How to become an atheist.....

[Playinghardball]

[Binkie The Clown]

1. Even if I DID believe in god, I would be an atheist.

"Serving" god is pointless if god is all powerful.
I am an upstanding, morally responsible person without having to ask god how to behave.

Therefore, going to church would do no good for god. Going to church would do no good for me. That leaves the church as the only possible beneficiary of my going to church, and why would I want to benefit a bunch of corrupt con men?

So in the end, the only rational approach is to act as if god does not exists even if he/she/it does. So I guess my most sincere answer to the question "Does god exist?" is "I don't care on way or the other."

[Warpy]

2. That worked for my mother

The explosion when she finally read that thing from cover to cover was nothing short of hilarious. My dad wasn't much of a reader or he'd have realized what a crock of shit it was sooner than he did.

After snarking at me for much of my adult life for discarding of Mother Church, they both died unbelievers, unafraid of judgment and hell.

[DetlefK]

3. The scientific(!!!) answer is to keep using your natural-born way of thinking.

Do you know how the brains and behaviour of children develop? Hint: Brains are neural networks.

They conduct trial&error experiments.

If I throw a tantrum, will that get me a toy? Yes or No?
If I put dirt in my mouth, will it taste good? Yes or No?
If I destroy that, will that get me in trouble? Yes or No?
The test-results are noted and influence future behaviour and future experiments.

This is the natural way your brain operates and programs itself and it does so from the very first moment you have a sensory perception.



Religion invents explanations that contradict your experiments and then outlaws you from questioning them by claiming that your mode of thinking should be belief. Religion is completely un-natural.

[AlbertCat]

5. Religion is completely un-natural.

Well, not completely.

I think it's perfectly natural to anthropomorphize nature and the things in it. But your intellect should tell you that it IS just anthropomorphizing when careful observation, experimentation and confirmation show you otherwise.

[eppur_se_muova]

4. Everyone is BORN an atheist ... it's only social programming that turns them otherwise.

"How to restore your atheism" might be a more accurate title.