Ever wonder why you're atheist?

[biggredone]

For me I really allways have been. I can remember being 7 or 8 in church while my mother and sister got saved and baptised.I did not understand it then but I knew it was not genuine emotion they were displaying. I wrestled with it till I was 12 or 13 but never could swallow it.

[Sal1981]

I love your introduction, I had an upbringing that reminds me of yours, it took me about 4 years to fully deconvert. I hope you like AF.

[the_antithesis]

I am an atheists because I have been fed enough bullshit in my life to know I dislike the taste.

[SGOS]

Ever  wonder why you're an atheist?

I don't usually answer that type of query  this way, but perhaps the question is not why I'm an atheist, but why other "intelligent" (in your words) people are not.  

I'd suggest that "intelligent" or not, they simply haven't figured it out.  Your qualifier that they are also "intelligent" is actually irrelevant.  Intelligence is by no means a guarantee that logic will be applied consistently.

In the final analysis, the issue of an ambiguous god without evidence is logically an unknowable situation.  This is true for everyone.  It cannot be proven.  It just can't.  Faced with this disconcerting problem of not being able to "know" others avoid being overwhelmed by an externally imposed ignorance by shutting down the thinking process.  Facing one's own ignorance (which is not a personal fault, but a simple reality), is too big of a burden.  They deal with the issue by ignoring it and default to a highly accepted social belief, which is usually a product of local demographics, rather than facing an ignorance that is beyond their control.

In other words, they haven't attempted to figure it out.  They have just accepted the belief that is socially convenient and acceptable to their peer group.

I admit it's a bit presumptuous for me to decipher the motivations of others.  I can really only do that accurately with myself.  But in the end, whatever the motivations of others are that lead to their belief might be, they are not based on logic.  And by definition, they are therefore, illogical.

[inflection2495]

I suppose I'm an atheist because religion doesn't make any sense. Plain and simple. A cosmic creator being of infinite intelligence whom possesses the power to materialize the cosmos into being and decides to have personal relationships with feeble apes on a random planet. Not only does this being not provide any evidence of his existence, but he demands you believe impossible nonsense from incredulous people for literally NO REASON. If you fail to do this, you become subject to thought/belief crime and are punished for eternity simply for not believing. And lastly, the general monotheistic God, to whom the previously mentioned attributes belong, also is claimed to be all-knowing. So, does he know the future? If yes, there cannot be a test and we are part of a giant play. If no, God is not all-knowing and his credibility/power must be seriously questioned.
Hope that adds to discussion, thanks.

[Shol'va]

^ The typical response you will get from apologists is that hell is not punishment, it is actually the result of exercising free will that leads to the separation from God. The rebuttal I use with varying degrees of success is the fact that there is no reason that same God would be utterly incapable of setting up a separate heaven where good people that don't believe in him go to. So according to their own world view, their God is either incapable, in which case that's an issue with omnipotence, or unwilling, which raises issues with the whole "loving god".

[jumper]

...

[aitm]

Never wondered why, always knew exactly what happened to start me on the way. The first was when one of the nicest girls in the world and her family the same, they were the church "leaders" in every way. Wonderful wonderful people, I was a freshman, one day I saw Sue crying in the hall, naturally I was concerned, (this was a year before I went full pussy mode, or I woulda started to play on her misery....yeah, i was that bad) anyway, turns out her sister had a child and it was a "mongolian child" (as they used to say) she blurted out, "why us? We didn't do anything wrong?". Why indeed I pondered....

The next big moment was when I was a sophomore and asked a hot junior to the prom,,surprisingly she said yes. I was all giddy as you can imagine. Two days before the prom, she was rushed to the hospital and died six hours later of spinal meningitis. At her funeral, it took about three sentences out of the minister and I stood up in the middle of the row six isles back, said, "this is bull shit" and walked out..walked the three miles home and never looked back. For several years not only did I not care about religion but I did not care about not being non-religious either. Life simply was.

[VladK]

Have you ever wondered why you ended up atheist?

Honestly, the shortest answer is that it was part of my growing up. For me anyway. I reached an age when it just didn't make sense anymore with all the miracles and rigid set of moral rules that aren't exactly optimal for the 21st century.

Not to imply that theists are immature. I'm simply describing what I went through in teen-age years. I don't except anyone to come to the same conclusions. And in some ways I still had a childish view of religion ("religion bad atheist smash"), I'm a bit more nuanced now. (I hope.)