Why do you not believe in God?

[Paul the Human]

Why do you not believe in God?

The better question is... Why should I?

[frankiej]

Believing in a god is such an alien concept to me. I can't really help being an atheist, there just isn't any reason to believe nor is there any proof of such a ridiculous thing. I have never believed in god, I have never been superstitious... it would go against what I think is reasonable.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb8bzRZCGDY

[KichigaiNeko]

[CliveStaples]

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 don't think I quite follow the reasoning here.

Our understanding of the laws of nature have changed over time. We went from the Greek notion of the four elements to the periodic table, from aether to atoms, and so on and so forth.

Each time, a previous conception was proved to be false in some way. Similarly, a previous conception of God was proved to be false in some way. That doesn't mean you can't verify God's existence (although modern science is based on falsification, not verification), it just means you're verifying that lots of different conceptions of god are false. Maybe eventually they'll all be shown to be false?

[Metonymie]

1. Reason I don't believe in god:
I don't believe it. I simply don't buy it.

2. Reason.
I don't see a reason, why I should assume there is a god.

3. Reason:
I don't need a third reason.

[Zen Badger]

I don't think I quite follow the reasoning here.

Our understanding of the laws of nature have changed over time. We went from the Greek notion of the four elements to the periodic table, from aether to atoms, and so on and so forth.

Each time, a previous conception was proved to be false in some way. Similarly, a previous conception of God was proved to be false in some way. That doesn't mean you can't verify God's existence (although modern science is based on falsification, not verification), it just means you're verifying that lots of different conceptions of god are false. Maybe eventually they'll all be shown to be false?

Very true, maybe one day it will be shown that god exists.

But until then I have no reason to "believe"

[KichigaiNeko]

[Mister Agenda]

I started off gullible, gradually became more skeptical, and some time afer I stopped believing in Bigfoot, ESP, and UFO abductions; I realized I had stopped believing in God too; and for pretty much the same reasons.

[CliveStaples]

I started off gullible, gradually became more skeptical, and some time afer I stopped believing in Bigfoot, ESP, and UFO abductions; I realized I had stopped believing in God too; and for pretty much the same reasons.

So God was just a magical sky being to you? What a boring theology that must have been.

[Minimalist]

All theology is boring.