Why do you not believe in God?

[jerNYC]

This is my first post here. I’m an "atheist" and I’ve gotten renewed interest in the subject after I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson recently, where he basically gave the same reasons for his disbelief that I have. I’m interested in finding out the reasons and arguments that other atheists have for their disbelief. Hopefully, it will inform my own reasoning. Here are three reasons for why I "don't believe in God":

Reason 1. God is an unverifiable idea: There’s no concise definition of god, so a god can be anything that believers want it to be. This means that the definition of god can change to evade falsification. For example, when Darwin discovered that species are created by natural selection, rather than the God of Genesis, the definition of the Biblical God changed. No one today worships natural selection, even though it’s the actual mechanism responsible for the creation of new species. However, people do continue to believe in the Biblical God. The fact that the definition of god can change prevents us from ever verifying a god's existence.

Reason 2. The evidence is illogical: Believers provide no explanation for how their gods work, so there’s no testable mechanism to demonstrate that their gods exist. For example, when Christians point to Creation as evidence of their god’s existence, they’re making an illogical connection between their god and that evidence. The rest of us can’t verify that their god actually created anything, unless we know exactly how their god creates things. Only then can we rationally weigh their explanation against their observations and potential evidence. For example, intelligent design advocates believe that an intelligent god created the bacterial flagellum because it is irreducibly complex (they argue that it takes intelligence to produce complexity), but they have never explained how a god creates this kind of complexity. Thus, we cannot verify that the bacterial flagellum is the product of their god’s handiwork, instead of some other mechanism. We just have to accept their "evidence" on faith alone.

Reason 3. God lives in the gaps: The belief in gods has never provided the correct explanation for the phenomena believers try to explain, so gods end up being the personification of our ignorance. These supernatural explanations are merely place holders until science can find the real cause of the phenomena. As Neil Tyson said, “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”

That basically sums up my disbelief in god(s). So, is there still a chance that I can be saved?

[Cyberman]

No, keep thinking the way you are and you're pretty much as damned as the rest of us heathens. I think you summed it up nicely; you certainly covered the basics as far as I identify with them.

Welcome to the highway to hell. I have to ask, though: is there a reason you put the word atheist in quotes at the top of your intro?

[Minimalist]

So, is there still a chance that I can be saved?

You've already been saved from a life time of groveling to the non-existent sky daddy.

Congrats.

[jerNYC]

is there a reason you put the word atheist in quotes at the top of your intro?

I put “atheist” in quotation marks because people have varied perceptions of what that means. Personally, I accept that gods do not exist (for the reasons I listed above). However, I have met other "atheists" in other forums who held very different opinions on god, religion, and the meaning of atheism, so I use the term loosely.

[Jeffonthenet]

This is my first post here. I’m an "atheist" and I’ve gotten renewed interest in the subject after I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson recently, where he basically gave the same reasons for his disbelief that I have. I’m interested in finding out the reasons and arguments that other atheists have for their disbelief. Hopefully, it will inform my own reasoning. Here are three reasons for why I "don't believe in God":

Reason 1. God is an unverifiable idea: There’s no concise definition of god, so a god can be anything that believers want it to be. This means that the definition of god can change to evade falsification. For example, when Darwin discovered that species are created by natural selection, rather than the God of Genesis, the definition of the Biblical God changed. No one today worships natural selection, even though it’s the actual mechanism responsible for the creation of new species. However, people do continue to believe in the Biblical God. The fact that the definition of god can change prevents us from ever verifying a god's existence.

I can understand your frustration at the changing definitions of what is an essential doctrine of the Christian God throughout history. However, it seems reasonable to me that this was the fault of man's arrogance. It also seems to me that the sciences will change parts of their theories to fit with the data. Say, for example, I am investigating the so called "quantum vacuum," and find that the data shows that it has some important differences from what I previously thought. It does not follow that there is no quantum vacuum, or that we should throw out the idea. It seemed like the verification idea is more prevalent in your second reason, so I will address it there.

Reason 2. The evidence is illogical: Believers provide no explanation for how their gods work, so there’s no testable mechanism to demonstrate that their gods exist. For example, when Christians point to Creation as evidence of their god’s existence, they’re making an illogical connection between their god and that evidence. The rest of us can’t verify that their god actually created anything, unless we know exactly how their god creates things. Only then can we rationally weigh their explanation against their observations and potential evidence. For example, intelligent design advocates believe that an intelligent god created the bacterial flagellum because it is irreducibly complex (they argue that it takes intelligence to produce complexity), but they have never explained how a god creates this kind of complexity. Thus, we cannot verify that the bacterial flagellum is the product of their god’s handiwork, instead of some other mechanism. We just have to accept their "evidence" on faith alone.

I don't think that the evidence is on faith alone simply because the precise way that something is done by God is not explained. For ID arguments, the idea anyway is that the inference to an intelligent designer would be similar to the way one could find machinery on the moon an conclude it was left by intelligent beings. It would not be necessary to know just how such beings created this machinery to conclude that it was not just a random creation from natural events. However, personally I have not been convinced by any ID arguments (not that I have spend much time with them) and I don't have much of a problem believing that God created life through evolution. Though I would find arguments like the Kalaam Cosmological argument more convincing.

There is also the impression I get from your post that you assert that what cannot be verified by empirical evidence or argument is irrational to believe. However, most philosophers are agreed that our most important and basic beliefs cannot be verified by evidence or argument. This includes things like basic logical truths, the existence the of external world, the existence of other minds, and the reality of the past. None of these can be demonstrated without circular, invalid argumentation. Likewise, I think we can know God the same way we know these essential beliefs, by a sort of intuition and/or experience.

Reason 3. God lives in the gaps: The belief in gods has never provided the correct explanation for the phenomena believers try to explain, so gods end up being the personification of our ignorance. These supernatural explanations are merely place holders until science can find the real cause of the phenomena. As Neil Tyson said, “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”

I likewise do not accept God of the gaps arguments. However, I don't believe that all arguments for God are like this, nor do I believe that people need arguments to know that God exists.

That basically sums up my disbelief in god(s). So, is there still a chance that I can be saved?

I appreciate you sharing, and I hope you will not shut off the light of reason while reading my post as I sometimes did when I was an atheist.

[John Adwan]

This is my first post here. I’m an "atheist" and I’ve gotten renewed interest in the subject after I saw an interview with Neil Degrasse Tyson recently, where he basically gave the same reasons for his disbelief that I have. I’m interested in finding out the reasons and arguments that other atheists have for their disbelief. Hopefully, it will inform my own reasoning. Here are three reasons for why I "don't believe in God":

Reason 1. God is an unverifiable idea: There’s no concise definition of god, so a god can be anything that believers want it to be. This means that the definition of god can change to evade falsification. For example, when Darwin discovered that species are created by natural selection, rather than the God of Genesis, the definition of the Biblical God changed. No one today worships natural selection, even though it’s the actual mechanism responsible for the creation of new species. However, people do continue to believe in the Biblical God. The fact that the definition of god can change prevents us from ever verifying a god's existence.

I can understand your frustration at the changing definitions of what is an essential doctrine of the Christian God throughout history. However, it seems reasonable to me that this was the fault of man's arrogance. It also seems to me that the sciences will change parts of their theories to fit with the data. Say, for example, I am investigating the so called "quantum vacuum," and find that the data shows that it has some important differences from what I previously thought. It does not follow that there is no quantum vacuum, or that we should throw out the idea. It seemed like the verification idea is more prevalent in your second reason, so I will address it there.

Reason 2. The evidence is illogical: Believers provide no explanation for how their gods work, so there’s no testable mechanism to demonstrate that their gods exist. For example, when Christians point to Creation as evidence of their god’s existence, they’re making an illogical connection between their god and that evidence. The rest of us can’t verify that their god actually created anything, unless we know exactly how their god creates things. Only then can we rationally weigh their explanation against their observations and potential evidence. For example, intelligent design advocates believe that an intelligent god created the bacterial flagellum because it is irreducibly complex (they argue that it takes intelligence to produce complexity), but they have never explained how a god creates this kind of complexity. Thus, we cannot verify that the bacterial flagellum is the product of their god’s handiwork, instead of some other mechanism. We just have to accept their "evidence" on faith alone.

I don't think that the evidence is on faith alone simply because the precise way that something is done by God is not explained. For ID arguments, the idea anyway is that the inference to an intelligent designer would be similar to the way one could find machinery on the moon an conclude it was left by intelligent beings. It would not be necessary to know just how such beings created this machinery to conclude that it was not just a random creation from natural events. However, personally I have not been convinced by any ID arguments (not that I have spend much time with them) and I don't have much of a problem believing that God created life through evolution. Though I would find arguments like the Kalaam Cosmological argument more convincing.

There is also the impression I get from your post that you assert that what cannot be verified by empirical evidence or argument is irrational to believe. However, most philosophers are agreed that our most important and basic beliefs cannot be verified by evidence or argument. This includes things like basic logical truths, the existence the of external world, the existence of other minds, and the reality of the past. None of these can be demonstrated without circular, invalid argumentation. Likewise, I think we can know God the same way we know these essential beliefs, by a sort of intuition and/or experience.

Reason 3. God lives in the gaps: The belief in gods has never provided the correct explanation for the phenomena believers try to explain, so gods end up being the personification of our ignorance. These supernatural explanations are merely place holders until science can find the real cause of the phenomena. As Neil Tyson said, “God is an ever receding pocket of scientific ignorance.”

I likewise do not accept God of the gaps arguments. However, I don't believe that all arguments for God are like this, nor do I believe that people need arguments to know that God exists.

That basically sums up my disbelief in god(s). So, is there still a chance that I can be saved?

I appreciate you sharing, and I hope you will not shut off the light of reason while reading my post as I sometimes did when I was an atheist.

i'm agree with you on some of the point but not all.
if yiu behave with any one as good as possible than its a kind of god.
not more than it fact..

[Angrboda]

“Belief in heaven and hell is a big deal in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and some forms of doctrinaire Buddhism. For the rest of us it’s simply meaningless. We don’t live in order to die, we live in order to live.”

Ursula K Le Guin

[jerNYC]

I don't think that the evidence is on faith alone simply because the precise way that something is done by God is not explained. For ID arguments, the idea anyway is that the inference to an intelligent designer would be similar to the way one could find machinery on the moon an conclude it was left by intelligent beings. It would not be necessary to know just how such beings created this machinery to conclude that it was not just a random creation from natural events.

I've heard numerous variations of this argument. The “inference” argument is illogical because it relies on circular reasoning. You're arguing that intelligence can be inferred from the fact that the machinery appears to be intelligently created. This is a tautology.

If in fact you were to find something on the moon that looked like it was designed by intelligence, I would have no way to confirm that, unless someone devised a testable hypothesis that explained how an intelligent mechanism was able to produce machinery on the moon. I could then positively derive the evidence from your hypothesis without relying solely on deductive reasoning. Without that hypothesis, any “explanation” that you came up with would just be a hunch.

By the way, there is a real life case study of this scenario. There’s a famous photograph taken by NASA from the orbit of Mars, which shows a human face on the Martian surface. Some people argue that this is evidence of intelligence on Mars, but we have no way to verify this “hunch” without an explanation of how an intelligent mechanism got to Mars to carve a human face on its surface. It's not good evidence for Martian intelligence.

I don't have much of a problem believing that God created life through evolution.

Ever hear of Occam's razor? It seems like you're just forcing God in to the equation, without any rational explanation for why God should be there.

There is also the impression I get from your post that you assert that what cannot be verified by empirical evidence or argument is irrational to believe.

Yes.

However, most philosophers are agreed that our most important and basic beliefs cannot be verified by evidence or argument. This includes things like basic logical truths...

It seems that there are rules that came with this universe when it was created. Logic is simply based on the rule that something can't be both true and false at the same time. We know that this rule is true from repeated experience. I'm not sure that I understand the arguments for the God of Christianity in the same way that I understand basic mathematical logic.

I likewise do not accept God of the gaps arguments. However, I don't believe that all arguments for God are like this, nor do I believe that people need arguments to know that God exists.

I understand that not all arguments for God fall in to the god-of-the-gaps fallacy. However, all arguments that I have heard for the existence of God so far have been illogical. I would love to hear an argument that wasn't.

[The Grand Nudger]

Because I have thoughts....

[Ace Otana]

Why do you not believe in God?

It's silly.