From PZ's Place: Julia, Canada, on Why I Am An Atheist:

"For the first twelve years of my life, my mother frantically tried to bring me up in her Baptist church. She was elated that one of the first words I learnt to spell was “Jesus” at age 2. My father (who I found out to be an atheist last year) is a pilot and would conveniently bring me on fishing trips every few Sundays. It struck me as odd that he never had to go to church, but I didn’t really ask about it.


"It wasn’t very long until I started questioning. When I was 5, my Sunday School teacher “disproved” the big bang by throwing a bunch of hard plastic animal toys into a plastic bag and shaking them up together. “See?” he said. “Everything is the exact same as when it went into the bag. This means that the only way the universe could have started was through god!”
Well, I was 5. It was the ’90s. I was irrevocably in love with Bill Nye. I told my Sunday School teacher that actually, no, he had done nothing to increase the entropy inside the bag, and how on earth can you perform nuclear changes by banging a bunch of polymers together?!

"This would mark the first time I embarrassed my mother in church. I’m sure it wasn’t the last. There was so much they taught that just never made sense to me—How can everyone in heaven be happy if they know people they love are in hell? Why didn’t this all-powerful god hint to my aunt who died of rare duodenal cancer that she should get an endoscopy earlier? Moreso, why is this god such a jerk in general? Why is every religion “right”? What if religion is a farce and I waste my entire life—all that I have to live—following obscene rules instead of doing what I want? Why do these people say that without god, they would just be out raping and murdering all day? And why on earth do my Sunday School teachers keep telling me I’m going to burn in hell for listening to Queen?

"By the time I was about 12, I didn’t have to go to church anymore. Whether news of my questions reached my mother and she decided I was too much of an embarrassment, or she decided that if church and years of bible camp couldn’t sway my mind, nothing would, I don’t know. I’m now involved in an atheist club in my university where I’m studying biochemistry—a combination she’s not pleased with, but has learned to accept.

"So, why am I an atheist? Bill Nye helped me how to think and introduced me to science before my anyone else did. My childhood curiosity refused to take “Goddidit” as an answer. My amazement for the universe and how it works grows each year, and I refuse to stop at such superficial answers and instead look for the elegance of what truly goes on. I’m an atheist because I’ve always been an atheist, and can’t imagine being limited by believing in magical sky fairies.
Julia
Canada

I’m not sure that I buy this story as being completely true, in the incorrigible sense. Maybe it is true in the Atheist ungrounded sense. Somehow I doubt the reaction to the Sunday school teacher at age 5. Nonetheless, I will stipulate for the purposes of analyzing the arguments contained.

The arguments:
1. How can everyone in heaven be happy if they know people they love are in hell?

This is probably a reference to the “odious idea” of hell. Taken at face value, she assumes happiness about the loss, but why assume that? If, in heaven, they are sad about the loss of their loved ones, does that change anything? And was not the rejection decision theirs? The question is not much of an issue. Once again, it is the idea of hell that is rejected, and that is based purely on personal opinion of how she would do things if she were God. But she is not. So it's moot.

2. Why didn’t this all-powerful god hint to my aunt who died of rare duodenal cancer that she should get an endoscopy earlier?

If such a deity were to prevent all catastrophes including death, there would be no need for agency or free will. The human automaton scenario accompanies the God-should-prevent-all-falls-discomforts-and-death scenario. The need for intellect, self-responsibility, character development, integrity and empathy disappear. Why would she wish for such a thing?

3. Moreso, why is this god such a jerk in general?

Actually hatred of “this god” is not a real argument. Why are most Atheists jerks? Same logic: none.

4. Why is every religion “right”?

Only Atheists and relativists propose this absurd statement. It is statements like this which make me doubt the self-annointed brilliance of this person. But just to be clear, not every religion is “right”.

5. What if religion is a farce and I waste my entire life—all that I have to live—following obscene rules instead of doing what I want?

The argument for total freedom, untethered by any externals or absolutes and doing exactly “what I want”, is the formula for erroneous worldviews which are based on desires and rationalizations to support the desires, rather than seeking any principles of Truth which might get in the way. Rules are obscene if they prevent the seeker of “doing what I want” and nothing else from getting “what they want”. The pursuit of self, its indulgence and elevation is key to Atheism.

6. Why do these people say that without god, they would just be out raping and murdering all day?

This is another reason I doubt the elevated intellect presented about this person by herself. Surely she can see that the most basic element of Atheism is its lack of any attached ethic or morality. Taken by itself, just as it stands, Atheism permits all behaviors without discrimination against any of them. And that is the reason that so many Atheists claim total tolerance as their ethic, with the side dishes of empathy (for all behaviors) and justice as defined by such justice and empathy.

7. And why on earth do my Sunday School teachers keep telling me I’m going to burn in hell for listening to Queen?

I have never heard Queen, and I suspect that the argument here is the same as argument 5: I want to do whatever pleases me, with no consequences whatsoever. For me, then: no rules.

8. ” So, why am I an atheist? Bill Nye helped me how to think and introduced me to science before my anyone else did. My childhood curiosity refused to take “Goddidit” as an answer”

The childhood acceptance of Scientism as a worldview, and the ignorance of the philosophy of science, are two more reasons that I doubt the veracity of the claims of this “childhood intellectual”. And yet another is the lack of comprehension that investigating nature has nothing to do with the creation of the universe, or the first cause. If she is rejecting ecclesiastic positions on such things, she still has not refuted the first cause, nor did she even mention it.

9. ” I’m an atheist because I’ve always been an atheist, and can’t imagine being limited by believing in magical sky fairies.”

This final statement reveals the actual level of her thinking regarding deity, an Ad Hominem comment that is endemic to Atheist support websites which avoid all logical arguments in favor of false analogies using absurd strawmen and other fallacies as the basis for their worldviews. Her main case is based on science coupled with her own brilliance. Yet her sub-arguments are trivial and provide no proof of the absence of a first cause, nor the absence of non-physical existence. Her final statement shows her happiness by having no external limits, and her ignorance of any real theology, both of which are common Atheist conditions.