[Serious] Why are you an Atheist?

[mordant]

From that moment onward, I knew that I was an atheist and probably had been one for some time without realizing it.

I think the realization comes to many of us in just that way. By the time I was willing to speak the unspeakable and apply that once-despised label to myself, I had organically BEEN there for some time already.

To this day my wife, who has NEVER been a believer, is uneasy calling herself an atheist, because in her mind, atheist implies some kind of firebrand reactionary anti-theist activism that she can't summon the enthusiasm for. She is indifferent to god because no one has ever demonstrated a coherent definition of same, or any relevance to her life or thinking. Also in my observation this tends to be a more common view in women, who are inherently more socially aware than men, and who value trust relationships accordingly -- relationships that are damaged by the snap judgments people make about atheists. Thus my wife would identify, IF pressed, as an agnostic or areligious person who hadn't been to church since her mother dragged her to the UU "church".

It has taken me ten years to get her to admit that by technical definition she is an atheist. "I guess I'm an atheist, aren't I" she'll now say, only half believing it. I suspect this is where a LOT of people are. If you didn't have to remove yourself FROM theism and its harms and the associated disillusionment, then atheism isn't a very useful concept to you. It has little utility apart from providing a contrast to, or someplace to go to, out of theism.