My Reasons for Being an Atheist

I do not believe in God because there is no evidence for the existence of any god or gods, pure and simple. I also think it is pretty clear that religious beliefs are the product of wishful thinking; a desire for a protector to look out for us; a need to feel important and central to the universe rather than being an accident in an indifferent and purposeless universe; a hope that ultimate justice will prevail. I call myself an atheist not an agnostic. To say there is no God is just as unprovable as to say there is one, one might say. This is true yet I still use the term atheist. The argument is frequently made that agnosticism is logically tenable whereas atheism is not and is just as much a matter of faith as theism. The definition of atheist has been convoluted by theists to make atheists look just as irrational as they are. Two definitions of atheist exist:

1. Belief that God does not exist. This is the definition proffered by theists. It is shocking to the believer, therefore putting the atheist in an even more evil light, which helps the believer to dismiss the atheist as pernicious. This definition is usually the only one found in dictionaries. Keep in mind that believers are still the overwhelming majority in society and in nearly any given group including dictionary writers and buyers.

2. Possessing no belief in God. This definition is logically tenable. It is in full accordance with Occam's Razor in that it discards the more complex hypothesis (A supernatural consciousness exists and is responsible for all other existence, we just have no evidence.) for the simpler one (Existence is most likely explained by natural processes which we know exist and have evidence of such workings.). This is how atheists who value logic and reason define themselves. Those who use the first definition probably have not really given the issue much thought.

Now one might say that definition 2 is the same as agnosticism, so why not just call oneself an agnostic? Actually, agnosticism is defined as being unable to know if God exists. However, this concept is intellectually dishonest in that while maintaining there is no evidence of God or the supernatural, it refuses to make the intellectually honest conclusion that therefore God most likely does not exist. Agnosticism suggests that the existence and non-existence of God are equally likely. Without evidence of God's existence, the non-existence hypothesis is heavily favored, but agnosticism ignores this. If agnosticism is the logical position then we must say that the existence and non-existence of leprechauns, unicorns, vampires, and werewolves are equally likely. We judge all of these things to be products of the human imagination and do not believe in them. We are not in any real danger of offending any great portion of society stating that unicorns do not exist, but we are in saying we do not believe in God. Agnostics hedge their bets and try not to offend by surrounding themselves in the "god is unknowable" cloak which seems to be less offensive to theists than either of the atheist definitions.

"One cannot be an agnostic. Agnostic means "not to know" and almost by definition all humans are agnostic about God in that no one can be sure whether a God of some sort really exists. I know I haven't a clue. But no thinking person can say that he does not know if he acknowledges a God. We all know if we believe in a God. In our heart of hearts, we either do believe or we do not believe. Either way, we know if we believe. There is no such thing as not knowing if we believe. This supposedly "neutral" position about the existence of God, agnosticism, is no position at all. The sooner it is eliminated the better, for all of us freethinkers, atheists, unbelievers, nonbelievers, humanists, or whatever."
   - Judith Hayes, "The Happy Heretic", from the essay A Freethought Easter In Orlando.

"Atheism, therefore, is the absence of theistic belief. One who does not believe in the existence of a god or supernatural being is properly designated as an atheist." Atheism is sometimes defined as 'the belief that there is no God of any kind,' or the claim that a god cannot exist. While these are categories of atheism, they do not exhaust the meaning of atheism--and are somewhat misleading with respect to the basic nature of atheism. Atheism, in its basic form, is not a belief: it is the absence of belief. An atheist is not primarily a person who *believes* that a god does not exist, rather he does not believe in the existence of a god."
   - George Smith, Atheism: The Case Against God (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books, 1989), p. 7.