I guess I haven't been exposed to many people that don't believe in God. Before coming to this site, I was not aware that so many people do not believe in his existance. I was just curious as to were you taught this by your parents or did you come to this conclusion on your own? If you began to feel this way after a certian event in your life, what made you come to this conclusion? I am an open-minded person and curious to why people rule out the possiblity to God's existance?
2007-01-03 18:38:01 · 26 answers · asked by angie20k 4 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Sorry, us Atheists are just logical and need scientific proof before we believe things.
I mean, most of the stuff in the Bible is just scientifically absurd or self contradictory.
For Example:
1. The Bible is CLEARLY against incest.
2. God made only 2 humans: Adam and Eve.
3. That meant after those two, SOMEONE had to bang their sister.
4. Not much choice there, ehh?
2007-01-03 18:39:22 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 4⤊ 1⤋
I am an agnostic....which means I do not believe in God but I think that God is a possibility. I'm in between.
I grew up as a Christian, though. I left the church after reading so many contradictions in the bible. I also found myself feeling guilty for everything I did on a daily basis. Being a Christian depressed me. For a while, I became an atheist.....and later, I did more research, and read into other religions and discovered that I was an agnostic because I still believed that a God is a possible explanation for the world's unexplained phenomena. But there is also so much scientific research that has debunked the possibility of a God or higher being existing.
2007-01-04 02:43:47 · answer #2 · answered by Abby C 5 · 4⤊ 0⤋
My parents are both not religious. My mother doesn't believe in God and I think she can't even imagine how people can really believe in God. My father calls himself a pantheist (saying that everything is divine, God is in everything, but not a personal being). I generally hardly knew really religious people in my childhood. I knew that many people believe in God and I considered the possibility and I sometimes tried to pray as a child, but I never had what could be called strong faith. There wasn't any certain event in my life that made me come to the conclusion that there is no God, there were a lot of things I used to think about for long time.
2007-01-04 08:22:04 · answer #3 · answered by Elly 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
I was raised as a devout Catholic. I worried about hell, followed all the rules, even went to seminary. But eventually I began to see that the leaders were more interested in maintaining order than leading, and the most devout followers seemed to be trying to escape from life. I came to realize that the world, life and human culture could be explained either with or without God. I'm agnostic, haven't closed the door entirely, and even enjoy the community and general moral outlook, but I don't count on anyone really being out there. God could be merely a clever metaphor for doing what needs to be done to get along.
2007-01-04 03:50:44 · answer #4 · answered by skepsis 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Was raised to believe. At one time was very religious. Did not have an "event" in my life. I took some time to read about life, philosophy, war, slavery, the haulocoust, science and archeology. For instance it is one thing to know that slavery or the haulocoust or wars happened but to read the details about them is another thing entirely. When I came to fully realize the needless suffering of the innocent in this world it knew in my heart and in my mind that no loving god existed. Also if there were a loving god who created the universe and all that is in it why did he,she or it create such things as tornadoes, flood, hurricanes, disease, bacteria , asteroids that could hit this earth etc etc. Without a loving god one can only thing of these things as natural occurances. But when you place an all powerful, all knowing loving god in the picture then these things would have to be considered natural evils. If I were an all powerful, loving god I would have not created a world full of these things that can hurt my children that I am supposed to love. Not to mention looking down on this earth everyday and allowing the abuse of innocent children. If you looked out your window and saw someone abusing a child would you stop it or turn your head and hope that that person is punished later. Is that good enough. Use your head and your heart!!
2007-01-04 02:49:43 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
From childhood, I experienced no "spiritual awakening" (or "revelation" or "opening of the eyes" or whatever you might call it). No words from the Bible touched me emotionally except for confusion (TWO sets of ten commandments? TWO different geneologies for Jesus?), incredulity (A worldwide flood with no trace? A day where the sun stood still? A talking snake, dog, ***, or pig? Zombie saints walking around a city?), and outrage (Mass murder by Biblical "heroes" and "prophets", severe injustices. Punishment disporportional to a crime, etc...). The behavior of self-proclaimed Christians stunned me as well. I was a kid when the televangelists really got steam (early 80s), and their wild proclamations and bile against anyone different from them rubbed me in the worst way. In history I learned that the Christian faith had been far less than the ideals it supposedly embraced, and that things didn't seem to be improving much. Prayers and services seemed to be as effective as rain dances, and I saw many evangelists outright shearing their sheep of everything they had.
I'd wanted to be able to believe, mostly because of my religiously-oriented family, but I couldn't. The stories were too unbelievable to be real, and a lot of claims the Bible made about the world simply turned out to not be true at all.
I came to the conclusion I was an atheist when I was asked if I was one. I had to ask what it meant, and the description fit: One who does not believe in a divine being. As I expanded my mental abilities, I realized the importance of evidence and logic. There were a couple of times I got caught up in a crazy obsession--UFOs in High School, JFK when the Stone movie came out--but I learned from those mistakes. I learned that specuation is not the same as theory, and that reality is often different from what we might want it to be.
Today I prefer reality. I don't trust people's opinions or speculations about things, I look for evidence, If someone claims there is a deity watching over us, I'll expect evidence that can be tested. If someone claims a book is the Word of their deity, I'll expect evidence of their claim. I know most of the common fallicies by heart, and I can do research now thanks to libraries and the internet.
Why do I rule out the existence of God? A total lack of evidence of its existence. No magical sense of any such being out there, no solid, testable proof. No voices in my head, no angels visiting me at night, no false sense of security. No verifiable examples of "miracle" healings, no tales of "miraculous events" that weren't either pure hearsay or didn't have a natural explanation. No "messages" or "revelations", and no hint of "divine will" anyewhere beyond someone else's say-so.
If there is some kind of divinity out there, it's behaving exactly like something that doesn't exist at all.
2007-01-04 03:00:20 · answer #6 · answered by Scott M 7 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Most become non believers... I was raised it. Nothing "taught," just rather religion was not part of our lives and was not talked about as true. My parents left it open for me to make my own decision, even sent me to church with neighbors on a number of occasions and did Vacation Bible School a couple different summers. All so I could better choose (and this out of parents who don't believe). In the end, I was never a believer and never have been. It wasn't until years later when I was older that I realized the other people at the Vacation Bible School believed those stories to be real. I thought they just thought it was simple made up stories like I did. (Oh if they'd known who was among them....yikes.)
But, that's just me...
2007-01-04 02:45:10 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 3⤊ 0⤋
I debated over whether I believed in god for quite some time. Eventually after thinking about to some great extent and doing research, watching documentaries, discussing with friends and family, I was able to clarify any and all the points of confusion i had. I was finally able to justify that the universe and humanity could exist without god and that everything is relative to one another. I feel bad for people on both sides of the argument who don't take the time to consider the other side of the situation. Because I think it is only then that you can truly believe in your own ideals and principals.
2007-01-04 02:53:33 · answer #8 · answered by Mighty Thinker 2 · 4⤊ 0⤋
It depends on what you mean by people who"Don't believe in God" - Some people have personal private belief systems that they have developed through reading a wide range of points of view - exploring the precepts of a number of the mainstream religions ( or even some of the lesser known ones) - Essentially "non believers" fall into two categories - Agnostic or Atheist. Agnostics believe there is something but not necessarily a being as described in popular religions like Christianity or Islam. Atheists believe that there is essentially nothing in control of the creation of the Universe - that there is no afterlife - that we are born we live we die we go nowhere - there is no "special" meaning to our existence. Was i taught not to believe in God? - No - but my parents taught me to question what i was presented with and to strive towards attaining knowledge and information before making final decisions - I understand how people can have the faith to believe in a specific set of values and ideas linked to a religion but on the balance of evidence that I have explored i can't believe in God as presented by institutionalised religions. I'm still learning and exploring and that is half the fun of it.
2007-01-04 02:53:29 · answer #9 · answered by mickylee 2 · 3⤊ 0⤋
Well.. I personally don't think God doesn't exist... I say he has nothing to do with our everyday life... rather he wants nothing to do with us... My parents didn't teach me that... apparently my parents were church going people and God-fearing... but I wouldn't know 'cause they were killed in a car accident b4 I'd even be old enough to recognize their face... This event however had nothing to do with my conclusion...
My story is all around you... you can see wars happening, people killing eachother over religious beliefs, land, or any other childish reason you could think of... if God was out there watching out for us our world would have had been a better world... if God cared he wouldn't let your next door neighbour's child to go to sleep with empty stomeach... if he cared he wouldn't have stand to watch that old lady who sleeps on the side walk in the street to find her breakfast among the garbages in the public garbage cans... If God really cared he wouldn't let a child be kidnapped and used as a child soldier (losing his innocence by killing people day and night)... if God cared he wouldn't stand and watch a kid who has lost her parents in the war, walk over a land-mine so she can also lose her hand and feet as well... if God cared he wouldn't let the lady who just got rapped get shot in the head... IF GOD REALLY CARED HE WOULDN'T HAVE MADE THIS WORLD SO HORRIBLE THAT MY HEART WOULD WANT TO BREAK OUT OF MY CHEST EVERYTIME I READ THE NEWSPAPER... and since you are an open-minded person you will understand me...
2007-01-04 02:58:40 · answer #10 · answered by Geist König 4 · 4⤊ 0⤋