Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

LambsEye

I myself know that I don't believe in God and I'm pretty against organized religion itself. I do believe in some sort of energy but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

I'm just curious: what was it that first started all of you questioning God and the church? Was there a defining thing or like me, did you just decide you didn't buy it?

rational

LambsEye wrote: »

I haven't quite figured it out yet.

That something we all can agree on.

WesternNight

I was lucky enough to not have been brought up with religion like most others were, so not believing in god is sort of my default position. Nothing I've heard since has in any way convinced me of the credibility of the existence of any god.

PulsW

Any bible or holy script, in my opinion, is a method of ingraining moralic concepts into people. I know what morals are, and I'm generally a nice guy, so I don't need someone teaching me about things that I already know.

I'm also content in the fact that I do not need saviour from this life. The idea of devoting my life to someone so that I can be in their presence after death is not a very appealing way to live in my opinion, as I prefer to live this life.

Also, I don't hate people who take religion seriously, and I won't say I’m tolerant either, because that implies that I think something is wrong with their choices.

Piste

I'm The same as WesternNight, I was raised in a secular family so God was always something everyone else believed in and a concept I found a bit silly growing up.

duckysauce

because he is dead

strobe

I think first you have to qualify whether you are talking about some mystery deity/entity/force/cause or a specifically described deity like Yahweh or Thor.

For the former there are very few solid arguments against/or for it's existance. It really boils down to the arguments for it being the same as the arguments for a 600 mile diamond being in orbit around a planet in a galaxy a hundred million light years away. Can't say it doesn't exist but there is nothing whatsoever to suggest it does.

As far as the specific gods, Yahweh for example, well my fingers would be raw and bloody if I was to try and type everything that suggests he is a myth. Where as the only thing to suggest he specifically, does exist, is that a guy from Nazareth, said he was him (kinda).

LambsEye

strobe wrote: »

I think first you have to qualify whether you are talking about some mystery deity/entity/force/cause or a specifically described deity like Yahweh or Thor.
QUOTE]

Ah. Good Point. I think I was referring to the traditional notion of God and religion to which most Irish Catholics prescribe. I mean the idea about an omnipotent presence, heaven and hell, communion and all that jazz.

For me I wasn't raised in a Catholic family at all (bar both my grannies obviously, they are Irish grannies after all,) I had my communion and made my confession and went to mass until I was about 15 but it was always because that's just what people did.

Piste

I don't believe in either a sentient 'spirit' or a 'God' like jews/muslims/christians believe in.

LambsEye

Oh, I ballsed up my first quote.

Black Swan

LambsEye wrote: »

Was there a defining thing ...?

When I started to have faith in myself.

strobe

LambsEye wrote: »

Oh, I ballsed up my first quote.

Don't worry about it man......but how, exactly? There is another poster here who does the same thing. Just don't delete the '[/' before the second quote tag.

Improbable

I was raised without religion by parents who were atheists. The reason why I don't believe in god after being old enough to have my own opinion is that it is completely illogical to do so.

johnthemull

Put the book down
take off the glasses
take a deep breath
god is a dog spelt backwards
dogs tails wag
cats purr
and the sea splashes against the pier
who needs anything else?

Pygmalion

There's an insanely powerful and knowledgeable man out there, who is capable of relentless slaughter and somehow simultaneously responsible for the protection of mankind at the end of days.
Sounds crazy right?

So yeah, that's why I don't believe in Thor.

mardybumbum

Because I wasn't brainwashed.

For the general concept
Because there is no evidence for it, there is nothing it explains and there is nothing that requires a god to exist.

For the specifically chirstian flavour.
Because of the above as well as the fact that such a being is either self contradictory or not as described.

0verblood

There are too many religions.

None of them make sense. (Looking in from the outside, Christianity seems plain loony)

I don't agree that I was born a filthy sinner.

I don't want to be associated with pedophile priests.

I don't want to be associated with a god who seems like he's playing Grand Theft Auto with us humans.

Ah there are just way too many reasons, the main one being that he doesn't exist.

Turtwig

No evidence.

eblistic

I think I went through many troubled years of that cognitive dissonance thing people talk about. Science subjects in school were, by far, my favourite but I still tried to make room for a god. By my own reckoning it either lived in the gaps in current human knowledge or was some kind of pantheistic thing. It all depended on my mood or what I'd learnt most recently. For some time I tried to look for commonalities in what different cultures and religions believed in and I think that sowed the seeds of my atheism. I found the notion of sacred mysteries that should never be investigated or questioned abhorrent from a very young age. To this day I'm sorely disappointed in myself that I didn't just go back to the default position of not believing sooner.

Strangely, though, I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable with the label "Atheist". I don't see why I should be defined by something I don't believe. I use it for brevity, sometimes, to avoid going off on spiels like this one, but it makes me flinch every time.

Ciaramb92

Like Santa, The Easter Bunny and The Tooth Fairy, I eventually realized that god was just another fairytale!

irishh_bob

my dad was standard religous and my mother is a very religous person , i went to mass every week untill i was 21 although i was never over religous myself , at age 21 , i had a life changing event happen to me and not of the good kind , at that point i started to think and ever since ive realised how aboslutley useless religon or the notion of god is , i have no interest in worshiping an alleged all powerfull being who turns a blind eye to thousands dieing every day from war , hunger and disease , oh and i dont buy the arguement of free will , a three month old child in the congo who is hiv and dieing with malaria has fcuk all free will

i wouldnt say im an out and out athiest ( more an agnostic ) as i couldnt say for sure whats out there but even thier is a god , i have absolutley no interest in him or her

Galvasean

King Mob wrote: »

For the general concept
Because there is no evidence for it, there is nothing it explains and there is nothing that requires a god to exist.

I agree with this. from what we observe the universe works just fine without a super powerful deity pulling the strings. Adding one to the mix raises more questions than it answers.

MrPudding

I find the continued existence of the Roman Catholic Church to be a strong indication that their god does not exist. How could any self respecting deity allow an organisation as despicable as that one to parade itself as his representative on earth beggars belief.

Added to this that fact that there is no evidence of a nature I am inclined to believe, and the whole things just seems exactly as it should be if it were man made...

MrP

Nemi

At this stage, any account I give will be making my drift out of religion more rational than it was. It wasn't because of any flash of inspiration or whatever. It was simply that none of that stuff meant anything to me. I was dimly aware that it seemed to mean something to some others.

But, tbh, that's me interpreting my actions after the fact. What made it clearer to me was, several years after leaving all that behind me, hearing Jean Vanier speaking with real passion about how the practice of his faith kept him going, in doing fine work with people with disabilities. When speaking about taking Communion he used terms like "eating His flesh", where I coulld see the practice really meant something to him. To me, it had never been more than a wafer that annoyingly stuck to the top of your mouth if you weren't careful.

So I'd guess my atheism is really just experiential. None of that stuff ever meant anything to me. It never made sense, and I still don't personallly get it. But I do recognise that other do see sense in it, which I don't find surprising. Whatever religion is, its a human product so its hardly surprising that many humans can relate to it.

vibe666

every day i'm alive i learn more and more about how the universe works and the more i learn, the further away i get from the idea that some puppet master in the sky is running the whole thing, it just seemed less and less likely until i got to the point where i believed it was practically impossible.

since that point, i've heard famous atheist quotes that just strengthen my beliefs (or lack of) and most recently, i've come to the conclusion that if so many catholic priests can do what they have done (including the big cheese who has covered it up for so long), that they could not possibly believe in their own god or heaven and if they don't believe in it enough to stop them from doing what they've done, how can anyone else possibly be expected to believe in any of it?

Tomtata

A couple of reasons,

This is a fairly strong argument,

Estimates vary but humans are on the earth 100,000+ years
God ignored humans for 98,000+ years THEN

2000 years ago a baby was born by a virgin? Rased in a nomadic, illiterate environment.
Declared himself the son of a God????

The belief in god survives by brainwashing children.

And most of the points raised in this thread.

Zillah

LambsEye wrote: »

I do believe in some sort of energy but I haven't quite figured it out yet.

What the hell do people think nonsense like this even means? Energy? I presume you're not talking about kinetic, thermal and potential? In which case, you're basically saying you believe in magic. Which makes you no more reasonable than a theist.

Zillah

Zillah wrote: »

What the hell do people think nonsense like this even means? Energy? I presume you're not talking about kinetic, thermal and potential? In which case, you're basically saying you believe in magic. Which makes you no more reasonable than a theist.

I think when people go on about "energy" like that, they think it's more like the Force from Star Wars than the actual definition of the work.

http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4002

Improbable

Zillah wrote: »

What the hell do people think nonsense like this even means? Energy? I presume you're not talking about kinetic, thermal and potential? In which case, you're basically saying you believe in magic. Which makes you no more reasonable than a theist.

Mystical half-assed mumbo jumbo.

hick

when people talk about "energy" ect, I believe (cos I think I'm one of em) it's just a way of trying to wrap your head around the whole existence thing, as in how we all and everything came to be here, it's human and scientific nature to want to be able to understand the action that caused the reaction and who or what started the ball rolling, so for those that say there's no evidence, explain the first spark that caused existance!

But I firmly don't believe in Religion as a concept, it's done a bang up job at generally fu@cking up society all over the world, and typically it's built on greed or flat out despicable people using others for their own twisted needs. that said i do recognize the good people and their work associated with religious orders, it's a shame for them they can be regularly associated with the filth we've come across so many times in history, from the spanish inquisition to the ferns inquiry.

God is just a name for something no one can understand, some think it's an entity or a energy, a power, a feeling, whatever. I think it's funny that someone who flat out says they don't believe in god can do it almost as fervently as those who do, having a faith that there is nothing without proof is just as pointless as believing in something purely on faith.

But what galls me more than anything are those that think they are within their moral rights and more than that, should be revered, in the belief that anyone not believing in their god deserves to die. now that's just stupidity of on a monumental scale.

strobe

hick wrote: »

when people talk about "energy"

It's there for anyone that wants to to read.

I believe (cos I think I'm one of em) it's just a way of trying to wrap your head around the whole existence thing, as in how we all and everything came to be here

I don't know. That's ok, for me, for now. I hope someone comes up with an explanation. That would be nice.

it's human and scientific nature to want to be able to understand the action that caused the reaction and who or what started the ball rolling, so for those that say there's no evidence, explain the first spark that caused existance!

You first, please. Without bastardising the conservation of energy and Newtons laws of motion.

But I firmly don't believe in Religion as a concept, it's done a bang up job at generally fu@cking up society all over the world, and typically it's built on greed or flat out despicable people using others for their own twisted needs.

Agreed.

that said i do recognize the good people and their work associated with religious orders, it's a shame for them they can be regularly associated with the filth we've come across so many times in history, from the spanish inquisition to the ferns inquiry.

I disagree. People do good and bad sh1t. Why even mention religion?

God is just a name for something no one can understand, some think it's an entity or a energy, a power, a feeling, whatever. I think it's funny that someone who flat out says they don't believe in god can do it almost as fervently as those who do, having a faith that there is nothing without proof is just as pointless as believing in something purely on faith.

Ok. I don't know any one personally that does that. I'm sure there are some. What about the people that don't "flat out say" anything at all? 99% of the non-religious I have ever known, for example.

But what galls me more than anything are those that think they are within their moral rights and more than that, should be revered, in the belief that anyone not believing in their god deserves to die. now that's just stupidity of on a monumental scale.

If tempered with sanity the above is religion 101. "What I say is right, disagree and you will suffer, it says so here".

Dades

hick wrote: »

it's human and scientific nature to want to be able to understand the action that caused the reaction and who or what started the ball rolling, so for those that say there's no evidence, explain the first spark that caused existance!

Just finished Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design. He makes a pretty good case for how the universe came about, and expressly excludes the need for a god.

hick wrote: »

I think it's funny that someone who flat out says they don't believe in god can do it almost as fervently as those who do, having a faith that there is nothing without proof is just as pointless as believing in something purely on faith.

When you refer to someone who "flat out says they don't believe in god" are you really referring to someone who 'flat out' says there is no god? Because they are very different statements.

liamw

hick wrote: »

I think it's funny that someone who flat out says they don't believe in god can do it almost as fervently as those who do, having a faith that there is nothing without proof is just as pointless as believing in something purely on faith.

I think it's funny that someone who flat out says they don't believe in fairies can do it almost as fervently as those who do, having a faith that there is nothing without proof is just as pointless as believing in something purely on faith.

seamus

King Mob wrote: »

I think when people go on about "energy" like that, they think it's more like the Force from Star Wars than the actual definition of the work.

Pretty much. It's a tough one to measure because the very definition of what it is that they're doing isn't really agreed upon by people doing energy work. In fact, some people will claim to work with some kind of human-emanating "energy field", others will claim to draw from some kind of universal ether, others will claim to work with some kind of mish-mash of both.

I would be of the opinion that there are a lot of (non-mystical) things which our brains are capable of doing subconsciously and when they happen, either by accident or on cue, people tend to go "whoa!" and attribute some form of spirituality to it. To be fair if it's your own brain generating experiences for you, then I suppose that makes it far more "spiritual" than going to Mass. Brains are insanely complex, and while I don't believe that we're capable of moving matter with our minds, some of the complex and insane abilities of (some) people with autism or other mental differences shows the possible capabilities of the mind.

From the (genuine) people that I know who do "energy" stuff and enjoy it, the bulk of the benefit comes from simple relaxation, meditation and open discussion moreso than any mystical energy fields.

Handsome Bob

I think most of my issue would stem from a sociological perspective as well as emotional intelligence. I'm not exactly a whiz at the scientific related arguments. :pac:

antiskeptic

Dades wrote: »

Just finished Stephen Hawking's The Grand Design. He makes a pretty good case for how the universe came about, and expressly excludes the need for a god

The 'torpedoes' make for some amusing reading too..

In the Scientific American, John Horgan is not sympathetic to the book: "M-theory, theorists now realize, comes in an almost infinite number of versions, which "predict" an almost infinite number of possible universes. Critics call this the "Alice's restaurant problem," a reference to the refrain of the old Arlo Guthrie folk song: "You can get anything you want at Alice's restaurant." Of course, a theory that predicts everything really doesn't predict anything... The anthropic principle has always struck me as so dumb that I can't understand why anyone takes it seriously. It's cosmology's version of creationism. ... The physicist Tony Rothman, with whom I worked at Scientific American in the 1990s, liked to say that the anthropic principle in any form is completely ridiculous and hence should be called CRAP. ... Hawking is telling us that unconfirmable M-theory plus the anthropic tautology represents the end of that quest. If we believe him, the joke’s on us."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_%28book%29#Critical_Reactions

Des Carter

My take on the whole energy thing is that if "God" exists "he" would be so complex and outside of our experience that it would be impossible for humans to begin to understand, let alone prove.

I think the whole giant man in the sky thing was just a way to portray "God" to people in a way they could comprehend. Since then it has been proven that he isnt a giant man in the sky so "a form of energy" is a step up in that it makes him easier to understand yet still hard to disprove - like a giant man in the sky was for ancient people.

Galvasean

Des Carter wrote: »

My take on the whole energy thing is that if "God" exists "he" would be so complex and outside of our experience that it would be impossible for humans to begin to understand, let alone prove.

I think the whole giant man in the sky thing was just a way to portray "God" to people in a way they could comprehend. Since then it has been proven that he isnt a giant man in the sky so "a form of energy" is a step up in that it makes him easier to understand yet still hard to disprove - like a giant man in the sky was for ancient people.

Exactly. The Gods used to live on Mount Olympus. Once we climbed the mountain they took refuge in the sky. We built flying machines which intruded on this new domain. Now they hide among sub atomic particles.

Dades

antiskeptic wrote: »

The 'torpedoes' make for some amusing reading too..

The torpedoes have valid points. Hawking's seemed at pains to point out how current thinking suggests no need for a designer or creator or God as he keeps calling it. As suggested by some reviewers this isn't really the realm of physicists, but philosophers. (Although SH suggests, and I'm loathe to disagree, that philosophy is dead...) Maybe he just got really pissed off with the ID crowd and decided to get off the fence.

antiskeptic wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Design_%28book%29#Critical_Reactions

Maybe the first two detractors shouldn't be The Bishop of Swindon and the Rev. Dr. Fraser N. Watts. Not exactly objective

smokingman

Why don't I believe in god?

....I don't listen to hip-hop!

Choochtown

I haven't had a bereavement within the last 2 weeks and my IQ is above 50

antiskeptic

Dades wrote: »

The torpedoes have valid points. Hawking's seemed at pains to point out how current thinking suggests no need for a designer or creator or God as he keeps calling it. As suggested by some reviewers this isn't really the realm of physicists, but philosophers. (Although SH suggests, and I'm loathe to disagree, that philosophy is dead...) Maybe he just got really pissed off with the ID crowd and decided to get off the fence.

I have the distinct impression of Hawking's as occupying a rarified athmosphere in which only he and a few others can begin to understand the intricacies of the tower they've constructed. Everyone else (and I mean no disrespect) stands at ground level admiring the structure - without having any idea whether it won't be blown over by the first wind that happens along.

God has never prevented men building towers of Babel - man being permitted to sustain intellectually satisfying disbelief if that is his bent. Choice demands it.

Maybe the first two detractors shouldn't be The Bishop of Swindon and the Rev. Dr. Fraser N. Watts. Not exactly objective

Everybody has some or other axe to grind. That doesn't mean a degree of objectivity is impossible - although I'd be somewhat doubtful in the case of the wiki articles main cheerleader - one Richard Dawkins.

Dades

antiskeptic wrote: »

God has never prevented men building towers of Babel - man being permitted to sustain intellectually satisfying disbelief if that is his bent. Choice demands it.

Why does this comment remind me of the Pope and Galileo?

Honestly, would you harbor such ill-feeling towards pioneering physicists if they left all mention of "God" out of their findings?

cavedave

Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

The Black Eyed Peas

QED

antiskeptic

antiskeptic wrote: »

God has never prevented men building towers of Babel -

erm... If I remember the fable right, I'm pretty sure he did.

antiskeptic

King Mob wrote: »

erm... If I remember the fable right, I'm pretty sure he did.

"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built."

robindch

antiskeptic wrote: »

King Mob wrote: »

antiskeptic wrote: »

God has never prevented men building towers of Babel -

[...] I'm pretty sure he did.

"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built."

Quoth Genesis 11:5-8:

The LORD wrote:

The LORD said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other." So the LORD scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city

antiskeptic

Dades wrote: »

Why does this comment remind me of the Pope and Galileo?

Persecution complex?

Honestly, would you harbor such ill-feeling towards pioneering physicists if they left all mention of "God" out of their findings?

I don't mind them mentioning God - or the lack of need for Him - when the pioneering science permits it. It appears he's claiming a gap or two filled = the filling of all gaps.

Now I know that frustrates some - they want to declare the jigsaw complete before all the parts are in place.

Mind the gap

antiskeptic

robindch wrote: »

Quoth Genesis 11:5-8:

Can we conclude that God permits the building of towers - but not their completion? Like A&E reaching to become like God but being cast out of the garden before they managed it.

seamus

Wow, I just read that one. Let me know if I've got this right:

So humanity united, living in peace and in harmony, all speaking in the same language, all freely able to communicate. So they build up a big tower (or a big city, whatever) in order that they may all continue to stay in the same place and don't have to migrate and become distant.

So God comes down, and says, "Eh, none of this peace, harmony, community and love stuff, if they get too big for their boots they might become as powerful as me", and scatters them all over the earth so that they may speak in different languages, be unable to speak to eachother and therefore will end up conflicting with eachother and humanity's development is forever stunted.

Nice guy, really. But he loves us and it's all for the best. Free will? Yes, but only so long as you don't exercise it.