I’m an atheist because it is a rational intellectual stance about a proposition for which there is no evidence and no rational justification.
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
I’m an atheist because it is a rational intellectual stance about a proposition for which there is no evidence and no rational justification.
Why am I an atheist? To be perfectly honest, my upbringing contributed. Most people stay with the religion of their childhood, and I stayed with the non-religion of mine.
I know I am an atheist because when the dive team found my friend’s 8 year old daughter after being underwater for almost 15 minutes, my first reaction was NOT to plead and bargain with some godly being, but rather to hope that the science was on our side. While I drove to the hospital, I counted minutes. I calculated the water temperature, hoping that the natural springs and recent rain fall had made the lake cold enough to preserve brain function. I recalled every article, every journal, and every medical book I had ever read about the survival rate for children in drowning accidents.They say there are no atheists in foxholes, but in the panicked, 25 minute, 90 mph drive to the hospital, I realized I thought of everything…except to pray.
I’ve tried to put this into words a couple or three times before, always talking about why I’m an Atheist, and never with any great deal of success. Partly that’s because the socio-political aspects are so often stated by so many people (most of them much better writers than me, to boot) that it’s hard to really say anything new, but also partly, I think, because I never became an atheist. Apart from a brief period in my early teens of wondering vaguely, and I have to say rather casually, whether there might be some form of deist ‘first-cause’ sort of god, I’ve been an atheist all my life. It’s kinda hard to do a deconversion story without the deconversion! The question for me is, rather, how did I become an Atheist with a capital ‘A’? You know, strident, shrill; a nasty horrible persecutor of Christians and all that jazz. The answer—or this attempt at it—is likely to be a bit rambling, I’m afraid.
Let’s start with Santa.
Am I an Atheist?
I haven’t had a moment where I’ve decided I don’t believe in God, a “conversion” to some other position. My faith questions and doubts have been a journey that I’ve reflected here on my blog in several posts. But after my post on spiritualizing the night, I got several comments and emails asking when I had become an atheist. I am still thinking about this question, because I don’t really know the answer. I’m not even sure I am an Atheist.
When does one become an Atheist? Does it happen when you don’t feel a spiritual connection with God? Is it when you start to disagree with stuff in the bible? Are you an Atheist when you associate with other Atheists? Or only when you declare yourself one? I don’t know.
I’m an atheist because I could no longer continue to do mental gymnastics. I kept arguing with my own mind, trying to convince myself that the faith that my parents followed, was the only true way. Eventually I had to look myself in the mirror and admit I saw things differently. No, I was not destined to be less than all men given all the men I successfully competed against in school, in my profession etc. No I could not believe that I was miraculously born into just the right family to have just the right faith to save me from hellfire. No I could not accept that ancient books that were supposedly written by a god, who created the universe state things about the universe that are demonstrably false. No I could not accept that women were to blame for male lust and sexual violence and so needed to be covered up. No I could not accept that my future had already been written but I would be punished or rewarded for how my life turned out. I could go on and on. The mental energy required to keep supporting religion was just too much for my brain. I had to let religion go and set my brain free. Life is more beautiful ever since.
Fay
Michigan
Why am I an atheist? Short answer: I was born that way, and never saw a reason to change.
I had been a skeptical believer from my youth, taking everything with a grain of salt, but knowing that as I got older I’d know more. At 17, when I graduated from my Catholic high school, I left the church, believing it to be nothing more than an authoritarian organization. I consider myself to have been an agnostic at that time, not knowing whether there was a god and for a while not caring.
In order to properly address why I am an atheist, I think it might be helpful to first deal with those common misconceptions about why atheists don’t believe in god.
