Why do many atheists call it the God particle when they don't believe in God?

It's because of the effort and cost required to demonstrate its existence, some joked that it was about as fruitless as trying to demonstrate the existence of God. There is an anecdote going around that it's because 'they' wanted to call it "That Goddamned Particle", but the publishers refused, so they settled with just "God Particle", but this is mostly a joke.

So basically, it's not a very apt description of the Higgs boson, it's more a description of the difficulty in demonstrating the Higgs' existence.

It is NOT the 'god particle' it was called the 'goddamned particle' because it would be so hard to track down, but some do-gooder editor altered the title of an article, removing the 'damn' part.

Real scientists hate the Higgs being called 'the god particle', okay?

And if anything, it may disprove god.

It was originally called "that goddamn particle", but a journal editor sensitive to the exaggerated reaction of the religious to this sort of thing changed it to god particle.

I'm far more likely to believe that something as simple as a particle/field/wave has existed eternally rather than a complex sentient entity.

surely each and all of the atheists i comprehend call the Higgs boson by it is appropriate call; the Higgs boson became nick-named "the god particle" by a fellow named Leon Max Lederman (who's a Russian Jewish Immigrant no longer an atheist.) in case you go with my opinion - for my section i think of he became only attempting to furnish his e book a clever and controversial call, as a fashion to sell extra copies of it.

"Because of its possible role in producing a fundamental property of elementary particles, the Higgs boson has been referred to as the "God particle" in popular culture, although virtually all scientists regard this as a hyperbole."

Wikipedia.

It is not supposed to be responsible for the existence of everything, as your question seems to imply.

It's called that just as a figure of speech. As the idea that this is where everything came from, like God.

It was like the "big bang" a fundie, Fred Hoyle I believe, was making fun of the theory and the phrase stuck.

/facepalm

I'm not even going to try....just google it..is it really so hard to google it and learn for yourself. Ugh go to "google.com" and type in "God particle" Ok? Read slow because I'm sure you wont understand much since big words are used...don't feel ashamed to google the meaning of other words.

good luck.

Isn't it the same that you should claim God "has always been and will always be"?

What's wrong in claiming an impartial and impersonal particle "has always been and will always be"?

They believe the particle will take the place of God.

And answer their prayers.