Why are YOU an Atheist?

[Angrboda]

[pocaracas]

That is one annoying guy.

[Cyberman]

Many, many apologies in advance, but for some unaccountable reason that gif made me think of this from "Amazon Women on the Moon":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZRePZ1OqQE?rel=0

(It's glitchy at first but settles down after a few seconds.)

Please don't hit.

[JosephBowie]

Lots of reasons, really. I already explained all this in the Converts' Corner, so I'll go with the time-honored list form.

1) As a child, the Book of Revelations made me terrified of God.

2) Atheism makes more sense.

3) Science actually provides proof other than "It's true because it has to be."

4) Atheism lets me live with more freedom. No crazy irrational rules, just rules that help me not die.

5) I'm going to hell in pretty much every other religion, and science doesn't have a hell.

6) Science makes cool shit happen. It's like magic, but real.

[Angrboda]

The ultimate reason for embracing anything. "Cool shit."

[Kirbmarc]

To make a long story short: because there's absolutely no factual, verified evidence for any kind of intelligent creator. And while we can't prove that such a creator exists, the more we find out about the world, the less likely the idea that a "planner" was behind it becomes.

The world is too chaotic and bizarre to be the result of intelligent planning. The evolution of the living is basically the survival of whatever can find a niche to survive.

The are billions of stars in a galaxy and billions of galaxies in our universe, and probably billions of universes other than ours, and none of them special. Even quantum physics run on what could be pretty much summed up as a complicated scientific definition for "crazy stuff happens".

An intelligent, personal god, in my opinion, is just a reflection of our nature projected on an impersonal universe. In other words, we invented god for the same reason that small children believe a rock is evil when it hurt their foot.

And before you ask me what do I think about a god who is neither intelligent or personal, I'd like to reply that such a "god" is not a god, according to the meaning of the word "god". It's a force of nature, a law of physics who created the universe. We still don't know what it was (and maybe we never will) but our ignorance is not an excuse to claim that an intelligent, personal god exists.

[Utracia]

Why? At first I simply did not care for the Christian God and what his "morality" includes. Then it was a short path to not taking the idea of an invisible force that watches over us seriously. Though I try to go with Sam Harris in that I don't label myself "atheist", might as well call my self "afaerism" and the like as well. Don't need a title for everything you don't believe after all

[Edwardo Piet]

I'm an atheist because nothing has convinced me. I don't know why nothing has convinced me. It's just the way the universe is.

I also believe that God is improbable because I believe that it's more parsimonious to leave him out of the picture, and because it seems that he would have to be complex to me, and there is insufficient evidence for his complexity, in my mind.

If I was just to have an absence of belief in God (not a lack, I don't believe that I lack belief - that would imply that I didn't believe enough) then I could claim that I don't believe God doesn't exist, I merely don't have a belief on the matter. But, since I make a probability judgement on the matter of God's non-existence, then it would be incorrect for me to say that I did not believe that he doesn't exist. I do believe that he doesn't exist - but I don't believe that I know that he doesn't exist, I merely believe that his existence is improbable.

[SkepticalMoron]

I'm an atheist because of the creation museum. My faith went downhill from there...

[Gooders1002]

I was born in the UK and never had religion force on me, and after looking at myself, I just think It is the greatest cancer of mankind.