Why don't some people believe in God?

Question

Athiests don't have an answer to how we came to be, but are VERY quick to dismiss the existence of God, why is this? Personally I had a calling in life, so I don't just believe there's a God, I know there's a God. I also know that there is such a thing as FALSE Athiests, who have a cause to divert the 'strays' away from the truth. These Athiests believe and tremble at the thought of God but are determined to drag other people down with them. When you read posts by athiests, they are usually the nasty ones. The genuine athiests can still be perfectly nice people. Anyway, the question is as stated. If you don't bel$ieve in God please tell me why. It seems to me that people are looking for excuses not to believe so they can do their wrongdoing with less guilt.

Answer 1

There is no evidence that there is a god. No evidence essentially means that someone made it up. It is not reasonable to believe in things without any evidence. You would be stuck with every ridiculous thing that human imagination could come up with.

Not believing in god is the same as not believing in Zeus, Odin, Santa, Anubis, the Tooth Faerie, and all the thousands of others since the evidence is exactly the same. I would be no less surprised if someone found evidence of Bacchus than I would be if they found evidence of your god.

Answer 2

I guess for each individual some things are easier to believe than others. Ultimately though, neither side will ever know the secret or truth to Life the Universe or anything else as there will always be more questions than answers.

If God made Man in his own image, then who made God?

If God was the Designer of Life the Universe and everything, then who was the Designer, Creator or Father of God. He's a pretty Special Guy if he is just simply an ALL KNOWING, EVER PRESENT & FORGIVING ENTITY!

If the Big Bang was born out of nothing, then what is the make up of nothing and what was the Catalyst to the explosion?

Answer 3

The Gospel according to Athiests. In the begginning there was nothing, and then nothing exploded, and everything in the universe sprouted forth, billions and billions of tonnes of matter from nowhere. And the earth did not exist and was formless, and by a series of coincidences over millions of years varous globs of matter collided and stuck together and formed the Earth and it just so happened to be exactly the right distance from the Sun, rotating at just the right speed. And the Earth just so happened to be the only planet in the solar system to develop an atmosphere, and support life. And lo! These things happened despite odds of 46 billion billion to one against.

And they think what I believe is implausable!

I believe the big bang happened and God lit the fuse. He has been guiding and supporting the formation and creation of the Earth ever since. Nothing in Nature is here by accident, and all things were created by Him. (yes, even the rotten cold virus I'm suffering from right now).

I think there is an element of truth to your idea that those who choose to ingore God are trying to justify following their own path. Do you know what the wrath of God is? It's not God smiting those who do wrong. He gave us instructions on how to live a good and righteous life. If you do not follow those rules, you will suffer the consequences. That is the wrath of God. People mess up their own lives and then blame God! If a mum has told her child time and time again not to put his hand in the fire, is it the mother's fault if the child disobeys her? They're not called Commandments for nothing.

Answer 4

I have read all these brilliant answers and although I thought I believed in God I now have serious doubts. I am totally confused. Something that stands out from the answers is that the atheists are able to explain in a very convincing way why they do not believe that there is a God. On the other side the 'believers' are only able to make their case by making dogmatic statements without reasoned argument.

Even though I have my doubts I still wonder why I can not bring myself to agree that God does not exist..
Is it the old problem of not being able to prove a negative or in this case are we unable to prove a positive?

Answer 5

It's not so much that people are looking for an excuse not to believe, merely that they're looking for something different to those who do believe. They're looking for scientific proof of a supernatural entity who is specifically quoted as saying he will not give such proof of his existence, but demands a leap of "faith" - or belief which is, by its very nature, irrational (belief in the unseeable and unproveable).

So the fact that many atheists will not judge God by his own standards, but only by their own standards of logic and science means there is a relatively fast speed that can be applied to the denial of the illogical concept that is God. In the atheistic worldview, there is no "need" for there to have ever been a god, and no proof that it ever existed, so it's a hypothesis that's doubly easy to discard. And as has been pointed out by others, the idea of evolution - the change of one thing into another - is theoretically quite logical compared to creation by an all-powerful being, so it is less easy for the atheistic mindset to discard.

Answer 6

I'm not Athiest and I don't believe in God...and I am only 14 so I'm pretty sure I'm not looking for excuses not to believe so I can do my "wrongdoing" with less guilt..I just don't understand how god came to be and personally he hasn't done much for me...

I believe more in buddhism..makes more sense to me..and has no "rules"..I can be who ever i want to be and not have to follow any rules..and not have to pretend like some dead man is floating up there and looking down on me..I think it's bull. People just want to believe that there's a higher power who can take away their troubles when they're in a bad situation...things don't just go away ..

that's my opinion..

Answer 7

"It seems to me that people are looking for excuses not to believe so they can do their wrongdoing with less guilt. " is a bigoted and arrogant statement. Just because you don't understand someone's beliefs, you automatically attach a negative connotation to it. That's called ignorance.
There are no atheists who "tremble" at the thought of God. Atheists do not believe there IS a God. Period. That's the definition of "atheist". If someone trembles at the thought of God, then they are not an atheist.
There are literally THOUSANDS of Gods spread throughout the worlds religions. You believe in only one of them. I believe in one less than you do. That's the only difference between you and me. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Do NOT attempt to judge me, my intentions, or my morality. You know NOTHING about me.

Answer 8

Lets get something straight. Believers are equally, if not more nasty in their postings. Believers are constantly trying to convert non-believers (or to save their soul). Some Atheists believe in the Big Bang and it is an answer on how we came to be and it is just a valid as you saying that God was responsible for it all.

I am an Atheist and I have never trembled at the thought of God, and if you want to believe in God that is your perogitive. I don't try to convert anyone. But I will always engage in a healthy debate over Atheism vs. God.

There is no definitive, 100% undeniable proof that God exists, and the same goes for the Big Bang theory, I'll admit it. But if you are fre to believe in God - why can't us Atheists be free NOT to believe in God.

My main reasons for not believing in God:
1. Where did God come from?
2. The hypocrisy of philosophically unsound book (the bible)
3. The fact that people can only answer questions with faith, God/Jesus/the bible said so.
4. The correlations with much older religions.

Answer 9

it is not true that people try not to believe in god just so they can do their wrongdoing with less guilt. look at how many christians are in jails- for murders and rapes and the like.
i am an athiest becuase i have heard much of what preachers and pastors say about god and jesus and i disagree with it. i also know that history can repeat itself. the ancient greeks and romans had many gods. some for war, some for rain, lightning, planets, the sun... but now, those gods don't exist in people's minds because we know how the planets revolve around the sun, so there are sunrises and sunsets that we can watch..we know how it rains because of science. we know how lightning happens, the discharge of static electricity. so in a thousand years, we will probably find the scientific reason for why everything happens. then nobody will believe in god anymore. they will think how stupid we were for having to make up someone that supposedly does everything that we can't explain yet.
as for how everything began, i will truthfully say that i don't know. somethings are better left unknown, but i do believe in evolution, which is scientifically proven.
a question for christians... if god created the earth, then where did god come from? and if someone created him, then where did that being come from?

Answer 10

Well, there's a lot of unwarranted assumptions.

It's actually spelled 'atheist' and I'd better explain why. A 'theist' is a person who believes in god. 'Theist' comes from the same Greek root as 'theology'. The 'a-' prefix means 'without', the same way 'amoral' means 'without morals', just as 'immoral' means 'of bad morals'.

Atheists do have an answer to how we came to be, and it's called 'evolution by natural selection', and was first sketched out by Mr. Charles Darwin in the 19th century. Despite what you think, many atheists are not at all quick to dismiss the existence of god, but arrive at that position after a lot of painful thinking. The reason we arrive at it is because there is overwhelmingly more evidence that we are here because of evolution by natural selection, than that we are here because god put us here. There is no very convincing evidence for the god version of our existence, other than a lot of religious people saying that we ought to believe it because god commands us to, which is kind of a circular argument. God himself has been silent on the matter since long before living memory, so you can hardly blame us for not believing directly in him.

I don't know where you got that whole 'false atheist' thing from. I can't imagine why a bunch of religious people would want to pretend that they aren't religious and convince other people not to be. It sounds like somebody made it up and told it to you to scare you.

I don't myself do a hell of a lot of wrong-doing, and I would prefer if you don't assume that I do without asking me first, or at least telling me what your idea of wrong-doing is. Personally I think that going around scaring people with stories about an all-powerful being who sees and knows all is wrong-doing, but there you go.

Anyway, good luck. Sounds like you're wasting a lot of your life trembling when you should be enjoying being alive, but what do I know. I don't believe in that whole god thing.

Answer 11

"Athiests don't have an answer to how we came to be,"
im agnostic, a sociology lover. evoloution, mate. i have my own ideas how things worked, but no one knows.

"but are VERY quick to dismiss the existence of God,"
I went to a church of england nursary, primary school and comprehensive school. i attended church.

"why is this?" why not believe in god? why bother? do i pester other people, "why arent you vegetarian? why aren't you doing more to help save the enviroment? why isn't everything you buy fair trade?". no i do not.

"I know there's a God" do you have photo graphic evidence? did you meet him? shake his hand? offer him tea? a biscuit? have other people met him? was it party? you BELIEVE there's a god.

how do you know all the nasty posts are by athiests? do you know them personally and know their choice of religion? what if they're hindu? into scientology? or! what, if like my gay friend, they ARE athiest or agnostic, i'm not sure, but he is too scared to tell his family he's gay because there's a website that states all homosexuals as evil. there's even a list on the website of music that's "gay" and music that's "safe". so are these the nast people? it's not christianism. it's a religion of other sorts. and maybe a nasty christian said something horrible about them, to make this athiest have bad views about christians. what are you going to do? make everyone take a lie detection test to deciefer their "true" religion? to test whos a "fake christian?", who are you to judge?

Why would i worry and try to believe in god? what's the point? will i nned to enter god's secret password into some kind of machine so i can use the train? do i need to be religiously inclined to christianism so i can get a well paid job and make enough money to live off and look after myself and charities? and STOP thinking you know everyhting and that you are correct in all the accusations you make here. Hey! Everybody does bad things! even christians! some people ae homophobic (even christians and other religions), some are pacist (even christians and other religions), everyone is selfish to some extent, people covet what other people have, people lie, people steal, people hurt other people... even christians, even shinto, even paganism, hinduism, sikhism, taoism (i like reading about china), mormon....

YOU are human, NOT god. it doesnt matter what you believe, it matters that you are open minded, kind, indifferent or not quick to shun other peoples norms and you shouldnt look down at people you don't know and assume and suggest to people that anyone who doesnt believe in god and is upset about religions must be nasty.