Agnostic to Atheist
For a long time I have called myself agnostic.
While I am almost certain that an Abrahamic god does not exist, I've been more reluctant to totally rule out more abstract notions of "god". Thus I didn't feel that my certainty in the non-existence of some kind of a god was high enough to be called an atheist. At a more practical level, where I grew up religious beliefs were pretty mild. You could be an atheist, or a theist, and nobody much would care. Even our prime minister is agnostic and nobody but a tiny ultra religious minority seems to care. As such, there was not much pressure to be explicitly against theism.
However I've decided to change my position. When most people say "God", what they mean is an Abrahamic style god, i.e. Jewish, Christian or Muslim. With respect to this concept of god I've already been atheist for some time. The second reason is that, unlike the mild religious atmosphere of New Zealand that I grew up with, on the world stage today conservative religious voices seem to be getting stronger and are influencing major world events. I think that these voices are moving the world in the wrong direction: away from reason, evidence and science, and towards a world where something is true just because that's what you have decided to believe. In such a climate I think that a clearer position is called for.
I am now an atheist.
While I am almost certain that an Abrahamic god does not exist, I've been more reluctant to totally rule out more abstract notions of "god". Thus I didn't feel that my certainty in the non-existence of some kind of a god was high enough to be called an atheist. At a more practical level, where I grew up religious beliefs were pretty mild. You could be an atheist, or a theist, and nobody much would care. Even our prime minister is agnostic and nobody but a tiny ultra religious minority seems to care. As such, there was not much pressure to be explicitly against theism.
However I've decided to change my position. When most people say "God", what they mean is an Abrahamic style god, i.e. Jewish, Christian or Muslim. With respect to this concept of god I've already been atheist for some time. The second reason is that, unlike the mild religious atmosphere of New Zealand that I grew up with, on the world stage today conservative religious voices seem to be getting stronger and are influencing major world events. I think that these voices are moving the world in the wrong direction: away from reason, evidence and science, and towards a world where something is true just because that's what you have decided to believe. In such a climate I think that a clearer position is called for.
I am now an atheist.