Atheists: Why don't you believe?

Question

Why don't you believe in God? I am looking for some genuine answers.

Please answer only if you are 100% that there is no God. If you're not sure if there is a God or not, then you're an agnostic, not an atheist.

Answer 1

Why are there so many different understandings of the Christian God? They all have different conceptions of what God is, even within the same religion. Catholics and Protestants have been fighting for centuries over interpretations, and this is why so many people have given up and are atheist, its not that they have an alternative, they believe in the fact that there just isn't a God.

To claim its down to science is a cop-out too, as science only answers the how and not the why and cannot answer all the questions that religion attempts. Most people, even those who claim to be religious have no real understanding of the underpinnings of their own faith, and as such are simply going through the motions, and make no attempt to understand the revelations that their religions are based on. A real sense of religious belief, not faith, is based upon personal understanding and an understanding of the teachings passed down by those that have experienced these revelations. In all world religions, the basic foundation comes from within, not the externalisation of dogma and institutionalised practice. I don't believe because God is an ephemeral concept, used as a means to try and explain the world as we see it, a metaphysical construction to model a misunderstood reality, a reality which can be understood without frivolity and a need to have a God figurehead.

As to the person who said that the world would be the same without Jesus, think again, it would be vastly different, becasue of the effect of his teachings and of those that follow him.

Answer 2

"Please answer only if you are 100% that there is no God. If you're not sure if there is a God or not, then you're an agnostic, not an atheist."

I'm afraid your definitions are wrong. An agnostic is someone who doesn't believe you can prove the existance of gods. An atheist is someone who doesn't believe in gods. Most atheists accept that you cannot be 100.000000000% certain of anything. To put it another way, how many Christians are 100% certain there is a god? And if it could be proven that there are no gods (which it can't be, as its not the type of thing that can be proved), would they still be 100% sure? Most atheists are honest and could change their minds if real evidence was presented. As this is never going to happen, it's safe to say they are as close to 100% certain as it is possible to be.

That being said - when it comes to belief the question is why believe and not why not. Christians don't believe in Zeus - why not?

Answer 3

It's not really that easy to explain. It just, over the years, started to seem more and more ridiculous to me to think that there's some sort of "being" out there. It's like the way most people think now when they're taught about Greek Myths in school. You hear about Zeus, and Aphrodite, and Athena. We know that these gods were invented because humans started to look for ways to explain things that they couldn't understand--like the sun rising and setting, the weather, life, disease, etc. They thought that something--some "being" had to be making things happen, because they didn't understand WHAT the sun was, or WHERE the rain came from. Now we know and understand these things, but we haven't really been able to let go of the idea of gods. (Or A God.) I started to feel that we were stuck in a sort of primitive mind-set, and I started wondering why their beliefs were considered silly and ours weren't. (How are YOU 100% certain that THEY don't exist?) They believed in gods, we believed in “a” God. We had no more proof that ours was correct then they had that theirs was correct.

Everyone is BORN an atheist. You don't have any knowledge or belief in a God of any kind until you are TAUGHT to believe in a God. What God or religion you are taught depends on who you were born to. If you were born Jewish, then that's what you would have been taught, if you're born Christian, then THAT'S what you would have been taught. If you weren't told of any God or any religion at all until you were an adult, and THEN you heard the things that people believe, you'd think they were crazy.

For a clearer picture, you can look at this website, it expains a lot about what atheists believe very clearly. (I'll warn you, though, if you're Christian, you won't like it at all.) http://www.godisimaginary.com

Answer 4

Because, as The Great Gazoo says, I don't find anything more convincing about your God than I do about Odin, Zeus, Ra, Hera, Bacchus, The Great Spirit, Osiris or The Flying Spaghetti Monster.

And since I find nothing convincing about any of them I do not 'believe'. And yes, I have read the Bible, I attended a Church of England school, I took examinations in religious studies but it just never struck me as anything more than a story.

Eventually I found a philosophy which I found useful in my everyday life and I'm happy with that. But it doesn't contain any 'personal' god like yours.

I could go on, but I think I've covered the basics. I hope that helps. Thank you for asking.

Live long and prosper.
.

Answer 5

Dear Daisy,
Agnosticism is a philosophy that existence or non-existence of god isn't provable.
Atheism is the ABSENCE of belief in god, not the belief in no god. The latter falls into that definition but is not that definition. Look it up in Websters Online dictionary if you don't believe me.


Most importantly, why do you? What is your criterion for something being true?

I'm not trying to be flippant. To me, I require that the things I accept as true meet some minimum criteria for acceptance.

With God, which one or ones should I accept? What evidence is there to support one over the other? What evidence exists that is unambiguous which supports the existence of one or more gods? I'm not talking about much just something unambiguous?

Answer 6

There is no evidence that there is a god. No evidence essentially means that someone made it up. It isn't rational or reasonable to believe in things without any evidence to back it up. You would be stuck with thousands of gods and everything else that human imagination could come up with since they all have the same evidence.

Not believing in god is the same as not believing in Odin, Zeus, Ra, Hera, Bacchus, The Great Spirit, Osiris, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and all the others. I would be no less surprised of evidence of Odin was found than I would be if evidence of your god was.

Answer 7

Ask yourself this, and answer honestly:

Would the world be any different if what you have been taught about Christ was all made up and never happened, that he never existed as claimed?

You know in your heart that the world would be exactly as it is.

Because it is all so silly. I have observed no difference in the lives of people (as a group) with faith from those without.

So many openly religious people I have met prove themselves to be horrible human beings, certiany not kind and loving to their neighbors.

I have observed many religions all claiming with equal conviction and certitude that they, and only they, are the one true religion and path the Heaven.

I have observed an infinite diviseveness within each of those religions - Catholics - Protestants - Lutherans - Evangelicals - Mormons - Adventists - Sunni- Shiites - Orthodox - Reformed - all disagreeing with each other about what it means to be part of that religion.

I have not seen anything from within any religion that gives me even the slightest confidence that what they say is true, and I have seen 1,000's of reasons to believe they are not.

Answer 8

Why do you think I should? There are a lot of things i do not believe. I would bet the real reason I do not believe in gods or magic or any type of supernatural, as opposed to you, would be that my mother did not preach it to to me daily and make me pray five times a day. In short, I was not brainwashed.

Answer 9

Because there is no evidence to suggest that god is real. At all. I believe in science and science requires evidence which is something god (like unicorns) just doesn't have. Say no to jesus

Answer 10

It makes absolutely no sense to me, a supreme being is unnecessary, and the existence of one would have to go against all laws of nature. For these reasons, I feel comfortable saying there is no God.