Athiests, why do you not believe in a supreme being?

Question

First of all, this question is NOT an attack on your beliefs nor am I a Bible thumper who will flood your mailbox with all sorts of threats of what will happen if you don't believe in a God. I just want to know about you. Were you raised in the church? Are you offended by the mention of God? Do overzealous Bible thumpers have an impact on your beliefs? To keep this from becoming a chat, I'll just close by saying that I might like to e-mail some of you to ask for more details. Again, I want to understand not attack your beliefs. Thank you!

Wow!!! I am impressed with ALL of the answers. Mini, you have no way to contact you but I have not nor will I attack any of these users. Again, I am curious and even if I wanted to attack these people their answers are so well written and sensible that even if I didn't agree with them I could still respect them.

Answer 1

My not believing in god comes from me. I was raised to think, believe whatever I wanted. I was exposed through my life to most religions, beliefs, sciences, and theories. After looking at all, I chose. I used logic, and observations to make my decision, atheism was the choice. I came into life a clean mind with no beliefs, and over time made my own, but only after many years. Most of the theories I believe are my own, and I am the only one who believes them. The only influence on my beliefs is me, my thought.

Answer 2

I do not believe in a supreme being because there is no reason to do so. I was raised Roman Catholic. I am not offended at all by mention of God. In fact, I enjoy studying religion. Overzealous Bible thumpers have no affect on my beliefs whatsoever. I find Bible thumpers to be far less irritating than obnoxious atheists.

Answer 3

I was raised in a church and attended Sunday school all throughout my childhood. I guess although I was learning about all of these things (the bible, "god", etc) I just never really absorbed it. Some people are just natural born skeptics and will question what they are being told. I did when I was around the age of 10. I realized that I didn't actually believe in "god" and everything I was being taught at church. I learned about all kinds of religions after that hoping to find something that I could actually believe, but I never did.

I'm a logical person and believe cold hard facts rather than theories and stories. I am not offended by people who believe in god and accredit their success to him, but it does bug me when they expand it further than themselves and give the whole "you can do anything through christ, accept god, etc" deal. However, I won't say anything about it unless it discredits other people's religions or lack thereof.

The overzealous bible thumpers have no effect on my beliefs. I believe what I believe and there's nothing others can do to change that. All it does is makes me have a bad opinion or bitterness towards followers of the Christian religion because a lot of them try to hurt others and discredit everyone else's belief system to get them to want to join the Christians so "our souls will be saved and we won't burn in hell forever for the life of sin we're leading."

They don't understand that we're free to practice whichever religion we want, believe what we want, or just choose not to believe. Apparently anyone who isn't Christian is automatically leading a life full of sin and we have no morals. It's rediculous since a lot of us are very nice people who do in fact have a good set of strong morals.

Answer 4

As an athiest, I was raised Roman catholic. Throughout the years I have visited many different denominations. There is one underlying factor in all of them that I have found most disturbing. The church has been implimented as a measure of control. You are controlled both morally and economically.

Christianity is based on the bible, we all know that. I'm an athiest because I've actually read the bible. I know that throughout history similar methodologies have been attempted to control the masses. Just as the bible has. No one can proove nor disprove what has been written in the bible, hence it is infallable in the eyes of a Christian. I could go on, and on about it.

Remember this, next time you see 5000 people at church on TV, think of sheep. What ever they're told to do, they do it.

Answer 5

I applaud you for your curiousity. That is what did it for me I suppose. I am typically labeled as an athiest but I am really more of an anti-theist. I was raised in a church, my grandfather was a minister. The mention of God does not offend me, and "Bible-thumpers" have little to no impact on my beliefs. I own and have read six different translations of the Bible, I own and english translation of the Torah, the quran, etc. My issue with religion is it's unfailing ability to ignore facts in support of its dogma. It's the people that worship, not the God they worship.

Answer 6

Were you raised in the church? NOPE
Are you offended by the mention of God? NOPE to each their own
Do overzealous Bible thumpers have an impact on your beliefs? they just piss me off they dont have anything to do with my beliefs

i just think with so many religions who is one person to say that they worship or they believe in the right one

Answer 7

I was not raised religious. I do not feel particularly hounded by believers. It is my best guess that people made up all the stories in the Bible (some of them are stolen/bastardized from earlier stories from other religions). I also do not believe in anything supernatural because I don't have a reason to. I do not think that people can harmlessly follow the Bible. It has a negative influence on society because believers act superior, and discriminatory, and when a majority of people are following something that is simply not true, society is not as healthy as it could be. I think Christianity has a particularly negative effect on our scientific progress. I think we need to stop molly-coddling Christians, and all other theists, by "respecting" their beliefs. It is the current P.C. attitude to let people believe whatever they want because "this is America." But, of all things, it's not okay to hinge your COSMOLOGY and MORALITY on something that is unsupported, and in my opinion of Christianity, EVIL. God is not a good guy. Jesus had good ideas, but not perfect. Christianity teaches people that their deity owns love, wisdom, justice, everything, etc. and it's not true. Christians think atheists are evil. That's f-d up. I am better than God because I don't kill babies. End of story.

Answer 8

If something in any respect, i might want to say you're probable only a tad at a loss for words (i comprehend there is not any way of declaring that with out sounding offensive, yet believe me, i'm no longer attempting to be :P). If a god isn't a best being, than what's he/she? What else might want to one choose in an afterlife except Heaven (or a heavenly realm)? on condition that you believed that religions were fake and that the Universe and sentient life purely type of befell through itself might want to you be an atheist.

Answer 9

I've lost friends because our religious beliefs were at opposite ends of the spectrum. I was more than willing to accept them as a friend regardless of what they believed, but they kept bringing the topic of Jesus and God up. When I tried to defend my beliefs, they attacked my ignorance and made threats for my soul. I was willing to accept them, but they were not willing to accept me. Over the years, my resentment of the Blind Faith followers has grown and I feel they should be allowed to chose for themselves, not because they fear for their eternal souls.

As for why I don't believe, I always look for credibility of the source. Since the Bible has been passed down through generations, and I know mankinds tendencies to embellish with a dramatic flair, I don't trust it as the true word of God. If you look at all religions as a whole, they developed separately all over the world, yet they all try to answer the same basic questions based on their own environments. Could it just be man's nature to create an explanation for what he doesn't understand? How could all be wrong, except one?

Answer 10

I started not believing in seventh grade. I never had to go to church, but I was baptized in the Catholic faith and had to go to sunday school when I was younger and make my first communion. I currently attend Catholic high school because my parents don't know about my beliefs and the local public school isn't that great. Because I go to Catholic school, I hear some talk about god, which doesn't offend me. The only time I am offended by god talk is when the people are really devout and refuse to listen to reason and constantly make points in their arguments that are contradictory or can be proven false.