Why would anyone want to be an atheist?

Question

A very serious question for those who seriously question deists.

Peace and Love

Answer 1

My guess is that they are too stubborn to admit they are wrong. They don't like to admit that they need a God and Savior and can't do it alone.

Lots of MIS information - they think/read/were told that you have to live with certain rules or that is so strict or something.

Could be a bad experience. Some people are like that. They have one bad experience and turn their backs on the whole thing.
I've even met people who do this with Drs and medicine ect. instead of using common sense and saying "they aren't all like that"

That's all I can come up with, except to say that Satan has a hold of them.

Answer 2

It's not about wanting to be one, it's not really a choice actually. To be honest I had really envied the comfort that believing in God gave so many people, including people very close to me. I tried really hard to believe because I wanted that same intimate relationship with God. Anyway, despite trying to believe, I just can't. Nothing about God or the bible makes any sense to me. I have way too much of a science and mythology background to appreciate religion. Seriously, the types of the stories in the bible are the same stories told by almost every other culture and every other religion. A creation story, a baby-in-the-basket story, someone who made a great sacrifice who we now revere and worship. These are important stories to be told within society. They are inspiring and give us something to aspire towards, but they are just stories that have become mystified through time. I just cannot say that the Christian bible is true but the Greek myths are myths. To me they are all myths.

My science background as well really helps me to understand more in detail some of the everyday miracles in our lives. Just the most basic one of how we came to be on this planet. I don't believe that we are a product of a God or spirituality, but that spirituality is a product of our big brains. That is just my opinion, and that is why I am an Atheist.

Answer 3

I am not an atheist but I know many. And they have become so because probably none of the religions they knew gave them sufficient answers to the basic questions of existence.
Others become atheist because they witness some kind of injustice or discrimination practiced by one of the churches, or the church where they previously belonged to - for example, Catholic church being unwilling to marry a Catholic with a Protestant unless the Protestant takes the spouse's faith and they promise to make the children Catholics, too.

I understand them, somehow... being atheist is a cautious approach to religious matters - it tells to me "don't commit if unsure about it".
And, maybe, some become atheists because they never ask themselves these kinds of questions about God or genesis or anything... they are just not interested in the matter, and neither have they encountered situations in their lives that would challenge them to do it.

Answer 4

It isnt, like everyone is saying, a matter of desire. I've been raised catholic, but i started to read the bible, and realized the christian faith wasnt for me. here are some reasons.

We were not witnessing god creating Earth; how do we know that was what was happening.

The bible says earth is about 5,000 years old, when we know for a fact it is over 4 billion years.

Why would the bible be written in riddles and puzzles if what it really had to say was important?

Why is homosexuality a sin? Why is masturbation a sin?

Answer 5

Because it's truth and not fantasy. I much prefer to live my life dominated as much by rationality as possible and not by emotion, so I ended up as an atheist.

And don't forget, we're all basically atheist, I'm just "one god more" atheist than most americans. Of the hundreds of different gods, xians deny the existence of all but one, I go one step further.

Melissa T:
If I feared the word of god, wouldn't I become a xian to escape his wrath? THIS is what I mean when I say that I prefer rationality.
Thank you for helping me illustrate that.

Answer 6

Athiests really, truly disagree with biblical teaching. Most have read and researched many organized religions and found the contradictions in all of them that they just can not abide by.

They find more peace, love and joy by not being restricted by a catagory of people who they see as miserably obeying "the rules".
They do seem to resent being preached to. It invades the peace that they live by and would love to convince religious groups to question for themselves.

Answer 7

Because Heaven and Hell seem like such mythical concepts. Any intelligent human being should question the existence of God. Most people only believe because it has been fed to them since birth. Does not mean it is true. Nature vs nurture..... And just because someone doesn't believe in God does not mean that they don't have values. To not believe in God does not make one a "sinner". I live my life with morals and values and respect everyday and not because some mythical creature told me to, but because it feels good to do the right thing.

Answer 8

because it's freedom in a very real sense

no religion to tell you what to do or not to do
no religion to weigh your mind
no religion to affect your judgment
no religion to limit your thinking
no religion to stop you from being near anyone

no religion

open minded people who achieved the conclusion of no-god all by themselves, through observation and self-searching is a true free mind, who will be able to live their life happily and content

when you realized that there is no god, you became your own god. the ultimate determining factor for your own life.

religious people will find THAT fact very scary and hard to swallow, they'd automatically assume that without the limits / rules of religion, a person will immediately become evil or degenerate

it's true it's scary.

it's also true that the feeling of being in charge of your own life is a very powerful feeling, and power always corrupts. This is where we learn to bring forth our innate powers of compassion, open-mindedness and justice, something that everyone has and can be found even without religion

"atheists" who became atheist because of some incident in their life, blames religion or god for their life, is NOT a free mind and is not mature enough to be considered so

Answer 9

Its not something to be, its waking up and realizing that you've been brainwashed by religion and churches that try to make you believe in fairy tales. When you finally read the Bible with your eyes open and see the contradictions,lies. And stories that if they are real.if all that really happened , If there is a God ,that God, I would not want to follow a God that is so heartless that he got upset and instead of forgiving, trying to help his children he kills them and he kills them by drowning them the most horrible way to die. And there is so much more he's done besides out right murder.

Answer 10

It's not a choice. I just don't believe in a personal god. I'm happy not to search for anything more as that would be lying to myself. I just don't believe it. I also think it's quite beautiful to think of my place in the universe, as one very small part and so lucky to be alive. For me, what there is is the truth - and I find that amazing. I don't need anything more.

EDIT: I'm confused as to why so many non-athiests have taken this opportunity to air their misunderstandings and seemingly even fears of athiests rather than listening to what we have to say. I'm glad to note that the question-asker appears to be an exception.

EDIT: Sumerspirit - you've just described an agnostic, not athiest.