Stroking the embers of doubt.

[Impulse]

(22-01-2013 08:42 PM)cjs Wrote:  

(18-01-2013 10:29 AM)Impulse Wrote:  Imagine that no concept of any god was ever communicated to you. There were no family members, friends, or proselytizing strangers telling you about their god. There was no bible or other written work telling of atrocities and contradictions a god's doctrine or a god's miracles. It would be just you existing in the world going about your day to day life as you do now, but with all that is god-related removed.

Now, starting from there, what reason would you have to believe in a god if the idea simply occurred to you?

I often daydream about life with no religious peer pressure (sigh and harp music)...

Like others here: the lack of historical proof, the contradictions, the biblical violence, especially god having to murder his own son to forgive sins (where is the sense in that?!), there being no big plan, reading about science and evolution, there being so many one-true-faiths past and present, atrocities, the impossible mental gymnastics that believing would involve for me, the accident of birth mentioned above making me realize that had I grown up elsewhere I would have been Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or whatever, the confirmation bias where god is credited for all things right and just but not docked points for the bad stuff, treatment of women in some religions, I could go on.

But the biggest reason is that I have no proof and cannot will myself to believe. It's that simple.

I completely agree. People in my family from time to time refer to my "choosing" to be an atheist and I always point out that it's not a choice. I can't make myself believe or not believe. My not believing is simply what is after I have examined the claims, lack of logic, and lack of evidence regarding religion.

Also your comment about god murdering his own son to forgive sins hit home with me. It's an argument I have presented many times and have yet to hear a sensible reply from a theist. Not only does it not make sense that a god would do this to forgive sins when there must be far better ways, but it doesn't even make sense that it would work. According to Christians, Jesus didn't do anything wrong so how does his suffering and death in any way impact on sins that were committed by others. "Here thief, I'm going to torture and kill my son and it will be as if you never stole." Huh...???