Why are you an atheist?

I have read the bible fully and found that many things in the bible defy the laws of physics. There are so many mistakes in the bible that I feel it couldn't possibly be true.

A quick example of one is where god is quoted saying "all the lands that floats on all the waters". Simply physics or geography will tell you that countries arent floating but if someone created the earth they should know that.

The Bible also says that if you ever question gods existance, even just think to yourself "I'm I sure got is real?" that is a sin that can never be forgiven no matter what you do. Therefore theres no chance of me or many other people getting in ever.

Then there is the changability of the church. All Catholocism is based on the bible, yet they think they can change their views on things freely, if they want to live be the bible they should do it right. Cutting your hair is as bad as murder, or stealing as far as the bible is concerned, so if the bible has any truth were all sinners.

If you take articles from the sun newspaper that equal the length of the bible, there will be more things wrong in the bible.

I'm currently writing a book on all the mistakes in the bible.

Mostly this. I don't believe there can be an almighty power or deity, I don't believe in an afterlife or we will ever be judged on anything we've ever done. I believe all we are and ever will be is here in front of us. I actually take quite a bit of solace in that.

The question is phrased in a strange way. Asking an atheist why they are atheist is to assume that the norm is to believe in a God and they have been somehow turned off it. Aren't we really born atheist, and raised/converted to be religious?

I was born an atheist and have yet to encounter anything that persuades me otherwise. That is all.

Rasheed wrote: »

Fair play to you, thanks! Always wondered was there a specific thing that changed people's mind. So if you are an Atheist, would you get married in a church? Or have your child baptised?

For me personally I would not go near a church for any reason. I dont go to funerals, weddings anything in a church because of the crimes the church has committed and still commits today.

I think is a crime against a child to have it baptised before it can make its own decision. If I could sue my parents for what they did to me I would.

Rasheed wrote: »

Fair play to you, thanks! Always wondered was there a specific thing that changed people's mind. So if you are an Atheist, would you get married in a church? Or have your child baptised?

No, I don't pretend to be religious, and I wouldn't get married in a church or baptise any children. I will attend weddings and funerals, but do not participate in the ceremony. (I do try to remain as respectful as possible at the same time.)

Like most Irish people I was raised Catholic, went to mass most Sundays until I was a teenager, and took it for granted that the stories about Jesus were true and God existed. Some time in my mid-teens I had decided that Catholicism was a big load of my arse and wanted nothing to do with it.

But I retained a belief in God until my early twenties, despite having a general abhorrence for all religion.
I'm not entirely sure why. I can recall that considering the concept of there being no God made me uncomfortable. I never posed any difficult questions about God to myself, and I tended to avoid them if I encountered them. In part, some of it was pure ignorance - at one point I considered water to be "Godly" because it was our primary life-sustainer and it existed in abundance. What are the odds! Then I got to understand evolution and that went out the window.

In Ireland, other people challenging you about God tends to be extremely rare, so it wasn't hard to avoid challenges to one's belief. I used the term "Agnostic" for a good while because I was mistakenly led to believe that was a term for someone with no religion but a general belief in God.

Looking back I can recognise now that I told myself I believed in God because I wanted to believe in God, not because I had any justification for such a belief. Probably because if you believe in God, then you don't have to admit to yourself that there's a good chance that when you die, you rot in the ground and you're gone; a concept which did and still does make me very uncomfortable.
If you had asked me what kind of God I believe in, I'd have no answer for you, maybe just wave my hands in the air in a "woo" kind of way. If I didn't have a definition for what "God" is, then I wouldn't have to try justify my belief to myself or anyone else.

At the end it was a "coming out" process for me of first admitting it to myself before I could shed the whole facade. In much the same way that gay people have difficulty, I was also concerned about telling other people if the topic ever came up. A brother of mine is very vocal about atheism and used to end up getting into heated debates about religion practically every time we went out. I'm not too good at confrontation, so I had a fear of being (verbally) attacked by a religious person if I admitted I was atheist, as I would have no answers for them (which I now understand is not a problem).
Other people also get visibly upset when you tell them you're atheist, like you're judging them, and I don't like upsetting people.

I would still tend to avoid religious debates IRL because my experience of watching others is that the religious people get very upset when they're challenged, even going as far as tears. It's also quite difficult to "debate" religion without making it sound like you're calling them an idiot. People's traditional concept of "debate" in regards to religion is about the nature of God and whether Mary was really a virgin. When the atheists' opener is "Everything you believe in is a fairytale invented by some bronze age hut-dwellers", people get very offended.

I'm an aetheist but only recently accepted it fully. There has been too much horrible stuff that has happened on this planet to believe in any God. I like to read a lot of true crime stuff and surely no God would let kids be raped, tortured and murdered or something like the holocaust happen.

Rasheed wrote: »

Nope, sorry the name prob doesn't suit but I'm Irish! From the back if beyonds, and I probably do know atheists but no one as ever told me they are! I have absolutely no problem if someone is religious or atheist, each to their own, I am just curious regarding how people come to be that way! I'm in my twenties and when I was going to school, we said prayers four times a day, had religion classes once a day and emphasis placed on communion and confirmation. I think it's lovely to see school that are now less catholic orientated as it's not everyones cup of tea. There was one Protestant in our school and I always felt sorry for him as our school was very catholic teaching based.

Thanks for the clarification. I remember visiting my primary school years after I had left and seeing it with new eyes. All those statues and crucifixes!

I remember being in a church for a wedding, after many years of non-attendance and atheism. It was weird to see all that standing/kneeling/sitting, chanting answers to a man in a funny dress ... and I wondered how could it ever have seemed normal.

Baptised a Catholic as a (defenseless!) baby and sent to Catholic primary and secondary schools.
I gave up on Christianity not long after I discovered that there were many religions in the world, each with their own wildly different beliefs and millions (if not billions) of devout followers, each of whom thought their own religion was the one true faith. Under scrutiny Catholocism/Christianity was every bit as outlandish in my eyes as Islam, Hinduism etc. Once you start critiquing the various religions their 'truth' does not seem very truthful.
I have always had a great interest in the natural world and I feel this led me toward atheism somewhat. A completely natural universe works just as well as a universe that supposedly has a supreme being pulling the strings, so why invoke one at all?

I was raised by parents who were catholic by default really. Not religious, but we did go to church every weekend. My mother being a national school teacher, had no option but to appear catholic really. I hated church and rebelled when I was a young teenager until I was finally allowed stay at home because I was being such a brat

Like Chatterpillar said, I started thinking critically and I'm very skeptical of most claims of woo and paranormal. I do remember one occasion in school when I was about 10 when the priest admited that the Adam & Eve story was "just a story". I was like :eek: "wait a minute..." :cool: Probably the start of my epiphany.

I've never been shy about my atheism. All my family and friends know. I don't mind going to a church for other's sake for weddings, etc, but I would never get married in a church.