I don't believe in god(s) because the world around me, that I've known for over 44 years has offered far more to disprove the existence god than it has to prove it. From starving children dying miserable deaths to ridiculously rich and greedy fatcats, none of it seems very holy. If I were to treat my children as god does, I would be castigated chastised and imprisoned, not deified.
I find my arguments often countered with, "Well there is evil because god wants us to figure out how to be all loving and kind. He doesn't want to just give us the answers." Fine. But if he is all powerful, why doesn't he simply make us believe that we figured it all out on our own? Certainly it is in god's power to do so, right? This usually stymies even the firmest believers. I also think, for what its worth that when a pollster asks the question, "Do you believe in god?" (G, if the poll is written) the question presumes the existence of god and makes it psychologically difficult for someone to respond in the negative. It's akin to asking someone if they believe in electricity. This then probably leaves to a highly inaccurate count of non-believers.
I was a Catholic for most of my life, attended 12 years of Catholic schools, was an alter boy and was married in the church. I am thankful that I was exposed to core humanistic Catholic and Christian doctrine: Do unto other as you would have them done unto you. Visit the imprisoned, clothe the naked, feed the hungry, etc. Without such teachings I would be a totally different person and not, I imagine, to a positive degree. The same can be said of humanity in general. We are better off for having some religiously affiliated dogma. Still, that religious friction and a failure to truly live by the word, is further proof that god does not exist.
I also believe that there is no spirituality whatsoever. Human beings are simply a more advanced life form no more or less valuable than fleas or bacteria. What's more, given our plunder of natural resources and our unabated war mongering ways, I would argue that we are far less valuable than bacteria. Therefore you are either religious or you are not. It is a hypocritical cop out to claim, as many agnostics do, "I'm spiritual, but not religious." The notion that we alone, among all the earth's collections of organized atoms are somehow endowed with an everlasting spirit IS a religious notion, ipso facto.
I have found that it is the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus who best summarizes the gist of my own disbelief:
Is God willing to prevent evil but unable? Then he is not omnipotent. Is he able but unwilling? Then he is malevolent. Is god both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then, why call him god?
I am by definition (but not pay grade), a librarian working in an academic law library. I have a BA degree and have worked in libraries for 20 years. I read political non-fiction, listen to real, straight ahead jazz and enjoy the discussing politics and religion. I have 5 brothers and sisters, several of whom are still devout Catholics and my parents have been married for more than 45 years, I don't think they go to mass any more either. |
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I don't believe in gods because of my study of religious traditions and practices. I observed how many religions claim to have a monopoly on morality or divine revelation, and from that I realized that my own faith's claims were no more valid than the claims of any other belief system. I was raised as a Christian, but once I realized that its claims no longer seemed valid, I relinquished my faith. Also, there were things about comparative religions which showed me the human origins of religion: the similarities between Hinduism before the Bhagavad-Gita and Judaism before Jesus, how both traditions emphasized ritual and law yet later yielded to a special intermediary between human beings and the divine. I also realized that the Bible didn't seem coherent to me anymore, especially when passages like Numbers 31 conflict with the idea of a benevolent god. Finally, I realized that natural explanations about our world are much better than supernatural explanations. A church without a lightning rod struck by lightning or a mosque damaged by an earthquake tells us a lot about the validity of naturalistic explanations, and also tells us about the bankruptcy of supernatural explanations. I have always been fascinated by how people think and interact. When I was a child, I was typically the outsider in social situations, so I have a lot of experience analyzing social behavior on an amateur level. I am currently a college student. I am interested in politics, philosophy, religion, psychology, humor and many other things. |
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I have never been afraid of the dark from about 12 years old onwards.
I don't live in a cave and therefore I am not afraid of what lies beyond my cave in the dark.
Perhaps it could be put in another way.
To believe in Gods one must worry about all the unknowns in life, I just don't.
Maybe I am just another human being who is not in control, an apathetic person just accepting my fate
whatever comes my way.
My brain works on facts, I dream when I sleep, but I don't dream awake.
Such wondering where humanity comes from doesn't hold any wonder for me.
We all started from atoms of hydrogen drawn together in space under gravity, forming a proto star.
It ignited, burn't with fusion and broke up to form a disk, which in turn broke up to form planets.
I accept this version, and natural selection.
To attribute this to "Divine Intervention" is truly ridiculous.
Looney tunes, I am surrounded by god believers.
But I am happy, just being human. an avid Radio Amateur, has even talked to Space Shuttles direct.
Has built telephone exchanges, Internet main centres etc |
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I don't believe in gods because I experienced disappointment in almost every kind of ideology that exists in the world and had my worldview broadened the hard way. I gradually discovered the grain of similarity in every homogenous doctrine and falseness was part of that similarity. I come from a poor family of blue-collar and agricultural workers. My grandmother was the only really god-fearing person in the family, a devout Roman Catholic, but even she has learned to accept me (together with my homosexuality) at the very end of her life. I was never religious in the narrow sense of the word, but my political persuasions were remarkably religion-like. I idolized my leaders as gods. I believed in ideologies as holy rules. I started out with an all-consuming interest in World War II when I was in kindergarten. (Learned to read at three from Fortune Wheel.) This interest led to a persuasion: I became a Nazi. It may sound weird, and it indeed does to me with my present knowledge and experience, but I was completely believing in Hitler's cause and was fascinated by the orderliness of his thinking. Then, after lots of punishment from adults, I 'converted' to Communism. The same orderliness, just different exclusion principles. Then I grew and developed, and by the second year of high school my affiliation gradually 'mildened' to Liberal - in the sense of 'activist of the Hungarian party called Alliance of Free Democrats'. They were the only party left for me when I discovered my homosexuality. But then certain things happened, and it became obvious that even they won't make my country a safe and comfortable place for LGBT people. That set me off to a complete void. I was lost. Worse than that, I was turning 18. That's voting age here, and I was not sure who to vote for because I have seen the evil at the core of all parties. So I cut the threads and burned the bridges, and began saving money for emigration. That is still in progress though, as we're still a quite poor family and my income is just beginning to exist. But I never want to get involved in any ideological battle again, unless I can have my own alternative, which has unique insights added and does not conform to a pre-set, straightjacketed view. (As Dr. Kevorkian said, 'A party is just like a religion. It straightjackets your mind.') Parallel to this journey other disillusionments took place: discovery of the dynamics of parent-child relationships (where George Orwell's 1984 and my interest in ethology meant a great help); discovery of the fact that I am not able to have a romantic relationship (took three rejections to realize); the hard path of an autistic learning the meaning of lies and unwritten rules; and basically all the horizon-expanding experiences stemming from typical Asperger-like information-addiction. Step by step I became certain that the scientific method is the way for collecting answers, and firsthand knowledge is always more reliable than other people's opinions and convictions. (I just blogged about this firsthand knowledge vs. communication thing.) Recently I've found that I'm not alone with this kind of 'paranoia', though everybody around me seemed to be indoctrinated with something or another; I came across Richard Dawkins' work by accident and now he occupies the top few of my reading list. Reading The God Delusion I'm going backwards on my journey, remembering what it meant to be bound by a belief system so much that I could not notice anything else, so strongly that I beat up people because they believed in something else (or nothing at all). It's exhilarating. I'm sending it to all my religious friends so they can open their eyes as well. Lesbian, aspie, dyscalculic. Currently working as a freelance translator and firstyear of English & American Studies at ELTE, but preparing to abandon Humanities altogether to pursue interests in biology (neuroscience perhaps?). Other interests include human rights, science fiction, body art and transhumanism. |
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