[alwight]

Originally Posted by PureX

Theists are no different in their motives than anyone else. We all are choosing to believe what we believe because doing so is serving us in some way. Angry people tend to believe in violent gods. Resentful people tend to believe in vengeful gods. Frightened people tend to believe in powerful gods. Lonely people tend to believe in friendly gods. On and on it goes.

I'm not sure how much belief is actually a deliberate choice else those who do so are perhaps just as likely only to be pretending to themselves as well as others, based on their favourites and not evidence. We aren't choosing between apples and oranges here, this is about what is actually true or not, which for an atheist imo is more about simply not deciding that any gods do exist rather than asserting that probably none do.

Originally Posted by PureX

Just as the people who won't believe in "God" have their own motives.

I would perhaps need a motive to believe in a god but not believing in something is simply the default position until something motivates a belief by being convincing. Some people being more credulous and requiring rather less convincing than others it seems. No I don't think you need to have any reason at all not to believe in gods.

Originally Posted by PureX

None of us have any proof one way or another. So the issue always ends up being based on personal choice. And we make those choices based on our needs and desires. All the justifications we spew come AFTERWARD. And for the most part, the purpose of all those various justifications is to avoid having to admit to ourselves or anyone else that we did indeed make the choice to believe as we do, and that we did so based mostly on our own weaknesses and desires.

Our own particular desires don't make something any more true of course.

Originally Posted by PureX

And yet they repeatedly come to religious web sites to argue with the "believers". They continue to fight the effect of religion in society. They obviously are in need of something related to their atheistic choice.

Why shouldn't they? This is a theology forum not simply a Christian only one and imo disblief in any gods is as valid and fundamental a theological position to hold as any. Why should belief in gods be given a free pass?

Originally Posted by PureX

Atheism is not the result of having made no choice to believe in "God". It's the result of having made the choice NOT to believe in a "God". And that choice was based on something. On some need to reject the idea of "God".

Now you're just special pleading for "God" or a god in general, when surely simply not believing in gods is how we all start out in life, nobody is born a theist already believing in God or gods.
Only when others present us with their particular ideas of gods will we tend to conclude or reject such supernatural deities and doctrines. Most who do accept what they are told will simply adopt the local, most popular and convenient version of a god from their family and culture.
I can't really recall consciously particularly rejecting Zeus or Odin but the Christian God probably does have to be rejected by me on an almost a daily basis since it is built-in to my culture and presented to me as a presumed truth almost dally. It's probably the Christian God and religion that makes me at least want to be an atheist and not just remain a de facto one.

Originally Posted by PureX

Agnostics are the people who haven't made the choice, or who have made the choice while maintaining an awareness of the distinct possibility that they could be wrong.

Not so imo, agnostics largely include those who have decided that knowledge of gods is not a reasonable probability and that it probably never will be. They conclude that whatever is the real truth about any god(s) that there is in all probably no actual knowledge to be had and hence no reasonable and explainable justification for a theistic belief such as depicted by a religion (say), except perhaps through faith alone.