There are many reasons why I am an atheist. Mainly these are not philosophical reasons, because I feel that I don’t know enough to make decent arguments. This might lead you to think that perhaps I should be agnostic and not straight-out atheist. However, I do have my reasons. Firstly, I should explain the word atheist. An atheist is simply someone who does not believe in God. This is pretty obvious. My dad once told me that it is impossible to be an atheist because not believing in God is a belief in itself, but he usually doesn’t make much sense anyway. If you look up the word ‘theism’ it says “The morbid condition resulting from the excessive use of tea.” I don’t think this is entirely correct because many atheists also drink tea.

Belief is greatly affected by the way you are brought up. This stands for all religions, including atheism. This is probably a big barrier to proper philosophical debates since many people tend to stick to their guns no matter what anyone else says to them. As a child, my mother often told me that my father’s theist beliefs were wrong and that I shouldn’t believe anything he told me. As a result, I was probably quite rude towards him and his friends. However, children brought up as theists are often the same. They are taught that God exists and that’s all there is to it, and it is probably not very fair on the child.

Not only is it very difficult for me to accept a religion that is accepted purely on the basis of being told it’s just so by your parents, (don’t worry, I’ll get philosophical soon) but there is so much trouble caused by being part of a religion. Look at everything that religion has done. The Ku Klux Klan are christian. Modern-day terrorists are muslim. The fights between protestants and catholics. And in Sikhism, if the first born child is a girl, the mother is blamed and the child can be killed, completely ignoring the fact that a child’s gender is all down to the father’s sperm. Must be a really reliable religion. You’ve probably heard of the Westboro baptist church. They’re the ones who protest publicly that the world is doomed because we’re all gay. They go to people’s funerals and protest saying that they deserved to die. I found a blog called shelleytherepublican.com that says that pokemon and wifi are evil and has a long list of the things and people on ‘God’s hitlist’. These lists include Barack Obama (which they spell ‘Osama’), animal rights people, Germans, Linux users, college professors, poets, starbucks, and vegetarians.

Many christians, muslims and so on will tell you that the people who commit hate crimes and do all these terrible things are not true followers of their religion. That’s all very well, until they try and convince you that their book, be it the bible or the Qu’ran is perfect. Well in that case, how is it possible to twist the ideas in that supposedly perfect book? Does that not show that it cannot have been written by God? The omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God should be able to make a work that cannot be twisted to suit someone’s terrible ideals. I’m sorry, bible bashing is so very fun.

Let’s get away from actual religion and focus more on the actual belief of God. It’s all very well to make arguments about the existence of God, but then a lot of people will jump to the christian God. No. That doesn’t work. You can say that there was a first cause, but why does that have to be God, and not only that, but the ridiculous God of the bible and Qu’ran. Did you know, in Genesis, God creates light before he creates stars. I’m sorry, I’m not very good at science, but I’m pretty sure the sun is a star. Or am I missing something? Oh yeah, sorry, God can do what he likes.

Anyway, I’ve completely rambled in this essay and I think I should stop now. I’m sorry that it’s not what I’ll need to write for the exam and it’s probably a bit irrelevant.

In conclusion, I am an atheist because there is too much wrong with religion for me to accept it.