Atheists, tell me, a Roman Catholic: why should I become an atheist?

[Astonished]

Before I begin, I ask that you please avoid being hostile or anything. I'm a Roman Catholic, but I feel like many people of faith immediately jump to degrading atheists as people, rather than trying to understand their mindset. I'm heavily confused right now, and am asking both Catholic and atheist sites for their mindsets. Obviously, Catholics are going to defend Catholicism, while atheists are going to defend atheism. I ask that you please be civil about it, as this could be life-changing for me.


I've been questioning how to improve in my Roman Catholic faith lately...but this morning I came to the realization that I never really questioned my faith itself. I was lightly raised Catholic and recently took it upon myself to grow closer to God. Now, for probably the first time in my life, I feel like I'm genuinely considering atheism as a possibility.

From what I understand, atheists do not accept the possibility of a supernatural being, and restrict themselves to our "natural" human thinking. Previously I thought that atheists are simply conditioned by society to the point where they are unable to "rationally" believe in a supernatural being...God doesn't allow us universally undeniable proof of his existence as a test of faith. Now, though, I feel like it's impossible to tell whether that mindset is correct, or whether atheists are correct in their focusing on our natural human mindsets. I do feel like I've felt something while praying throughout the past. 

The other night, for example, I was planning on praying for about fifteen minutes, but felt oddly calm and ended up taking about an hour. Now I feel like that could have just been because I was comfortable, and my mind was "making things up" as I was more convinced in my faith.


Atheists, why do you reject the idea of God, and why should I? I know that your answers will include "there's no evidence" and all that, but please try to explain.

If you have never read your bible in a sincere way, that goes a long way in deconverting from Judeo-Christian religions. You will see that god lies to people all the time in it, is a brutal dictator with no compassion, has ridiculous standards for the ridiculous and nebulous concepts of his eternal rewards and punishments, and has not bothered to deliver this only means of revealing himself to his people in a way that is free of inconsistency and contradiction. This demolishes the idea that this is in any way a perfect, loving, just, or even competent let alone omniscient, god.

So why does this not result in simple deism, where we believe there is a creator but that there is simply no discernable way to know his will, or whether he even gives a shit and didn't just fuck off after creating the universe and setting everything in motion? Well firstly that would be a pointless concept and have no bearing on existence and therefore be literally no different than atheism unless you're a cosmologist or astrophysicist, and secondly what we HAVE discovered scientifically is a universe that functions well enough without a sentient creator, as well as evidence that, if there was a creator, they are enormously incompetent and inefficient, and would know that they're giving us that impression so if they cared, they didn't feel like doing anything about it, and if they didn't care, they're just as incompetent as we thought.

Really, there is no reason TO believe, ultimately. Zero. Not a fucking thing. There are virtually limitless reasons NOT to believe. That's what it all boils down to, bro. So if you've come to grips with the fact that the version of this false picture of what the bible paints the world to be, a romanticized fiction of a fiction, you'll see that this was nothing more than something intended to impress illiterate stone-age peasants and that modern humans have no excuse to allow themselves to be duped by it, and the harm it causes worldwide on a daily basis in more forms than can be reasonably counted. What's that saying? "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." I normally don't subscribe to that, but with religion, you bet your ass I do.