transforming it into a very complex entity, with all the baggage that comes with any religion (all religions claim to have one of their gods as the creator of everything, right?)

It's always interesting to note the chronology of things - First came belief in gods, then came these arguments to keep people believing under the illusion of firm reasoning.

My suggestion is to stop playing cat and mouse with miracles (and other opinions, especially the most unfriendly ones, as puerile as their critiques tend to be) and read the New Testament instead, recognizing at what horrible personal cost those texts were written and transmitted over the Earth by those who claimed to have been there and saw it all for themselves or to have spoken at length with those who were there.

Oh, the horrible personal cost!


Just because someone believes in something very dearly and is ready to suffer and even die for that belief, it does not mean that the thing being believed in is real.
Texts claiming to portray the tales relayed by those who were there... reminds me of the Red Book of Westmarch:
"
The Red Book of Westmarch is a [...] manuscript written by hobbits[...]

It is a collection of writings in which the events of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings were recounted by their characters, and from which Tolkien supposedly derived these and other works.
"

Add pinch of magic... and... yeah... it's the same thing.

This guy seems to feel like God's existence is undeniable due to the fact that cause and effect is a concept. Doesn't really seem definitive enough for me.

yeah... it's not definite. But, for many, it's enough to strengthen their own belief, so it's a valid tactic.
If I was a believer and found that argument persuasive, I'd naturally try to convey it to you, hoping that you too would find it persuasive.