Atheists: When you decided you didn't believe in God...?

Question

...did you decide because everything you'd been told about God seemed impossible?

If so, do you think it's possible that the explanations seemed unfeasable because (IF God actually does exist) God is really...indescribable? and thus, all the language that people might use would be inherently limited and universally flawed at least in some way regarding the accuracy of its conveyance?

I mean, I can understand that it seems totally illogical to believe in something that is impossible to concieve of in the first place...so this by no means is an attack on the descision to be an atheist in the first place (and I know that some don't think it's a choice!)...
I'm just curious.

Do you think it's possible that anything exists which is beyond the capacity of human perception to witness and/or to understand?

Looking forward to some thoughtful responses!(to all the questions above!)

-Rob

I never really intended for religion to be an issue for anyone answering this question. I presumed that as atheists, not supporting religion would be secondary to not believing in God, and not the other way around.

Given the number of explanations which refer to religion, it seems like a lot of people are indirectly saying 'yes' to my initial question about the impossible explanations of God being a primary reason for non-belief.

Also, some go on to say that it is unlikely that anything which might be beyond our perceptual capabilities is God. Does this mean that such a thing is unlikely to be the God of a particular religion? or unlikely to be God period? Is there a difference?

I don't mean to put too many constraints on answers here...just trying to clarify that this is a question about atheism and the potential of a Deity, not about religion.

Answer 1

Rob, you posed your question so thoughtfully and kindly that I cannot help but respond in kind. No, I did not find the concept of God impossible for most of my life (50+years). Actually, I never questioned it. But once I had the free time, I began reading theology, philosophy, mythology, and science. While reading The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell, I began to realize that humankind has always attributed that which we cannot yet be explained to some god. Every culture on earth has done this. There are countless stories of virgin births, floods, and trinities. Only the name of the god has changed over the centuries. I also read Karen Armstrong, a well respected religion scholar and studied the historicity of Jesus. I now read textural criticism which is the scholarly study of the Bible. I find that God is no longer a plausible explanation for that which we do not understand. And quite honestly, I do not mean that statement to be disrespectful. And I cannot say that I made a decision to disbelieve in God. It came upon me as what I would term a revelation. And frankly, I was disappointed and disillusioned when it happened and to a point, I still am. Could there be something out there that is currently beyond our perception? Yes, definitely. But I am convinced that it is not the God of the Bible. Hope I did your question justice in my answer. Take good care.

Answer 2

Atheism isn't a decision, that's a organic disposition. I mean if I chosen no longer to have self assurance in God, i'd might want to do not ignore that he exists, and make a unsleeping decision to fake i did not. yet you're ideal, i'm an atheist and that i intrinsically do no longer have self assurance in his life. And no quantity of praying or bible college might want to extremely convince me in the different case, even at the same time as approached with an open concepts. I went to a Baptist highschool, it would were a million cases a lot less confusing if i might want to've only believed. I even kept my atheism on the down low so as that i'd have a common social journey and by no potential be persecuted. i imagine there also are a ton of adverse connotations connected to the be conscious atheism those days. Why does atheism choose a identify? And WHY do somewhat human beings insist that atheism is a faith? such numerous each man or woman is scared only by the identify using negativity it extremely is hooked as a lot because it. that's unhappy. Atheism isn't a non secular perception or a faith. And that's likely no longer a decision.

Answer 3

I think it is possible that something exists beyond the capacity of human perception to witness and/or understand. However, I don't believe in a creator. Granted, I do think it is possible that there could be a being of a higher dimensional plane that could have created us, but I do not think this was like the god that most people talk about, more like a kid with an ant farm. Also, just because I think it is possible, does not mean I believe it is true.

When I realized that I did not believe in a god, I realized that most of the religions seem to contradict either themselves or the world we live in (i.e. the laws of physics and nature).

Answer 4

Your question is comprable to the well-known ontological argument made by St. Anselm in the 11th century.

In Anselm's Proslogion, he derives the existence of God from the concept of a being than which no greater can be conceived.

Anselm argued that, if such a being fails to exist, then a greater being — namely, a being than which no greater can be conceived, and which exists — can be conceived.

Yet this would be absurd: nothing can be greater than a being than which no greater can be conceived. So a being than which no greater can be conceived — i.e., God — exists.

A few centuries later, René Descartes offered a proof to demonstrate God existed from the idea of a supremely perfect being.

Descartes argued that there it is no less a contradiction to conceive a supreme perfect being who lacks existence than to conceive a triangle having interior angles that do not sum to 180 degrees.

Thus, since we can and do conceive a supreme perfect being — we do have the idea of a supremely perfect being — we must conclude that a supremely perfect being exists.

Gottfried Leibniz examined Descartes arguments in an attempt to close a shortcoming he perceived.

Leibniz held that Descartes' arguments fail unless it is shown that the idea of a supreme perfect being is coherent: that it is possible for there to be a supreme perfect being.

Since perfections cannot be analyzed, argued Leibniz, demonstrating that perfections are incompatible is impossible, and concluded that all perfections can exist simultaneously in a single entity.

More recently, Gödel and Plantinga have stood on the shoulders of Anselm, Descartes, and Leibniz making more powerful ontological arguments.

Kant and Russell took issue with the earlier arguments above.
Kant claimed that ontological arguments are impaired by reliance upon "existence" as a predicate as an implicit assumption.

But, as Russell observed, "it is much easier to be persuaded that ontological arguments are no good than it is to say exactly what is wrong with them."

And so goes the facination by theologians and philosphers for these arguments.

Answer 5

I'm no atheist, but it seems that many people get totally fed up with lies and hypocrisy from religious people and become agnostic or even atheistic because they assume that God sanctions the actions of religion.

I'm not sure how you can be so angry at God that you think God doesn't exist. Really, does that work with, say, people? Like, "I hate you so much that I no longer believe you exist?"

Whatever, they can believe or not as they see fit. There's no proof either way, so it's logical to believe or not.

But as angry as I've been with God on occasion (and there have been many occasions), I've never thought God doesn't exist.

I know God is good, loving, kind, considerate, peaceful...and all the garbage about God being capricious, spiteful, cruel, vindictive, or hateful toward ANY group is a total load of crap.

Assume that anything good is God. Anything bad attributed to God is lies, filthy lies designed to make religion a tool to control people and take their money and make them scared and overwhelmed.

Just because a religion SAYS it's OK to persecute: Jews, homosexuals, women, witches, people of other religions, atheists, agnostics...whomever, DON'T assume that God sanctions everything done in the name of religion! Religions lie sometimes!

God, never.

The true definition of "taking the Lord's name in vain" is doing something ungodly and saying that it's actually Godly. So LOTS of religions break that particular commandment.

But I can separate God from fallible religions. Wish more people could.

Answer 6

I am agnostic. This means, I don't rule anything out at this point in my life, but organized religion has done nothing for me. I've tried lots of religions. I rationalalized the creation theory by thinking that God orchestrated it. And the time line was exaggerated. Also with Sara having chidren at 80 or whatever it was. I've read the Bible, but it was written by men a LONG time ago. It's been through many translations. If you want to discuss it, I accept e-mail.

Answer 7

Yeah, I call all that can't be understood by man through logic or technology, that actually exists magic. We might be able to grasp the science and logic in the future, but not just yet.
so if there is a heaven, we just don't have the technology to prove it's there, at least not yet.
If a guy can walk on water, we just haven't figured out the technology yet.
That would imply an advanced civilization out there(heaven, i.e. aliens) touching our planet.
Or it is all a haox, widely believed, and is simply wasting our time.
(by the way, I'm atheistic agnostic)
Real magic don't exist, but if you see magic, it is simply at the moment unexplainable.

Answer 8

Presumably something that is beyond your own comprehension is that another human being can live in a world without the slightest belief in the existence of a deity, so you try to frame the question in terms of our confusion over what we should call something that seems so obvious to you.

Let me spell it out. There. Is. No. God. There's no evidence for one. I don't have any trouble holding to that idea. I'm not struggling with a vague concept that is otherwise, as you put it, "indescribable".

That's my position.

Answer 9

Not impossible so much as internally inconsistent, as well as not being the best hypothesis to fit the observed data. (and yes, it took me years to decide.)

There are lots of things it is impossible to properly conceive of, but that doesn't mean that the concepts are beyond use.

Much simply isn't to our natural scale.

The human mind defaults to atoms as nice round balls stacked together.
And has no real grasp of the numbers involved in artonomical distances, or of stars in galaxies. But the mathematics works anyway, and we can build telescopes, computers, and model the universe.

So size doesn't settle anything, nor complexity.
Nor being able or unable to imagine anything well.
(I can imagine things that don't exist , and have trouble imagining some things I am certain (for all practical purposes) do.)

Answer 10

I decided not to believe in God because of all the evil in the world. At that time I was very unhappy with my life. I was sad and angry with everything. I didn't had any friends, I was doing poorly on school, It seemed everyone hated me..
I even planned my own suicide, but when the time came I didn't dared to stab myself.
Now I know everything was part of his plan for me. With time everything changed. Everything always changes and there's never a good reason to kill yourself. Looking back, I think I never really stop believing, I was just angry.
No pain lasts forever.