Reasons to not believe?

[Truth_Faith13]

Hi all

At the moment, I'm Christian but confused as to where I am but I'm interested into why those who identify as atheist don't believe in any of the religions?

What would you say was the main reasons?

I'm particularly interested in those who were once believers and have found faults in the Bible/Christian teachings?

Thanks in advance

 

[Iti oj]

No reason to believe.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

I wouldn't say that I'm an atheist, but I'm somewhere inbetween atheism and theism. I used to be a Christian but I have lost any faith in religion. I see no reason to take their claims seriously. So many of them say that they are "the truth" and all the others are wrong. How is a person supposed to choose in that case? We're just supposed to hedge our bets? It's not worth it to me.

When it comes to the stories of the Bible, I have looked into them and have no found no evidence that most of the biggest figures in the Bible even existed. It's not a history book. I'm supposed to believe that some 1st century Palestinian Jew went around performing all these miracles, raising the dead and coming back from the dead himself and no one noticed?! There's no eyewitness proof for this Jesus person. It's all hearsay, written long after he was supposed to have died. We don't even know who this Paul person really is. We only have the Bible and mentions of people who lived long after the 1st century. So all this adds up in my mind as being bogus. It's just myth and nothing more. That doesn't mean it has no value, but it certainly destroys mainstream Christianity. And what goes for Christianity goes for all the rest. I'm not going to waste my time waiting for some imaginary savior to swoop down from Heaven and "save" me. I'm not going to waste my time asking for forgiveness from thin air. I have better things to do with my time.

Also, I find the Abrahamic concept of god to be illogical. It pretty much explains itself away.

 

[LuisDantas]

I happen to simply be an atheist. Have always been, even if it took a while for me to realize that.

Even having the option of adopting practice deities in Buddhism, and thinking of them as man-made if I so desired, I am still not interested.

Religion, however, I do value quite a lot.

Even if it leads me to be very critical of what I perceive as mistakes justified with it, and even if I fully expect it to avoid or at least de-emphasize the concept of God. Yes, even in Christianity and Islam.

Edited to add: but you asked about my reasons, didn't you? Well, I suppose my main reason for not adopting belief in any god is because I see existence and fail to see any evidence for that. There is plenty that is sacred, but evidence consistently points to me that it is a human duty, not a divine one, to take care for, protect and nurture that what is sacred.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Hi all

At the moment, I'm Christian but confused as to where I am but I'm interested into why those who identify as atheist don't believe in any of the religions?

What would you say was the main reasons?

I'm particularly interested in those who were once believers and have found faults in the Bible/Christian teachings?

Thanks in advance

In general, I've just never seen any reason to believe in any gods. I also feel like the world makes more sense if we assume that there isn't a god at work than if we assume that there is.

As for Christian teachings, besides the whole "existence of God" thing, my biggest mental hurdle is with the Atonement: it makes absolutely no sense to me that the creator and ruler of the universe would have to sacrifice himself to himself to make up for the fact that a man and a woman once ate fruit from a particular tree. I just can't see how making the only truly innocent person in the world suffer would do anything to make anything okay.

... BTW: I know not all Christians believe in a literal Adam and Eve, but making them figurative only makes the mental gymnastics for the necessity of the Atonement even more bizarre, IMO.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

There's lots of reasons to not believe: there's no logical evidence to believe in the existence of a god, the Bible in inconsistent, fallible, and with errors- these are two of the biggest reasons. I spent nearly 30 years as a Christian, and the more I studied, the more confused I became; the more I practiced, the less I believed. Eventually, I found what I was looking for in Buddhism.

 

[bobhikes]

I had questions about certain aspects of the Bible. The priests I first dealt with were hard core and not open.

This was my first discourgement. I went out on my own to find the answers and understand better. I tried different bibles and different religions. I eventually found Priests I could talk with. The problem is my questions could never be answered until I answered them myself.

For myself I am agnostic atheist. This means to me that I don't believe you can prove God either way, but personally I don't believe in God.

The God of the Bible can only be if the God is imperfect and has made mistakes and is learning on the way. If God is Perfect the Bible is mostly wrong. Even with this distinction the Bible still has problems and some of it needs to be taken as parables not true stories.

Hope it helps you understand.

 

[Penumbra]

Hi all

At the moment, I'm Christian but confused as to where I am but I'm interested into why those who identify as atheist don't believe in any of the religions?

What would you say was the main reasons?

I'm particularly interested in those who were once believers and have found faults in the Bible/Christian teachings?

Thanks in advance

As a thought experiment, go over in your head the list of reasons why you're not currently a Hindu, and then apply that general idea to all other religions too, to get a general idea of why a non-religious person might not be religious.

Christianity has also never made logical sense to me, nor does it seem to match well with a scientific understanding of how the world works. I find little or no philosophical value in it, nor any significant truth.

 

[Truth_Faith13]

As a thought experiment, go over in your head the list of reasons why you're not currently a Hindu, and then apply that general idea to all other religions too, to get a general idea of why a non-religious person might not be religious.

That is a good idea except the reason I am not Hindu is because I am currently Christian, so Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. On the assumption that the Bible is true, I accept that it says Jesus is the son of a God, whereas Muslims who claim to accept all "three" testaments (the Quran being the third) reject this so that makes no sense. Mormonism has so many inconsistencies, inaccuracies etc that it's simply made up.

So Mormonism I reject on non religious grounds. I guess I do for Islam in a way too since if I believed the bible to be false I would have the same conclusion that it's contradictory to say to accept something but reject what it says.

So I suppose I look for inconsistencies, inaccuracies, illogical deductions etc which is probably why most non religious people are non religious?

I still have reasons to believe but they aren't reasons that can be tested by the above.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

There's a saying (but I forget the source), that something to the extent of: once you realize why you reject all other gods except the one you believe in, you'll realize why I reject all gods. The difference between a theist and an atheist, is that a theist accepts the possibility and validity of divine revelation, however, this is not really testable by scientific means. A theist accepts one divine revelation over all others, whereas an atheist rejects them all.

 

[Sees]

Makes no sense, especially the first sentence.

That is a good idea except the reason I am not Hindu is because I am currently Christian, so Hinduism is a polytheistic religion. On the assumption that the Bible is true, I accept that it says Jesus is the son of a God, whereas Muslims who claim to accept all "three" testaments (the Quran being the third) reject this so that makes no sense. Mormonism has so many inconsistencies, inaccuracies etc that it's simply made up.

So Mormonism I reject on non religious grounds. I guess I do for Islam in a way too since if I believed the bible to be false I would have the same conclusion that it's contradictory to say to accept something but reject what it says.

So I suppose I look for inconsistencies, inaccuracies, illogical deductions etc which is probably why most non religious people are non religious?

I still have reasons to believe but they aren't reasons that can be tested by the above.

 

[Truth_Faith13]

There's lots of reasons to not believe: there's no logical evidence to believe in the existence of a god, the Bible in inconsistent, fallible, and with errors- these are two of the biggest reasons. I spent nearly 30 years as a Christian, and the more I studied, the more confused I became; the more I practiced, the less I believed. Eventually, I found what I was looking for in Buddhism.

Would you mind expanding on the inconsistencies?

The bit that even as a Christian I have always found intriguing is that the messiah was supposed to be a descendant of David. Joseph was the descendant if David not Mary and therefore Jesus is not a blood descendant of David. I guess they get around this by saying Joseph adopted Jesus and therefore he was raised in the house of David...but to me descendant in those days at least would have meant blood?

 

[McBell]

Hi all

At the moment, I'm Christian but confused as to where I am but I'm interested into why those who identify as atheist don't believe in any of the religions?

What would you say was the main reasons?

I'm particularly interested in those who were once believers and have found faults in the Bible/Christian teachings?

Thanks in advance

The main reason I am not a Christian?
Christians.

The main reason I am not a Muslim?
Muslims.

The main reason I am not a theist?
Theists.

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

I'm sure you've probably seen all the websites that go over the many inconsistencies and errors in the Bible as a non-believer sees it. I won't go over all of the one's I see here (nor could I), but one of the bigger ones to me is the disconnect between the god of the OT and the god of the NT.

 

[McBell]

Would you mind expanding on the inconsistencies?

How many denominations are there of Christianity?


Now ask yourself why.
Why are there so many different denominations?

 

[Caladan]

Hi all

At the moment, I'm Christian but confused as to where I am but I'm interested into why those who identify as atheist don't believe in any of the religions?

What would you say was the main reasons?

I do not believe in the dogma of any of the religions because there is no realistic or constructive reasons to attribute truth to anachronistic claims about supernatural events found in the traditions of the cultures of the world. As religions go, I do find value in various forms of folklore but that is different from believing in them in the strict sense of the word.
Prophets don't walk on water, nor do they part seas, nor do they ride flying steeds. These are traditions and I have no reason to believe in them.

I'm particularly interested in those who were once believers and have found faults in the Bible/Christian teachings?

Try to spend a day in the life of a Jew and you'll understand very quickly the appropriation which is Christianity, and how it is chiefly a pagan religion superficially dressed on remnants of Hebrew tradition. It has served the Roman Empire, the Crusader kingdom and Feudal Europe, and many other social structures. Hardly the religion of carpenters and fishermen.

Thanks in advance

NP.

 

[Truth_Faith13]

Makes no sense, especially the first sentence.

My fault, I didn't type it very well. Christians believe in a monotheistic religion.....I am currently Christian, however if I wasn't religious but wanted to believe, I believe if a religion is to be true..it should be monotheistic. Hinduism is polytheistic. So in a sense my rejection of Hinduism is because I'm a Christian?

Does that make more sense?

I'm not entirely sure why the rest of the post doesn't make sense? It's simply finding inaccuracies, inconsistencies and illogical deductions in those religions? At the moment, I haven't found a strong enough argument to reject Christianity, which is partly why I'm here and asked the question. I'm not an expert on theology or history...and someone here might have better knowledge than myself

 

[Truth_Faith13]

I'm sure you've probably seen all the websites that go over the many inconsistencies and errors in the Bible as a non-believer sees it. I won't go over all of the one's I see here (nor could I), but one of the bigger ones to me is the disconnect between the god of the OT and the god of the NT.

Actually I haven't

I've been over a ton of website arguing between the different denominations and religions. But I've never looked into rejecting the bible completely. This is the first time I've even looked into atheism (unless you include my husband who is an atheist)

 

[dyanaprajna2011]

Actually, Hinduism runs the gamut in theisms between atheism and polytheism. They have monotheism, polytheism, a form of trinitarianism, atheism, pantheism, panentheism, deism, henotheism, atheism, and probably everything else in between.

 

[Truth_Faith13]

Actually, Hinduism runs the gamut in theisms between atheism and polytheism. They have monotheism, polytheism, a form of trinitarianism, atheism, pantheism, panentheism, deism, henotheism, atheism, and probably everything else in between.

I didn't know that...thanks for the insight!