Anti-Theist here. Not only do I not believe in god, I actively maintain that indoctrinating children under any celestial dictatorship be it real or imagined is harmful. Religion systematically asks people to believe things without evidence. In any other sphere of human activity this would be considered utterly unacceptable. We are reaching a period in time where seventh century belief systems may have access to twenty first century weaponry.

Reading about religion not only helped me narrow down what I do and don't believe, but also changed some of my political views as well. Up until very recently I would have considered myself anti-war, but after reading a bit on the subject of religion I can no longer make that claim.

Sport122 the answer to your questions is not "because someone told you." It's because they are self-evident, and can be independently verified.

"Any theory that propounds an opposition between the logic and the empirical, represents a failure to grasp the nature of logic and its role in human cognition. Man’s knowledge is not acquired by logic apart from experience or by experience apart from logic, but by the application of logic to experience. All truths are the product of a logical identification of the facts of experience." - Leonard Peikoff

These are some of the books I've been reading over the past two or three months, on the subject that have helped me understand what it means to be religious, and to believe in religion.

Recommended Reading:

The God Delusion
- Richard Dawkins

Breaking the Spell
-Daniel Dennett

The End of Faith
- Sam Harris

God is Not Great
- Christopher Hitchens

Atheist Universe
- David Mills

Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
- Christopher Hitchens

The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in The Dark
- Carl Sagan

The Age of Reason
-Thomas Paine


Here we face a critical branch point in history, what we do with our world, right now, will propagate down through the centuries and powerfully affect the destiny of our descendants, it is well within our power to destroy our civilization and perhaps our species as well. If we capitulate to superstition or greed or stupidity we could plunge our world into a time of darkness deeper than the time between the collapse of classical civilization and the Italian Renaissance. But we are also capable of using our compassion and our intelligence, our technology and our wealth to make an abundant and meaningful life for every inhabitant of this planet." -Carl Sagan

"In spite of the ferocious differences of opinion about other moral issues, there seems to be something approaching consensus that it is cruel and malicious to interfere with the life-enhancing illusions of others- unless those illusions are themselves are the cause of even greater ills." -Daniel Dennett