What Makes People NOT believe In God? (Atheists Come!)

because there are lot of religions out there teaching about God, claiming that they are the right one but in their actions and words you can't help but question their beliefs. Then
when you start asking, your mother or priest or pastor would either tell you that you are
not blessed and you are becoming unfaithful (to what?) and you should pray hard for the grace of God. After praying you still have this unanswered question. Then comes another religion that provides an answer for your question and you would think that this is a much better religion then you accept their faith become one of them. Until you come across another question that can't be answered. By this time you are becoming uneasy of yourself because you keep on questioning God (actually, not God but the religion where you are in). Eventually you just stick to your religion, justifying instead of reasoning or you look for another faith that would suit you (and the cycle goes on) or you end up trashing the whole thing about God.

CountDigit -- organized religion has nothing whatever to do with the existence or non-existence of a god. Organized religion is created by man. Man has no control whatever over the being or non-being of a divine power.

Alot of people dont believe in god because they dont find it practical and think it is a waste of time;

Right on....religion is the interpretation of God from man's point of view, and not God's interpretation of God....

I am an agnostic. In fact, the stories that most religions tell from 2000 or more years ago seem to be an accurate description of alien visitation. Maybe we are not alone.

Help me out, you guys who say you're atheist.

If a woman tells you she loves you (or a man, or whatever according to your orientation), how do you know they're telling the truth? Do they have to produce evidence? What is convincing evidence? If you don't demand evidence, does that mean you're accepting it on faith?

Strange comparison snood...
I'm certain that there are evidences of someone loving one another.

Snood, if you look that person in the eye, and youve known them for a long time, you can tell. Im hoping your not suspicious of your loved ones when they tell it to you, or you doubt yourself when you tell it to them.

The notion of god is completely different. I cant see god face to face, or hear him, or smell or taste or touch him, i dont know if he even exists. And i cant know. And i wont know. And because of this knowledge which eludes me, i decide that i can live with out acknowledging or unacknowledging a god.

1. I can determine from personal experience that the phenomenon does in deed occor.

2. It follows from my personal experience, as well as the conveyed testimony of others, that the person who does love somebody would quite likely be aware of this.

3. Assuming that people do fall in love, and are aware of falling in love, I would be prepared to take the persons word for it. This is, in light of previously gathered evidence, not an extraordinary claim, and as such does not require extraordinary evidence.



If I were to tell you about my dog and how he keeps barking at strangers you would probably be ready to take my word for it. (under any other circumstances) This is not an extraordinary claim as you would already have know that people do often own dogs, and many of these tend to bark at strangers. If I then went on to tell you about my baby alligator you might be a bit more sceptical, but some pictures of me with the alligator should be enough to convince you. Perhaps I would have to meet you face to face so you could veryfy that it was in deed me in those photo's. Photo's would however not be enough I belive to convince you that I really do have a summer vacation spot on the far side of the moon. Extrordinary claims require extrordinary evidence.

(I may not have an aligator, but the dog is real)





































































































































(the moonhut is too :wink: )

I'm just trying to find a more mundane version of faith, to use as analogy.

On the other hand, I find the super intricacies of nature and anatomy to be proof of design, but atheists have no trouble labeling that as a scientific happenstance of matter colliding.

Just as you have no trouble labeling it as proof of design, but the funny thing about calling it proof of design is that . . . wait for it . . . there is no proof at all, other than your bible which my friends cannot be taken as historical truth so much. Please explain to me how intricacy is a proof of design, were the smartest beings on earth, and alot of us draw stick figures

I think Athiesm is a form of belief. I think many believers are believers because they are poor evidence gatherers.

There should be two columns if you are trying to look for evidence. The God Exists Column and the God does not exist Column. (I am lumping and generalixing - God can be seen here as any form of other.)

Then when you gain evidence you can put it in one column or not. Most people, Athiests included, just have one column - or are so biased toward one column that they could be saved every day from accidents and have cancer cured from them every day - and still say 'coincidence!'.

There simply is no other column. I think the majority of Athiests are this way - they are pissed off at religion and seek to find ways to show those bastards that thier precious God does not exist.

I think conversley that people born and raised within a religion want REALLY bad for God to exist... so they see Mary in potato chips and stuff.

Careful believers are few and far between - and I think we have a good dose of careful Agnostics, Athiests, and Believers on this board.

TTF

People of faith always try to turn the tables on atheists by calling atheistic thought a form of belief. For myself it is simply an application of all I see and learn failing to produce a god. Why anger would have anything to do with it should be an individual, not a group thing. Any anger I have felt toward the faith based sytems of belief had nothing to do with the ultimate conclusion. In fact, some of the best friends I have are members of faith based groups. If anytthing, that would in theory make me more amenable to religion, which it doesn't.

Nonsense.

Care to elaborate on what you meant by that?

Many tales of the Bible are culled from true history. It is the injection of divine intervention into them that is mistaken.

In the "God exists" column I put the subjective opinion of billions of Believers, anecdotes of miracles, and a rich history of religious traditions.

In the "God does not exist" column go the complete absence of any scientific evidence for a god, the lack of need for a god to explain the universe, the poor and/or malicious design of many biological features, the haphazardness of DNA coding, the failure of the alleged designer to apply lessons learned from one species to other species, millions of babies born with significant birth defects, the failure of God to intervene to alleviate suffering, a record of answering prayers no better than chance, no explanation for God's failure to communicate a consistent message to ALL people in the world, and the illogic of a God refusing to pardon people for sins he designed them to commit unless they killed and then worshiped his son.

You DO of course realize that all arguments, notwithstanding logic or
quantity, are moot when it comes down to simply someone having faith, n'est pas?

Faith means being certain with no evidence. Naturally any arguments against faith-held thought falls on deaf ears. Which is precisely why religion does not belong in a science class, but in some comparative religion place.

Edgar, is anyone on this board arguing that religion should be taught in science class? I'm aware that some folks are trying to make that connection in the general fracas surrounding this. Lemme ask you this - What if it was treated, in class, just like any other facet of our culture? As in, "In the United States of America, blank-odd million persons believe in supernatural creation, and of a life hereafter. These beliefs find their roots mainly in the Judeo-Christian and Muslim heritages. In the Christian theology, the universe was created by an omnipotent God ... "" Blah, blah, blah - y'know? Like, in between blocks of information about other aspects of our society, like there are blank-million heterosexuals, and blank-million homosexuals. Or, slapped in the middle of a discussion about ethics and mores of modern and ancient culture, or...?

Do I understand you correctly that you don't mind it being mentioned - 'there are Creationists, and this is their story' - you just don't want it called science?

Because (and this is where the argument threatens to become circular),
no matter how anyone says it - in America as long as there are public schools, there are going to class hours devoted to that thing - Creationism. Seems to me self-defeating to deny that the only productive kinds of discussions about it are discussions concerning the terms under which teaching Creationism in the same schools as evolution is acceptable to the most people.

For someone as grounded in pragmatism, I'd think you could see the senselessness in pretending you're going to participate in some groundswell movement that's going to eradicate Creationism from the classroom.

No reason for a circular argument. Teach the kids their creationism in one class and teach them science in a compltely different class. What's hard about that? The reason I am in a dither here is because those pushing creationism in the schools seek to interfere with science. Keep the two seperate and there is no reason to fight.