The Long and the Short of it.

[Watson]

1. I believe because I trust in my own perception and senses enough to accept the personal experiences I have had as evidence.
2. The leap of faith that God exists allows me to predict and understand certain human and non-human behaviors and occurences throughout the world.
3. I cannot imagine certain facets of human life ending with the death of one or more persons.
4. I believe that there is a guiding spirit as part of myself that I am free to listen to or ignore.

That's a short little list out of many reasons I could probably compile, but it makes for the best talking points, usually.

[Godscreated]

My belief in God comes from a personal experience with Him. I've seen the work of God by simply watching for the results. Gods work is like the wind. You can not see the wind but you can see the action and result of the wind. Then there's the peace that becomes apart of your life through a personal relationship with Christ. I know that nonbelievers say they have peace in their lives and I understand what they are saying because I to was a nonbeliever at one point. The peace I'm talking about is differet in a way I can not put into words but never the less it's always there. Hope this is the kind of statement you were referring to Paul.

[Minimalist]

Hmmm.....

Can either of you grasp that your "personal experiences" are worthless as EVIDENCE? For all we know, both of you are psychotic.

[KichigaiNeko]

Hmmm.....

Can either of you grasp that your "personal experiences" are worthless as EVIDENCE? For all we know, both of you are psychotic.

For all I know...rampant 'psychosis' is a pre-requisite for religious fervore.

As I understand it it is just their wiring for pleasure (located in the hypothalymus??) going of the rails. Hence the derision for alcohol, recreational drugs, sex, dance and a myriad of other things that most of humanity find enjoyable.

[tackattack]

1)God has revealed through, prayer, synchronicity, testimony, and nature aspects that I interpret to be God's influence.
2)The betterment of my life when living such a life.
3)The strength I get from standing in a strong, compassionate, loving and accepting community.
4)The affects I've had on others lives because of my percieved gifts.
5)That a creator scenario seems more logical than one without.
6)When living life with no belief in God (from my experience) is less fufilling in every selfless aspect.
7)There's no harm in planning for the worst case scenario

[Welsh cake]

5)That a creator scenario seems more logical than one without.

A creator who created everything is more comforting yes, but it is logical?

If it is illogical to presuppose the universe did not require intelligent design then who or what created this creator then? Not to mention stating "God did it" doesn't say anything about its nature. There's no explanation for its characteristics, behaviour or attributes or even what kind of intelligent designer we are supposedly dealing with. One would be no less justified than saying the reality we perceive is not real but actually an intrinsically complex dream of a gigantic alien life-form with a mind unfathomably superior to ours, and when it eventually wakes up we cease to exist or return back into its subconscious. I don't find a cosmic creator belief that begs more questions than answers to be particularly comforting.

The creator scenario also does a poor job of explaining how complex patterns can emerge naturally in the universe free of any intelligent manipulation or influence.

[Paul the Human]

Thanks everyone. As I suspected, I pretty much agree with all the reason not to believe that atheists have expressed in this thread. Also, as expected, I find the reasons to believe (that theists have expressed) to be lacking in logic and rational thought. No surprises here for any one, I'd imagine.

None of it really answers the question of why we hold to different beliefs, though... you know? A good friend of mine in real life (a believer) and I were talking about this and I told him that it seems to me that believers want to believe that god is real, so they will reinterpret what they can to fit that belief and ignore what they can't reinterpret by claiming that we 'cannot understand god' or that 'god has a plan and works in mysterious ways' or some such.

He said that it seems the other way around to him. Atheists do not want god to be real and reinterpret... etc.

I disagree with him. It's not that I don't want god to be real, so much as I simply do not believe that god is real. I think it's amazing that we come to such completely different conclusions based upon the same information. Are we just wired differently? One wouldn't think so. Why do some believe and others do not? It baffles me. And, from my atheistic perspective, it baffles me that anyone can believe that god is real.

Even though some of the theists have given their personal reasons for believing, I am not satisfied. They do not seem like legitimate reasons to me. Perhaps more detail is needed after all. Godschild and Watson both invoked 'personal experience of god', but neither of them described what those experiences are/were. What has happened in your life that reaffirms your belief in god? I am truly curious, because I suspect that the same (or similar) experiences may have happened to me, but that I have interpreted them differently.

[fr0d0]

Reasons for no belief :

bozo : no attraction to belief
downbeatplumb : no empirical evidence
Welsh cake : no empirical evidence
Minimalist : ludicrous story
Shell B : no empirical evidence
Dotard : ignorance
Zen Badger : no empirical evidence
KichigaiNeko : no empirical evidence
padraic : no empirical evidence
(Paul the Human : undisclosed)

So 6 out of 9 have no logical objection. Quite a poor showing I think.

[SleepingDemon]

1. There is no evidence throughout a history full of gods that such beings ever existed.
2. The concept of god/s come from a time in human history when we understood nothing about the world we lived in, and were more inclined to supernatural hypothesis than deductive reasoning
3. Religion as a whole has caused more suffering upon mankind than any other socially accepted behavior
4. Modern religions stem from older religions, and if you look close enough, you can see the many resemblances between the dominant religions of today and their historical counterparts.
5. The entire concept is preposterous.
6. I can't imagine believing anything wholeheartedly with only word of mouth and debatable experiences backing it up.
7. People who believe tend to do so in spite of mounting evidence against them, clearly displaying the lack of objective reasoning.
8. If you know anything about history, you know that christianity isn't nearly as simple in it's conception than christians would have you believe.
9. I like to hurt people's feelings....wait

[Paul the Human]

Ah yes. My reasons for non-belief.

1. No logical reason to believe. (there you go, fr0d0)
2. No evidence to support the claim of god's existence.
3. Lots of evidence to support other explanations (than god) for the things god is credited for by believers.
4. Lots of evidence that god's existence is not even necessary.
5. The bible(s). Aka: Ludicrous story.
6. The cherry picking I see theists commit leads me to think they are making it up as they go along.
7. I have never been given a reason to believe that did not require god to exist in the first place.

And for the record, all of the reasons you 'quoted' are logical objections. The lack of logic comes in when one says, 'god is real'.

So you see? Different conclusions. Why is that?