atheist! why dont you believe in god?

Question

now before you get offended im just asking because i really want to understand why you dont. let me say, i do believe in god and i think some atheist have asked why i do believe in god, so i am now asking why you dont. I AM NOT HERE TO JUDGE YOU, I AM CURIOUS TO KNOW YOUR POINT! thanks in advance!!!

ok i have read all the answers here,and im glad everyone explained their reasons to me. i hope this topic was not an offense to anyone, i simply asked a question.so thanks for the replies.

Answer 1

I don't really have a point. I wasn't brought up to believe in god, so i don't. It's a rather strange belief to suddenly take up mid-life, like suddenly believing in Ganesha (Hindu elephant god). Though no doubt if i was brought up a Hindu I would believe in him.

To me, it's like you saying why don't you believe in semi-light quasars? It's just something i have no experience in and get along fine without.

Answer 2

I just dont agree with the whole 'he is perfect' thing: If he is all powerful, then he can create an immovable stone. But if its immovable, then how is he all-powerful if he cannot move it?

Also, the bible shows too many flaws for me to take it seriously (it has some good values, but some bad ones too). e.g. God all-knowing, knew that eve would take the fruit and condemn mankind, so why bother creating eve, unless he wants mankind to suffer - but then I thought he was benevolent?

Also I see it's concepts of being nice to people as extremely false and forced. You are told to love your neighbour (no matter what his actions to you are) and almost fear that if you don't you will burn in hell.

Also, the bible gives slightly contradictory views of free-will and determinism, somehow combining them despite the usual contradictions (yes I know compatibalism exists, I just dont see how).

Science offers more logical reasoning when it comes to universal truths, and though there may be some contradictions, there is at least insurmountable proof for why the contradictions exist in the first place (I'm talking quatum mechanics of course).

If you then ask, what (or who) created the big bang, then you should realise, that the big bang model is slowly losing its credibility to be taken over by Solid state theory model, where space has been expanding forever and mass is created as a result. The reason why this theory is not wholly accepted is because someone asks 'but what started off the first cause?', which is just proof that humans still don't quite understand the nature of infinity.

Im sorry for the rant.

Answer 3

I'm not at all offended.
How can you believe in something that doesn't exist? You think it exists, but that's because you've been brainwashed since you were a child, but I'm afraid you're wasting your time. You don't have to be a god botherer to be a good and caring person, and in fact it's better if you aren't. God botherers are terribly judgmental people and they want to control what everyone does and thinks to conform to what they think.
Are you aware that a survey was done a couple of years ago on praying for sick people? The results were that the people prayed for had a worse health outcome than the ones not prayed for.
Best give it all a miss.

Answer 4

The problem with the design hypothesis is your god needs to be more complex and hence more unlikely than the reality you are attempting to explain. Saying your god just is, still leaves a much bigger question than you had to begin with.

Is your god more or less complex than a library. If you answer more, then how does that complexity come about? If you answer less, then how did your god create a greater complexity?

The idea that complexity requires creation by a prior greater complexity only leads to infinite regression. Complexity comes not from complex creators but from selection operating on variance.

Christians think by stating their god is timeless that this addresses the problem. It does not. The issue is not time, but one of complexity. Precisely what we Mathematicians call Kolmogorov Complexity.

The more complex a system is the more unlikely the possibility of that state just existing without exterior context. If a system has one bit the odds are one half. If a system has two bits of complexity the odds are one fourth etc .

Christians claim a god with infinite complexity and no external context. The odds for this are essentially zero.

By external context, one means the system is part of a greater system which provides context for it's state. Usually in the form of a selection effect, but it could also be an evolutionary mechanism or designer. But Christians claim their God, was neither designed, evolved nor was part of a greater whole.

The only possible answer to this conundrum of how reality exists, it seems to me is that reality as a whole is not complex but simple. Since the part of reality we see seems complex, it must have external context. The likely reason then for the observable complexity is a huge selection effect: ( Our own existence ). Only in locally complex regions within the simple whole can beings such as ourselves evolve. This selection effect mechanism is what the physicist Brandon Carter has referred to as the Anthropic Principle.

Answer 5

I think the way you worded your question makes it look judge mental.. Atheist! ???

The reason I don't believe... because of all the contradictions in the bibles out there and religions. Who would know what to believe. Every church that I went to to try to see if it was for me interpreted the bible differently.

But I also choose not to believe because in the past two yrs my son who is only 2 does nothing but suffer on a daily basis with cerebral palsy, a seizure disorder and constant pain from constipation. What is God's motive for that? Some special purpose?.. The grown ups I have met with CP say they don't feel special at all.. in fact they all said there waiting for there "special purpose" to be shown to them. I get that we all cannot be the same ..and everyone suffers ..but not a 2 yr old... he has no sins .. and not when he's suffering on top of suffering on top of suffering! I'm sorry but NO god I would believe in would do that to my baby or anyone else.

Answer 6

Atheists the ones I know do not believe in the God of vengeance so often preached about out of contexts. Many spriritual leaders have turned people off by their hell and damnation theories. I say theories because as a Christian I do not believe in preachers that parade themselves in grand style proclaiming to be leaders of God, remember many will be deceived, if you talk to atheists most of them believe that there is a greater power that we call God but don't believe that a man (Jesus) of God was born unto us, some just don't believe they believe that life is just to take and get out of it as much as you can because we are not here for a long time so lets make the best of it,and don't care about others, while there are atheists that have more concern and empathy than many so called Christians I know Everyone has the right to choose Peace

Answer 7

Fair enough - you're right in that atheists often ask why people believe in things, and turnabout's fair play.

I don't believe in God because I look for logical - rather than mystical - explanations in the first instance, and while I appreciate the awesome nature of the universe, I do not see in that nature anything that requires the existence of a universal creator.

Technically I suppose it's flawed logic - nothing in nature "requires" the existence of the human race either, but yet, here we are. But I suppose that being so, the evidence of our existence is everywhere upon our world. The evidence of any creator god is rather less substantial, and so the argument that says there's no requirement for one allows me to run my life without reference to one.

Answer 8

because god doesn't exist its that simple. He is a creation of man's imagination and need for societal control. I still never can understand how people believe in him there is no logical reason too.people I know only believe because when they were kids they were all told he was real by the adults around them that believed. I guess its hard to go against what people you trusted have told you for years even though what they told you has no proof or evidence of any kind.

Answer 9

A loving, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God would cure my son, who hasn't harmed anyone and who believes in God regardless.

A loving, all-powerful, all-seeing, all-knowing God would have the ability to stop the cruelties and injustices of our world.

I see God credited with various healings, etc. Even Yahoo Answers participants have credited God with curing peoples' cancer and other ailments.

Presuming for the moment that he does answer prayers to cure such things, one must logically wonder why God refuses to grow back missing body parts. If God is willing to remove someone's tumor, why isn't he willing to help folks on organ donor lists? Surely someone out there deserves a new heart, liver, kidney, or lung? If God is willing to cure peoples' ailments, surely some good and faithful person out there deserves a new arm or leg or spinal cord.

I am therefore forced to conclude that either:

1) There's no God, or
2) If there is a God, he doesn't care enough to act.

I am taking you at your word here. I do not belittle those who believe; I am in fact married to a believer. You asked why I am an atheist, and this is my honest answer...without mockery. Those who thumbs-down it are showing their own prejudices.

Respectfullly,
An atheist

Answer 10

Darlin' maybe you wanna walk around the R&S section for a bit. There are many answers that my friends have given already.

My friends believe that God is imaginary. Something that believers have 'made up' to keep themselves in check.

Actually i was going to start yelling at you before i read the rest of your question.

I'm curious. You mean to tell me, you do not have an Atheist friend? That's odd. I have friends from other faiths, muslims, chinese, christians, buddhists, atheists. We make a colourful lot...

Answer 11

1. there is absolutely no tangible or verifiable evidence that any form of god exists.
2. there is plenty of evidence that the life and the universe came about naturally, therefore, this contradicts the holy texts of the revealed religions.
3. the texts and the doctrines, (especially the doctrines, whose basis in scripture often means taking words and phrases beating them insensible and forcing them to say what you want), are so full of logical contradictions, they fall to bits when you fully test them critically.
4. "god moves in mysterious ways". "you cannot know the mind of god". who says so? you would be surprised exactly what humans can comprehend. i cannot picture or imagine what a four dimensional cube would look like, my mind is totally incapable of operating outside three dimensions, but i can comprehend a four dimensional cube because mathematics outlines its nature. there are no such equations for the supernatural, mathematical or otherwise.
5.; logically if there were to be a god at all the only room for it, if you accept the scientific explanation for the universe, would as a distant, indifferent, deistic god. who wouldn't care whether you believed in it or not and praying to it would just be a waste of time and breath.