Atheists , what led you to believe that there must be no God?

Question

I am not looking for an argument. I just want to know.

Answer 1

The first major thing i can remember is that i started to pay attention to the fact that there were so many varied religions all in practice at once and many of them claimed that they were the one correct way to whatever ultimate goal they were pimping. That in turn got me thinking about all of the "dead" religions like those practiced by ancient Greeks, Romans, and Europeans prior to the rise of Christianity in the Roman Empire... Those people believed that their religions were correct and we no longer practice them.

One thing to note is that i never really 100% bought the whole god hypothesis. Don't get me wrong, i did believe from time to time that there was probably a god, but when i examined the available evidence and inquired as to why people believed it turned out that there really was no good evidence to support this hypothesis and furthermore the responses as to why others believed were personal and conjectural in nature. For most of my life the main reason i believed in this thing called god was because so many people believed in this thing that i felt there had to be something to it. Later in life i discovered that it is very very easy to lead people, or even large groups of people to believe things that are patently untrue.

The more i observed the world, studied science, history, psychology, and various religions the more obvious it has become to me that the god hypothesis is simply that, and has been for it's entire existence, a hypothesis. From the scientific perspective it doesn't even qualify as a bona fide theory. Despite it's constant failure in the face of new discovery it isn't abandoned but rather revised by it's adherents into further obscurity. This point alone proves that it takes a highly unscientific mind to cling to this ancient idea... and science has proven to be the best tool to learn the truth about the world and even the universe that we are a very very very very small part of.

Answer 2

Okay first of all I will tell you why atheists do not believe in God, because we have no proof God is real because no one has ever seen him, or talked to him, and there is no evidence of it whatsoever. So for all we know God could be another myth like Santa Claus. Also most of all what makes me believe in God even less is because of the stupid things people say like my sister who said a few days ago that "God punishes people for all the wrong that they do." Which I of course thought was bogus because look at this as I always say "God does not make miracles people do." Also if you watched that teen show " Sister Sister." Then you know what I am talking about, especially that episode when everybody was studying for the SAT's, and their was that part where everybody has there different ways of dealing with the SAT's, and a white boy was praying that he would do well on the SAT's which I thought was so bogus, because you can not pray your way into college or anything else you want in life. Because you must earn everything in life that you have. So praying for something does not help anything, and God does not always punish people for the ugly things they do. Which is why I especially hate churchgoers who go to church every Sunday claiming they are praising, and worshipping, and then they go out, and do all kind of ugly(spreading gossip, and rumors) for instance. So the lesson here is your life is what you make of it, and it has nothing to do with God. You control your life, and what happens to it, and yes there are some shady people in the world but they do not all get punished for what they do, and sometimes the shady people win more than the good people in this world so life is not always fair, and God has nothing to do with it.

Answer 3

Aquinas' first mover argument is mistaken i'm afraid. there is not any longer some thing in that argument that factors in direction of a god except the merely correct sentence that's obviously merely statement. Your second argument is merely defining god into life, that's dishonest. If what you're saying is authentic no longer some thing on your argument justifies this effective reason being noted as God. that is extra statement. Your 0.33 argument is an same. mistaken and dishonest i'm afraid, spectacular attempt although. keep on searching, you'll see there aren't any strong arguments on your particular god or certainly any of the others we've invented. "How can an atheist really trust that God would not exist and that life is being led by technique of a blind stress?" via the undeniable fact that is precisely how truth seems and precisely no longer how truth seems if there have been an sensible author.

Answer 4

I am an atheist as a result of my deep understanding of Mathematics and Physics. Specifically my understanding that the God Hypothesis is unable to provide a satisfactory explanation to the question of why we find ourselves in an apparently complex world. The answer to the question of the origin of apparent complexity cannot be a greater prior complexity. That is not an answer, only a larger question. The true answer must be that nature is not complex but that is simple and that the reason for why we observe complexity is that we see so little of nature, and what we see is the result of a mathematical selection effect: "Our Own Existence".

Nature being simple ( what we mathematicians call low Kolmogorov Complexity ) has several implications.

1. Nature must be infinite and varied. All possible universes occur, ours is just one of many.

2. What we observe ( Mass, Energy Space and Time ) are not fundamental. If time is not fundamental then at some deeper level reality is static, eternal and unchanging.

Answer 5

hmmm i think it would be that all of the evidence that exists to give me every piece of modern technology that i own wouldn't be possible with the teachings of religion. i also look back on past religions and see how crazy they are, and think that that will be what our religions will look like to the modern people in a few thousand years. also, after learning about the universe, i do not believe that something created it. i mean than what created god? where did "he" come from? there are hard questions when we get that far into the complexities of science, and personally, I've made the choice to believe that a god didn't make it all. i believe that there is an explanation for it all, that humans just cannot make.

Answer 6

Most of "atheist" or non-believers have already read the bible and spent the beginning part of our lives learning about one religion or another.I for instance was a brought up in a strict Christian Household and have read the bible front to back(skipping the pretty boring parts) I also took science in school and in college. I have come to realize that religion is made up based on stories. Like when your grandfather told you about his war stories, but for some reason he was always the hero right? or when you tell someone at work a funny story and by the weeks out youve heard it from somebody else but alot has changed. Multiply that by 4 or 5 thousand years and understand why we dont believe.

Answer 7

Never buying into what the Bible and church are selling. I went to church, read the Bible, went to chuch camp even (uggh!). I never had a connectedness with a higher power, even when I really wanted to. Then I began to look at other beliefs and I began to analyze the whole of religion/God/christianity. At some point I just realized that the whole idea was asinine. It seems so crazy and illogical to me.

Answer 8

Usually, you need to be convinced of the _existence_ of something. Belief in its non-existence tends to be the 'default'.

For me, I just never had any sense that there was any truth to it. I've never in any way 'felt God's presence' like so many theists say that they do. I had given a bit of lip-service to the concept when I was a preteen, but then I realised that I didn't believe what I was saying - and what everyone else was talking about - so I just gave up on it.

Answer 9

It's not a matter of 'must' or 'must not' here; it's a matter of evidence and awareness. Believing has to do with Faith. KNOWING has to do with Science. Science (any sort of scientific discipline, from physics, to genetics, from archaeology, to history, from antropology to astronomy etc etc...) is supported by EVIDENCE. Faith is supported only by abstraction. So, what led me to my level of awareness is the scientific study of mankind's past through archaeology, semantic, history, antropology and philology, all supported by lab tests;) So, basically it's more like 'there's no God', than 'there must not be God';)

Answer 10

Through my experience in life and education. The church denying things happening that have much evidence that they did. My personaly experience of seeing so much discrimination and hatred coming from religious people. I've come to realize that religion creates more hate than love. If ignorance and hatred is what is required to be religious, I don't want it. I respect anybody who is religious and believes in God. I'm always surprised when they don't extend me the same courtesy.