atheists : why do you believe that there isn't a god?

Question

i'm an atheist myself, but i'd like to here the many different reasons you people have.

Answer 1

There is no evidence for the existence of God
I consider being asked to believe something without evidence to be an insult to my intelligence
I can't be scared into belief by the threat of divine punishment
The people who do believe in God have no arguments that are convincing to me
Prayer doesn't work
The holy texts that are often associated with theism seem like compilations of subpar fiction/archaic manifestos
Theism often endorses too much dogma and superstition for my taste
I don't like the antiscientific attitude of many theists
I don't like how religious theism is used to con people out of their money

Answer 2

I believe that there is good logical evidence that suggests God probably does not exist, and a lot more of it than there is evidence that suggests the opposite. Here are a few points that help show God's existence to be unlikely:

The Problem of Evil: If God exists, and he is benevolent (which makes sense) and omnipotent, why do we humans encounter suffering? The mutual existence of evil and of a being who is all-powerful and all-good is impossible, and since we know evil exists, this eliminates a certain kind of God from being possible.

The boringness of the Universe: Our Universe is composed of 99.999+% empty space. Of the remainder, 70% is negative pressure energy pushing everything apart, 25% is dark matter that doesn't seem to coalesce into objects or emit radiation, and only about 4% is normal matter. Of the normal matter, about 80% is in the form of interstellar gas and dust clouds, and 99% of the remainder is in stars, neutron stars and black holes. The other 1% makes up the planets, of which about 0.0000000000001% is living matter (which is by far the single most interesting aspect of the Universe as far as we can tell). Thus the amount of life in comparison to the size of the Universe is vanishingly small. It doesn't make sense that God would create a universe as boring as that; our own computer simulations have shown that making more interesting universes is a very easy thing to do. This suggests that our universe was not directly designed by any intelligent being.

The current state of religions: No one religion on Earth has more than about a third of the people in the world as followers, and there are many, many different religions, each of which has followers which do not seem to have particularly worse luck in life than each other. In addition, almost all these religions make claims about the natural world which science as shown to be unlikely, if not flat false. If God really existed and interacted with our world, then presumably there would be one religion much more prevalent than the others and this religion's claims would fit with the world as it is observed scientifically. This is not the case.

The absence of miracles: Actual divine intervention has not been documented by any scientific study. In addition, the occurrence of 'miracles' has diminished over time as science's ability to explain things in logical terms has increased, and the few remaining 'miracles' in modern times are usually very minor (like Jesus's face appearing on a cheese sandwich as opposed to the Red Sea splitting in half) and usually happen when no scientific instruments are around to detect what's really going on. This all suggests that real miracles don't happen at all, which suggests that God does not exist.

Answer 3

Because gods have always been offered as the explanation for the mysterious, and to that end they were a very good idea. It wasn't a bad thing even that they were used to promote a particular kind of morality (though it's patronizing for a judicial system to require a higher authority in order to persuade its citizenry to behave itself).

Now, however, the mysterious is less mysterious, and the track record for things previously being attributed to God is very poor. Creation, rainbows, human intelligence, are all far, far better explained by rational and scientific reasons. In addition to there being no evidence for the existence of a god, any god, ever, even if there was, there would be nothing for him or her to do. If there are any other mysteries to solve in the universe, and it's true there are, there's no point in attributing them to god because "God" used to be the reason there were rainbows. But rainbows are caused by the defraction of white light from the sun through precipitation. There has been nothing in creation that has yet resisted scientific explanation. There is no spiritual reason to need a god for moral purposes. And the versions of god we may choose from are ludicrous anyway.

Answer 4

First of all it is because I have seen no evidence for God. Second of all it is because I can't see how there is a God with so many different religions all claiming to be the right one. I have seen many things done in some sort of religions name and I think that if God did exist mone of this would happen.

Answer 5

If there was absolutely no mention of a heaven or a hell, no reward or punishment for living a good or bad life how many people would still follow religion.Religion tends to teach people that without god and and his laws for us we would just be a bunch of mindless savages running around killing each other.I don't believe in the whole all powerful invisible guy in the sky but i still manage to live a much better ,more peaceful life than most of these religious people who seem to need someone to threathen them with death in order to behave themselves.

Answer 6

How could anyone believe that a Creation deity was male? Or, even if a person says that God isn't necessarily male, the whole single/mono-deity part seems pretty unrealistic. And, as far as I'm aware, loving doesn't mean torture and kill plus, according to human laws, free will can not exist if 'the creator' is all-knowing.

Answer 7

After believing in God for half of my life I started to read and question things I had not questioned before.

It was like picking a string on a sweater....it slowly unraveled...and by the time it was finished I was an Atheist.

Answer 8

History teaches us that man created God not the other way around and the concept of a God or gods is simply impossible. Oh, and the total lack of any evidence.

Answer 9

Complete lack of evidence to believe in a God.

Answer 10

Logic, common sense, and the absolute lack of evidence for the existence of any god.