(May 11, 2016 at 10:14 pm)Emjay Wrote:

(May 11, 2016 at 9:55 pm)vorlon13 Wrote: creomit

Or you

I shall return, interphrastically.

(May 9, 2016 at 10:28 am)Red_Wind Wrote: Because you can ask an informed atheist a bunch of questions regarding their lack of belief and they would be able to answer them in a logical way. Ask a theist of any religion the same questions regarding their beliefs and they will either give you word salad, circular reasoning or unsupported claims (just to name a few).

(May 9, 2016 at 11:59 am)Emjay Wrote:

(May 9, 2016 at 11:30 am)TheRocketSurgeon Wrote: I'm afraid atheism (or, more accurately I should say "a secular worldview") isn't going to ever free you from doubt because 1) social programming you received in religious ideology is deeply entrenched in your thought-processes, and must be actively recognized (not always possible) in order to be overridden by your rational brain, and 2) there's no such thing as freedom from doubt when you're a rationalist, since doubt is the inherent basis of all skepticism.

It's the people who claim to know, 100%, without universally-demonstrable evidence that supports that degree of certainty, whom you should fear most in this world. Freedom from doubt is the mark of a zealot.

Thank you, what you say makes a lot of sense   This is why I am so opposed to religious indoctrination in children... that all these belief systems are essentially implanted without their knowledge or consent... and then you're lumbered with them forever after. And like you say, they can only be rationally overridden if they are first brought to the surface... leaving a whole web of interconnecting ideas festering beneath the surface and influencing your thinking when it shouldn't be.

(May 9, 2016 at 12:20 pm)Thena323 Wrote: There's no indication that any supernatural God actually exists outside of the assertions of others, as far as I can tell. I've never seen him. Never heard him. At no point in my life have I knowingly witnessed any supernatural or miraculous occurrences of any kind, whatsoever. Those who claim to have experienced these seemingly impossible things are unable to provide proof of such. 

Until one of those things changes, all I'm left with is an ever-growing pile of words, words, and more words.
To date, I'm simply UNABLE to believe such a monumentally fantastic claim based on words; despite having a desire to believe in something more.

(May 11, 2016 at 9:45 pm)Alasdair Ham Wrote: Yeah it's always fun making people do that. Then on the other hand I really ought to eschew obfuscation more often.

The above Wiki Wrote:

• "Never use no double negatives."

• "Eschew obfuscation."

• "Prepositions are not words to end a sentence with."

• "Avoid clichés like the plague."

• "The passive voice should never be employed."

• "You should not use a big word when a diminutive one would suffice."

• "It is bad to carelessly split infinitives."

• "No sentence fragments."

• "Parentheses are (almost always) unnecessary."

• "English is the crème de la crème of all languages."

(May 9, 2016 at 6:39 pm)paulpablo Wrote:

(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 

I grew up as a Christian and have been put off that god by the stories of Adam and Eve and floods vs what I've learned from other sources of information about evolution and reality.  Basically the stories of the bible, how they sound pretty made up, they involve magic, talking animals, illogical scenarios.

First impressions count the most, and my first impressions involving stories of God are already tarnished.  Add to that experience of debating with Muslims who have pretty much identical illogical stories.

Other than that I don't have a core disbelief in god really, I just see no evidence yet to say there's a god.

(May 12, 2016 at 9:29 am)Drich Wrote:

(May 9, 2016 at 10:20 am)Chad32 Wrote: My most convincing reason is that the creation story, and jesus story, is not really all that unique. It's not difficult to find a long list of creator gods, or individuals who had lives similar to the Jesus story. Yahweh had a son. You want to know how many sons Zeus had?

Even if Yahweh and Jesus were real, I'd have reasons for not worshiping them, but as far as just not believing they exist, it would be the fact that stories like this were pretty common throughout history. Yahweh and Jesus are not unique, and judaism is not the first religion in history. Not even the first monotheistic one.

people say this alot. it is the new default since that "Zoro" youtube video, but if you were to honest look up the stories, and trace them back to their oldest manuscripts the ones that are proven to be older than the bible don't really coincide with the bible like people pretend they do, and the ones that mirror the bible are often times traceable back to after the bible had been compiled (even if the religion was much much older.)

This is just a lazy excuse not to believe.