Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

LambsEye · 25-10-2010 12:19AM #1

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 · 25-10-2010 12:25AM

LambsEye wrote: »

I haven't quite figured it out yet.

That something we all can agree on.

WesternNight · 25-10-2010 12:32AM

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 · 25-10-2010 12:35AM

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 · 25-10-2010 12:36AM

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 · 25-10-2010 12:36AM

because he is dead

strobe · 25-10-2010 12:41AM

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 · 25-10-2010 12:46AM

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 · 25-10-2010 12:47AM

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

LambsEye · 25-10-2010 12:48AM

Oh, I ballsed up my first quote.

Black Swan · 25-10-2010 12:56AM

LambsEye wrote: »

Was there a defining thing ...?

When I started to have faith in myself.

strobe · 25-10-2010 01:03AM

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 · 25-10-2010 01:32AM

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 · 25-10-2010 02:29AM

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 · 25-10-2010 02:54AM

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 · 25-10-2010 03:38AM

Because I wasn't brainwashed.

25-10-2010 03:43AM

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 · 25-10-2010 08:47AM

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 · 25-10-2010 09:45AM

No evidence.

eblistic · 25-10-2010 11:55AM

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 · 25-10-2010 03:00PM

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

irishh_bob · 25-10-2010 03:19PM

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 · 25-10-2010 05:20PM

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 · 25-10-2010 06:38PM

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 · 25-10-2010 10:15PM

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 · 25-10-2010 11:00PM

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 · 25-10-2010 11:15PM

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 · 25-10-2010 11:23PM

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.

26-10-2010 12:01AM

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 · 26-10-2010 12:29AM

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 · 26-10-2010 12:30AM

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.

Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

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