Why not deism?

[Alan V]

There are arguments for the existence of "God", that actually, in the end, don't amount to much more than a hypothetical Prime Mover, or "something" — we don't know what — that is the source of reason, volition and material phenomena. 

Is deism pointless or even dishonest, because it's asserting something as knowledge that we cannot know? Did you ever seriously consider it instead of atheism? Or is there any practical difference?

When I was considering similar questions, I realized that there was no reason to assign the attributes of awareness and willfulness to a deistic God.  Such an uncaring and non-participating God might as well be a completely mechanical law of the universe, a mere given about reality.

And without the attributes of awareness and willfulness, you might as well not call it "God" at all, to avoid confusions.  At that point, becoming an atheist is just a matter of intellectual honesty.