Atheists only?

Question

Just a little disclaimer to start. I want you to understand that i am not lashing out at you so please refrain from doing so with me. And also Christians please refrain from commenting on this question i dont want to confuse the matter. Please read all of this before commenting at all.

Ok ive been around on these boards for awhile now and ive come to notice a pattern. The ultimate question i want you to answer is this. Can you give me a logical reason Not to believe in a God? please do not use the Bible verses to try to do so because it doesnt work. There is nothing in the Bible that you can use for a Logical reason why God doesnt exist because by your reasoning the Bible is a myth and God doesnt exist so why use it as a resource to refute the existence of God? also please refrain from just saying "because he doesnt exist" this is the question not a logical answer and its too easy and shows a lack of your convictions. I will be watching the answer and will comment so please come bac

ok first person that answered.. thank you you followed exactly what i was looking for. Ill respond in kind. One thing about the seven day thing you should know is that the original word in the original biblical texts using a word with a dual meaning .. either meaning "day" or "a period of time". Evolution can coexist with creation. many dont think so but i do. For the Bible does start out with God creating animals and all the creeping things. one of the last things he created was Man and Woman. And as you know The "theory" of evolution is not perfect. and sometime if you get a change Read chapter 6 of the "origin of a species"

Ok still on the first answer. The truth is there are no contradictions in the Bible, you just need to know how to intrepet it. And also understand that many things changed after Jesus was born. No longer were we dead in our sins but washed clean by the love of Christ. these are not contradictions especially when there is a noticable changing of the rules so to speak.

Number 2 person. The first thing that stands out in your answer is you say i refuse to fear the unknown.. Thats just it.. im christian and there is no fear in me because i know exactly what will happen to me when i die.

And about the universe. Ask a true scientist if they think that the answer to the creation or making of the universe will ever be answered,... even they will adimt that it is very unlikely.

She didnt use direct quotes from the Bible. even though she kinda broke my rule she didnt do it in the way i was hoping against so all good

But the proof is out there for one to look. its not just about the lack of proof. One of the main things and i wish i had unliimited space to respond and time but ill keep it short and hope that you will at least understand what i say if not accept it. Nothing can only create nothing. This universe we live in is the ultimate proof of a creator. it has design, rules and patterns. If there was something before the universe. even scientific knowledge has it at 60 billion years old. there had to be something here before. but again Scientific knowledge states that pre universe there was nothing. nothing not matter or energy couldve existed. all scientists can guess at is there was a mass explosion and everything was created. Huh? what created the explosion. How did matter and gravity and light all of a sudden exist? to that any sane scientist will tell you to ask a priest lol

Ahhh Jane ..truely an inspired answer.. may be a contender for best answer.

And someone stated that their is more evidence in bigfoot than God. Do a google scearch for "scientifically proven miracles" or some matter of those words and you will see many instances of miracles attributed to Religious artifacts. These miracles attributed to these artifacts could not be proven to be "false" by independant scientists.

ok im done for now.. i may comment more later but right now Football is on :P

Answer 1

remember what you may consider logical is not what i consider logical. i dont believe that the world was created in seven days. it seems impossible to me. i believe in science, that everything has evolved. i dont believe that there is a guy sitting up there who controls everything in the world. if there was a god, i dont think he would let all this awful stuff happen in the world. maybe this doesn't make any sense to you, but it does to me. i have many more reasons but i want to see what everyone else wrote so i may edit this later on

i just can't stand how everyone lives their life by the bible. it is a book written by man. how can it be so holy when there are contradictions in the first and second chapters?

EDIT:

then please explain to me why in the first chapter god created animals then man, and in the second chapter it says he created man then animals. it is just very confusing

also, i am not one of those people who sits on this board just to try and prove christians wrong. christians believe what they want, and i believe what i want. i just want to be able to believe what i want without people yelling at me about it ya know

Answer 2

I have yet to be presented with any evidence that God does exist. Not like Bigfoot where there are at least some (highly suspect) traces of evidence, but no evidence at all. Wild Biblical claims about past events have been proven to be wildly inaccurate, and many others are downright impossible without invoking magic as an explanation. I find the case for God no more persuasive than the arguements in favor of Mormonism, Scientology, Astrology, psychic phenomenoa, and so on.

Atheists look at the Bible and point out the fallicies of logic and reasoning in it, the contradictions and the cruelties. We comment that "If the god described in the Bible is real, then this is what it/the world/biology/science would be like."

There are no more diseases cured by prayer than there are by pure good fortune and health. I hear all kinds of tales about how "faith healers" cure all kinds of non-visible problems, but I have never heard of anyone regrowing a lost limb. Thge entire history of religion has been fraught with pious frauds, disinformation, and propaganda about how horrible and evil the other faiths of the world are.

Give me a logcial reason with evidence to believe in God, and I probably will. Simply pointing around and saying "You're here" isn't enough.

Answer 3

Alright, you keep refering to the Christian God, then tell us we cannot use the only source approximating a resource from which we can come to know him. Interesting. Were we able to definitively prove the text wrong, especially the Torah, we would in effect blast the belief in Yahweh out of the water because he cannot exist without that book to teach people that he does exist.

However, I can do so, yes.

Formal Logic can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a God. From a purely logical point of view, agnosticism is correct. The question, "Is there a god," is as meaningful as the question, "what color is the smell of the other side of this mobius loop?"

One of the most important principles of applied logic, or science, is Occam's Razor. Briefly stated, this says that the explanation that requires the fewest agents (gods, laws of science, formulas, etc...) is USUALLY the right one.

I can conceive of the universe coming into existence wholely on its own, and coming into the observable state, without the need of a God, only impersonal mathematically computable laws of physics and science -- it doesn't matter if we don't yet know how it works, science isn't all-knowing, it's all-searching. There's a big difference.

So I have a situation where the god hypothesis is not needed to create the observable universe. Applying occam's razor, I see no logical reason to believe in a deity at all.

Answer 4

Well the reason i don't exist, and i don't know if other atheists think this way, is because somethings don't make sense to me. Where do the ppl before Jesus go? They didn't know about God so they don't go to heaven, but burning in hell would be unfair if they led good lives. God is forgiving and i am is child. If this is true there is no need for hell, God should be more forgiving than a human, right? So he should be more forgiving than my own parents, and they would forgive me for anything including picking the "wrong" religion, so why wouldn't god? Why did he make dinosaurs? There were no humans alive then and dinosaurs cannot think or worship god, so why have them? The evidence of evolution, it is science, and although things in science are sometimes proven to false, there are fossils and remains that prove evolution is real, and i believe scientists with evidence over ppl who try to discredit evolution because it is in their best interest. I have many other reasons, i could go on for days but i won't. I cannot believe in something that makes no sense to me and also leaves so many unanswered questions. I don't hate ppl who believe in god, i don't think they are stupid either. Just too many unanswered questions for me. Hope that answers ur question.

Answer 5

OK, as long as no one is going to ry and convert me, I have no problem answering. I do not believe in God for a couple reasons. I have read and studied the Bible (will not quote, because I cannot remember any), and I guess I just do not buy it. The whole idea of a book that contains Gods word, but was written by a group of people doesn't make sense to me. Secondly, no one has been able to give me solid proof of the existance of God. How do I know he exists? Lastly, if the is a God and he loves us so much, why do HORRIBLE things happen to good people. Children and babies cannot bring abuse or assault on themselves, for example. Anyway, that is just my opinion.... I do not nessecarily NOT believe in God, I just find it implausible (double negative... ack). I hoped that has helped a little, however I honestly feel that nothing I could say would change anyones mind.

Answer 6

It's an easy question to answer.

Belief in mere assertion without objective proof is often dangerous. For example, someone wants to sell you a used car and they say it has less than 15,000 miles on it. Do you buy the car on their say so, or do you check the speedometer for the mileage to verify what you've been told? We know that people often assert things that are not true. They often assert things they know aren't true in order to take advantage of us in some way. Most of us, from hard experience, have learned to verify assertions, often because it has cost us in the past when we failed to do so.

Now the more extraordinary the assertion, the greater the implication of an assertion, greater circumspection in verification is usually the safest and wisest course. If the assertion is merely, "there is a god" and nothing further, nothing you must do, nothing you must pay, nothing this god requires, then the assertion is irrelevant to life. But if the assertion is "there is a god", "the god is angry with your imperfection", "the god is able and motivated to burn you alive forever if he is not appeased", "flattering this god and this god's offspring appeases the god", "this god expects you to join the organization of god flatterers and donate a tenth of your income to the organization", "this god expects you to travel the world and encourage others to flatter the god and the god's offspring" and "if you flatter the god and submit to the god as a slave, you will not be burned, but you will be brought back to life after you are dead so you can flatter the god for all eternity." Well, that's more than one assertion. In fact it's a lot of extraordinary assertions about a god no one can show me, so logically, I'm going to demand a whole lot of verification. So far, all any religion can provide is yet more assertions like "we have the god's holy revelation" for which you'd also logically want verification. "We have the god's hand-picked spokesman." By now wouldn't you logically want an audience with this god to confirm everything being asserted? Would you logically believe all this assertion without verification?

Answer 7

First reflect on why you make this particular belief, among so many others, the center of your attention. As you know, there is an inexhaustible supply of beliefs that have defied proof. You could probably name as many as I can, maybe more - from fairies and leprechauns to Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, to Zeus and Hera, and on, and on.

And did you know that logically speaking it's impossible to actually prove that they DON'T exist? You can try the exercise yourself with any of my candidates. You will NEVER be able to "prove" that they don't exist. If you can conjure it up, NO ONE can prove it doesn't exist.

So where does that leave us? Must I consider the possibility of something, anything, actually existing simply because someone says it does? Obviously not. Thus the phrase "You cannot disprove the existence of X" is rendered absurd. (The value of X doesn't matter.)

Of course there may be things that have gone, and may continue to go, undetected by our perceptive capacities. It's arrogant to think that every aspect of the universe is necessarily amenable to human understanding. But for that small part we can understand, we have established methods that allow us to make the universe work for us.

One of the rules of this method is that we give "credibility" to that which offers evidence of its existence and effect. And we have every reason to be suspicious of the "credibility" of entities that perpetually defy those rules of evidence. Our suspicion can grow into humorous disdain when the entity in question is described as THE violator of those rules - which is really not much more than saying "HE EXISTS REGARDLESS OF PROOFS."

To accept such a proposition requires a particular state of mind that has nothing to do with logic - and most who do accept it acknowledge as much.

Answer 8

I am more of an agnostic, but I'll answer anyway.

I feel it is unlikely that a god exists, as I have seen no proof of said deity that cannot be explained by less supernatural and far-fetched means. If there -does- exist one or more deities, then I find it so improbable that human beings could have an accurate understanding of and personal relationship with [them] that to follow an organized and dogmatic religion is to me ludicrous.

I also do not believe that somewhere in the galaxy there are "Reese's pieces" forming rocks into living organisms--but no one else believes that either, and there's no proof of it, so I don't have to explain myself. It does get frustrating from time to time to have to explain why I don't believe in something for which there is no objective evidence (yet, anyway).

Answer 9

It all comes back to the question of evil--why do bad things happen to good people? This gets emphasized by major catastrophes. Now 9/11 and like acts are clearly man-made, and even famines generally come about because people can't get their acts together to adequately feed a threatened population. But what about the tsunami of late 2004 which killed over 100,000 people? Did they ALL deserve it? You're left to consider that either this (and similar events on a smaller scale--one of the nicest and most charitable people I ever met was diagnosed with leukemia a week after college graduation) comes about because there is no "higher power" guiding events, or an evil and/or uncaring one is. Which do you prefer?

Answer 10

All reasoned arguments rely on axioms, i.e. things which we take to be true, but which are not amenable to proof. The most obvious axiom is the validity of reason itself - It is trivially obvious that we can't use a reasoned argument to prove that reason is valid, because we have to presume that reason is valid in order to make any kind of reasoned argument.

I have another axiom, which I'm sure no sane person would dispute: That the order and complexity that we see around us in the natural universe, and particularly in the intricate structure and functions of living organisms, could not possibly just exist fully formed, with no cause, no origin, no precursor of any sort. I can't *prove* that this is the case, but it seems inconceivable to me that anyone would dispute it.

So, the logical consequence of accepting this axiom is that, for the very same reason, it's not possible that the order and complexity of the universe is sourced in an intelligent deity who designed and made the universe and *himself* exists fully formed with no cause, no origin, no precursor of any sort. I don't think any reasonable person would dispute the axiom presented here, and acceptance of the axiom leads to an indisputable proof of the non-existence of an intelligent creator.

Anyone who (against all reason) asserted that the order and complexity we see in the universe *could* indeed exist fully formed with no cause and no origin, in order thereby to save the concept of an uncaused intelligent designer, would find that they had invalidated said designer by making him redundant - i.e. if the order and complexity of the universe could just exist fully formed and uncaused then it would not need (in fact, could not possibly have) a designer.

Either way, the concept of a creator is invalidated.

ADDENDUM: I don't know any scientists who think that the universe came into existence from absolutely nothing - Indeed, Quantum Mechanics strongly suggests that nothingness is a state that cannot exist in reality, since that would be 100% deterministic, and QM says that existence is probabilistic rather than deterministic. It should hardly be necessary to point out that this also precludes the existence of a creator, since it would be impossible to have a state of 'nothingness' from which a 'something' could be created.

Answer 11

I don't know about you, but I can't force myself to believe something that I don't believe.

Even if I really wanted to believe, even if it was written in a book, even if I repeated it a million times, I still would NEVER believe that there was a pink unicorn standing in my back yard. I don't see any difference in the pink unicorn and in your God.

Also, I have never heard a truly logical reason as to why I should believe. I refuse to live my life based on fear of the unknown and threats from others.

And one other thing; regarding the ubiquitous question about the existence of the Universe. That is something that is simply not yet known. I would love to have the answer, and I hope that I will have in in my lifetime. I doubt that will happen, but I can always dream.

Wolf? - You said not to use the Bible, yet the first answerer used the Bible and you said it was exactly what you were looking for. What the heck?

Follow up - refusing to fear is another way to say I do not fear. I am not afraid.