What made you turn away from religion?
Why do you deny God?
We get asked these kinds of questions a lot. Occasionally, the question is asked by a fellow atheist or someone who is beginning to have doubts about his or her religion. However, most often this question comes from Christian lurkers. If you are a Christian, chances are you think that, "deep down," all atheists secretly believe in God and that if they knew what true Christianity is all about, they would embrace the faith. You probably suspect that atheists are unhappy and are looking for a reason to join the religious mainstream. All you need to do is expose the fallacies in our reasoning about why we reject religion, and we will be saved, right?
Most people (but not all) are raised in a family with a religious faith.This is not a statistical mystery, so it should not come as a surprise to you that most atheists were religious for a time. While it is true that "bad experiences" with religion are often the reason people begin to question their faith, bad experiences do not manufacture atheists or agnostics. You should know that religious faith is much stronger than that. It is psychologically satisfying, provides a convenient moral compass that need never be questioned, and provides a means to categorize people (saved vs. not saved), among other things. Religion also provides a sense of community and can give people great joy. Why would an atheist reject all that? Why wouldn't someone raised without religion want to give religion a try?
It is simple. Atheists do not find the existence of a god (or deity, or God) to be plausible. Some atheists have felt this way their entire lives and find the entire concept to be bizarre or humorous. Many others came to feel this way after periods of doubt allowed them to consider plausibility as an issue. Atheists find joy in other things. We find community in places like the BabyCenter A/A board and among other highly tolerant people (including some religious people). We rest easy feeling that we have made an informed decision about religion. We find that a morality based on fear of divine punishment is weaker than well-reasoned morality based on the common good.
Once you decide that the existence of a god is not plausible, it no longer matters whether there are contradictions in the Bible, religious hypocrits, or atrocities carried out in the name of religion. No matter how many explanations a Christian tries to offer for these things, an atheist will not start to reconsider religion. You will need to first convince us that a god exists. You will have to explain why there is one god or many. You will have to define the properties of the god you are talking about (omnipotent, omniscient, etc.). You will have to explain where the god came from and why it needs or wants to be worshipped. You will have to explain how a god that is responsible for everything that exists and happens in the universe is not responsible for human choices he both foresaw and enabled. If, and only if, you can convince an atheist that the existence of the god you are describing is plausible, THEN you can do the same for the tenets of your religion and explain why they are more plausible than the tenets of any other religion or denomination. If you are up to the task, please make your case on the Religious Debate Board.
The BabyCenter Atheist/Agnostic board is a support board, not a debate board. It is not the place to proselytize or to try to argue the superiority of your personal religious faith.