Reasons for belief and disbelief in God

Great Debates
1

After reading quite a few personal reasons for people believing in what they do, I am quite shocked at how many of these reasons are completely unjustified. This threads purpose is not to argue about belief or disbelief in God, but rather to discuss which reasons are justified for belief or disbelief in God. You can picture a spectrum where at one end is extreme disbelief and at the other end is extreme belief. The middle of this line spectrum would be agnostic and everyone would be somewhere in between having a strong disbelief and a strong disbelief. For this thread however, we will make it much easier and just consider the average believers reasons for believing what they do and the average disbelievers reasons for believing what they do. Before I list possible reasons, these are just random reasons off the top of my head. They do not apply to all people and certain people could of coarse have a number of these reasons.

Reasons for not believing in God:

  1. I do not want to follow rules.
  2. It is much easier to fulfill my own needs rather than giving up things for other people.
  3. I have been extremely hurt in my life and do not see how a benevolent God could exist.
  4. I have seen religious people on t.v. who do not have the characteristics I admire in a person.
  5. I do not want to have to be held liable for my actions and would like to do things my way.
  6. I genuinely feel like God does not exist.

Now I will go through and analyze each reason for not believing in God:

  1. Whether or not you like following rules has no impact on whether God exists or not. This would be a reason why you want to not believe in God, not whether you genuinely believe that God does not exist.
  2. This is a selfish desire that we all have and in no way should determine whether you believe in God.
  3. From my experience this is the most cited reason for not believing in God. While I can completely relate to the reason for it, it is not anywhere near a justifiable reason for not believing in God. Just because you got hurt and just because you do not completely understand something does not change whether God exists or not.
  4. This is borderline discrimination. Just because certain people exhibit certain qualities, does not mean that all people with similar lifestyles exhibit the same qualities. People are all over the spectrum.
  5. Once again a selfish desire that has no hold on whether you should not believe in God.
  6. This is the only cited reason that is justified in its reasoning. A huge part of this would probably take into account a lack of repeatable scientific evidence.

Reasons for believing in God:

  1. God comforts me.
  2. With God in my life, it is much easier to understand my life.
  3. I feel a purpose for my life.
  4. I have seen other people who believe in God who have the characteristics I admire in a person.
  5. I feel that things happen for a reason.
  6. I have been extremely hurt in my life and I feel God is the only one who can comfort me.
  7. I like to give more than receive and this is what God is about.
  8. I genuinely believe in God.

Analyzing the reasons for believing in God:

  1. Believing that God comforts you is not a justified reason for believing in God. This is a result of believing in God and does not determine whether He exists or not. Rather, it is just a reason to want to believe in God, rather than genuinely belieiving in God.
  2. Simply because your life is easier to understand with God does not make God any more real or unreal. There could be thousands of other possibilities that we have not even thought of yet.
  3. Anyone can feel a purpose for their life if they tried. It does not show that God does or does not exist.
  4. Just because certain people exhibit certain qualities, does not mean that all people with similar lifestyles exhibit the same qualities. People are all over the spectrum.
  5. Once again, the feeling that things happen for a reason could be made up by anyone.
  6. Whether you have been hurt or not, it does not justify believing in God.
  7. Just because the concept of God tells you that you are like Him, does not mean that it is justified by this reason to believe in Him.
  8. This is the only cited reason that is justified in its reasoning. A huge part of this might take into account the searching for the qualities that bring more love and following by example.

Now any idiot can point out that “genuinely believing in God” and “genuinely not believing in God” is very subjective. Yes, it is subjective and it could take into account any number of the above reasons. That is not the point. The point of this thread is to discuss whether or not any of the other reasons are justifiable enough to warrant belief or disbelief in God. I would strongly say no. Since we learn by examples, that means that it is not justifiable for someone to stop believing in God simply because your family member died painfully and you can’t make sense of it. Also, this means that it is not justifiable to believe in God because you gain more comfort in your life by doing so. etc. etc. If you think for example, a dramatic event that happened to you, that in your eyes was unjustifiable, is enough to warrant disbelief in God please share your viewpoint. Remember, I am not arguing that these reasons are not good reasons. I am simply arguing that they are not enough to warrant belief or disbelief in God. Anyone who would believe what they do based on something extreme like comfort or a family members death is really being extreme in their thoughts and not justifiable.

2

I don’t believe that (with the exception of the last one) any of your proffered reasons for not believing in God are actual reasons that people don’t believe in God. The most common reason for non-belief that I’ve encountered is the complete lack of evidence. They don’t believe because there is an absence of a compelling reason TO believe.

3

I would say that your #3 reason for not believing in God is (arguably) valid - it’s basically Epicurius’ argument, the Problem of Evil:

Assumption: God exists.

  1. God is omnipotent and perfectly good, by definition.
  2. A perfectly good God would prevent as much evil as He could.
  3. An omnipotent God could prevent all evil.
  4. Evil exists.
  5. Therefore, God is either not perfectly good or not omnipotent.

4 is in contradiction to 1. The assumption, “God exists”, is thus false.
Therefore, God does not exist. QED.

Now, there are various arguments that the theists among us can, and do, use against this reasoning, but I don’t think we can just dismiss it out of hand.

Your #2 argument against God is basically against following a particular moral code, and #1 and #5 are arguments against following any moral code. I would describe these as some of the advantages, or positive aspects, of atheism, rather than arguments for the truth of atheism, but I still think that they’re legitimate reasons for being an athiest. Compare the argument:

“If I study hard and get a good job, I’ll make a lot of money. Therefore, that’s what I’m going to do.” This doesn’t address the question of whether it’s right to make a lot of money, but it’s not an irrational position to take.

Of your arguments for God, #1, #2, #6 and #7 are, similarly, some of the advantages of theism rather than arguments for its truth. #3 and #5 are subsets of (certain forms of) theistic belief, and are therefore, IMO, just bare assertions, like #8.

I agree with Diogenes that evidence is, or should be, an important factor in our beliefs. Both your #4 arguments do address this, so I would consider both of them to be legitimate.

4

Really? Do you really believe that these are representative reasons for why people choose to believe in a god? Can you understand that these reasons are simplistic if not offensive?
Let’s look at #1, for example, “I do not want to follow rules”, as if I am a petulant child. In terms of Christianity, at least, I choose not to follow the “rules” not because I am looking for ways to ignore morality and responsibility, but because I reject the incoherent and untenable moral code of Christianity. I do not think of myself as a selfish person; but how can I prove that to you?
That is, your list posits atheists/ agnostics as shallow and self-centered, which makes it rather difficult to have a (productive) debate, as any responses must first defend themselves from an overly-reductivist representation.

5

My sole reason for non-belief (which I actually consider logically equivalent to belief-not, unlike some fellow atheists) is that I find the natural explanation of any phenomenon, from cosmology though abiogenesis and evolutionary biology to cognitive science and even the neuropsychology of religious experiences, to be feasible. I then wield Ockham’s Razor: nothing more than those natural explanations is necessary.

6

Actually, that’s true for both lists.

7
  1. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  2. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  3. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  4. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  5. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  6. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  1. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  2. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  3. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  4. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  5. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  6. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  7. What do your feelings have to do with it?
  8. What do your feelings have to do with it?

Sorry if this seems smug and obnoxious. But when you decide whether anything else exists, do you base your decision on the relevent facts or on your feelings? Do you believe the Moon exists because there’s evidence, or because it makes you feel good? Do you **not **believe leprechauns exist because there’s not a shred of evidence, or because they scare you?

8

You left out

  1. there are endless definitions of God and so many attributes that it is impossible to know what is true or not. Who is to say that the Judeo Christian creator god is anymore or less real than the Greek Apollo Gods or the Hindu Gods?
  2. there is no legitimate evidence for or against god.
  3. not believing in god can help people stay focused on reality. I don’t have a cite for this because it is just something I read in a book a decade ago but Martin Luther King jr. once said something akin to the idea that he had problems mobilizing blacks for civil rights because churches convinced them that their troubles on earth were minor compared to the glory of heaven. Motive to improve life on earth isn’t as high for extremely religious people.
  4. much of western civilizations progress on areas like representative governemnt, human rights and technology seems to be tied into our abandoning of religion. We abandoned religion at about the same time we started adopting representative government and technology.

Reasons for believing in god could be things like

  1. people who believe in god have better health than those who don’t.
  2. religions do alot of charity work
9

With the (partial) exception of #3, I don’t see how any of those arguments are relevant. After all, what one *wants * to do or believe is irrelevant to the truth of that belief. Heck, I’d like to believe that Atlantis exists, but the earnestness of my desire has not bearing the truth of that belief.

As for #3, this is basically the classic “problem of evil.” I’ll agree that this is at least somewhat relevant; however, it strikes me as an inadequate argument. Like you, I’ve been hurt badly in my life; in fact, on several occasions, I’ve gone through unbearable emotional pain. However, why should this necessarily argue against God’s existence? If our ultimate purpose is pleasure and enjoyment here on earth, then that would be a valid point; however, most theistic worldviews claim that our ultimate purpose transcends mere earthly existence.

The so-called “problem of evil” used to carry more weight amongst philosophers. More recently though, it is widely recognized that there is no inherent contradiction between God’s existence and the existence of evil and/or suffering. This is largely due to the work of men like Alvin Plantinga, who has written extensively on the reasons why no such inherent contradiction occurs.

10

I want to address Numbers 1, 2, and 5 here. Why is it that so many religious people can’t believe that people who don’t believe in a God to keep them in line might believe in reasons to follow rules, live for others and be liable for their actions? You obviously know nothing about secular humanism.

From wikipedia:

I personally do not believe in God, or fairies, unicorns or Santa Claus, but I do believe in morality. I believe that doing things that harm others is like polluting. It makes the world I live in a less safe and less pleasant place. Doing good on the other hand is like cultivating a garden. It improves your surroundings, even if no amount of effort on your part is going to get rid of all the pests, or a threat of things beyond your control, like bad weather or plagues of locusts. It’s still worth doing.

11

What is “extreme disbelief”? Is it any any different from “complete indifference”?

12

My reason for believing in a Creator is that the universe is too complex to be random. But that Creator could be anything: a god, aliens, a kid in a sandbox, etc. Also, if we were created, then we were created with a [figure-it-out-on-your-own] purpose.

As far as the Good vs. Evil debate… What good is Good if you exist in a complete absence of Evil? In other words, if all you know is perfection and paradise, you would not know how much better off you are than if you were anywhere else. This is also why [Creator] is not a superhero that rights wrongs, fights crime, and answers everyone’s prayers. As a result, all of the rotten things that happen are just part of the purpose and part of the human experience. It sucks sometimes, but at least it’s real.

I think these two concepts are very basic, but are often overlooked on both sides of the debate. I’ve seen people reject and embrace faith based on definitions that overlooked the above.

13

If it’s any help, I felt the same way about the other list; the reasons to believe; simplistic almost to the point of being offensive. Ah well.

14

I was afraid that too much emphasis would be put on the actual reasons and this obviously happened. The reasons are all valid reasons. The point is that none of them, besides the last one for believing and not believing, is justified

Yes I grouped this into the reasoning behind genuinely not believing in God.

You can’t just state some assumptions and then base your conclusion on those assumptions such as you did. That is like saying p implies q. Therefore q is true. This would be all fine but the problem is that your p is incorrect. It does not evaluate simple concepts such as free will and how people learn. Yes I agree that my reasons are not very good, I threw them together in a few seconds. The point I am trying to make is that none of them are justified besides the last ones in each section.

15

I threw together these reasons in a matter of seconds. I am afraid that my list posits believers as shallow and self-centered people just as much as I did for the non-belivers. Yet you chose to only point out your point of view. Why?

16

I would consider this explanation alone, almost a completely justified reason for not believing in God. However, you would still need what I would call, “genuinely” not beliving in God. This is obviously very vague but it is for a reason. The reason being it is different for every person. Just because we have an explanation for things does not discount God of coarse. You know this. Therefore you still need to feel no connection whatsoever to God.

17

I am afraid I did not intend this to be a discussion about the reasons for belief or disbelief. Rather, it is about whether those reasons are justified or not. I have no problem discussing reasons in another thread but I am more interested at the moment of whether these reasons are justified or not.

Yes these are some good reasons. I did not spend much time on coming up with the actual reasons for a reason though.

18

You just summed up the purpose of my thread. I do not believe that any of those reasons (besides “genuine” belief) are justified in accepting or denying God. The problem is that I constantly see the reason for not believing in God is that bad things happen. This is not a justfiable reason to me.

19

I think you’d better explain the process whereby you determine whether something is or is not justified/justifiable. Who appointed you arbiter of these things?

20

My reason for agnosticism is that I believe it’s impossible to prove there are no Gods. And I see no compelling evidence for any Gods. So, there might be either way.