Question for atheists...

[BeeDeePee]

@CapnAwesome

I don't believe in God because I see no good reason to. There is a whole myriad of things I don't believe in that are considered totally non-controversial. Bigfoot, Ghosts, Donald trumps hair. I have been failed to be convinced that any of these are real.

From your point of view, what would be good reasons for believing in God?

Additionally I picture what a universe would be like with a God, and it is radically different from how this one is. Mainly I see no reason why God would go through the effort of hiding himself from everyone.

Here I disagree. You can not know what a universe with a God would be like, because you don't know exactly who God is. Although numerous religions speak about God's properties (omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresent), they also point that no one is able to understand God in his nature ( apophatic theology). Therefore, you can not know what that world would be like, because you are not capable to think from God's perspective. You're, like me, just a human, and think like a human.

To reject religion is to reject group think. I can think for myself so I don't need some stodgy old clergy member doing it for me.

Me neither.
You can believe in God and think for yourself.

[Question Mark]

To put it simply, when I realised that I've never seen anything that indicated the existence of a god, I became an atheist.

[BeeDeePee]

studying various religions and cults

Can you be more specific?

[CapnAwesome]

From your point of view, what would be good reasons for believing in God?

I have a rather low burden of proof for God compared to some Atheists on these boards. All I would need is for God to appear. I believe in Squirrels, and low and behold, there they are. I don't believe in Ghosts, what do you know, because there is no good way of measuring them. I believe in the wind, I can measure it. If God appeared, spoke to me and others independently confirmed those instances to be real, that would be good enough for me. I think it's actually a relatively low standard of proof, more or less what I accept for animals or similar things.

You can believe in God and think for yourself.

Yes, they are called Deists. You can believe in God and think for yourself but you can't belong to a religion and think for yourself. By defintion you are adopting the ideas of others.

[BeeDeePee]

The main reasons for me is the lack of demonstrable evidence, reasoned argument and valid logic to support the existence of a god or gods.

In other words, the claim that a god exists put forth from theists has not met its burden of proof.

The lack of evidence is probably the most common argument that atheists use, but I think it's missing the point, because it leads us to a debate where from the very beginning, the final conclusion is known and evident: there's no evidence that supports God' existence or existence of any other metaphysical being.

Not just that such evidence doesnt' exist, but it is impossible to exist. Claim that states something like "God exists" is not scientifically tested, becaue you can not use hypothetico-deductive method upon that claim.

[Dee Dee Ramone]

Exactly and therefor god does not exist.

[BeeDeePee]

Yes, they are called Deists. You can believe in God and think for yourself but you can't belong to a religion and think for yourself.

I haven't meant on deists. There are plenty of people who belong to some religion and who can think for themselves. Of course, there are some religions were you have to accept everything what they say, you're not allowed to ask questions, to doubt their authority and dogmas... but, on the other hand, there are religions that are quite different. So, I think we should listen to Sam Harris who says that term "religion" is useless, because it includes a lot of things.

By defintion you are adopting the ideas of others.

But you're doing the same literally every day. When you're going to school, you're accepting the ideas of other people; when you're reading, you're accepting the ideas of others; when you're upbringing and educating your children, the're accepting what they were told. You can be atheist, but you can not escape from this.
I have to ask: what is wrong with that? It can be wrong if you accept it by not using critical thinking, if you don't ask and don't doubt... otherwise, it's completely okay.

[pocaracas]

Why do we get one of these every month?
Is there like a monthly lottery where some theist draws the lucky ticket to troll the atheists?

Let's make it the other way around:
What were the main reasons that led you to the conclusion that you shouldn't believe in Allah?
What were the main reasons that led you to the conclusion that you shouldn't believe in Shiva?
What were the main reasons that led you to the conclusion that you shouldn't believe in Odin?
What were the main reasons that led you to the conclusion that you shouldn't believe in Zeus?
What were the main reasons that led you to the conclusion that you shouldn't believe in An?
etc...

And why don't you belong to any of those religions?

[BeeDeePee]

Exactly and therefor god does not exist.

Actually, we know from history of science that there were some metaphysical claims that couldn't be tested in the past, but they turned out to be true.

[Something completely different]

examples please