Hello crownboy, you wrote:
"While I can definitely understand why someone would be averse to believing in conventional theism (inconsistenies, errors in writing), I cannot understand how one can be 100% certain that a god does not exist."
While I am no longer an atheist, I used to consider myself one, and there are a lot of reasons people are atheist. Being 100% certain that God does not exist isn't the only thing - or even always anything at all - that defines an atheist. Some are simply not 100% percent sure that God does exist, and see no compelling reason to be sure. Some have looked at all the suffering in the world and asked, if there is a God how can he let children starve, or die of neglect, or give them to parents who don't love them and deny them to parents who would cherish them? Some have seen war, crime, poverty or personal tragedy and have asked, if there is a God how come the prayers of so many go unanswered every day? Some have read the Bible and studied it and said, what the heck is this? Some can simply see the beauty in science and are more inspired to see creation as a natural state and destruction as something that must be perpetrated by some entity - such as a God, or a human. Some are simply disillusioned with the hypocrisy of traditional religion and have decided their lives are better without it. And some feel that God, if He exists, really doesn't care if they believe in Him or not and has no desire to punish them for not believing - so they don't bother.
And like me, some had never felt the precence of a greater power, never asked for a sign and received one and decided, why believe in something that obviously doesn't believe in me? If you cannot understand the atheist point of view, all I can say is, good for you. Just don't forget that many atheists cannot understand your point of view either.
Silverleaf
Pagan Universalist