Opinions on my drive to be an atheist

[Won2blv]

Nicanica,

First of all, you are right about my assumption run amok. You having children must have been a figment of my imagination. Please accept my apologies on that point.

I still think you are misrepresenting MD's talk. I don't think you'll find anywhere that he states the desire to sin is the 'biggest' factor in jettisoning a belief in God. He did say that this is a very common criticism leveled by believers and that atheists should not feel obligated to justify other reasons for disbelief since the absurdity of the concept of sin is sufficient enough to reject the God claim. Please note that rejecting the God claim on this basis is not borne out of a desire to sin, but that the Christian concept of sin is so antithetical to human nature that it is absurdly implausible that a creator God would devise such a system. The far more reasonable conclusion is that God does not exist and that ancient power brokers devised the idea of sin under the authority of an imagined God as a means of crowd control.

Your straw man defense is dead on arrival. You were quite specific in explaining your desire to adopt atheism for no other reason than to circumvent the divorce prohibition. I don't know if there can be a more clear-cut example of giving up God in order to do what you want. 

With no children involved and assuming there is no other mitigating circumstance, I don't see any moral impediment to your desire for a divorce, sad as it may seem. Division of property and other financial matters can be negotiated between you and your wife and mediated by the courts if need be. The state you live in will determine how onerous this process is. 

I hope this isn't the case, but there's something in all this that reminds me of a professional athlete that feigns retirement in order to get out of a current contract only to shortly thereafter take up with another team and continue on as before. 

My position is that I am trying to figure out whether or not god exists. But I can not say that it is because of some existential desire to attain truth or wanting to be free of my christian indoctrination. The biggest drive is that if god does not exist, which is where I am leaning, then it frees me to not having to worship a god. Because believe it or not, I worshiped god up to this point because I did love him and believe him to be a good being. That is a whole other discussion that I am not trying to sidetrack but I genuinely believed that cared for me and gave me a set of principles for my benefit. And this god would never personally attack me or punish me but simply not resurrect me if I was not seen fit for everlasting life. For me, I feel he has the right to set the standards of such a world. So now I'm in my late 20's and I am not in the happiest of marriages and I want to do things in life that the god wouldn't suggest I do. But I do believe at this point, me and my wife could salvage a life instead of this happening in our 40's or later. It is a clusterfuck and I don't believe I can even truly express everything running through my mind but I can say this... when you said, "The OP is attempting to pass off Matt's repetition of a common believer retort in order to set up an argument as a declaration that atheists don't believe in God simply to do whatever the fuck we want without moral consequence" is an utter misconception of my position, which is the definition of a straw man. Even when I initially paraphrased Matt, I used the word immoral instead of sin. That was a mistake and I apologize for that. The point still stands though that Matt was saying that some people do de-convert because they want to "sin." The sin I would be committing per JW's is divorcing without grounds. Yes, I want to do that and being a non-believer helps me. If I believed in god then I wouldn't even consider. I would say that either way I could stick it out and work on my marriage god or no god. But you nor anyone else on this forum can really understand the cluster fuck that would be involved if we tried to work it out as a mixed beliefs couple. With great emotion, I have come to a conclusion that for me and my wife sake, we should count our losses and move on in life. And in case you're wondering, I have talked to my wife about my feelings on our marriage. Just not the non belief in god part. So she wouldn't be completely broadsided by all of this. 

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If Matt said that most atheists can't explain why they're atheists, but that sinning is likely the biggest factor, then he's an idiot.  Again, if he said that (I'm too lazy to look).  Atheism, invariably, is non-belief stemming from a lack of evidence.  That non-belief runs the spectrum (see: gnostic atheism vs. agnostic atheism), but that's it.  But, no, we didn't go, "Man, you know what's awesome?  Sex.  And divorce.  And not going to church.  Screw god, we're gonna do what we want to do!"

Which is to say that, yes, while a lot of us say "fuck god", that was not the start of our journey, but rather an expression of what we've come to realize at the end of it.

You're looking for a way to get off the hook for divorcing your wife.  You certainly don't seem like you've come to any kind of new, fundamental understanding of your beliefs, but rather that you're looking for a way to worm out of the rules without sacrificing your core beliefs.  But, please, stop pretending you know what atheism is or is not.  Your faux turn is really disingenuous, IMO, and frankly a bit insulting since you're attempting to co-opt something you're really not as an excuse to do what you want.

Be honest: do you believe in god or not?  If so, you're not an atheist.  You may no longer want to be a JW, but there's a huge difference between wanting to leave your sect and deciding there's no credible evidence for god, and that believing in it is utterly illogical.

Matt said that people wanting to sin is a common factor for de-conversion. But it was sin according to religion. I lean towards a non belief in god but I still have logical reasoning why I think it makes sense for there to be a god. But that is almost in more of a deistic way. I don't believe there is any woo behind the term atheism. What if one more factor was added. What if I was married and gay? And I certainly knew that a marriage couldn't last  in such a manner because of the obvious reasons. But I still thought that maybe there is a god and there is some worth to investigating where I stand with belief in god. I see 3 most likely scenarios

1. I conclude belief in god but don't believe he would create humans to be gay and then have to resist the urges their whole life so I tearfully leave my wife after coming out and find a church that accepts me. But I still try to end things with my wife in the most dignifying way possible

2. I conclude belief in god but still believe in the bible message on gods disapproval of homosexuality. So I stay with my wife and continue to work on our marriage and resisting my urges. 

3. I conclude no belief in god and tearfully leave my wife trying to end things in the most dignifying way possible.

My situation is similar, because I am heterosexual and I have urges towards the opposite sex. I was not in a position in my 20's to put to rest those urges. You could say that its my religions fault because I couldn't have sex before marriage but I don't see it the way, it was my decision to get married young and I own that decision. Scenario 1 is just not an option for me. So I can say that I don't want to be someone with no moral guidance but rather not shackled to a marriage that I see no hope in all for a god that I don't even know if he exists or not.