Atheists and Agnostics, can you explain why you don't believe in a "God"?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems evident to me that this human desire to ascribe agency to something like the origin of the universe is just the result of evolutionarily-induced limitations in our thinking. It is childish to believe in God. I don't understand how any rational person can find it even slightly convincing.

Because they've been indoctrinated into that kid of thinking by (often) well-meaning people who were also indoctrinated as children. Because religion helped them at a time they were very vulnerable. because they like the ready-made, warm, accepting community that usually comes along with organized religion. because they like the idea of heaven and are not comfortable with this life being all there is. because they see how marginalized non-believers are and don't want to be like that. etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so I consider myself an intelligent human and a very liberal one at that. I was raised Catholic, but never agreed with the archaic ways of the church. I have not gone to mass since I was out of high school except to baptize my children because my parents and in-laws would have suffered nervous breakdowns had I not done so. My children will not go to mass or do their first communions because my views differ so much from the Catholic church. BUT, I am a spiritual person, and I do believe in a higher being. The reason I have to believe is because my mind cannot understand the concept that something comes out of nothing. So for the universe and life to exist, there must have been something always there to kick the processes into motion. I hope I'm explaining myself so it's clear. This question is just out of curiosity, I have zero judgment for hardcore churchgoers or for Atheists. I'm just curious how Atheists rationalize existance of a planet, an asteroid or a life form without the existence of something prior. Thank you!

Let's say there is something more that created us. Aside from other questions raised here (e.g. who created it?). Why would we worship it? Why would it make all sorts of rules for us and threaten us with an eternity of suffering if we didn't believe in it?

These are obviously stories made up to control people, having nothing to do with a creator.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so I consider myself an intelligent human and a very liberal one at that. I was raised Catholic, but never agreed with the archaic ways of the church. I have not gone to mass since I was out of high school except to baptize my children because my parents and in-laws would have suffered nervous breakdowns had I not done so. My children will not go to mass or do their first communions because my views differ so much from the Catholic church. BUT, I am a spiritual person, and I do believe in a higher being. The reason I have to believe is because my mind cannot understand the concept that something comes out of nothing. So for the universe and life to exist, there must have been something always there to kick the processes into motion. I hope I'm explaining myself so it's clear. This question is just out of curiosity, I have zero judgment for hardcore churchgoers or for Atheists. I'm just curious how Atheists rationalize existance of a planet, an asteroid or a life form without the existence of something prior. Thank you!

I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but I always find it funny when, if given the choice of believing in one of the following: a) universe exists without understanding how it came into being; vs b) universe PLUS OMINIPOTENT, OMNICIENT, ETERNAL SENTIENT CREATURE exists without understanding how it came into being--that somehow people choose the latter.

You say you're a "spiritual person" because your mind can't understand the concept of something coming from nothing. There are a lot of natural phenomena that are difficult to grasp. A lot of people sort of punt, throw up their hands and say, "God!" But that doesn't really get you anywhere since it doesn't get you a closer understanding of either the universe of "God".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so I consider myself an intelligent human and a very liberal one at that. I was raised Catholic, but never agreed with the archaic ways of the church. I have not gone to mass since I was out of high school except to baptize my children because my parents and in-laws would have suffered nervous breakdowns had I not done so. My children will not go to mass or do their first communions because my views differ so much from the Catholic church. BUT, I am a spiritual person, and I do believe in a higher being. The reason I have to believe is because my mind cannot understand the concept that something comes out of nothing. So for the universe and life to exist, there must have been something always there to kick the processes into motion. I hope I'm explaining myself so it's clear. This question is just out of curiosity, I have zero judgment for hardcore churchgoers or for Atheists. I'm just curious how Atheists rationalize existance of a planet, an asteroid or a life form without the existence of something prior. Thank you!

Where did God come from? When did God begin?

If you believe that God always existed, why do you find it believable for a God to always exist and come from nowhere, but you can't believe that about the universe?

Your belief contradicts your criticism for others non-belief.

The difference between your belief and mine, however, is that we can study the universe and gain evidence for how it works. You can not do that for God.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

That's nice. But again, it doesn't explain anything. I could just as easily say "The universe always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes it the universe."

The difference between that and your God hypothesis is that we have evidence the Universe exists. There's zero evidence that any gods, much less "the Christian god" (which one?) exists. Certainly no historical evidence, unless "evidence" has no meaning at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

It those limitations that invented gods before people learned about science and started to look to it for answers. Christianity and other religions may be appealing for various reasons, but that's very different from being accurate and based in fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok, so I consider myself an intelligent human and a very liberal one at that. I was raised Catholic, but never agreed with the archaic ways of the church. I have not gone to mass since I was out of high school except to baptize my children because my parents and in-laws would have suffered nervous breakdowns had I not done so. My children will not go to mass or do their first communions because my views differ so much from the Catholic church. BUT, I am a spiritual person, and I do believe in a higher being. The reason I have to believe is because my mind cannot understand the concept that something comes out of nothing. So for the universe and life to exist, there must have been something always there to kick the processes into motion. I hope I'm explaining myself so it's clear. This question is just out of curiosity, I have zero judgment for hardcore churchgoers or for Atheists. I'm just curious how Atheists rationalize existance of a planet, an asteroid or a life form without the existence of something prior. Thank you!

There are theories and hypothesis around the origin of our universe, we don't know which one is true, which one is close to the truth, or if none are true at all. Atheists are okay with not knowing. Just because we don't know with a reasonable degree of certainty the answer to something, doesn't mean we have to then assume that there is a supernatural explanation.

As for something out of nothing, the current scientific understanding is that the universe did indeed come from nothing. In quantum physics, something comes from nothing all the time. On a macro scale, the net energy of the universe has been calculated to be 0. Think about this result - the natural human assumption is that the universe with all the matter it contains, has a net positive energy. Yet observations, experiments, and calculations have shown this to be false. The net energy of the universe is 0. This makes it entirely possible, that the universe came from nothing, and we are so far only observing the observable part. None of this is proof positive that the universe came from nothing, but it is still far far more than evidence in support of a supernatural creator.

Hi, this is OP. Thank you, you made me wish I had had more interest in physics. I sound like a need to read a few books on the subject.

You should read "Faith Versus Fact" by Jerry Coyne. It's an immensely entertaining read, and goes into depth on a lot of this stuff. Great beach read!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:because I don't believe there is one.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

Why can't the universe "always was and always will be"? Hiding behind our feeble human brains and saying that you simply have to have faith is not a good enough reason to believe in god.

OP, I don't believe simply because there is zero evidence to support his existence. And there's actually quite a lot of evidence to support the theory that man created god for a various good and bad reasons.

Because we know that it was not. Big Bang Theory or however it got here, science knows that the universe was "formed."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

How do you square that with the knowledge that there are billions and billions of stars and planets and surely other life on planets? When I became aware of that, it really made me think that our ideas of religion are very "me-centric" or "earth-centric" -- which just seems too convenient given the vastness of space and time. What are the chances that God just happened to come to THIS planet a few short years ago (short in the history of time)? And came here to save US! -- how lucky are we? Or maybe it's all just something we made up to make ourselves feel better along the way.... which seems more likely.

Religion seems so comforting and personal -- it naturally is going to arise in a population. But, given the science, I just can't go with the "we're special" ideas anymore.

And how do you know that God/ Jesus did not visit other planets, assuming that there is life there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

Why can't the universe "always was and always will be"? Hiding behind our feeble human brains and saying that you simply have to have faith is not a good enough reason to believe in god.

OP, I don't believe simply because there is zero evidence to support his existence. And there's actually quite a lot of evidence to support the theory that man created god for a various good and bad reasons.

Because we know that it was not. Big Bang Theory or however it got here, science knows that the universe was "formed."

We know no such thing. (Or rather, if you know the universe was "formed" you should publish your evidence and collect your Nobel Prize)

You're conflating two things. There's the event "the Big Bang". That's different from saying that there was a primary event in which the universe came into being.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

How do you square that with the knowledge that there are billions and billions of stars and planets and surely other life on planets? When I became aware of that, it really made me think that our ideas of religion are very "me-centric" or "earth-centric" -- which just seems too convenient given the vastness of space and time. What are the chances that God just happened to come to THIS planet a few short years ago (short in the history of time)? And came here to save US! -- how lucky are we? Or maybe it's all just something we made up to make ourselves feel better along the way.... which seems more likely.

Religion seems so comforting and personal -- it naturally is going to arise in a population. But, given the science, I just can't go with the "we're special" ideas anymore.

And how do you know that God/ Jesus did not visit other planets, assuming that there is life there?

The evidence is pretty compelling that God / Jesus did visit other planets. Or at least as compelling as the evidence he / they visited the Earth.

Well, okay, no evidence.

[Anonymous]

Actually, there's an immortal pink sperm whale named Fred. He created the universe. How do I know this? Someone had to have created the universe. Therefore Fred. Ah, but who created Fred? That's the thing: Fred was not created. That's what makes him Fred.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

How do you square that with the knowledge that there are billions and billions of stars and planets and surely other life on planets? When I became aware of that, it really made me think that our ideas of religion are very "me-centric" or "earth-centric" -- which just seems too convenient given the vastness of space and time. What are the chances that God just happened to come to THIS planet a few short years ago (short in the history of time)? And came here to save US! -- how lucky are we? Or maybe it's all just something we made up to make ourselves feel better along the way.... which seems more likely.

Religion seems so comforting and personal -- it naturally is going to arise in a population. But, given the science, I just can't go with the "we're special" ideas anymore.

And how do you know that God/ Jesus did not visit other planets, assuming that there is life there?

The evidence is pretty compelling that God / Jesus did visit other planets. Or at least as compelling as the evidence he / they visited the Earth.

Well, okay, no evidence.

There is much evidence that God did come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

I'm going to stop there, because I have a strong sense that this is the same tired, bitter atheist who makes his/ her way to this topic every time it appears on DCUM. We've heard from you before, we know your views and that you are not interested in changing them. Until you open your mind, you really should find a new hobby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That doesn't really make sense though. If you need God to exist to create the inverse out of nothing, what created God?

I grew up catholic too, even married someone else who grew up catholic, baptized our kids, but we are actually agnostic. Religion seems like a belief system created out of fear and certainty, because people didn't really understand science or the laws of physics or astronomy at the time. And people will always look for something to add meaning and deep dad to their lives. But it just seems like a lot of very wishful thinking when the simplest, most logical answer is that the universe (not some mysterious superpower) created itself, and that dead people are just dead and don't go to a special sky farm with angels and clouds.

God (at least the God of Christianity) always was and always will be. That cannot be understood but has to be accepted. That's what makes Him God.

Part of your problem, OP, is that you are trying to understand this with the limitations of the human mind in place. That is why I find Christianity so appealing. It is literally God coming to earth, with historical evidence that it happened. He came to us, in a form that we can understand.

How do you square that with the knowledge that there are billions and billions of stars and planets and surely other life on planets? When I became aware of that, it really made me think that our ideas of religion are very "me-centric" or "earth-centric" -- which just seems too convenient given the vastness of space and time. What are the chances that God just happened to come to THIS planet a few short years ago (short in the history of time)? And came here to save US! -- how lucky are we? Or maybe it's all just something we made up to make ourselves feel better along the way.... which seems more likely.

Religion seems so comforting and personal -- it naturally is going to arise in a population. But, given the science, I just can't go with the "we're special" ideas anymore.

And how do you know that God/ Jesus did not visit other planets, assuming that there is life there?

The evidence is pretty compelling that God / Jesus did visit other planets. Or at least as compelling as the evidence he / they visited the Earth.

Well, okay, no evidence.

There is much evidence that God did come to earth in the person of Jesus Christ.

I'm going to stop there, because I have a strong sense that this is the same tired, bitter atheist who makes his/ her way to this topic every time it appears on DCUM. We've heard from you before, we know your views and that you are not interested in changing them. Until you open your mind, you really should find a new hobby.

Hey buddy, this thread is for us. Why don't you find a new hobby that doesn't include opening and responding to questions directed at atheists if you don't want to hear it.