Selsaral

Well I've said this before so you can ignore it if you are sick of reading it, but although the reasons listed as options in the poll resonate with me, by far the main reason I am an atheist is because of the 'big picture' argument. Briefly: Humans are religious creatures, we always have been. We easily believe in all sorts of wacky crap, look at scientology etc. It's obvious why we are religious, we think, we dream, our consciousness is complicated and often odd, some people are schizophrenics, some people are downright nuts, etc. Everyone in the world claims their own type of supernatural exists, but that no other type does. After hearing 99% of the humans i meet utterly convinced you can tell the future with playing cards or by using the termite oracle, or there is a big sky god up there judging me etc, and through all the history of human kind not one single piece of real evidence to support the supernatural has ever been produced, I become fundamentally skeptical of all claims of supernatural events. People's accounts, stories, and stories written down in books are completely suspect. If you don't think so, then you should convert to scientology immediately. Isn't it suspicious that the only evidence people have of the supernatural is stories and personal accounts?

wade-w

I have been an atheist my entire life, so in one sense I never "became" an atheist. Thinking about it now, #6 is the main reason I don't follow any revealed religion, and #2 rules out of the deist impersonal creator god.

I answered all of the above, because even though #6 and #2 are my main reasons for maintaining my atheist position, the others are also some part of my thinking.

crocodile deathroll

I thought some of the other choices were a little more interesting and #3 was almost synomous, but #5 was more straight forward.
So I chose that one.

I ate Pascal's Wafer

Heh. Gemma started that other thread in the hopes that she could herd some people in to choosing one of her options. She was then going to explain what was wrong with those reasons, and then defend whatever claim the reason was against. All this in the hopes that she might convert somebody.

The reason she's not posting here is because she's not genuinely interested in what we believe, she's only interested in converting.

-Nick

Demigawd

Do evangelists get prizes up in Heaven for converting, much like their secular counterparts who sign their friends up to DVD-purchase clubs do? Or is it that only successful evangelicals get to go to Heaven in the first place? Maybe God has a quota you gotta reach, like in marketting and sales. But then the people who get converted have to be successful evangelicals as well.

You know, this whole evangelical theist gig sounds alot like Amway.

crocodile deathroll

IMO God is just an ambiguous word in the dictionary it can mean anything from a great friendly Santa Claus figure in the sky with a long white beard to merely the personification of the laws of physics.

That's what I think Gemma, now tell us what do you think He/She/It is.

Dargo

Although they don't say it is a requirement for heaven, most evangelical Christians believe that the more things you do to serve Jebus on this Earth, the greater god will reward you in the after life. Winning souls for Jebus is the most important thing a Christian can do. This is certainly what I was taught in sunday school. I remember one preacher saying that god had honored men by chosing them to carry the gospel instead of using the angels to do it. I believed this crap and it always shamed me that my extreme shyness kept me from being an effective evangelist. Hard to believe I was that brainwashed.

Demigawd

Amen, brother. I remember that "man is a worthless, no-good, rotten, terrible-terrible, and let's not forget wretched, sinner yet he is the most beloved creation of God" series of sermons. I always secretly felt that angels, except for the few who sided with Satan, had a much better deal than us mortals.

My belief was shattered when I first went to university, and found people who hadn't grown up feeling guilty for studying Celtic, Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology. Too bad that shattering triggered chronic depression and a crippling-shyness. But once I got to grad school, I learned to enjoy college, especially the party atmosphere.

Jayjay

This was a tough vote. I would have voted for "All of the above", but option #1 does not and never has had anything to do with my atheism. I'd have no problem believing in evil gods if there was sufficient evidence for them.

My second choice would've been #5, but I disagree with it for two reasons: I don't think that there is a complete lack of evidence for supernaturalism (just that the evidence is not convincing enough), and I don't think that I've ever given as much thought to evidence as I have to good explanations.

So, I voted for "Other". I have always been an atheist, so I can't really point to a single reason. It's just that theistic explanations are lacking in so many ways... too many unanswered questions, deliberately muddled terminology and philosophy, and all in all an unsatisfactory intellectual endeavour.

cjack

I've always been more agnostic than atheist, but Ill respond anyway.

My reasons lie somewhere between "all of the above" and "other."


At the moment, I just find the idea of a GOD to be completely unnecessary.

Since there is no direct (or even indirect) evidence for the existence of a supreme being, and since nature quite clearly needs no "prime mover" or grand designer to function on a day to day basis, then there really is not much of a role for a GOD to fill, is there?

On a moral and ethical level, plenty of folks (atheists, agnostics, Buddhists, etc.) seem to get along just fine without threats from GOD, while plenty of religious folks do unspeakable things in the name of their deity. This tells me that GOD is not necessary as a moral compass.

If the universe runs like clockwork without GOD's intervention, and individual beings' morality is independent of the will of GOD, then it seems to me that we have no need of GOD.

If we can get along just fine without a supreme being, is he really supreme?