Uh, I don’t suppose 3 times is allowed either is it? I saw godzillatemple as the last poster so I assumed my post didn’t get through :(… Oops.
Now see, if you weren’t an atheist, you’d know that ballot stuffing is a sin…
As a kid, I had heard alternately that the world was 6000 to 4 billion years old, with many numbers of years in between. I could understand if someone said 6 to 10 thousand or 4 to 10 million, but the huge disparity made me think someone was not telling the truth. In my simple investigations, I decided who it was not telling the truth. I have fought my distrust and dislike of them since.
The reason you’ve given is the primary reason for my atheism. I think I said in another thread that my “epiphany” came in Vietnam, standing in a temple for a tiny weeny religion of a few hundred people that worship a statue (nothing more), and thought “why are these people less right than any of the other religions?” My lapsed-episcopalean agnosticism instantly evaporated.
What Shalmanese said. Plus this…
I am repeatedly reminded that the world we live in is to all intents and purposes natural and random. Logic and probability are a far, far more elegant model for the universe as I see it than supernatural, archaic stories that are (to me) blatantly the product of ignorance, superstition, indoctrination and a fertile human imagination.
I recount a sad story only for the purpose of illustration. This week friends of mine who can fully be described as devoted, loving parents and sensitive, caring individuals lost their beautiful seven year old daughter. She died in the night due to complications arising from a hitherto undetected twisted bowel. This has understandably devastated her family and leaves others in a well of grief, sorrow and pity.
In my opinion this is incontrovertible evidence that the ‘Watchmaker’ theory is utter bollocks. We are not perfect animals and there is no grand design (at least as described by any religion I have encountered). There is no upside to this story. There is no silver lining. It is a tragedy the like of which occurs the world over every day.
I am pretty open-minded and I always consider the fact that I may be mistaken in my views, but I feel that the probability of that on this subject is very low, and well below the threshold which would affect decisions in my daily life.
God moves in mysterious ways my arse.
So, according to the logic of the OP’s argument, since there are different beliefs as to how old the world is, therefore the world does not exist?
To me, the single biggest reason is how a believer has to define “god” in order to believe in him. It has to be this all-powerful entity, who is at the same time reclusive and refuses to show himself in any way that his presence could actually be confirmed. It’s a very contorted definition in my opinion. If there actually were a god, wouldn’t you expect to be able to see his presence everywhere? If he exists, what the hell kind of being is it that is playing such an elaborate trick on us, planting all kinds of evidence for a naturalistic origin of everything?
I think it was Woody Allen that said that if god exists, he doesn’t really think he’s evil, just an underachiever.
If we are talking about an omnipotent and benevolent God then I think the sheer scale of suffering in the world is an argument against. It extends beyond the human world into the natural world from where we evolved. In a sense brutal competition for limited resources is built into the very fabric of life in the form of natural selection. It is only human beings through science, democracy and the like who have managed to obtain a certain limited freedom from the cruel logic of natural selection. But only a fraction of humanity for a tiny fraction of our existence as a species.
I haven’t heard any remotely convincing argument for why a benevolent God would create such a world. To put it in the concrete there are millions of children especially in poor countries who are suffering from disease and hunger right now. Apparently there exists a loving God who could remove their suffering instantly but chooses not to. Why not? The arguments I have heard which generally revolve around “free will” aren’t remotely convincing. It’s simply not true that divine intervention to remove massive physical suffering would reduce free will; in fact the opposite is probably true since you don’t have much free will if you are starving to death.
There are several other reasons to disbelieve in God as well as the obvious fact that there isn’t any real evidence for such an entitity. But the above is the big one for me.
I once shouted out “Thor is a pooftah” in the middle of a thunder storm. I am still here so that proves to me Thor doesn’t exist (or can’t understand English).
As for the big G, I can offer proof af his existance, since from my own perspective at the lowest level of my beliefs the big G is the universe.
Or else he really is a pooftah…
The most compelling reason for non-belief is the damn SECRECY of it all! Everyone reads the book. Everyone has their own take on the book. NOBODY ever gets to meet god. God has his reasons for allowing really bad things to happen, but we don’t need to know those reasons. It’s a secret.
A thousand different religions, and NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON knows if it is the true religion. God just sits back and watches everyone spinning their wheels, wishin’, hopin’ that they picked the right path to heaven. Preposterous. Utterly preposterous.
For me this is the reason why I do not believe in any religion and that I think most people are intolerant.
However, I do believe in God.
I’ll only address why I have a non-belief in Christianity.
There are several issues that I have a problem with.
The sin of homosexuality.
I am heterosexual but have no problem with others who are homosexual.
It doesn’t bother me so I wouldn’t think an all powerful god should let it get under it’s skin either.
Not to mention that homosexuality isn’t a choice and is shaping up to be possibly genetically related.
The creation myth as opposed to evolution.
Seriously, all one has to do is look at the other primates and c’mon, it’s freakin’ obvious we are related.
I don’t really think both ideas can co-exist.
The failure of Jesus to win over the entire world of Man.
The fact that Judaism now exists without acknowledging Jesus as the saviour.
Give me a deck of TV Magic Cards and I could have ruled the world.
It seems unlikely that a god on Earth would not have the world at it’s “feet”.
And most of all, the complete absence of this god. Never seen or heard.
No tracks. Zilch.
I vote lack of evidence.
Here’s a silly idea, a modified Douglas Adams, if you will. What if God really can’t reveal himself to us, except through prophets, messengers, and the like?
At the same time, we’re amassing a pretty decent record of observations into science and nature. Our theories of how the universe works–without a God–are beginning to show success. We’re beginning to probe the very fabric of the universe itself, so now God has to hide behind that curtain so that we don’t see the wizard at the controls.
As human knowledge progresses, God has fewer and fewer opportunities to manifest himself, because any manifestation would be miraculous, and any miracle he performs will be examined and dissected by our tools of science, and God can’t let us see direct evidence of his existence, and he has to cover his previous tracks as well. Eventually, he becomes statistically insignificant, because he can’t affect the world around us in a way that won’t reveal his true nature.
God doesn’t disappear with a poof, but with a fizzle.
I tend to divide my position into two parts:
I avoid any organised religion because all the ones I’ve expreienced have some glaring flaws (they’re so clearly human-created, full of internal inconsistencies, they’re all indistguishable one true faiths, they keep on changing, and so on).
Further to that, I am an atheist because I see neither proof nor need for anything supernatural.
I was raised CofE, drifted away towards a self-created vision of God which seemed more sensible, and then finally stopped and asked myself what the point was. It gained me nothing, and was effectively identical to what I’d just rejected.
As to the existance of evil, it doesn’t bother me as such, it’s the inconsistency which really irritates me. A God which didn’t intervene at all (as opposed to doing it selectively) wouldn’t bother me, but then why bother with him?
And Thudlow Boink, you’ll note that that kinda falls down when you notice that the Earth is in fact here. The difference is that the only evidence for the existance of the supernatural is on exactly the same level as all the claims about just what form it takes.
Santa Claus
He did it. One day, my mom sat me and my sister down at the kitchen table because she felt it was time to let us in on the biggest secret of childhood… There is no Santa.
So being a skeptical and analytical kid, I asked her, “So this means no Easter Bunny, no Tooth Fairy?” She nodded. So I said, “And no God either huh?”
She tried to explain the difference to me. That God was somehow different and “real.” Seems to me they all give you good stuff for being good or give you good stuff when your sad to make you happy. Never really saw any of them, all previous evidence was reduced to tricks people older than me convinced me into believing was “magic…” What more proof did I need?
But since that fateful day when I was ten, nobody’s been able to sway me. Show me Santa Claus… and maybe I’ll listen.
Can we start voting now?
jon_pi gets my vote.
There is a definite correlation here. Some adults would believe in Santa as adamantly as in any god if they weren’t clued in when they were young.
Well, yeah, but at least you can see Santa begging for money on the street corner all December long… 