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

[Crunchy]

Atheists, why do you reject the idea of God, and why should I? I know that your answers will include "there's no evidence" and all that, but please try to explain.

Hi,
I know I'm very late to this thread, but I just joined and was raised Catholic so thought I would give you my two cents.
 
Just to be clear, I went to public Catholic school from JK to grade eight, then private Catholic high school to Grade 13 (which they used to have) The high school (boys only) was run by priests and I had several teachers of various subjects who were priests but many other teachers who were not clergy including a couple of female teachers. I’m very familiar with Catholicism!
 
To answer your question, I think you could ask yourself a few more questions the answers to which might help. For example:
 
1)   Why would god need middle men?
 Seriously, why would such an omniscient, omnipotent being need a group of men to tell everyone else what he really wants from us? Doesn't it seem to you that this arrangement benefits and empowers those men more than it does god?
 
2)   Why has the Catholic church committed crime after crime for centuries now if a benevolent god was actually behind this organization?
The child rape and cover up scandal is only the tip of a long ugly sword. You can go back to hundreds of years of inquisitions (torturing men to death), witch hunts in which thousands of women were burned to death, the selling of indulgences, imprisoning young women as slave labour in the Magdalene Asylums, and on and on… Note that these are systemic crimes and not just the crimes of a few individual bad eggs.
 
3)   Why were we forced to replace theocracy with secular government in order to make moral progress?
It seems to me that separating church from state (or even the attempt) has been a major improvement over any theocracy. If God were truly behind the Catholic church or any religion, why would the church not be the best possible source of governance? The answer is obviously that the claim of divinity is false. 
 
Leaving the church was easy for me, but I do understand that for many people the social implications may be very difficult depending on your specific circumstances. 
Best of luck.