What's the best argument for being an atheist?

[Neal]

If you ask Mark, JoelKatz, and NikB what's their best reason for being an atheist, they will say.

God is defined to do the impossible.
Therefore, God's existence is impossible.
Therefore, .*. q.e.d. God does not exist.

I always thought what would I say if someone asked me what my religious views, were. For example, on my Facebook, under my religious views section, I leave it blank.

Cuz I have yet to come out of the closet for being an atheist.

1 reason is to say, carbon dating. You can tell them you don't think the world is flat or the earth is 6,000 years old.

So this is from the science standpoint (and not the language argument).

However, I was also thinking about arguments from atheism from a moral standpoint. That it would be immoral to be a Christian (why would you want to argue with them against science).

I typed up an essay that I thought I would put under my "religious views" on Facebook but I worry that it would be too controversial and can even discriminate me from job interviews. It goes.

[Neal]

They say it would be contradictory to be a "anti-Zionist Christian," therefore it follows that I am not a Christian.

See Psalms 53:1.

God burned the Children and the mothers and the unborn Children of Sodom and Gomorrah.

God ordered the Jews to slaughter all of the people of the nations that they displaced when they were given their promise land and that included women and children and the unborn.

But Jesus did not solve this problem. Not only did Jesus not condemn the Tanakh, Jesus also did not condemn the things that led to Zionism. (If he did, we wouldn't even have involvement with Israel today.).

All land under God. All land equal under God. Therefore, I am *not* a Christian.

Christians don't just believe that the religious equivalent of Zionism is optional, they believe it is mandatory. Of course, Christian is really a false word, it's Judeo-Christian that I am not.

(The atheist's argument, by the way, is that if God really did promise the Jews the "Promised Land," why must that be a reason for forced human and government involvement.).

A 2006 poll found that the more and more a person attended church, the less and less they were to be against the war.

Although, if you are a Christian, you probably don't want to associate with me.

"Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness?"

This is great - Christianity teaches them to be a bigot. Christianity promotes bigotry. Non-bigotry, by the way (and another thing), are 1 of 2 examples of anti-Christ / atheist morality.

Sadly, our public schools don't seem to do a good job on educating people why a belief is worth believing. Christians don't just believe the Holocaust happened because there is proof that the Holocaust happened. If the Holocaust were a lie, a conspiracy to happen would just be statistically improbable. Too many people would have to be in on the lie.

Try getting 1 person to keep a lie. Then try a thousand. Or in other words, the Holocaust happened is statistically as believable that evolution happened. You would have quite an amazing coincidence for an amazing consensus on carbon dating - for all the scientists and professors, in all the universities and countries of the world, to pick an arbitrary number and agree on it.

[julianm]

As an atheist I say "how can you disprove a negative" (aka arguing from ignorance). That isn't an original thought of mine. All the atheists I know say the same thing.

The Holocaust has a mountain of evidence sustaining it unlike all religions that have exactly none.

Scientists tend not to participate in conspiracy theories and certainly wouldn't arbitrarily come up with a number and stick to it re: carbon dating. As a matter of fact most scientists look forward to peer review and welcome being proven wrong or changes made to whatever claims they have made. It's how science works! An astrophysicist of some repute released a paper this week straight to the media outlets on why he thinks gravity is not real and was promptly trounced upon by almost his entire community of peers as being irresponsible and worthless as it had no chance to be reviewed and challenged by his peers.

Catholics are Christians too and Catholicism has accepted evolution and certainly don't adhere to a 6000 year old planet. Only a few LOUD and imho uneducated Christians believe the world is only 6000 years old.

Religion was the worlds policeman for many many years. A way to control and educate (and I use educate loosely here (don't plant two types of crop in the same field or face death etc.)) the populace and nothing more. It also answered the age old question of why are we here and where did we come from. That is until they stopped killing or jailing people for telling them they were wrong (earth goes around the sun, we aren't the center of the universe) and we entered the period of enlightenment. Science not religion has a better chance of answering those questions.

Public schools don't do a good job of educating period. I am absolutely appalled at the state of the school system where I currently reside and from what I hear (great stuff on ted.com about this) it's happening to a lot of western societies as well.

A good portion of our fellow humans are susceptible to magical thinking/ideation. Basically, they can be perfectly happy and even defend their "beliefs" as if they were facts! I don't think religion is going away any time soon. But as long as it stays out of the classroom or at least the science classroom and has no authority over me. I could frankly care less what people think or believe if it makes them happy; just don't force that crap on others.

As for the nonsense that these religions today don't cause harm like they used to. Perhaps we should ask all the people living in Africa (the continent) who have aids thanks to being told by the catholic church that it is a sin to use a condom. I wonder what they will think in 40 years when our planet cannot support the number of humans we will have reached?

A great awakening is what out planet needs. Not of the religious kind either. Because their is another organism on this planet that acts just like we do - a virus - and if we are not careful we are going to destroy everything anyway, just like a virus.

Great revelations come daily to me, via twitter! Mostly from the scientific community who make their discoveries simple to understand and allow joe or jane public to interact with them and ask questions etc. It's an amazing period of humanity's history to be living in right now and I would rather spend my time marveling and trying to understand mankind's latest achievements than to bury my head in ancient texts that have been all but completely debunked as utter nonsense.

[Aeriana]

My best reason? I'll keep it short and sweet - I cbf'd, being religious requires effort.

[Neal]