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Quote by: Agnos  I somewhat agree with you here. However, these premises do not imply that God does not exist; they simply imply that people 'accept' God into their lives for the wrong reasons. All of which, mind you, are satisfactory answers to my question (and I thank you for that), but unsatisfactory reasons for being an atheist.
Why are you an atheist? |
I am an atheist because I choose to be. As there is no reliable evidence for god, but only faith -- a choice to believe despite the lack of evidence -- that allows people to worship god, I choose to have no faith.
I also want, as I was attempting to say in my first reply, to live a human life: to experience my own joys and sorrows, as the natural and right consequences of my own actions and choices, without trying to shift the blame onto my Heavenly Father. I cannot live my life if I give it to god, and giving him credit for everything that I am is giving him my life. I want to keep my life, and that means I must think of myself as being in control of my own fate. If I am good, I want to be good for me, not for Him; if I am evil, I want to be evil in my eyes, not in His. I won't let him define me.
That, I think, is the role god plays in our society: he defines us, turning us into Christians/Muslims/Jews, the Chosen people or heretics; good people and bad people, the saved and the damned -- and even simply the non-believer. I'd really rather not be defined at all in terms of religion, and so I may even give up the term atheist; it's never been terribly applicable to me, anyway, since I don't believe there is no god; I simply have no beliefs.
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Quote by: Isherwood You're earning a mention in my blog. |
Woohoo! I've made it into the blogosphere!
