Wait, the rest of you aren’t just pretending?! The only reason I’m an atheist is for all that sweet, sweet sinnin’.

I never understood ethics until I left religion. Religion is all about blind obedience. Ethics is the ability to figure out for myself what is good and what is harmful. I am a better person as an atheist than I ever was as a religious person.

It's ironic that they say this because they think that no matter what they do all they have to do is ask for forgiveness and it's like it never happened.

Except for one person, every liar, jerk, child molester, cheater etc. I have ever personally known has been a believer. So much for believing in a god making you a better person.

PS I should have added that one of the child molesters (and,sadly, I have encountered more than one) was a racist minister of a church I had attended who was discovered to have been molesting his own daughter.

What amazes me are the Christians who believe they are allowed to sin as much as they want as long as they believe in Christ because Christ has died for them and forgiven all their sins. This sounds more to me like a doctrine of the devil than a doctrine of God. How can anyone be so self-deceived so as to believe in such evil contradictions? But they do. Or at least they pretend they do.

I don't sin instead I make mistakes when I don't have the appropriate information. In my opinion religious people are bully and hypocritical.

They disbelieve you that you disbelieve because they can't believe anyone can disbelieve! Ha!

Wow, interesting concept. They simply cannot fathom people like us!

I have never believed in a deity I've declined to worship but today if somehow a deity could be evidenced so that I came to believe it existed, my response to that WOULD be an entirely separate question. It's a well established principle that absolute power corrupts absolutely, so I don't know what basis I'd have to trust or give fealty to such a being even if I were convinced it existed.

This really just another facet that shows up the incoherency of the god hypothesis anyway. Not only is there no evidence for the Christian god, but that god as depicted is demonstrably an asshat, a sadist and a tyrant anyway.

I don’t think I sin anymore than my religious friends, so...

I used to believe in Christianity (not sure if I still do or not) but I refused to worship God. I never wanted to worship a sky man; who killed thousands of people just because they didn't do what he wanted. I always seen him as a being worse that the devil himself. What I hate the most about theist is the fact they judge atheist/agnostic people for our sins, but never think to judge theirselves for the sins they do. Sex before marriage, tattoos, piercings, eating pork, judging others, celebrating pagan holidays (which nearly every American holiday we celebrate was orginally pagan; Christians just altered them to try to claim them as their own) at that includes Christmas (or Yule as it was orginally called. It clearly states "that no sin is greater than the other"

So yes I sin; quite alot actually but I don't pretend anything about it. I'm going to live my best life and don't care what anyone thinks about me.

As a teenager I decided to disobey the God I believed in temporarily in order to enjoy the "sins of the flesh for a season." Of course I understood that was taking an awful risk for my eternal soul.

no, i never actually worshiped the god in whom i believed anyway because i was raised a secular jew, so i just took it for granted there was a god, a nice, benevolent god (we didn't read the bible in my house, or talk about god, or go to shul) but not one who had any particular demands to make on me. christians seemed (and still seem) quite weird to me. at the age of 15 i realized there were no gods but never went through a he-exists-but-he's-a-jerk phase. a few years later i did quote mark twain at a boss who (illegally, even in 1971) asked all his employees if they believed in god (at least he didn't say jesus). i told him that twain had said (forgive me if i paraphrase slightly as i am working from memory) "i am glad there is no god, for if he exists, surely he is a malign thug." i am not sure whether i believed that at the time, and it certainly wasn't important to me whether or not god would have been a malign thugs since he was, after all, nonexistent, but i knew it would shock and irritate the person who shouldn't have been asking employees about their religious beliefs to begin with. yeah, i was a snert.

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I grew up going to church, believing in Jesus thinking he's bringing an end to Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worship government terrorism establishment of the mark of the beast 666 stuff and knowing and experiencing things of supernatural related to prophetic (some may use term psychic) but as things of my future seeing dreams climaxed and come together and come to pass, I found out Jesus is Angelic lord of host Lucifer the devil leading the Masonic lodge secret religion racist devil worshippers since their freedom from England July 4th, 1776 etc. Establishment of the mark of the beast 666 beginning with birth certificate, social security number and photo identification for taxation and government control.

So, no longer consider myself Christian nor interested in devil worship.

Doesn't that belief then imply that religious folks don't sin because they believe in a deity? That's utter garbage. I've heard of "good Christians" who willingly sin, believing they can be absolved by apologizing to their sky daddy later on.

The pios seek affirmation if their own belief. Any skepticism has been beaten out of them. Your skepticism hust causes them to relive that trauma.

Fuck them, you can't cure stupid. Most of us were raised by religious brainwashed societies, we chose not to believe in crap. This of course is an oversimplification but at the end that is what we chose.

It's more like people believe in religion so that they can sin and then be absolved for it and still go to heaven. We atheists are perhaps more likely to try not to behave badly because it hurts others.

This guy sums it up best

My progression away from belief went through a number of steps where I believed less and less in a god that dictated my every move. I stopped feeling the need to go to church, to do the "ordinances," to moderate things I eat and wear, to not have sex with people, etc. Every step of the way, I lost people out of my life who couldn't accept that god would allow me to do what I wanted without punishing me for it. At first it was the most controlling and condemning people in my life who left and it worked it's way through to the less controlling. There aren't many people left but at least I respect and can live with myself now.

"it’s weird to me that they can’t fathom someone would believe a god exists and still not worship and obey it."

Might be because in their indoctrinated minds, "god" is synonymous with words like love, perfection, omniscience, hope, morals, etc.
They have crammed all that is good into "god", as to make the act of rejecting him/her/it, rejecting all that is good.

As for the not-really-an-excuse for an argument that "you just want to sin". The next time you hear it, tell the person accusing you of that: if you want to sin you can simply ask for forgiveness afterwards. The only sin "god" will not forgive is rejecting him/her/it, so pretending he/she/it doesn't exist, is the last thing an angry believer would do if they wanted to sin and get away with it.

Humm you would probably be labeled a heretic or maybe just a sinner. Worship is foundational in those religions wherein the "God(s)" require worship.

Suspension of disbelief is the term that comes to mind. I was raised under a crushing weight of religion. My mother was the Church Organist at our local Methodist church. I tried real hard to believe what I was told to believe.

Most of those so-called Christians do all the same selfish, uncivil, and illogical things that everyone does. On top of that, they (1) believe they aren't accountable for them, and (2) lie about them.

They think we are atheists so we can sin?

Well we known they are theists so they can appease their discomfort/fears and for many other reasons.

I think it's the other way around. I think most believers lie about their faith. especially those in leadership. The more they study the crazier it sounds. afraid of what might happen they choose to pretend. .