(May 9, 2016 at 9:05 am)Emjay Wrote: What are your most convincing reasons for not believing in god? I don't mean convincing to other people (necessarily) but convincing to yourself... what reasons stop you going back (if you are an ex-theist) even if you wanted to?

I'm an ex-Christian so I have baggage and I admit that very occasionally I am tempted back but one of the reasons that prevents me is simply the fact of contradictions in the Bible: if there are contradictions it can't be infallible, and if it's not infallible but only 'inspired' then how can you trust any of it (or know what to trust)? Ultimately it is that reason that stops me in my tracks if I'm ever tempted to read the Bible again... I literally cannot get past the first few pages of Genesis without thinking 'this is silly' even if I actually want to go back to Christianity.

I'd love to hear what other core reasons people have for not believing... reasons that act like mental blocks to ever returning. Ashamedly I do have doubts from time to time and so am not 100% certain like Rob, but I'd like to be, and I think having a few more core reasons (rather than superficial/semantic reasons) would help 

For me this is quite straightforward: no theist can even tell me what a "God" is. All I get is "everyone knows what a God is". I've not heard anyone say the difference between a god and a non-God, that wouldn't also make me a god with respect to a computer program I create that happens to become self aware. Why exactly people assume an intelligent creator of our reality isn't itself just some unexciting entity in another reality, I don't know. "Made this reality" =/= "Made everything ever".

So that's the biggest thing. Even the people who claim they are having a "personal relationship" with this thing can't even tell me what it is. And that brings me to the number two reason: if there actually is/was a creator of some kind (no reason to think it's not dead now), then people are not having a personal relationship with it. This is obvious, because no two people can agree on what this being is like and what it wants. The only explanation for this is that "god" is fucking with people and deliberately sending out mixed messages when it "interacts" with people.

It's kind of the same point, but all the actual evidence we have regarding "gods" fits perfectly with the model that each theist has "what they think God is like" in their mind, and they are having a relationship with that. I'm planning to do a video about this particular point. The correlation here is pretty much perfect. Psychology easily explains all the "feelings" and "experiences" they report. This is especially clear since you only have to listen to "experiences" from people from different religions to see at least one of them is imagining it all. However, trying to fit what we hear from theists against the idea that there is actually just one "God" that is interacting with everyone requires reams of ad-hoc explanations.

I have no opinion whether or not there is/was "an intelligent creator" responsible for our reality. To me, that's the only sensible definition of "God", and it's purely relative. As I said, I'm a "God" in relation to a computer program I make. I can be all powerful and all knowing with regard to my program, without the same thing applying to my own reality. If there is/was one, it seems entirely irrelevant. It appears indifferent. In fact, there's no reason to assume it's even aware itself that we have become self aware. How would it know? How would we know if a computer program became self aware? We would be of no significance to it, and to think otherwise is unbelievably arrogant. And it's no significance to us, for precisely this reason. All we can do is deal with reality as it appears to be, and get on with it. And stop making up fucking stupid stories about it. If there is/was an intelligent creator, it's not any of the ludicrous all-too-human cartoon characters people worship.

One reason I don't believe is the inverse relationship between supernatural claims and epistemic accountability. In developing countries and anywhere there's no standard of credibility to meet (tabloids, YouTube, parapsychology, etc.), supernatural claims flourish. But they completely vanish once you apply some standards for discerning between spurious and credible claims.

The really damming indictment of supernaturalism is that this does not happen with regard to claims that are consistent with naturalism. Through disciplines like science, modern history and responsible journalism we've verified countless natural claims.

And absolutely no supernatural claims. Not a single one. The probability that any form of supernaturalism (which is not plausibly weakly observable) is true should thus asymptote at zero.

Which leads to attempts to make supernaturalism weakly observable with ad hoc postulates like Christian cessationism. Cute, and hardly plausible.

Another reason I don't believe is that the last two hundred years of scientific progress have given us compelling evidence that we live in a universe in which phenomena like biological complexity and the fine-tuning of the solar system are explained by teleonomic processes and selection effects, which is what we expect to find if naturalism is true. The only putative evidence for theism--e.g. first cause arguments and Boltzmann brain arguments against a multiverse--is so tentative that it's of trivial value when one assesses the probability of naturalism vs. theism.

In general, the lack of evidence for any gods.

Regarding Christianity in particular (which I was raised in), the Problem of Evil and the internal contradictions of the qualities ascribed to their god.

For me personally, whether or not religions are "true" has no bearing on whether I have anything to do with them. I'm not interested in worshipping anything, especially something which is demanding it by threats. So I don't even care about the truth of it all.

It just so happens that it's a load of complete bollocks with no bearing on reality. Whether or not there is/was an intelligent creator is not the same thing as whether or not any of these childish man-made religions have any validity. Even if the former is true, the latter is still hopelessly improbable to the point of absurdity.

I made a video about this point which I hope would help a little with quelling such worries.

http://youtu.be/4W0mJ7svsKk

Also, I made this video previously for The Artist Formerly Known As Evie, which proves I'm god so fuck all this fake shit.

http://youtu.be/KelxBCg7-gk

The transparent silliness of the entire genre of cosmic morality plays.

(May 10, 2016 at 7:27 am)Rhythm Wrote: The transparent silliness of the entire genre of cosmic morality plays.

Speak of the devil...

(May 10, 2016 at 7:42 am)Losty Wrote:

(May 10, 2016 at 7:27 am)Rhythm Wrote: The transparent silliness of the entire genre of cosmic morality plays.

Speak of the devil...

...and up he'll pop.

Oh hai, Rhythm, didn't notice you standing there behind me.

...do I want to know what that "Give me old time religion" quote references?

A gospel song that stuck.  Hard.