A question for Anti-Theists

[The Grand Nudger]

I'd like to ask you common examples in first world countries of public decisions indirectly influenced by religion without people noticing it... And making gay marriage or abortion illegal isn't valid because some states have already legalized

Sin taxes. There's a bunch of examples for you right there. Very healthy business for my government. If you want to take a look at those we can do that, or I can offer something else up - it's your call.

I'd like to ask you, out of sheer curiosity, what made you become an anti-theist?

I value human life, human experience, and human authority in human affairs. I see alot of room for humans there, and none for gods. My sense of ethics and morality simply cannot include things like religion in the box of positives. Gods have failed to provide...and have actively made our situation worse..time and time again...for all of recorded history. They've managed to do this...regardless of whether or not they actually exist - and that's some powerful juju right there! The ideologies expressed within them, are, to me abhorrent and inhuman. I feel this strongly - and that's how I became an anti-theist. Ironically, it all started because I love a good lie well told to the right audience. I love stories, tall tales, myths, allegory, metaphor.

Most anti-theists I know mainly criticize religion but rarely theism by itself, theism is not synonymous with religion, I could call myself anti-religious at most, but agnostic theists or deists have never bothered me, most of these people are reasonably intelligent and are open minded to discussion, why are you against theism per se if it doesn't hurt anyone by itself, only with religion? Same goes for deism and pantheism

I think that theism does "hurt" even without religion. Does there actually have to be a church of hatred - for example, for hateful things to be harmful? No. Is malice required for a human being to do something shitty to another? No - it could just as easily be accidental.

Now....deists....... I see their position as a refinement of a much more troubling one. However...I find it curious that in all that refinement one thing they absolutely decided to keep was the very source of all that troubling stuff to begin with. In any case, I have a longstanding disagreement with deists. I don't think that what they call a god actually describes a god - if the word god can be used to describe any of these other concepts floating around. They don't, to me, seem to belong to the same set. The only firm similarity (in my experience..deists, come destroy me) is the word each group chooses to leverage as a header for the concept.