Non-believer question?

Question

Let me say first that I am an atheist. Many of the responces atheists give to being questioned about their lack of a belief in a God is that religious people are idiots for believing in a make believe being. Well I am going to try and answer in a more kinder way. If you are a Christian, do you believe in Zeus, or the Sun God, or Saturn, or Gaia? My guess is that you do not believe in any of these, which would make you a skeptic. Millions of people believed in these God's and you are questioning them? I guess simply put, I don't believe in the Christian God or any other God for the same reason I do not believe in any of those Gods that I listed.

Someone asked my why not just be an agnostic. That's a fair question. I guess technically I am an agnostic because I don't claim to know if God exists or not. If I was forced to guess though, I would say that I doubt there is a God. I think natural processes could have made everything and I don't believe a God is necessary. Thats why.

Answer 1

I think a lot of our fellow atheists lose patience as this question "why don't you believe" is asked over and over and over again.

I always try and give a sincere answer if I believe the question is also sincere.

Answer 2

There is a reason people believe in a higher power. It doesn't really matter who you believe in. It's a matter of beginnings. A matter of making sense of the universe. God seems like a reasonable choice for the creator. Because something or someone had to have created the universe. Or else it always existed. Which goes against the human notion of all things having a beginning.

So God is placed at the beginning. And to say that natural processes could account for everything, I'd have to disagree. Natural processes, once in place, can account for everything. But what made the hydrogen atom consist of a proton and an electrion orbiting around it? What made positive and negative charges? What established the laws of gravity and thermodynamics that govern this world? What created those natural processes you describe?

That is where God comes in. God is the man who created the rules. I'm not sure you realize it, but God is actually far less abstract than nature. Sure he's intangible, but to describe him is simple. He's supreme. No rules no limits. Whereas nature is so darn complicated. People find it easy to believe that someone or something created nature, rather than that it just came to be. Nature is sophisticated. God is minimalistic.

I actually have feelings about the whole God thing similar to yours. I'm just giving you a little food for thought :) Something to consider in your musings.

Answer 3

I am a Christian, have been for many years. I am actively involved in my church as well as a ministry with in the prison. But, I am not brain dead and I do believe Zeus was a God, I have studied the Sun God, the planet Saturn and know they exist, but I do not worship them. I am sorry that you have nothing to believe in. Where does your strength come from?

Answer 4

You are saying that God from the Bible is equivalent to Zeus, and there's the problem.

I know you are trying to be kind, but to be blunt, God contradicts Zeus just as much as He contradicts atheism. Different religions have different messages, different cosmologies, and different explanations for reality, and to just sweep them all away as being identical is rather silly to me.

But seeing as you are being rather kind, i will try to be kind back and tell you why i believe in God, but not zeus or other pagan deities:

If you start with the notion that there is a God (i.e. just rule out atheism for one moment) then you have 2 options: A) that all religions have the same God, only with different perspectives, or B) that some religions have got the concept of God wrong. Seeing as all religions seem to contradict one another at some point, it can't be option A, otherwise all or most religions would be complementary and not contradictory in their views, but they all disagree. So some religions have the concept of God wrong.

How could some religions get God wrong? Well, perhaps they forgot what He was like, perhaps they never heard from Him, etc. If so, where did these wrong gods come from? Well, where else could these gods come from, but human experience?

This is seen in the ancient pagan deities. They are not "Gods" in the way that they are beyond humanity, they are gods in the sense that they are amplified humanity--men with super powers, no different than spiderman or superman. They are grouped into families, are divided into genders, have rivalries and spats, make love, go to the bathroom, etc. All of this is just humanity--they are no different than you or i, if we suddenly had the ability to shoot lightning. On top of this, with a cosmology bursting with irate deities arguing, how could our world be so complex and intricate, with everything running just right to keep life around?

All of the pagan deities combined cannot make an infinite, which is what the Judeo-Christian God is. Therein lie the differences between the religions.

As for why i believe in God Himself, i have found through my study of history that it is nearly impossible for there not to be a God. Everything is too perfect. Events happen, too perfect, too orderly, too amazingly coincidental to be otherwise. How does a tiny little desert tribe struggling to survive become the largest religion in the world, 2 billion adherents, and with the greatest progress in human history (in the creation of science, capitalism, the concept of personhood, the citizen, limited government, personal rights, etc) owed to their beliefs, to boot?

That, and i view atheism as just as much a faith as Christianity. Both groups of people have evidence, and they look at it, and come up with different answers according to their relative perspectives. But both can't KNOW, 100%, that they are right. Both need faith in order to make the leap into "this is what reality is." So, silly enough, i would actually classify atheism as a "religion." :0

Answer 5

Why aren't you an agnostic?

So you don't follow any of the gods that religions have been described, but you gave no reasoning as to why you rule out gods altogether

I'd just like to know why you are an atheist. No pressure

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Cool deal!

Same for me :)

Answer 6

I believe in "a" God that created this earth, and the Universe.

Now, which God? No one knows. However, I find most comfort in the Catholic faith, so I practice that one. However, I respect anyone who believes in God, as I understand that no one knows "which" God created the Universe. (I should say, no one knows which religion's view of God is closest to being correct)

However, I do not have as much respect for someone who denies the existence of the God, because it would be pretty difficult for the Universe, the human body, and even the tiniest cell to be as complex as they are without Divine Intervention.

Answer 7

Perhaps you do...
but the important things is that Christians do not believe in God for the same reason these people believed in Zeus or other gods.

Answer 8

I actually believe in pretty much everything. I think that people just use different paths to get to the same "end conclusion."

For those reading about to freak out and yell that "JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY!!!" - Even the Bible admits there are other gods. Exodus 20:2-3 (the first commandment) says "(2) I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; (3)you shall have no other gods before me." It doesn't say "I'm the only god" it just says "worship me the most."

I guess I think of myself as a "right tool for the right job" sort of girl. I certainly wouldn't use a rake when I needed a hammer - the same is true for Gods/Goddesses. While I believe in the Virgin Mary, I certainly wouldn't pray to her if I was lost and adrift at sea in a boat. I'd probably pray to Njord - the Norse god of restless seas.

So to sum up - while I suspect you are going to get lots of answers along the lines of "Accept Jesus or you'll go to hell" the answer is YES, there are some of us who believe in the Christian/Jewish/Muslim God and lots of pagan gods as well.

(And for the record, I don't think that you're going to any kind of hell. *grin*)

Answer 9

As seeker of knowledge, I think that was a well thought out answer. I am very interested in my fellow man's (or woman's) beliefs and why. I have come to realize,finally, that no one is all right and no one is all wrong. There is a force that unites us all. I'm gonna look until I "feel" it. Thank you for the information.

Answer 10

Well said...there is a quote that I told my mother to help her understand why I Believe what I do...
"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." -Stephen F. Roberts