Why do you not believe in God?

[Enai de a lukal]

the arrogant silliness of trying to 'correct' someone by denigrating their belief in their Gods by demanding that they be labelled gods

As if pointing out that Fido is a dog, not a Dog (my dog's name) is "denigrating" to Fido or his owner. Using a common noun to refer to a common noun is not denigrating; using a lower case dpesn't somehow make it inferior, or something. How ludicrous.

Sure there is only one, you just keep telling yourself that.

I will. Because its true. Christianity is a form of monotheism. This means it has only one god (i.e. God). Der...Der...

 

[InformedIgnorance]

And that God's name is? Oh yeah, not God, in christianity God is not the name of any... 'facet' if you wish to call them of God, in Christianity for some reason you have abandoned the proper Jewish names of the God of Abraham and so you use title or designation to refer to your God in lieu of name, just as he has used title or designation to refer to his Gods.

Christianity is Henotheistic, Judaism and Islam are Monotheistic.

edit: I should say trinitarian christianity is henotheistic, otherwise it is an improper generalisation

Your presumption of claiming the term God is one of arrogance when English is not limited to such finite linguistic associations, the term god and God and Gods and gods are polymorphic terms used to refer to an array of concepts. Were you using the term 'God' in the Christian DIR then surely your assumption about which concept was being referred to would be meritorious, however, this is the non-theistic board of a religious education forum not a Christian forum, there are many people here who worship many different Gods and you have not the right to 'correct' their use of a capital letter to refer to their Gods in that you do not feel that their Gods should be referred to with a capital because that makes your God 'special'.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

And that God's name is?

The name of the god of the Christian faith is "God". I thought we were past this.

Your presumption of claiming the term God is one of arrogance

Hardly. It is one of correct usage. And there is no value-judgment here, just linguistic accuracy.

Were you using the term 'God' in the Christian DIR then surely your assumption about which concept was being referred to would be meritorious, however, this is the non-theistic board of a religious education forum not a Christian forum

Irrelevant...

there are many people here who worship many different Gods

"many different gods", not Gods.

and you have not the right to 'correct' their use of a capital letter to refer to their Gods in that you do not feel that their Gods should be referred to with a capital because that makes your God 'special'.

This is just incorrect grammar, certainly nothing approaching an argument here. The common noun in English for deities is "gods", not "Gods". The latter is a pluralized version of the proper noun "God", the name of the god-concept of Christianity, which makes no sense since, by definition, there is only one God.

 

[futilethewinds]

Hello everyone. This is for all of the Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers out there. Why do you not believe in God? What reasons do you have for not believing that God exists? Thanks in advance! I'm not looking for debate by the way. I'm just curious.

There are so many reasons. First of all, the idea of an invisible wizard in the sky is ridiculous. Santa Claus makes more sense. Second, there is no evidence whatsoever to support any religious claims. Third, religion is a means of controlling people, and I do not want to conform and be controlled.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I just don't see it that important or relative of an issue. I have plenty of things to study and learn about, here on earth and the bit of the universe we have seen that the speculations of religion are just not important to me. There is also that the human senses are pretty weak, limited, and highly prone to error, so how can we even trust what we perceive to be a spiritual event isn't just our brain's neurons misfiring?

 

[McBell]

The name of the god of the Christian faith is "God". I thought we were past this.

Hardly. It is one of correct usage. And there is no value-judgment here, just linguistic accuracy.

Irrelevant...

"many different gods", not Gods.

:biglaugh:

This is just incorrect grammar, certainly nothing approaching an argument here. The common noun in English for deities is "gods", not "Gods". The latter is a pluralized version of the proper noun "God", the name of the god-concept of Christianity, which makes no sense since, by definition, there is only one God.

by what definition?
Please present your source.

 

[Caladan]

Hello everyone. This is for all of the Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers out there. Why do you not believe in God? What reasons do you have for not believing that God exists? Thanks in advance! I'm not looking for debate by the way. I'm just curious.

Why would I add extra beliefs on a perfectly fine world view?
Atheism/Agnosticism is my default position in life. I'm satisfied with looking at life as it is without attaching emotional and idealized beliefs. The question should be: 'What reasons do I have FOR believing that God exists?'.

 

[beenie]

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[rageoftyrael]

I just have to say this. enaidealukal, at best you are right, and merely look the fool for having brought up and still argue for, such a minor point. At worst, you are wrong, in which case you look even more foolish.

It also doesn't help when you put up such statements as Der.. Der.... when pointing out when you believe someone is wrong. It may be okay in the real world, to denigrate people you believe are wrong, but here in religious forums, it isn't okay. We are all about trying to have calm and respectful discussions, in spite of the fact that we have a wide and varying set of beliefs amongst us.

 

[nilsz]

Without having read the previous posts in this thread, I realize that I am likely not adding anything new. I only reply to satisfy my personal desire for self-expression.

I was introduced to the common scientific understanding of our universe and earth's history early in my life, and I am convinced that it is based upon reasonable interpretation of documented observations. This gives me a view of the universe in which the human species has no cosmological significance, but are minuscule entities in an incomprehensibly large universe.

When confronting religious beliefs, I note that there are many contradicting variations of them. Because only one of a set of contradicting descriptions of reality can be completely accurate, this leads to the conclusion that most if not all of them are, at least in some respects, incorrect. While scientific beliefs can also be incorrect, the scientific process is self-correcting and can be inspected.

I also observe that tales of supernatural occurrences are common and are earnestly believed by those who claim to have experienced them, but turn out to be misinterpretations when inspected with scientific methods. So I do not believe anyone has truly personally experienced God or any other deity.

 

[Monk Of Reason]

"Why should you believe in god?" is the question. I don't ask you why you aren't wearing a hat. I don't ask you why you don't believe in *insert god you don't believe in here*. ect ect ect.

 

[The_Evelyonian]

Hello everyone. This is for all of the Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers out there. Why do you not believe in God? What reasons do you have for not believing that God exists? Thanks in advance! I'm not looking for debate by the way. I'm just curious.

Because I've never seen any compelling evidence that such a being exists.

 

[Jehmut]

Hello everyone. This is for all of the Atheists, Agnostics, and other non-believers out there. Why do you not believe in God? What reasons do you have for not believing that God exists? Thanks in advance! I'm not looking for debate by the way. I'm just curious.

I don't think I can say a great deal that hasn't already been said here by others, but my fundamental reason for disbelief is simply a lack of a proper reason. I have no reason to believe in a god, or gods, thus I do not. Simple as that. Well, not quite so simple as that (I have reasons explicitly not not believe; for instance, science has provided us with superior explanations for much of what gods once served to explain, though that's quintessentially the same reason as my first), that's the most basic reason.

 

[Enai de a lukal]

I just have to say this. enaidealukal, at best you are right, and merely look the fool for having brought up and still argue for, such a minor point.

Maybe. But that's preferable to finding myself on the wrong side of such a trivial point.

At worst, you are wrong, in which case you look even more foolish.

Not much danger of that in this particular case.

 

[Norrin-6-]

1. I don't have a choice in the matter. I can sit here listing things like not having evidence for God's existence, which surely is a contributing factor, but I haven't weighed reasons not to believe against reasons to believe and then made the explicit choice not to believe in God based on that. My issue with belief in God isn't that I have reasons not to believe, my issue is that I don't believe.

2. I'm still fond of the time when I did believe in God. I'm still fond of studying religions to this day. I've lost out on some of the positive things from when I believed in God, but I wouldn't change a thing. I've gained a lot of insight. And as for studying religions, I've began answering a lot of questions I never had before. I can say I'm actually more interested pertaining to some specifics of religion than I was interested when I called myself a Christian. I would never give up some of the things I have now just to go back to believing. If I ever do believe again I'm taking everything I have now with me.