I rejected god because I love the comfort of poly-cotton blends.

[spiderplanet]

Maybe everyone doesn't already know this, here's the heads up. The "bitter" atheist who prayed to god and didn't have their prayers answered is a TV character, but not a real life person. It's just a stereotype.

All of the atheists I know choose not to be religious because theology is silly and nonsensical. A person realizes that all of the religions contradict each other, or contradict themselves, or seem mythological, or seem utterly bizarre once a person knows a little bit of science...

It's true that the big three Abrahamic religions have some seriously perverse and unpleasant doctrine about gay people, women, and people who eat shellfish. That's just *more* proof that religion is created by humans with very petty concerns, or maybe food allergies, but it's not the reason that people choose not to worship any deities.

All religions reject all gods other than their own. Atheists only go one god further.

Other things on TV that aren't real:

All adult women over 40 are not manipulative and evil.
Everyone who lives in the city is not going to steal your car.
Dogs can't really talk.

Comments

[kalmn]

there are plenty of atheists who are bitter, and if there aren't any atheists who are atheist because bad things happened and they couldn't reconcile it, i will eat my hat.

it seems like the majority of atheists that i know (myself included) are angry former christians. not that i'm an atheist because yahweh didn't take time to write me a personal note; it was more along the lines of "zombies and cannibalism? seriously?" but i'm still angry at/about christianity.

[spiderplanet]

Those people could exist, just like the flying spaghetti monster. I don't know any, and of the dozens (maybe hundreds) of stories I've read about how people decided to become atheists, I've never seen one where the writer says that they chose atheism because they're bitter that god didn't grant their wishes.

not that i'm an atheist because yahweh didn't take time to write me a personal note; it was more along the lines of "zombies and cannibalism? seriously?"

This makes more sense.

Religion is pretty destructive to individuals and groups. I see it as harmful too, but that's not why I don't believe. I think that the understanding of what sort of harm is caused by theology comes after the rejection, not before. Theists who understand that parts of the Bible (or other text) are sexist, racist, anti-gay, genocidal... typically believe that the good parts outweigh the bad.