Question for atheists...

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my parents are both agnostic, so they simply gave me the choise, as a kid. it has always been open.
so as a kid i looked up, saw no god, and became an atheist.

i wobbled a bit around other types of "light spiritualism" untill i re-settled again, on pure and sheer atheism.

booyah

I found the church I went to a wee bit boring, and it annoyed me that it was filled with people who went each Sunday not because of faith but rather because of tradition, the opportunity to chat with neighbours and the cups of tea and digestive biscuits that were provided after the service. My local church was a place of social gathering instead of a spiritual building, and so I left the place.

My parents were both more or less atheists when they had me, and I was raised secular. I even tried to "experiment" with religion as a child, but never stuck with it because I never saw the point of having faith and I still don't.

In Britain the mainstream younger people do not take religion seriously anymore. My parents never made a big deal about it and all of the children at school would mock the idea of a God. So I became an atheist by conformity really.

When I became interested in taxonomy (the classification of living things), my parents bought me The Ancestor's Tale, by Richard Dawkins. After reading some of his other books there was no doubt left in my mind.

Atheism is the lack of religion. In that sense it is merely the absence of something. Maybe I phrased it wrong, either way its not entirely relevant. Thanks for the answers btw. FYI Im religious but am COMPLETELY esoteric, I have no desire to share my faith/religion with other people, it only causes trouble imo

Sounds good to me. I'm a keep to myself atheist for the most part. I believe that certain forms of mediation does have heath benefits aswell.

If atheism were merely the lack of a religion it would probably disturb no one but there is more to it than that. It is like saying a disbelief in phlogiston had nothing to do with the understanding that oxygenation had essential factors with combustion. Most if not all religions propose a theoretical basis for the functions of the universe and indicate that what appears to an atheist as the operations of chance are actually intentional and therefore requires some intelligent planning mind to be in control. It is the conflict over the supposition of intent that disturbs both atheists and people of faith. Atheists see religious imposition of intent on the operation of the universe as superstition and people of faith are insulted by this concept as it attacks their fundamental base of operation. That is why Muslims violently attack atheists and why atheists have a tough time in even more liberal areas.

What seems to be misunderstood by both people of faith and atheists alike is that this is a a universe of laws which concern the interaction of matter and energy and what occurs is not random. The people of faith seem to want to believe in an intelligence based on their own methods of thought and atheists (at least many of them) assume there is no intelligence in the coordinated activities of the interaction of energy and matter. But both of these attitudes result from a lack of understanding of the nature of thinking. When humans think they interact the virtual elements in their minds that they understand and come to conclusions, some of which are correct as they have simulated reality in their minds congruent to the reality of the forces of the universe. But when that simulation is incorrect the results do not resemble the results of the interaction if the elements of the universe.

But when the universe "thinks" it does not have a conscious virtual representation of reality with which to play games. It interacts the actual elements of the universe. It is not a conscious mind representing reality. It is reality and it cannot make errors. When it "thinks" along evolutionary lines it does not guess which life forms might do well and those that might fail. It merely wipes out methodically anything that cannot survive. It does not "think" the way a conscious mind thinks but merely reaches correct conclusions because it is manipulating actual forces and materials. But it is definitely a form of "thought".