Most of the people on this forum claim to be atheists. I have heard reasons why they hold this belief, or lack of belief as it were, but it seems that the actions of most people here do not reflect the reasons that I have heard. In fact they are quite different.

So I am trying to figure out why people hold this view and why they feel this is the most logical view to have. Many threads have been created questioning why anyone would be a theist, so I think that it is only fair to answer why someone would be an atheist. Here are the general reasons that I came up with that I feel should cover everyone.

1. There is tons of evidence against Gods existance

2. There is 0 evidence for Gods existance

3. There is not enough evidence for Gods existance.

4. The evidence for Gods existance is not compelling to you

5. You hate God

I think that this should cover everyone. If you are an atheist for a different reason, then tell us that reason.

Is this a double post or an edited version of the other post? (I did not compare the two)

edited version. I f'ed up the pole in the other one.

6. Saw that Jibninjas believed in God, took opposite position.

7) thought there was evidence for god, then asked "which god?", got confused, gave up, said "**** it", became an atheist

what is the difference between 3 and 4?

For some reason this reminded me of The Onion, you know the bit they do (did? its been a while) where they says like "Reasons we get up in the morning" and then have like a bar graph?

I am an evidence based reasonist and as such I have a lack of belief for any position or assertion claimed on insufficient evidence. When I say I am an atheist, I am conveying a lack of belief in any religion or philosophy asserting a premise of a "god" (what is meant by god? I will not address this right now)

So my answer would be 4, conditioned upon an acceptable defintion of the "god" construct in the statement.

there is no evidence against god's existence.

there is 0 evidence for god's existence.

there is not enough evidence for god's existence.

the non-existence of evidence either way does not compel me.

i don't hate god, just a lot of the people who love him.

am i an atheist?

3 states that there is evidence for God but that in order to draw a logical conclusion that God exists, you would need more evidence. Or that there would be more evidence if God existed.

4 states more that the evidence presented would be sufficient to conclude that God exists, but to you the evidence is not plausible in its conclusions.

4 differs from 2 in that 2 is stating that the evidence provided is in fact fallacious in its conclusions, therefore cannot be counted a evidence.

I hate God, therefore there is no God.

You accused me of hating god in another thread some time ago. For what it's worth someone who hates god can't be an atheist.

And what do we mean by god here?

Is it the christian god, some deist version of god or an undefined god, or is the old bait'n'switch where it is a deist god and suddenly it was the christian god all along?

3 is like, admitting my evaluation of the evidence is subjective, and like hell I'm going to do that.

But he's a complete jerk. Plus I'm not scared of Him. I'm an atheist - take that, God.

I am sure that what I meant is that you are coming off more that you hate God, rather then you just do not believe he exists. I am sorry if it came off as an accusation.

I agree that someone cannot be an atheist and hate God at the same time. But this is a popular view of many people. Hitchens is a prime example. His actions do not speak that God does not exist as much as it does that he hates God anyway so why believe that he exists. Even though that does not make any sense.

That is one of things that I mean as to peoples actions.

This is merely in regards to a deistic God. In order to go from atheism to theism you would first have to hit deism. Atheism is not deism, so that is what we need to address first. Plus theism is very complicated as there are many possibilities.

Theism has nothing to do with this thread.

shouldn't theism have something to do with a thread about a-theism?

There is an aspect of subjective in there, but not completely. It is stating more that logically there would have to be more evidence then there already is.

So I don't really hate Jack Bauer?

No. Before we could talk about which God is the right God or that God has stake in this universe, we would first have to agree that a god even exists.

Like, that there's not enough evidence for God's existence?

Jibninjas why are you an a-atheist?

Okay, for some deist concept of god I can't give a ready answer. I certainly believe there is a lot more to the universe than we currently know - I just don't see a reason to peg it as a "god" and neither do I see any reason to think it has any intentional effect on morals, life or whatnot.

It is a logical default.