Religious people have you ever tried praying?

[Darkstar]

I think that many atheists are not atheists because they have exhaustively studied science and theology and realized that there was no God,

Some are, but I'm not an example of that. I would think most aren't. It just kind of occured to me one day that I had no reason to believe in god. It was only after the fact that I decided to do research to see what I could come up with and I didn't find any convincing arguments.

I think it more like a mixture of people having doubts and disappointments with God and instead of looking deeper or giving God the benefit of the doubt, they make a choice simultaneously to accept the prevailing norms of drinking, secular culture and promiscuity/being sexually active and to see a greater merit in atheistic arguments then theistic. My contention is that these do not happen independently of one another, and that deconversion is not only a matter of changing beliefs about God it is a matter of accepting a much more risky and hedonistic lifestyle.

I can only speak for myself, but at the very least, I am nnot an example of this.

That said, I know there are some atheists who accept atheism purely on intellectual grounds independent of any carnal benefit it may give them. Perhaps you are one of these people. I don't mean to accuse anyone, but I know many of the other kind, people that slowly drift away and find ways of justifying behavior patterns that feel good to them.

I don't think the non-existence of god is in and of itself justification for anything. The bible says a number of things (among them that gays should die, and that atheists are the scum of the earth) which I find disagreeable.

Even if there were a god, I wouldn't consider him morally infalliable simply because he said so. I have a feeling that your view may simply be a stereotype (though it may be true in some cases), just as you would disagree with the notion that people only become relgious because they're scared of dying, or that Christians only do good things to avoid hell (which are unfair generalizations).

I could also debate whether premarital sex, etc. = hedonism. I also think it is possible to do some of these things in a responsible way that would be minimally damaging (though many people fail miserably at it...).