I am star stuff, and I have a limited time here. I try to enjoy this short time here and when it is over, I hope my ashes will grow a tree or become one which with I came from.

This is an ill-formed question. It incorrectly places the burden of proof on the "atheist" to explain why ". . . no deity exists?" To quote the great Christopher Hitchens, "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence." With no credible (testable) evidence to support a positive deity assertion, there is no reason to accept this claim
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SImple, there is no evidence of a god whatsoever.

Not a valid question - poorly worded attempt at a question.

Simple. Lack of evidence. Period. It's not complicated.

I was introduced to deities later on in my life. I guess if you're not indoctrinated from a young age it's easy to just accept life as it is without trying to think a deity is responsible for your shortcomings but even more infuriating for your skills to be considered gifts. For me at least I never needed a god. I've wished one would exist to stop massacres but the fact that they weren't stopped reinforced my gut knowledge that there isn't anything up there

I go with the atheist “term”. For me an appalling lack of evidence, especially if drawn from the worlds “sacred” writings, leaves me feeling itchy. However, if evidence were to arise (I have no idea what that would look like!), if any of the biblical miracle tales were proven true (probablistically they are as much as not), reconsideration of my position would commence.

You can't prove a negative but as many have already pointed out, there's no evidence that such an entity exists. But to be fair, we can't even perceive most of the universe: dark matter and energy anyone?

Reasoning, Logic, Scientific Facts that are proven with copious amounts of irrefutable evidence, Archaeological Evidence, ALL of which religions either CANNOT produce or are COMPLETELY unable/ unwilling to produce and have examined, tried and tested under Empirical methodologies.

Atheism doesn't claim there are no gods. Atheism is a lack of belief in any gods. You can't prove there are no gods any more than you can prove there isn't a teapot orbiting Mars, but most sane people lack a belief in an orbiting teapot, or in gods.

Though it’s true that one can not prove a negative, it must be said that atheism is not a belief system, it’s a conclusion. Since there is nothing logical or reasonable about any of the 3 major monotheistic belief systems, and certainly no evidence to support their claims, it is merely a logical, reasonable conclusion to make that there is no deity.

The burden of proof is not upon the non-believer, it is on the believer themselves. No one has to prove there isn't one simply to make the case that a god doesn't exist. Just like in court, the burden of proof is upon the accuser, not the accused. If they want to make the case for a god's existence, that's on them, and not on anyone else to prove that there isn't one.

There is simply only one answer to this. Because no proof has been provided. Once proof is provided, we atheist's will gladly subscribe to that truth.

no evidence and most of it makes no sense at all.

Every religion I’ve looked at seems to have so many holes in it. If you google “how old is the Earth according to the Bible”, you get 6,500 years. That is crazy!!! If you confront any Bible person they’ll tell you how wrong carbon dating is and how scientists are wrong. I’ll stick with science.

Throughout history humans have always created a god to explain that which we don't understand, why there is thunder, lightening, how the rain falls and river flows. Slowly through science we have explained away many gods, now we can go back almost 13.7billion years scientifically, and yet because we don't yet know what happened before that we again cling to the habits of our ancestors and claim that there must have been something. To me that is closing the door on the possibility of so much more discovery. There is absolutely no evidence that consciousness can exist without a physically mind. If something can't come from nothing it still doesn't explain where god came from. Athiesm to me is the default position. I don't sit here and say "hmm well there could possibly be unicorns so I'll just take the position of not knowing" I say "there is no evidence at this time supporting the existence of unicorns, so I don't think they exist". Athiesm is the same. There is no good evidence that a god exists therefore I don't "believe" he does. I'm rejecting the claim until it can be proven to me.

A god who would sentence you to an eternity of fire for not believing in him, yet refuses to provide unambiguous, tangible evidence of their existence is not a god, it's a myth.

Because the burden of proof lies almost solely in a book that has been rewritten and retranslated several times and and the contradictions for this book are virtually limitless.

This is a question I answered to my complete satisfaction when I was about sixteen. I took a good hard look at the God-based Christianity and realized that if god knew the present past and future, then this whole human experiment made absolutly no sense. Before god laid a single brick in his creation of the universe, he KNEW how it would play out. He knew the answer before he even asked the question (whatever that is). Why would such a being be interested in playing a game the outcome of which is already in his own mind. And why all this stupid dicking around with man's "following his laws" and having faith if he already knows the outcome. That's just totally whacked.

Later in life, as I studied cosmology and physics in collage, I saw that scientific evidence points toward a richness and complexity that far, FAR exceeds the simplistic thought of organized religion.

Working on the allegations, in all religions, that the "supreme being" is omnipotent, omniscient, all loving and self sacrificing so that we can become as one with it, why the blazes does this mythical entity allow cancer, starvation, wars, greed, cruelty etc., etc., to exist in any shape or form? Plus, having given us free will, rules to follow, it then says, in effect, "obey totally, or suffer ETERNAL punishment and suffering".....so why would anyone accept the existence of this "god"???

I guess that you're right in saying that atheism might be based more on belief than empirical evidence, unless you take the view that this alleged great creator allows evil, cancer, wars, greed, starvation and a host of other truly awful things to exist without doing anything to correct us/the situation, out of the professed love for us all! To me, the actuality of these things is evidence of the actual non-existence of a supreme, omnipotent, omniscient all loving and self sacrificing entity.

There is no proof that a god exists. Until you can show me irrefutable scientific evidence, not conjecture, I will not believe. The better question should be why would anyone believe there is a god? If you were a juror in a court of law you would require more evidence to convict someone than the so called "evidence" that theists present.

For a long time, I called myself agnostic. I wanted to believe. Everyone else believes. At some point, I realized that it was gullible to believe. It was harmful to believe. If you believe in something false, it denies you of knowing truth.

There is a point, or at least there was a point for me, where the cynicism that I had toward belief became toxic. Where the disbelief I had with everything I heard come from the church, the clergy and the believers just seemed overwhelmingly ignorant. That is when I realized that there is more to believe in nature that there is in a book of fairy tales. My belief in nature is greater than any outdated book that contradicts itself. My universe is bigger than any god that doesn't even know what a star or a planet is, let alone basic physics. My understanding of nature can change but it cannot fail. There is always an explanation. It sometimes takes longer to find it but it is always there.

So I don't have to have faith, exactly. I believe what is currently understood. Not what might be. I can and should change my mind. I can't say that I don't have belief though. I have to believe some things that I cannot test myself. Sometimes that can also be deceptive and I keep my cynical eye on everything still. But you have to believe in something. There's a saying, if you don't believe in something, you're gonna fall for anything.

It's not logical to believe in a god. There is no evidence that a god exists. And on top of all of that, you can claim anything is real if the only basis of believing in it is that nobody has proved it doesn't exist.

One would have to define god 1st.
It seems clear that "god" is a label used by people to explain real events that are beyond their understanding.
They then make up characteristics to personalise the god label.
They then mistake their made up characteristics as knowledge.
And a superstition is born.