The 6 Paths to Atheism

I hate that these thoughts are seen as cliche. I'm talking about questions like "Where did we all come from" and then the requisite follow up of "Well then, where did God come from?". You know why I hate it? Because those are very fair questions to ask. The first one being the question that drives many people into philosophical and religious thought.
But the answer you'll get from the religious is, "God always was." That's really just a veiled way out of the question. It doesn't address the intellectual core of the question. You're assuming things that exist must have come from something; you're told we came from god; so where did god come from? Instead of saying 'nowhere' the answer distracts with 'always was.' Using that logic you might as well assume we, as humans or a planet or just plain mass, always were. There's nothing more philosophically or scientifically profound about saying God 'just is' than saying we "simply are." It's just an escape route. To understand that the answer of God isn't an answer to the question of 'Where did we come from?' at all, makes it a lot easier to question his very existence.

I think this is where my doubt truly started. The first argument I remember bringing up time and again when I first found people to talk to honestly about the existence of god was 'If I had been born on the other side of the planet, I would simply be whatever religion their culture is." Since there is no more material background for Christianity over Islam or, heck, even Mormonism, my thought was in all likelihood true. All of the big faiths have a book that is full of stories that morally instruct and people that believe it to be true. Nothing distinguishes one religion's claims as more valid than another on an evidence based level.
This was a big thing to me because like it or not, a lot of religious people do claim that you have to praise the right God to go to heaven. It's definitely a pretty big theme in the Bible. Heck, the old testament instructs you to kill people of other faiths (We'll get to the bible later). To understand that entire cultures and countries of people hold opposing religious beliefs to yours is one thing. To realize that just being born in a certain region is the main precursor to a religious affiliation is another.

This part isn't going to be as hard hitting as it is ego crushing. I've been told "There's nothing more narcissistic than believing there is no god". They get to that conclusion with something to the affect of "You think you're the biggest thing in the universe. You believe in nothing but yourself". To this, I'd say there's nothing more narcissistic than saying "My Dad came to see me today. YAY! God is so great!". Obviously that is simply an example from a subset of a vast array of examples; Thanking god for an award, pointing to the sky when you score a touchdown. All of these things suggest that God played a meticulous role in your mundane, or trivial, or even acceptably exciting life, while allowing entire regions of the world to be subjected to war-lords, hunger, AIDS pandemics, oppression or just plain greed. And not just for moments, but for lifetimes and generations. This is the most narcissistic thing I can think of. And accepting those truths makes it pretty hard to believe in a God that interferes with day-to-day life.

"God clearly expects us to keep slaves. That right there clearly demonstrates that we shouldn't get our morality from religion." - Sam Harris
Need I say more? I really feel like I don't, but I know how debates go below articles dealing with religion so I better lay it on thick. To put it slightly less simply, there is a long history of religious texts being used to oppress people. Without going on a rampage of quotes I can give you a quick synopsis. If you're a woman, the bible tells you to do what your man tells you to do and don't even think about talking at church (Ephesians 5:22-24 and all over Corinthians). These texts were used by countless "religious" folk to suppress women's rights using the Bible as the word of God. If we're talking about slavery, then you know that slaves should respect and serve their masters as if they were god on earth no matter how horribly they treat their slaves (Peter, Psalm, Ephesians, Colossians, Titus). But don't worry, god tells the slave owners to take it easy on them (Ephesians 6:9). These texts were used by the "religious" to argue for slavery in this country using the Bible as the word of God. The exact same could be said for interracial marriage, with the Bible literally invoking the concept of "mud races" numerous times (Acts, Genesis, Leviticus, Jeremiah, Deuteronomy). I mean, come on.
So, with that, the exact debate being had in the religious sector over homosexuality is almost identical to ones that were had over slavery, race relations, and women's rights just decades ago. Luckily, this will play out like all the others. Once the "religious" people, quoting their religious text, eventually lose, the mainstream accepts that those portions of the Bible were "a product of the times" and/or were "never meant to be taken literally".
But does that really make the foundation of religion any stronger? Or is that just the unceremonious and intellectually dishonest way to admit that your religion is wrong and instructed people immorally for hundreds of years? Once you recognize that the Bible actually has a fair amount of immoral instruction, and people are just regurgitating answers to excuse it, can you really accept it as the word of God?

Most of it is just plagiarism from paganism. From the birth of Christ being celebrated in December to the most iconic stories in the Bible, it was all stolen from previous cultures and beliefs of their time. Egyptian theology from 3000 BC has a character Horus (loosely considered a "Sun God"). He was born of a virgin, three wise men followed a star in the east to find him upon his birth, he had 12 disciples, was crucified and resurrected three days later. All of this sounds familiar I trust?
This is but one example from one previous religion. Countless pagan religions had tales along these exact lines. And stories of a "Great Flood". And stories of dark vs. light/good vs. evil. Once you recognize that the Bible has lifted much of it's religious lore can you really accept it as the word of God? And once you recognize the Bible is merely a compilation album, what does that say for religion as a whole?

This one can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I'll use the concept of "heaven" as an example. To put it simply, existing forever in bliss sounds great but what does that even mean? If you assume that you are forever happy in heaven does that mean you even have thoughts? Is something magically making me never have a sad thought? If so, is that even me anymore? Is heaven just a drugged up version of yourself then? If not, what if someone I really enjoyed, went to hell? Would they not let me think about that? Because that would be an eternity of sadness for me. Not bliss. And if "heaven" just lied to me and gave me a carbon copy of that person, what the heck is that? That's not reasonable.
(Mad props)
Yes, the basic concept of heaven sounds great and I really do wish something to that affect exists. But deciding to intellectually dissect the parts of religion that are meant to make you feel warm and fuzzy can make it anything but. It makes it seem hollow and meaningless. And once you recognize that many claims religions make are either hollow threats or hollow promises, what's left to believe in?

I didn't include this as an actual subset because I don't see this as something that has to be at odds with a God. That's simply the dynamic many religious people draw. And Richard Dawkins. But, of course, it conflicts with both (yup, there's two) of the origin stories of the Bible. As much as I've always loved Genetics, and love Richard Dawkins' work in demonstrating how "not perfectly made" our organs and animal structures really are, I've just never really found this to be a way in to Atheism. I've experienced a tad, and seen plenty, to understand the kind of mental gymnastics people put themselves through to preserve "faith" and this never seemed direct enough for me to think it would change hearts and minds on its own. Definitely worth noting none the less.