How would I try to convert you? Well, there are, I suppose, three basic facts which either point to the improbability of a theist god or make a deist god redundant.
1) To start with, the Christian conception of God can be positively disproven. There are countless unanswered prayers (as shown by a study by, I think, the Templeton Foundation). Also, whilst the vast amounts of gratuitous suffering (especially the suffering of animals and young children, ho can't spiritually develop and, in the former case, have no free will) could conceivably be explained away, they are much more to be expected in an atheistic worldview than a theistic one. Using Occam's Razor, we would probably conclude that the best explanation for suffering is that there's no god.
2) Science has progressively made a creator/designer redundant. A thousand years ago, volcanoes and lightning would have been seen as evidence of God's wrath. In 1858, it would have been the complexity and diversity of nature, but now we know that life on Earth evolved (though you no doubt don't believe this). There is an historical precedent for science finding natural explanations for phenomena which are currently attributed to God e.g. miracles.
3) My own argument for atheism, rather than agnosticism, is that, given lack of evidence, disbelief is the default position. Given that the human mind can conceive of countless things which are demonstrably not true (I can imagine an elephant on my desk, or a giraffe, or a skunk, etc., but none of this is true), it's very unlikely that we would conceive of anything which does in fact exist in reality, unless we have evidence for it. Therefore, God probably does not exist.
Of course, this probably won't persuade you, but I've answered your question.
1) To start with, the Christian conception of God can be positively disproven. There are countless unanswered prayers (as shown by a study by, I think, the Templeton Foundation). Also, whilst the vast amounts of gratuitous suffering (especially the suffering of animals and young children, ho can't spiritually develop and, in the former case, have no free will) could conceivably be explained away, they are much more to be expected in an atheistic worldview than a theistic one. Using Occam's Razor, we would probably conclude that the best explanation for suffering is that there's no god.
2) Science has progressively made a creator/designer redundant. A thousand years ago, volcanoes and lightning would have been seen as evidence of God's wrath. In 1858, it would have been the complexity and diversity of nature, but now we know that life on Earth evolved (though you no doubt don't believe this). There is an historical precedent for science finding natural explanations for phenomena which are currently attributed to God e.g. miracles.
3) My own argument for atheism, rather than agnosticism, is that, given lack of evidence, disbelief is the default position. Given that the human mind can conceive of countless things which are demonstrably not true (I can imagine an elephant on my desk, or a giraffe, or a skunk, etc., but none of this is true), it's very unlikely that we would conceive of anything which does in fact exist in reality, unless we have evidence for it. Therefore, God probably does not exist.
Of course, this probably won't persuade you, but I've answered your question.
'We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.' H.L. Mencken
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
'False religion' is the ultimate tautology.
'It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.' Mark Twain
'I care not much for a man's religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.' Abraham Lincoln
