Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

Dades · 30-10-2010 12:59AM

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I wouldn't say that I made up any version of God, I just steered away from any organised religion, as alot of other people have.

And because you have steered away from organised religion and decided to follow your hybrid god is exactly why you don't really figure in the "Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God" thread. You can hardly expect people to elaborate on why they don't believe in your our personal Christian God creation?

The biblical God is either real as described, or not at all. Choosing the fluffy bit is just intellectually dishonest.

strobe · 30-10-2010 10:49AM

midlandsmissus wrote: »

I haven't mentioned what I think of God in this thread. If you want to ask me you are free to

I did, I did. I'm all ears. What do you think 'God' is? Is it based on anything in the Bible? If it is, is it based on only some of what is in the Bible but not all of it? If so, which parts do you accept and which do you deny? If not, what is it based on and why? Could you tell me something about it? I'm not having a go or anything, genuinely interested.

gbee · 30-10-2010 01:34PM

Dades wrote: »

The biblical God is either real as described, or not at all. Choosing the fluffy bit is just intellectually dishonest.

I think this statement is too narrow and confining and arguably just incorrect. The Bible itself has to be interpreted and it has spawned all the religions that sprung up in the last, Oh I don't really know, perhaps 3,000 years.

It was arguments over the interpretations that caused splinter religions, all the Christians ones, the Roman ones and the Muslim ones and all of them from the old Jewish religions.

The Biblical God may have been interpreted incorrectly, indeed, he may not exist al all, but there is room for several shades and there is even a possibility that the Biblical God left, died or just simply abandoned his son to die as the dying Christ supposedly suggests he has forsaken him. naturally this could be all the 'proof' one need to side with the Jews and Muslims that Christ was not the Messiah.

Dades · 30-10-2010 08:10PM

gbee wrote: »

The Biblical God may have been interpreted incorrectly, indeed, he may not exist al all, but there is room for several shades and there is even a possibility that the Biblical God left, died or just simply abandoned his son to die as the dying Christ supposedly suggests he has forsaken him. naturally this could be all the 'proof' one need to side with the Jews and Muslims that Christ was not the Messiah.

The bits that I'm talking about are the wrathful, genocidal bits that are not open for interpretation at all. They're frequently just ignored or glossed over - or subjected to some preposterous "context" argument.

And sorry, if the Old Testament God is not real - then everything else falls like a house of cards.

Synalon Etuul · 31-10-2010 04:15AM

I don't believe in God because...well, all of it's been said already. Mainly I just wanted to post a link. If it hasn't been posted before, anyway.

http://godisimaginary.com/index.htm

A few of the points are a bit fallacious and/or repetitive, but there are things in there that I hadn't already thought of, just to nail religion's coffin shut a bit more.

FrostyJack · 01-11-2010 06:04AM

The best reason I've heard came from Ricky Gervais on the big think website, the way he describes it is brilliant. Not the way I figured it out, but is worth a look.

antiskeptic · 01-11-2010 02:54PM

antiskeptic wrote:

I can't think of a time when such a thing would be justified, no. But then again, I'm not God and don't own the life in order to take it back (which is what the death of anyone effectively means).

fisgon wrote: »

This is a pretty good summation of why I am not a believer, this type of bizarre belief from believers. There are so many that to me seem, and have always seemed, simply codswallop, nonsense, idiocy, horsesh1t, and the one above is a perfect example.

...moving swiftly on in the hope of some reasoning behind the reason why you don't believe.

To be specific, the belief that this great being in the sky 'owns' our lives, and can do with them what he will, is the attitude of a slave, and someone who is happy to be a slave.

This isn't reasoning.

If you are created then the decision on your status: slave, free, free-within-limits, determined, etc., lies, self-evidently, with your creator. If the creator decides, for example, to create a spider and have it operate according to a programme then, self-evidently, that's what the spider will do. If the creator decides to grant you life for x amount of time then you are enslaved to that whether you like it or not. It's a rational thing to realise the position you can't help but occupy and sticking your head in the sand to deny it.

I don't see to what you can appeal in order to object btw. And so, it seems perfectly reasonable that a creator be the owner of what he creates.

In this belief we are powerless in the face of a capricious deity, who gives and takes on a whim, and has to be appeased and fawned over in case he gets mad. Really similar to how the Aztecs approached their gods, or the Romans, for that matter.

That God is a creator and can take life back when he pleases doesn't mean his decisons aren't influenced by us. We wouldn't be powerless if our actions influenced him. Nor would his removing us from the game mean he is capricious or whimsical - he could have other purposes for us in mind elsewhere.

The idea that we are all the property of this god, and subject to his moods is pathetic, slavish, cowardly. It also means that you can't call your god 'benevolent', though you insist on doing so.

Again there is no substance here, no reasoning.

I don't call my God (and yours) benevolent in the sense that he is only benevolent. I also call him wrathful .. in the sense that he is furious anger again sinfulness. The uni-dimensional god of atheistic-think isn't the God of the bible.

Galvasean · 01-11-2010 02:59PM

antiskeptic wrote: »

And so, it seems perfectly reasonable that a creator be the owner of what he creates.

Can my spouse and I justly kill our kids considering we made them and therefore own them?

01-11-2010 03:17PM

antiskeptic wrote: »

I don't see to what you can appeal in order to object btw. And so, it seems perfectly reasonable that a creator be the owner of what he creates.

That God is a creator and can take life back when he pleases doesn't mean his decisons aren't influenced by us.

Again with this horrifying justification.

I'm pretty sure when tyrants murder their people, they're just exercising their rights over their property too.

antiskeptic wrote: »

I don't call my God (and yours) benevolent in the sense that he is only benevolent. I also call him wrathful .. in the sense that he is furious anger again sinfulness. The uni-dimensional god of atheistic-think isn't the God of the bible.

So how can he be all-loving and at the same time wrathful?
Or is he only benevolent sometimes?

And how can you can him loving at all when he directly visits horrible deaths on innocent people?
What did innocent Egyptian families do to deserve his wrath?

liamw · 01-11-2010 03:25PM

antiskeptic wrote: »

...moving swiftly on in the hope of some reasoning behind the reason why you don't believe.

Ah so that's how claims work. Every claim is assumed true until reasoned otherwise!

Zombrex · 01-11-2010 03:39PM

Galvasean wrote: »

Can my spouse and I justly kill our kids considering we made them and therefore own them?

This argument is always met with the rather ridiculous idea that you didn't really make your kids, God did and as such you don't really own them.

Any analogy you can come up with showing that humans don't actually think we can do what we like with people we "own" always comes back to the argument that you don't actually own it, God does, and that is why you think this (not that it is a horrible idea because harm is based on damage done to the person, not ownership or authority to carry out said damage, which is the actual reason we would never apply this notion to our kids)

Apparently the only person who owns anything is God.

Which leads to the question what basis are theists saying if you own it you can do what you like with it? Given we don't really own or make anything we have no real world examples to draw upon to say that this is moral in a general sense. It becomes a completely arbitrary moral decision, which makes appeal to reason from theists seem ridiculous.

Once again it shows the bankruptcy of such moral claims by theists.

robindch · 01-11-2010 03:58PM

Wicknight wrote: »

Apparently the only person who owns anything is God.

Depends on what religious "context" you're applying.

Quite a few religious people use the following verse from genesis:

Genesis 1:28 wrote:

God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.

...to assume permission to do just about anything one wishes to any living creature and more latterly, to any natural resource.

In this case, the idea of "ownership" is irrelevant when you think you can do what you want anyway.

Zombrex · 01-11-2010 04:12PM

robindch wrote: »

Depends on what religious "context" you're applying.

Quite a few religious people use the following verse from genesis:...to assume permission to do just about anything one wishes to any living creature and more latterly, to any natural resource.

In this case, the idea of "ownership" is irrelevant when you think you can do what you want anyway.

That is a good point.

If God has given humans dominion over other living beings and I own my dog can I torture him? Or is there a reason I shouldn't do that other than simply the question of authority (oh I don't know, maybe because it inflicts unnecessary pain and suffering?)

I would like to see antiskeptic try and seriously answer that question.

antiskeptic · 01-11-2010 07:14PM

Galvasean wrote: »

Can my spouse and I justly kill our kids considering we made them..

My response was aimed at someone supposing a (horrible) creator. Your response to me doesn't. You presume you the creator.

antiskeptic · 01-11-2010 07:16PM

liamw wrote: »

Ah so that's how claims work. Every claim is assumed true until reasoned otherwise!

Take it up with the OP - he's the one asking reasons for disbelief. And so, anyone who suppose to have a reason for disbelief would want to ensure it's reasoned. Otherwise it isn't a reason.

Did you see the 'reasoning' I was responding to? What did you think of it?

Zombrex · 01-11-2010 07:49PM

antiskeptic wrote: »

My response was aimed at someone supposing a (horrible) creator. Your response to me doesn't. You presume you the creator.

Your response was that he wasn't horrible, he can do with his own creations what he wants and this can't be immoral because he owns them

So can i torture my kids, since I made them and thus own them, right?

antiskeptic · 02-11-2010 09:46AM

Wicknight wrote: »

Your response was that he wasn't horrible, he can do with his own creations what he wants and this can't be immoral because he owns them

Consider from whence we come.

My response was aimed at someone whose objection centred around a rejection of the consequences of God's ownership over us (quite aside from whatever flavour of his ownership, benevolent (in our opinion), capricious (in our opinion) might be).

I take the view that because we are God's possession, our thinking should embark from that boundary condition. If we did so embark we would be more likely to end up at a correct weighing up than when we head off in a wrong direction - one which (self)declares us free agents and entitled to come and go as we please - despite being created beings*.

* remember the standpoint of the objection: a rejection of the call God would rightly have were we created.

So can i torture my kids, since I made them and thus own them, right?

It's a woeful analogy, one that not only fails to reflect the difference in order between man and God (you and child are like order) but one which (emotively) supposes us on a par with innocent children wrt to God. You are also right when you say you didn't create your children and so the intrinsic 'ownership' rights you have regarding that child aren't as extentive as those of a creator Gods.

Notice that the objector didn't kick to "child and idiot touch" - he objected to God's ownership rights over him, an adult. Would you agree that if God hasn't freed us to go our own way then self-declaration of entitlement to do so is a futile defence? And that ones conclusion must be that, any sense of entitlement to so self-declare would be based on mis-calibrated/ill understood sense of ownership rights.

I mean, unless God says your free, you are not free. There is no higher moral court to appeal to than the one which sets morality.

fisgon · 02-11-2010 10:38AM

antiskeptic wrote: »

I don't call my God (and yours) benevolent

Eh, no actually, not my god, yours. I say this because, of course, the god you describe is totally a creation of your imagination. You talk about a benevolent god, and a wrathful one, many believers don't see their god this way, they have a fluffy, cuddly view of their deity. Others have different views again. You may have one view of your god, but the guy down the road has a different one, your next door neighbour a different one again, your brother or sister a contradictory opinion. It's because you are not describing anything real, simply a human construct.

You say that god is this and god is that, yet you have not a scrap, an iota, a speck of evidence for any of your claims. No less than anyone else, in truth, but still, nothing. What you are doing, whether you realise it or not, is supposing, making it up as you go along, inventing, creating a transcendent being in your head, that has such and such a quality, that is like this, or like that. It's storytelling.

The truth is, that each believer creates their own god, as a believer you can believe in any kind of god you want. All you have to do is examine the enormous variety of interpretations of god in the pantheon of human believers, it is crystal clear that, far from god creating man and having ownership over us, it is us who create our various gods and we who twist and adjust and change these perspectives, according to what we want to believe, to what suits us.

bnt · 02-11-2010 10:52AM

eblistic wrote: »

Strangely, though, I'm not sure I'll ever be comfortable with the label "Atheist". I don't see why I should be defined by something I don't believe. I use it for brevity, sometimes, to avoid going off on spiels like this one, but it makes me flinch every time.

But that's the point: it's just a word to describe the absence of something. It is to religion as silence is to sound. It doesn't define you, so there's nothing to be concerned about there.

antiskeptic · 02-11-2010 11:05AM

fisgon wrote: »

Eh, no actually, not my god, yours. I say this because, of course, the god you describe is totally a creation of your imagination. You talk about a benevolent god, and a wrathful one, many believers don't see their god this way, they have a fluffy, cuddly view of their deity. Others have different views again. You may have one view of your god, but the guy down the road has a different one, your next door neighbour a different one again, your brother or sister a contradictory opinion. It's because you are not describing anything real, simply a human construct.

You say that god is this and god is that, yet you have not a scrap, an iota, a speck of evidence for any of your claims. No less than anyone else, in truth, but still, nothing. What you are doing, whether you realise it or not, is supposing, making it up as you go along, inventing, creating a transcendent being in your head, that has such and such a quality, that is like this, or like that. It's storytelling.

The truth is, that each believer creates their own god, as a believer you can believe in any kind of god you want. All you have to do is examine the enormous variety of interpretations of god in the pantheon of human believers, it is crystal clear that, far from god creating man and having ownership over us, it is us who create our various gods and we who twist and adjust and change these perspectives, according to what we want to believe, to what suits us.

The vast bulk of your post isn't relevant to the discussion. The discussion takes an objection you have and counters it. Seeing as it isn't necessary for God to exist in order to object to him, it isn't necessary for him to exist in order to counter that objection. Naturally I'll counter using the biblical God. If anyone else want's to counter using some other god then so be it.

The objection is yours. And it needs to be reasoned. So far, you're supposing people who would be Gods property (if he exists) being 'slavish and wanting to be slaves' for occupying a position they can't but occupy. I mean, it's nothing if not irrational for a being who was created to suppose he's free to come and go as he pleases. The creator might have a different view.

robindch · 02-11-2010 11:23AM

antiskeptic wrote: »

There is no higher moral court to appeal to than the one which sets morality.

And in this case, the christian deity is believed to have required the standard (as a president), set the standards and punishments (as a legislature), interpreted the standard (as a court), captured the wrongdoer (as a police force) and implemented the punishment (as a prison system).

This is an absolute dictatorship and reflects the kind of dictatorship that christian societies give rise to.

antiskeptic · 02-11-2010 11:25AM

robindch wrote: »

And in this case, the christian deity is believed to have required the standard (as a president), set the standards and punishments (as a legislature), interpreted the standard (as a court), captured the wrongdoer (as a police force) and implemented the punishment (as a prison system).

This is an absolute dictatorship...

Such is creation. It can't be helped.

edit: the biblical vehicle for the nature of God's rule is 'sovereignty'. Although a sovereignty under a king isn't the same as a democracy, it does permit the notion of a king who extends freedoms and rights to his subjects. It's when none are that you go the way of a dictator.

Dades · 02-11-2010 11:26AM

antiskeptic wrote: »

Such is creation. It can't be helped.

God helps those who help themselves!

robindch · 02-11-2010 11:29AM

antiskeptic wrote: »

Such is creation.

And who, in the christian view, created the world?

antiskeptic · 02-11-2010 11:36AM

robindch wrote: »

And who, in the christian view, created the world?

A sovereign God.

robindch · 02-11-2010 11:44AM

antiskeptic wrote: »

A sovereign God.

And a "sovereign god" who also happens to be omnipotent can't help what his little creations do?

senordingdong · 02-11-2010 11:50AM

WesternNight wrote: »

I was lucky enough to not have been brought up with religion like most others were, so not believing in god is sort of my default position. Nothing I've heard since has in any way convinced me of the credibility of the existence of any god.

Being brought up in a semi-religious enviornment is what led me to atheism.

Since I was a child, I was baffled at the thought of an old man living on a cloud. It just didn't make any sense.
And it didn't help when I'd turn to my bible bashing grandparents for answers. They just couldn't give a straight forward answer and were disgusted that I could even question such a thing.

This just distanced me from religion even more.

philologos · 02-11-2010 11:53AM

WesternNight wrote: »

I was lucky enough to not have been brought up with religion like most others were, so not believing in god is sort of my default position. Nothing I've heard since has in any way convinced me of the credibility of the existence of any god.

This isn't what he's asking really.

He's not asking if you've found anything, rather he is asking what would from existence make you think that God doesn't exist.

Throwing around the no evidence line doesn't really convince theists such as myself who believe that there is an abundance of evidence for the existence of God.

antiskeptic · 02-11-2010 11:57AM

robindch wrote: »

And a "sovereign god" who also happens to be omnipotent can't help what his little creations do?

Of course he could help it. He could confine their will by removing all means of it's expression (although that would effectively remove their will). Or he could confine their will to express in one direction (although that would effectively remove what we term 'freewill').

ColmDawson · 02-11-2010 12:14PM

antiskeptic wrote: »

Notice that the objector didn't kick to "child and idiot touch" [...]

It's nice that you feel you can make snide reference to the 'child/idiot' issue, after failing to address it in any substantial way.

Reasons Why You Don't Believe in God

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