Non-believers: What made you decide not to believe in God?

Answer 1

The stupidity of the cartoonish myths..and the irrationality of believers

Answer 2

I was raised as a practicing Catholic. I received 5 of the 6 sacraments of my Church. I studied theology at a Jesuit University and learned that a lot of really smart people had spent a real lot of time debating whether or not God existed and had gotten nowhere. So I began to think that if we couldn't know if God existed, then maybe it was important to understand if it made a difference or not.

Over the years, I found that it didn't make any difference whether people believed in God or not. They could be happy or sad, good or bad, lucky or unfortunate whether or not they believed. For some people, it made them feel good to know there was a God. For others, it didn't matter. For me, it didn't seem to matter.

So, I decided that I would just live a good life and find other motivations besides a God who nobody knew really existed.

Answer 3

I was Christian in a Christian family. I had many questions without good answers so I decided to read and study the Bible and history of Christianity. This ultimately led me to conclude it was not a belief I could sustain. Also, Bible God is not a God for me. After studying the Bible I couldn't worship that deity even if it were real. I know there are other belief systems and I looked into other religions but didn't find their unverifiable and far fetched claims anymore likely or believable. I find Buddhism and religions that don't say God is love but only those that accept our belief system will go to heaven more attractive but I see no more evidence for these either. So I became an atheist. I am still a happy person with a productive life. I have learned other ways of coping with the difficulties life throws at us all. There have been things in many religions that I have found valuable for living a good and happy life. I just don't think that they came from God but rather from humans. Being a nonbeliever has freed me to take the parts of value to me from a variety of teachings. I particularly enjoy reading eastern philosophy/religion. I just see no evidence or reason to believe in a God/Gods/Goddess/Goddesses. I see all these different religions many claiming to be the exclusive truth with extraordinary claims and no proof and it seems to be fairly reasonable to conclude that imaginative humans have come up with many stories to comfort, lend meaning, and provide explanations for the unknowable for themselves. I see plenty of beauty in the universe and the world but I also see ugliness and destruction. The natural explanations that actually possess evidence to back them up make more sense to me. Where we don't have the answers is for me just that, what we don't know, I see no need to plug in God for what is really just the unknown.

Answer 4

To tell the truth, as a Roman Catholic and Physics student, I gave up for reasons which don't have all that much to do with logic. I got rather embarassed at having to go to confession to avoid eternal agony in hell if I dropped dead or got killed in a motorbike accident with the unconfessed mortal sin of masturbation staining my soul thus leaving an infinitely good and loving but also perfectly just God with no choice but to roast me and anybody like me forever.

No doubt lack of evidence and the absurdity of the whole concept played some part in the background, but without the embarassment I might still be going to confession 30 years later 'just to be on the safe side' (roughly Pascal's Wager, even though I'd never heard of it at the time). I was well aware that quite likely it was all nonsense, but it was only years later, long after I became some kind of agnostic, that I worked out that you might just as easily go to Hell (if there is a Hell) for being a Christian as for not being one, so that being a Christian 'just to be on the safe side' is illogical because it isn't 'safe'.

Answer 5

My ability to think critically is what made me not believe in god the fact that there is not one single shred of evidence to support the existence of a god is reason enough for me not to believe in one. The same is the reason I do not believe in Santa Clause or the Easter Bunny or Invisible Pink Unicorns or Flying Spaghetti Monsters.

Answer 6

~~~email,,,, An education without any Meddling Clergy to inject Dogma and Superstition which is meant to instill " The Fear of a Vengeful God to The Disobediant" ,,, hence the term " a good, godfearing christian." but I don't want to single out christianity as being any worse than the rest. I also studied ALL the gods of man's invention and none rose above the rest. It's that simple.

Answer 7

It's not that I DON'T think there is some possibility of a god or something we aren't aware of BUT I don't believe in the churches fabricated version of their God and all his human tendencies nor do I believe any of the stories that religions sell as fact. Religion and church are the problems... not a possibility of a "god" as you call it. To me they are 2 separate things. One created by man, and one that may or may not exist which we have yet to know with any certainty!

Answer 8

I didn't "decide" not to believe in God.

You either believe in something, or you don't. Your brain makes the decision for you...you don't really have control over it.

I don't believe in God because the idea of supernatural beings does not make sense to me.

Answer 9

When you look at it really close up, take off the blinders that make you want it to be true and use your rational mind for even a moment, it's simply utterly absurd and ridiculous. I find the myth of the Earth resting on a tortoise's back just as credible.

Answer 10

It's really more a lack of decision TO believe in god(s).

But you could say it's the same reason why YOU don't believe in Vishnu.

Answer 11

I did not 'decide' not to believe in god. Belief is never a decision, it is a consequence of information. The overwhelming evidence for his nonexistence sort of told me he does not exist.