Question for Atheists?

Question

Why do you have such a strong belief that there isn't a God or Gods?

What makes you so certain that there isn't anything out there.

Also, is this something that has always been the case for you, or did you decide this over the course of time.

I'm not saying you are wrong, not for one moment; my question is borne out of interest in why are so certain there isn't anything else.

Skalite, true, you have confused me. My question was to Atheist's who by definition don't believe in a God, and therefore I wanted to know how they were certain.
I don't really understand where you were going with your answer?

Jibba Jabba, I'm agnostic, so try to answer the question rather than come out with snide remarks eh?

Answer 1

I was raised in a Christian family and practiced as a Christian until I went to college and (1) saw some clear similarities between Christianity & Buddhism and (2) took a number of classes studying Biblical translations. (I am old -- these were new and exciting things for post-war hippies)

I began to doubt the GOD issued truth of the Bible, which was the basis for my Christian belief system.

I turned to science for answers about TRUTH, found truth, and decended into agnosticism.

After a decade or so as an agnostic, I began to realize that agnosticism was a bit of a cheat and atheism actually made more sense -- IF -- you buy scientific reasoning as the superior judge of truth...

Now let me emphasize that I think science has proven itself to be the best answer system we have developed -- if you don't understand or accept science as an excellent measure of truth, my argument will be meaningless.

There is no law, no evidence, no operating system to base supernatural operation into a theory that has any meaning in the scientific worldview. Further, reading between the lines, esp. post 1980, in the world of advanced science one (anyone) will find a profound lack of anything remotely acknowledging the relevance of religious viewpoints to modern science. Between the "debates" at sites like this one and the real world of active scientific exploration, there is a huge, cold, dark space of silence that is quite breathtaking when you experience it for yourself.

Given time...I realized that the supernatural was as irrelevant to my world as it was to the world of science. So I dropped it.

As I experienced loss and gain, joy and sorrow, hope and dispair, I discovered that everything was simply easier to bare without all of the religious explanation and doubt and fear. Go figure.

My acceptance of atheism as *right* continues to solidify, but I am absolutely sure that science has proven religion -- all religion -- to be crap.

Answer 2

>Why do you have such a strong belief that there isn't a God or Gods?

Because the Universe around us, and the principles of logic and philosophy, strongly suggest that God does not exist. Between the Problem of Evil, Occam's Razor, the Copernican Principle, the distribution and nature of world religions, the absence of miracles and the emptiness of the Universe, the case against the existence of God is pretty darn good.

>What makes you so certain that there isn't anything out there.

Two points to consider:
- To a true freethinker, there is no such thing as 100% certainty about the real world. Certainty is only possible within a known and defined set of boundaries. Which means, of cousre, there is a chance that God exists, just as there is a chance that leprechauns and elves and dragons and ghosts and the Flying Spaghetti Monster exist.
- Just because God doesn't exist doesn't mean that there 'isn't anything out there'. There's actually a lot out there: The Universe is billions of light years across, and contains trillions of galaxies each of which contains billions of stars, billions of planets and a number of black holes, neutron stars and clouds of interstellar gas. I would hardly call that 'nothing'.

That said, I have already named some of the arguments against the existence of God above.

>Also, is this something that has always been the case for you, or did you decide this over the course of time.

My beliefs were not always as refined as they are now. Over the course of my life I have come to understand more about logic, philosophy and the reasons why freethought and atheism make sense and religion doesn't. However, I have never been a theist; I made the transition from an implicit atheist (an atheist through not understanding the idea of God) to an explicit atheist (an atheist through understand that God does not exist) without any period of being religious inbetween.

Answer 3

My lack of belief in a god/God/gods most likely stems from not being raised in an environment that promotes the belief in such a deity. I DO believe that one's personal opinion on the existence of the supernatural is based on what they are taught from a young age. Obviously people may go astray from those beliefs over time, but the majority don't. For the longest time I was agnostic (probably since I first started being able to comprehend the concept of a deity), and just within the past few years I finally became an atheist. My interest in religion remains the same; however, I completely lack faith.

Answer 4

I do not have any faith whatsoever in the supernatural. It's not so much a belief as an observation. Of course, I can not disprove that there might be some entity out there that others would point to as god, but even so, to my mind, that does not mean that this entity is supernatural or necessarily deserving of my servitude. This has always been the case for me from birth. Humans are not born to be slaves, it's society and those in power who propagate that mentality.

Answer 5

Because I have never had any reason to believe that there ever WAS anything else. My parents brought me up to believe in whatever I wanted. They both told me that they would support whatever religion I chose to follow if it made me happy. So religion was never a concern when I was younger. As I grew up, I learned of the many religious conflicts that have occurred throughout the years, and I found myself being more and more turned off by the idea of being "ruled" by a deity. I studied a little more on the topic and discovered that religion is all about "blind faith", believing in something despite there being absolutely NO evidence. But just because you believe in something really, really hard doesn't mean it's there.

Answer 6

A simple study of human nature convinced me that there is no God.

Humans can't face their mortality, so they invented the concept to sooth their mortal fears.

Think about it. We're such weaklings that we can't accept that we seize to exist, so we invent God(s), afterlife and the whole package to delude ourselves that we'll be here forever. What is eternity anyway? Can anyone define it? But I mean *really* define it? Of course not.

In my case, as I have told you already, it was human nature that led me to this conclusion. If only humans were strong enough to realise that there's nothing frightening about dying, they would have more stimulans to make something of their lives and perhaps even leave some kind of legacy to the generations to come.

No, this wasn't something I always knew. I was a believer once, a Muslim to be precise, but this truth (my truth, of course) hit me sometimes last year when I left Islam.
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Answer 7

The exact same reason I have a strong belief there aren't purple Moon monkeys. I can't prove it, but I see no reason to think that it is the case.

I decided it over the course of a couple of weeks after I knew that something they told me in Sunday school was wrong, and they were right that the Bible said it. I mean if the Bible got that wrong, what else?

Answer 8

I don't believe any supernatural or paranormal things are real. I never have, because I know they are all man made.

People are taught to believe in gods and other myths and legends as they grow up. If people are fool enough to continue to believe nothing more than ancient superstitions as adults, that is their loss entirely.

Oh, science really has very little to do with it, even though theists are constantly demanding explanations from atheists about very complicated things, under the false impression that we know everything. Very flattering but completely untrue. It is common sense that keeps me sane and atheist, not science in particular.

Answer 9

There is no proof, but there is proof against it. Science is a powerful thing, so is learning. I believe in the scientific theory of how the earth was created. To me, the thought that some guy we can not see, hear or touch that is in a place with no location, created us is completely ridiculous. To the point of laughter. Just because there is a book that tells you that "god" created man from dust and woman from the rib of man doesn't make it true. Its irrational and illogical.

Answer 10

There is insufficient empirical evidence to support the hypothesis of a god or gods. I arrived at this conclusion after much research and study. If you possess such evidence I would like to hear it.