Why DON'T you believe in a god?

Great Debates
1

Here’s a chance for atheists (or “agnostics”) to really lay it on. It’s only fair.

One limitation. I’m looking for “positive” reasons for your belief; ie, evidence that you regard as tending to disprove the existence of “God” or a god, or a chain of reasoning that leads you to that conclusion, or something about your own personality or personal history that has inclined you that way. (You are not being asked to “prove a negative,” but rather to provide insight into how you formed your belief.)

But some form of “the evidence is insufficient to warrant such a belief”–a perfectly valid form of response–is just too repetitive to be interesting. Let’s give time to some other approaches.

2

I’m agnostic, rather than atheist, because I have no reason to believe (in some positive, assertive sense) that God doesn’t exist.

I’m agnostic, rather than religious, because, overall, Christians don’t seem like better people to me, either publicly as members of society, or privately, in the sense that Christians might seem happier, better adjusted, stronger, or more dignified somehow. I’ve met plenty of people who I would call “better” people–more moral, more mature, better citizens, but there seems to be no correlation between “better” people and faith in God (Christian or otherwise). The “better” people I know who are Christian, who impress me and make me question whether or not I’m missing something, are balanced by the Christians I know who are bigotted, prideful, arrogant, spiteful, mean individuals.

Overall, religious faith just seems too manmade for me to take it seriously.

3

Sorry, but that’s the reason. Take ,for example, children suffereing from cancer. We’re tal;king little kids with terminal disease–what kind of all-powerful, all-benevolent deity allows children to suffer so?

4

Belief is reliant on a faith in thinking [feelings, intuitions], and sensual perceptions, in that they can deliver the truth, or be a medium for truth, and that a god can be known through them.

But we are ignorant about how we acquirer knowledge and since all thoughts, mental images etc. appear as representations how can a god known through them be anything other? An image of god is not god.

Via thinking, intuition, feelings, sensations, I don’t know the true nature of an apple let alone a god, let alone this self.

So I don’t think god can be known as a perception or thought or feeling or sensation . To know god is to be god. And to be god is to be something other then I presently take myself to be. But that is perhaps an illusion.

5

It started when I was 9 or 10 when I began learning about biology, evolution, religion and other things. Though I went to a non-secular school, my parents weren’t particularly devout. In fact, I suspected my dad was an atheist. I never knew what “religion” his family was. He never discussed religion. Mom was ostensibly Catholic but only went to church on Christmas Eve and only when her mother was visiting.

I pretty much accepted there was a god, I guess; how much can a young person really understand such things? I was taught about Jesus and the school had mandatory mass every first Friday of the month. One of the things I remember most is being so bored I would watch with tunnel vision the priest and others, strangely far away and surrounded by a black circle, and I would not hear a word.

As I said, as I learned more about the vastness of the universe, the guesses about evolution, how things worked, the idea of a creator, father, caused the Flood deity seemed less and less realistic.

I also learned more about history, about how mankind seems always to have had some concept of a * causer[/]; that is, an explanation for how the world came to be, and how it operates. These deities also serve somewhat to ease the dread of death. From the drawings on the cave walls at Lascaux to Oral Roberts, over all of recorded human history, for whatever reasons, man as a whole has believed in a deity or deities of some sort.

And throughout time, those deities have existed only in the minds of men. Mortal men, who, when they die, no longer have a mind, because the brain firing has ceased.

I don’t understand how modern people can say the deity they believe in is The One, and all other deities throughout time and geography are not. I’m sure most Romans felt that their ideas about the deities and the stories about them were true. In fact, I’d say most folks who believe in a deity are pretty sure theirs is The One, and will fight wars to prove it.

So when all these thoughts began fomenting in my mind, I found it impossible to believe that the Judeo-Christian God I was being told about actually existed. Nothing I have learned since has made me change that opinion.

6

It just encourages them.

7

On the one hand, the major monotheistic religions all say that God is so vast and complex that it is impossible to comprehend Him, tell what His plans are, know what His motivations are, etc…

On the other hand, the major monotheistic religions then turn around and say that they do comprehend Him, they can tell what His plans are, and they do know what His motivations are. Usually because of millenia-old scribblings by desert nomads.

Color me unconvinced. :rolleyes:

8

I am an atheist.

I look on all religions in a similar manner, for the role they play in the maintenance of a viable functioning society. Religion and the often associated belief in a deity are useful to validate the social norms and mores that allow the cohesive functioning of a society. This shared belief explains the difficult to explain, provides a common morality and a sense of belonging for people, and as such is not a negative thing.

Religion and therefore the concept of a god are social constructs. I can’t remember a time when I was not aware of this, and cannot remember a time when I believed in a god.

9

I’ll never forget the first time I doubted the existence of God. I was in 5th grade Catholic school. Sister whats-her-name was explaining the sacraments, starting with Baptism. I asked her if a baby who dies before it is Baptized can go to heaven, and was told “no”. I said that was not fair. Sister what’s-her-name was NOT amused, but that’s not really the point. I figured if God was not as fair as most people, then what good was He? Then I started thinking about all the people who lived outside the reach of Christianity (eg, Native Americans until 1492) and why the hell would God let all these people rot in hell just because they never heard of Him. How were they supposed to know, for Christ’s sake?

So that took care of the Christian God for me. As for some “universal being”, well that did nothing to explain anything for me.

As I got older and more interested in evolution and the development of the brain and human consciousness, it didn’t really surprise me that man had created god. We evolved to understand cause and effect, and if the cause was not obvious, then our brains filled in the blank. Most people can’t accept that the universe was not created by something. So they postulate that some god created it. Why they are satisfied with the idea that the god was always there, and not created by something else, is beyond me. It’s harder for me to comprehend a god that was “created out of nothing, or not even created, just there” than it is to comprehend a universe that just is and was not “created”.

10

I’m agnostic and this is the way I look at it: In the end, I will be the judge of my existence. I will point out the victories and the failings, I will be the one passing out the grades. I have lived my entire life deciding that what is right is right because it is right, not because “It was written…” that it was right. If I wind up in eternal hellfire for that, then I will gladly admit I have been committing the sin of pride every day of my life, and I’m sure I’ll be committing it every day of my afterlife.

Now, the question of God… While I am an agnostic, I have no belief in any kind of God that does anything at all in our world, but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe there may be the cosmic watchmaker who is just monitoring a lab experiment. How can I be sure of the non-existence of the former, but not the latter? The first has done nothing at all to even hint at his existence, while the second has no reason to (or, every reason not to). That probably is a non-answer, but it is the easiest way of responding to the question.

11

They’re alse useful for those in positions of power, to keep themselves in power. They dissuade people from questioning the social norms and mores.

12

Scott:

Can you define ““God” or a god”? Just curious about how broad your definition might be. Wouldn’t change my response, but it might change others.

Tracer:

You might even say that Religion is the opiate of the masses, no?

13

First, God is not evident to most peope. Individuals may have experiences with something they believe is (and may well be) God, but these experiences are never, for example, caught on tape.

With no compelling physical evidence for a God, we can metaphorically chill until evidence presents itself, or bring op proofs such as the problem of evil or the bits of various holy books where God tells people to massacre other people.

14

LOL, I couldn’t stand you in the smoking thread, but this witticism makes up for it :wink: Well done, I think I may have to borrow that phrase.

15

Why don’t you believe in ALL gods, ferC’thulhusake?

16

I was raised as a Mormon. I didn’t stop believing in God because of anything the Church did…it was a really slow process. I was just really unhappy when I believed in God. I began to wonder why there were “rules”–why would a Deity care about such trivial things as what we eat or who we sleep with? It just grew and grew and grew until one day I admitted to myself that I’m an atheist. I’ve been very happy ever since.

17

The demand to “Prove it ain’t so”, as stated in the OP, is a poor way to convince people that they should believe in a deity (if that approach is truly the one Scott thinks atheists and agnostics should take).

This is the same strategy employed by snake-oil salesmen to market a variety of dubious products and ideas (take dietary supplements as just one example).

In terms of religion, the onus is on the believer to demonstrate why it is so.

18

I grew up Jewish, so I was indoctrinated that most of what the majority believed about religion was bunk, which helped a lot.

Then I discovered J and the other Biblical authors - and I actually read the thing (not just the passages we covered in Hebrew School.) It became clear to me that if there was an all-knowing deity, he would communicate to his people in a book that was clear and eror-free. (Or at least not have any howlers in it.) That the Bible is full or errors and absurdities did it for me.

However I wasn’t free from trusting the Bible. I always thought that the David and Solomon stories (absent obvious fables like Goliath) were pretty accurate. Finding out there was no great Davidic kingdom was a bigger shock than figuring out there was no god. David was always my favorite character (my real name is connected) and discovering that the Bible lied about him also was very disturbing.

So I don’t understand rational theists - those who accept the truths of science and history. They believe based on tall foundation of Biblical truth, then discover that this foundation does not exist at all. They seem to be hanging out in space, supported by a faith based on nothing. Someday, like the Coyote, they are going to open their eyes, look down, and then whoosh!

19

eh…

20

juvenile giggling

Peepee!

more juvenile giggling