What makes atheists choose atheism?

[wrh987]

I invite atheists here to give a succinct list or description of what makes you not believe in God.

[wattsr1]

I invite atheists here to give a succinct list or description of what makes you not believe in God.

Hello wrh987,


I suspect I do not believe in the existence of your god for some of the same reasons you do not believe in the existence of someone else's god.

So which God/god/gods are you refering to? Yours or someone elses? Or do you mean the supernatural in general?


Regards, Roland

[rdalin]

I invite atheists here to give a succinct list or description of what makes you not believe in God.

I see no reason to. I know of no valid evidence for the existence of any gods.

[Ray Fletcher]

Lack of evidence.

[wrh987]

Hello wrh987,


I suspect I do not believe in the existence of your god for some of the same reasons you do not believe in the existence of someone else's god.

So which God/god/gods are you refering to? Yours or someone elses? Or do you mean the supernatural in general?


Regards, Roland

I guess we'll start with the Christian God, who Christians like me believe to be the transcendent, personal Creator of the universe.

[Nicholas]

I invite atheists here to give a succinct list or description of what makes you not believe in God.

I don't believe in any deities because I lack the knowledge to prove or disprove their existence. If I were to accept belief in one particular god or group of gods that would mean that I was somehow able to disprove that all others do not exist, which I cannot do. Why should I accept belief in the God of the Bible when it is just as possible that the gods of Asgard or Olympus are real and the others are not? To put it simply, I don't actively disbelieve in any gods, I simply lack belief in them altogether. Although I will admit that I do find some deities more unikely than others, but that is another throught for antoher thread.

[voidhawk]

Why do I lack a belief in deities?

Because none of the evidence presented or arguments advanced have reached my standards of persuasivness Therefore I am not persuaded to change my current lack of belief in dieities to a belief in deities.

[wrh987]

Lack of evidence.

What do you believe makes the following arguments untrue? [1]

The Argument from Change
The Argument from Efficient Causality
The Argument from Time and Contingency
The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
The Design Argument
The Kalam Argument
The Argument from Contingency
The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
The Argument from Miracles
The Argument from Consciousness
The Argument from Truth
The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
The Ontological Argument
The Moral Argument
The Argument from Conscience
The Argument from Desire
The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
The Argument from Religious Experience
The Common Consent Argument
Pascal's Wager

[Nicholas]

What's The Kalam Argument?

But more to the point, I doubt any of those arguments work against anyone other than those who actually already believe in their conclusions, the Pascal's Wager argument being a prime example of this.

[Ray Fletcher]

What do you believe makes the following arguments untrue? [1]

The Argument from Change
The Argument from Efficient Causality
The Argument from Time and Contingency
The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
The Design Argument
The Kalam Argument
The Argument from Contingency
The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
The Argument from Miracles
The Argument from Consciousness
The Argument from Truth
The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
The Ontological Argument
The Moral Argument
The Argument from Conscience
The Argument from Desire
The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
The Argument from Religious Experience
The Common Consent Argument
Pascal's Wager

Oh crap! Let me quit my job so that I can address all of these! I'll give a few examples:

Seriously though, everyone of these arguments can be turned around and asked of the gods:

Argument from morality: Where and how do the gods recieve their morality ? What is their objective standard of morality?

Argument from first cause : Where did the gods come from? If they don't need a creator, and can be self-existant, why can't the universe?

Pascals Wager: Isn't is more safe to believe in Allah? If you are right about the existence of Allah, and serve him, then you will inherit eternal life...now if Allah doesn't exist, it doesn't matter anyway.

[wrh987]

I see no reason to. I know of no valid evidence for the existence of any gods.

Do you believe there is any valid evidence against the existence of a transcendent, personal Creator of the universe?

[wattsr1]

I guess we'll start with the Christian God, who Christians like me believe to be the transcendent, personal Creator of the universe.

Gidday WRH987,


Broadly speaking there are three reasons:-

1) No convincing objective evidence. Thus, the claims made for the Christian God that can be tested, have results that are equivocal at best.

2) No convincing subjective experience. Thus I have had no inner voice that has told me that God exists.

3) I was, as a child and youth, a Christian. As a young man I met a group of Biblical literalists who (accidentally) convinced me that the notions I had of the Christian god (based also on Biblical literalism) were perhaps not correct. So I rejected all notions of the Christian god as being infeasible. I became an atheist.

Why do you reject other notions of the supernatural, including other ideas of the Christian god who is “the transcendent, personal Creator of the universe”, but which you happen to disagree with?


Regards, Roland

[steamer]

God wants me to be an atheist. He is actively hiding. He seems to be infinitely good at it.

[Ray Fletcher]

Do you believe there is any valid evidence against the existence of a transcendent, personal Creator of the universe?

No. There's no valid evidence against the existence of many gods. This is attempting to dis-prove a negative.

[voidhawk]

What do you believe makes the following arguments untrue? [1]

The Argument from Change
The Argument from Efficient Causality
The Argument from Time and Contingency
The Argument from Degrees of Perfection
The Design Argument
The Kalam Argument
The Argument from Contingency
The Argument from the World as an Interacting Whole
The Argument from Miracles
The Argument from Consciousness
The Argument from Truth
The Argument from the Origin of the Idea of God
The Ontological Argument
The Moral Argument
The Argument from Conscience
The Argument from Desire
The Argument from Aesthetic Experience
The Argument from Religious Experience
The Common Consent Argument
Pascal's Wager

The truth of these arguments can not be demonstrated. To me they are not persuasive. Partly because the premises that under pin many of them cannot be demonstrate only asserted.