Why I Don’t Believe In Gods
An article I wrote for our student newspaper.
If there is one question I get asked more than any other, it would be “Why don’t you believe in God?”. Rather than going down the popular route of trying to work out which God the inquirer is talking about, I like to respond with reasons I don’t believe in any gods. To be an atheist, you don’t just have to disbelieve the existence of one god; you have to disbelieve in all of them.
By far the most persuasive reason I disbelieve in gods is the sheer lack of evidence for them in the first place. A theist might argue that all of existence is evidence enough for god, but the problem with this conclusion is that it does not explain the god. In fact, it makes things even more confusing, because it invokes a “supreme” being that in most religions is all-knowing and all-powerful. Such a being is so infinitely complex that the only way you can possibly explain its own existence is by claiming it was “always there”. Not only does this argument rely on speculation and blind faith, but you can easily turn it around and argue that the universe – in some form – was always there. Indeed, the same line of argument is used with Intelligent Design, and the same problem is reached; you simply cannot explain or give evidence for the “designer”. All things considered, it is far easier for me to believe that there was some perfectly natural cause for the universe than to suppose an infinitely complex being.
Another problem I find with the whole “god” idea is the contradictory nature of religion. It’s not just that there are several hundred religions all claiming to be the truth, or that all of them contradict each other in some way, but that each religion is internally inconsistent. Evangelicals like to claim that the Bible is supported by science, but it is simply not. The Bible has stayed roughly the same for generations; science has not. When a new scientific discovery threatens the “infallibility” of the Bible, one of two things can occur; either believers change the way they interpret passages so that the inconsistency is effectively removed, or they reject the entire scientific idea. Not all believers choose to do the same thing of course. This whole process of constantly updating religious texts to comply with science begs the ultimate question: If a god did exist, and these texts are supposedly its word, why was it so wrong in the first place? Have we really risen to such a high level that we are out-thinking an all-knowing god?
Finally, I see no logical reason for life to exist after death; a concept most religions like to advertise. Science tells us we really are just a bunch of atoms, and that even our consciousness can be explained with natural processes. I have no problem with that; I find it quite a humble view. In retrospect, I think our self-awareness is the cause of our fear, and subsequent fixation with death. Problems arise when one attempts to imagine what it is like not to think; it’s impossible to do by the very nature of thinking. So which is it? Was an afterlife created for us so we can live on, or did we create an afterlife to cope with our fears of death?
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I wholeheartedly agree with your view on the afterlife. I’ve heard plenty of scientific arguments against it, which I of course agree with, but I like the question you pose of why theists have created afterlife in the first place.
I liked your paragraph on the contradictory nature of religion. Science is universal. Religion is regional. If science is causing a believer to constantly re-evaluate their religion, maybe it’s time to drop the idea of a god as a failed experiment.
As a former Athiest, and a militant one at that, I know exactly where you are coming from. But what I found in my own spiritual journey, which is far from over in any case, is that religion is not something that can be explained head. Its something you believe with your heart, or not at all.
Religion is also a dirty word to use, because it implies the human institution rather than the connection an individual feels to his or her belief. I use the word faith, because that’s what it is. You put faith in something that as a being that exists in a limited plane we cannot prove one way or another. You choose believe your heart rather than your head.
And while that may sound funny, it reaches back to my initial point. And I will repeat, I was a Militant Atheist for seventeen years. I turned two Christian friends away from their God using intellect and science, logic and arguments. Their talk of faith and seeing god in creation itself made no sense to me, because in my mind I was explaining the same situation through a different lens. However, when I found god, lo-and-behold, I can suddenly understand and see exactly what they were saying, and now I feel terrible about what I did.
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All that aside, what is the harm in letting someone believe? If that person is not imposing their belief on you, killing another being for their beliefs or lack thereof, then why the need to explain what is precious to them away as nothing more than a fantasy or a delusion?
If you do this believing that Religion as a whole is a “failed experiment” as it was put earlier, and try to actively convert people to your way of thinking, than how are you any different than those people you dislike so much for their arrogance and prosyletization?
@ Forrest
what is the harm in letting someone believe? If that person is not imposing their belief on you, killing another being for their beliefs or lack thereof
Problem is an awful lot of ‘believers’ do impose their belief on others, and not just their belief but their whole way of life. How they want things to be, with scant regard for anyone else’s opinions.
“Live and Let Live” sounds like an appropriate response.
Contrary to what the golden rule would have you believe, doing unto anther as they have to you only propagates more of the same. I believe it was Gandhi, an agnostic, who was paraphrasing Buddha when he said, “Someone must take the blow and break the cycle”.
I’m not saying bend over and take it, but live as an example of someone who is respectful of other people’s beliefs, regardless of what those beliefs are.
Oddly enough, it is this responsibility that many Christians for one fail to live up to. We are called to emulate the Christ, to try and maintain his example, living a life free of sin. What many have come to believe how ever is that Christ is their ticket to salvation, end of story, they don’t to do anything else. There’s where the arrogance begins and you get those people whom you are so familiar with, that will belligerently harass and decry your way of life. Those people are not Christians. They can call themselves whatever they like, but it doesn’t make it so.
“Was an afterlife created for us so we can live on, or did we create an afterlife to cope with our fears of death?”
Definitely fear of death! I am convinced that fear of the unknown is the ultimate force driving most pseudoscientific/paranormal beliefs. People just don’t like saying “I don’t know” and they end up inventing all kinds of fantastical stories.