Why do you not believe in God?

[CliveStaples]

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

Please fascinate us with your unbelievably exciting theology. *sitting at the edge of the chair leaning forward*.

I just think that's a way less interesting notion of God than, say, Spinoza's conception, or Plantinga's. YMMV.

[Annik]

There is no point in believing in God.

[Simon Moon]

Attempts to make the 'God' concept more sophisticated, does not make it any more likely to be true.

I'm surprised, I didn't think I'd ever run into the person who knows everything that's true.

Where did I claim to know everything that is true?

Hint: I didn't...

You seem to be having a reading comprehension issue.

[CliveStaples]

Where did I claim to know everything that is true?

Hint: I didn't...

You seem to be having a reading comprehension issue.

Oh, that was an exaggeration for rhetorical effect. But you already knew that. You just wanted to play dumb for rhetorical effect.

Well, you seem to know the effect that every possible definition of God has on the probability that God exists. Which means that you know a lot about the probability that God exists. Which means you're either certain He doesn't exist--which means you know something I don't, and I'd really like you to tell me about it--or you know a lot more about the specifics of God's probability distribution than any other philosopher or mathematician I've ever read--and I'd really like you to tell me about it.

Or you were just exaggerating for rhetorical effect.

[jerNYC]

If you were an atheist and are currently a Christian, what made you change your mind? Seriously, I need to know. When I hear this from people I typically slam my face into my palm hard enough to hurt myself, because the responce is nearly always some kind of personal incredulity. There is never any evidence, and generally not even an argument, that ex-atheists have for their newfound belief.

I hear this all the time from religious people as well. It’s usually after some great tragedy left a void in their lives, they fill that void with religion. It’s comforting to know that someone is looking after you. Humans evolved to be social animals, so it’s comforting to know that we belong to something greater than ourselves.

[Annik]

Where did I claim to know everything that is true?

Hint: I didn't...

You seem to be having a reading comprehension issue.

Oh, that was an exaggeration for rhetorical effect. But you already knew that. You just wanted to play dumb for rhetorical effect.

Well, you seem to know the effect that every possible definition of God has on the probability that God exists. Which means that you know a lot about the probability that God exists. Which means you're either certain He doesn't exist--which means you know something I don't, and I'd really like you to tell me about it--or you know a lot more about the specifics of God's probability distribution than any other philosopher or mathematician I've ever read--and I'd really like you to tell me about it.

Or you were just exaggerating for rhetorical effect.

Well, when you start from a neutral position (agnostic atheist), trying to rationalize a crazy, all-powerful wizard is responsible for your life and you're bound to worship him.... It doesn't make sense.

[CliveStaples]

Well, when you start from a neutral position (agnostic atheist), trying to rationalize a crazy, all-powerful wizard is responsible for your life and you're bound to worship him.... It doesn't make sense.

Which is a great reason not to believe in Gandalf, to be sure.

[Whateverist]

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.

You had me at reason one. We don't need a reason not to believe in God unless we think we've seen some pretty tempting indication of god activity. I tend to save my effort for finding reasons not to believe stuff for when it starts to seem as though that stuff might really be out there. We're not even in the yellow zone on my indicator.

[Mystic]

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?

Personally I don't think I believe in God per a rational argument, but I feel I have good reason to, in the same way I don't believe in free-will or morality upon a rational argument, but believe I am justified in that belief.

Now you may ask, how can we have that knowledge? Will if there is a Creator, why wouldn't he be able to endow us with that knowledge? I would say my faith in God is as strong as my faith in free-will.

[Jeffonthenet]

Hi jerNYC, I appreciate you interacting with me on these issues. I respect you very much for doing so.

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.

I really don't want to defend ID because I know very little about it. However, say that you found a machine with buttons, cranks, wheels, all made out of steel with a few hundred screws. I think we both know that you would not even for a moment think that this had come into being purely by chance. And I cannot imagine if you worked at NASA and found this that you would be taken seriously if you asked for an argument as to the probability that this machine had come into being by chance or by design.

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.

Again, I am not an ID defender, but I suppose that the difference between the machine example and the face one is a difference of probability. The chance that an object appearing to be a human face vs. the chance of an entire machine coming into being by chance would be very different. The latter would be almost zero, while the former would be much different.

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.

I am aware of Occam's razor. I think here, if we accepted evolution, all it would show is that God is not necessary to explain how biological complexity came about. However, all that would follow here, I think, is that we cannot infer the existence of God based on biological complexity. However, it doesn't follow that arguments for the existence of God which are not based on biological complexity are effected. Taking an enlightenment philosophy class and reading selections of the most important philosophers of the time, I never once ran across the argument from biological complexity… "the blind watchmaker" argument. I ran across the Ontological Argument quite a few times though (which is still debated in the philosophical literature).

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.

I would challenge you here and ask how we can empirically verify (without circular and invalid logic) the existence of the past or the reliability of our senses. One has to assume that our senses are reliable to make any argument for their reliability (since everything we experience comes through our senses), and so any argument for their reliability would be circular. So by your criteria, it seems to me, we are irrational in trusting that our senses are reliable, since we cannot empirically verify them. That being the case, and since everything we experience comes through our senses, pretty much all of our beliefs would be irrational.

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.

What I was referring to was that God can be known to exist apart from argument in the same way we can know basic beliefs apart from argument. The logic example I will grant you for the sake of argument. I gave other more accessible answers earlier.

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.

What about the Kalaam cosmological argument?

1. Everything which begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist (the big bang theory)
3. Therefore the universe has a cause

From the basic logical point that something cannot cause itself, (for then it would have to exist before it existed in order to cause itself to exist…. which is contradictory) it follows that everything which began to exist at the big bang cannot be what caused the big bang. Therefore, whatever caused everything to be must be spaceless, immaterial, timeless, and a being of immense power (to cause everything that is). And the latter characteristics are traditional properties of God.

I would write more, but I have to go pick up my girlfriend for lunch. I would also want to reiterate that I am not only presenting an argument, but defending the belief that if God exists we could be rational in believing based on experience or intuition (apart from argument).

Thanks for your time.