If you are a non-believer, what has convinced you to remain that way?

Question

Is it the people you have met;
the requirement of believing with faith;
the scandals associated with faith;
what is it that keeps you a non-believer?

This is a question out of pure curiosity about the motives and thoughts of others, thanks in advance.

If you are a believer and you would like to answer,
what has happened in your life to confirm your faith?

For me, the strength and joy that has kept my head up while trying to finish school while raising 3 children in a tough personal situation has most certainly confirmed the presence of the Lord in my life. I have had many weak moments where I wanted to never leave my bed, yet I have continued to get up every day and have somehow found a smile on my face. Only the joy and strength of the Lord could have made that happen here recently. I look forward to all of the comments.

Answer 1

Is it the people you have met;
the requirement of believing with faith;
the scandals associated with faith;

Yes, it is. Also the fact that of the church as an organized religion that if you don't attend you'll go to hell or my experience of people who abuse religion for their bad course of action.

Answer 2

I am a non-believer, but open to ideas. For me, I think your question is a little backward though. I was raised a Christian and held that for years. Even when I didn't practice, that was my default. People asked and I would say, "I guess I am a Christian, because that's how I was raised." I eventually got tired of having a whole belief system tied to a title I thought I had because that was what I grew up with, that I did some research on the subject.

I found overwhelming historical texts that went against Christianity. In support of it, was really only the bible. There are only like four historians that can attest to the existance of Jesus and even those aren't really about Jesus. They vaguely mention Christ, which literally just meant "anointed one". These men being Pliny the younger, Suetonius, Tacitus and Josephus who has proven to be a forgery for hundreds of years. There was nothing else. Countless other historians never mentioned him. I found texts about other religions thousands of year before Christianity that were very similar. I researched astrology and found several phonomena that closely resembles stories in the bible.

Because of this lack of evidence on one side and the overwhelming text on the other I have become what people like to call agnostic. I am not a big fan of titles, but that one fits the best. I like to believe that there is a God, because I can't explain anything past a "big-bang theory", but organized religion has too many holes and such little room for interpretation. I will probably hold my agnostic views with me for the rest of my life, because I can't see anything happening that will convince me one way or the other.

There are so many religions that how can anyone say, "mine is right and yours is wrong". On that same token, they can't all be exactly right. There are guiding principles that are common among many, but there are just too many differences. I think if people put less effort in letting a group or a title dictate their opinions and kept an open mind, we would all be better off. Nobody has all the answers, nobody! And there is no way of ever knowing who is right and who is wrong. I am accepting of all people and all faiths, I just can't believe the amount of people that want to close their mind and stop searching for answers. We are curious and inquisitive by nature, so how can the search for truth be wrong? If we aren't searching for answers then what are we doing? I refuse to believe we are here to walk around like mindless drones just doing and believing what others tell us. This world is way to big for us to believe that we know everything because of one book. I hope I am wrong to make things much easier, but I refuse to go against my nature!

Answer 3

I am at my core too scientifically minded to believe without tangible evidence. No, the bible does not count, at least not any more than, for example, Aztec pictograms count as proof that Quetzalcouatl will be back.

If I were to turn to religion - any religion - I would do it injustice, because I would not truly have faith. There's enough worshippers of the almighty dollar/euro/yen/whatever paying lip service to something else out there already, I'll not stoop so low - that would be direspecting the religion (in the specific case of Christianity, it actually seems like it would be "using the name of the lord in vain", giving prayer without faith).

I've had very intelligent and productive discussions with adherents of various faiths before, specifically ones on the rather sensitive topic of being a non-believer - including ones with priests. Some of that profession do very much enjoy an open-minded exchange on the matter of belief and respecting other's beliefs, particularly if they really point them in the same direction in life for different reasons.

This proved to me beyond a doubt that belief in something doesn't matter as much as believing that different paths can lead into the light and that acceptance of this fact might just be an important step regardless of the actual path.

Answer 4

All those religious texts were written by men with an axe to grind. They are no more the word of any god than a Sidney Sheldon novel. If you actually look at what they are trying to get you to do you can see that religion really is all about social control. The poorest and least educated people i n the world are the most religious. Then comes the US! I wonder what THAT says.
I am a Dawkinsophile, not a fundamentalist atheist, but nonetheless I will not be changing my mind until there is some proof, and I can't see that happening somehow

Answer 5

The main thing that has kept me a believer is a complete lack of proof. I simply can't say that I believe that god exists, and if I were to go to church and say I did, I'd be lying, and I've seen absolutely no evidence whatsoever to make me think otherwise. I've seen a lot of fake 'evidence' for god, which makes me wonder why people need to fake evidence (especially creationists), but there is absolutely no hard evidence.

Some of the religious people I meet are scary. They're so narrow minded and set in their beliefs that they'll deny proven scientific fact because it doesn't agree with thier beliefs. Some automatically look down on others. They sit on thier pedastal and tell us atheists that we're all going to hell. I don't want to be like either of those.

The scandals aren't a huge part, but the violence in religion's name is. Not just Islam, but all religion. From a non-believer's point of view, hating, going to war against, or killing anyone who has a different or no faith, is completely ridiculous. It's no different from killing red-heads or tall people, or Jews.

But really, in the end, it's the lack of proof. The bible has all these stories, some of them are completely untrue or unproven (Moses, Noah, Jesus performing miracles then rising from the dead, etc). If large bits of the bible aren't true, what's to say that the rest is? If the bible is the word of god, and the bible isn't true, it doesn't really say much for god.
If god created everything, and wanted worship, and god used to come to earth and demand worship (according to the bible), why is god doing such a bad job of advertising now?

It really seems, to me at least, that god doesn't advertise because there is no god TO advertise.

Answer 6

No one has persuaded me that there is something there to believe in.

Some of the other stuff just makes the people of faith look hypocritical and stupid, but there are enough hypocrites and stupid people to go around for all beliefs, or non belief. That is not a good reason.


If it is the "joy and strength of the Lord" that lets you do what you have done, then how come plenty of atheists have done the same or more?

I think that you are selling yourself short. It is your strength and the your joy of life and your family that empowers you. My kids are getting sick of me telling them:
"Whether you think you can do this, or think that you can not, you will find out that you are right"
Your thinking that god is there to help you is what enables you to find the strength inside yourself. God is a placebo for you. When you realize that then you will also realize that you do not need a placebo, just yourself.

Answer 7

"based on this argument from non-believers" What? I have never, in all my life, heard this argument presented by an atheist. The only context in which I have ever heard anyone say that people don't believe in God because they can't see him is when theists use it as a straw man argument. Which is absolutely absurd, unless you honestly believe that you're going to trick us into thinking that we only believe in what we can see. You really don't think much of us, do you? Incidentally, you don't have the testimony of five hundred witnesses. You have a handful of testimonies that claim there were five hundred witnesses. And they were written far too long after the event to have been by eyewitnesses anyway.

Answer 8

I am a non-believer because I simply cannot help it. I went to church occasionally as a child. My mum was into the Salvation Army. I even went to Sunday School. But even then I knew it was all a load of nonsense. I childishly tried really hard to believe, but I just couldn't do it.

Thankfully, my parents didn't push it (my dad was never into the church thing anyway). Now I find religious people rather embarassing. When someone tells me they are, for example, a Christian, I want to ask them why they feel ok telling me about their delusional beliefs. It's like someone telling you about their masturbatory fantasies. It's just too much information.

I'm so sorry that there are so many people who cannot accept life without a fairy tale to keep them going.

Answer 9

My personal research and questioning and finding no logical answers. The requirements of the religion were a close second.

Seeing the scandals, the money-grabbing and fighting between churches, denominations and beliefs secured my non-belief and keeps me there.

The faith that I found is accepting and only asks that you live honorably and give honor to the gods, the ancestors and your kith and kin.

Answer 10

>If you are a non-believer, what has convinced you to remain that way?

The world around me, and the principles of logic. I have looked at much evidence, and so far it strongly suggests to me that God does not exist, neither the christian God nor any other deity or supernatural being. I do not consider faith a valid means of getting to the truth on this matter, because faith is independent of evidence and as such it can lead to any arbitrary conclusion regardless of what we can actually see in the real world.