Do we need to study all the religions to know that God doesn't exist?

[robvalue]

The sensible, sceptical approach isn't about trying to prove god doesn't exist, it's about saying there is no reason to believe it does exist. Some people go further (myself included) and believe it doesn't exist, the justification usually being either lack of evidence for such an extraordinary claim, or lack of a coherent/testable definition of what god is supposed to be. That's pretty good justification. Going further to say you know it doesn't exist is harder to justify but usually unnecessary.

So no, there's really no need to consider all religions. None of them have anything beyond oral myths and story books. If they do, I'm not aware of it. And I'm sure they'd have let us know by now!

I'm comfortable just saying I have no reason to believe god does exist, just like I do with dragons, faeries, goblins etc. I don't feel the need to try and disprove them or claim I know they don't exist, there's an infinite number of things you can't prove doesn't exist. It's a waste of time. Anyone using this argument to defend god is using the argument from ignorance fallacy.

This may clarify:

http://robvalue.wix.com/atheism#!what-is-atheism/c57k

http://robvalue.wix.com/atheism#!agnosti...stic/c1xja

Personally, even if a god does exist, I don't care. I wouldn't change how I live my life. Until I actually know anything about it, I have no reason to think it affects anything.