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I'll attack this from the point of view of a scientist (since I'm a physicist). I think my initial atheism came from the fact that religion is absurd; there isn't a single religion that I have heard of that hasn't been disproven time and again by science and had to re-write its view of either creation or the universe. This, in my opinion, invalidates the religion as they apparently don't have the true word of any god (unless you assume that the Word is wrong, and that's just messy).
Expanding to spirituality (belief in god, not religion), I look at it as choosing a starting point. No matter which theory of creation you choose, god or the big bang, there comes a point in time where one must take a leap of faith and assume an effect without a cause. Either god existed and nothing came before, or the big bang existed and nothing came before. From a scientific point of view both are equally valid assumptions, which is to say that they are theories without any supporting or conflicting evidence. Personally I chose atheism partly because it makes more intuitive sense and partly because of the somewhat irrationally strong loathing of religion I picked up when I was younger.
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"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform."
-- Mark Twain
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