Reasons not to believe in God

For as long as one entertains the notion that one life is all there is, death certainly becomes hard to reconcile.

Otherwise death doesn't really present an issue regardless whether one is 1 minute or 101 years old

On the contrary, its certainly hard for a conditioned living entity to understand that they (or anyone else for that matter) are not the body

 

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Neverfly,

I looked through our discussion and didn't see that.
If I'm not wrong, an apology would be nice. Thanks.

Why a ''far-fetched assumption''?

Whenever you ask a modern atheist why they don't believe in God, they are most likely to say ''lack of evidence'', yet here you are clearly side-stepping anything that could imply at least some kind of intelligence. Why do I get the feeling that before you believe in God, hell would have to freeze over (FOS)?

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And observational evidence sticks, right?
Maggots spontaneously spring from rotting meat, and the cell is gloop. Right?

No, I'm claiming that you are using it as a reason, meaning what you are accusing me of, I can accuse you of...

The question was: Why don't you believe in [that] God (emphasis mine)?

I thought I detected a certain warmth from you, despite the cold exterior you portray. Try not to lose that.

I'm not sure, however, why you think this means you have given alot of thought to ''God''.

What conclusion have you reached, apart from expressing the modern atheist spiel?
Give me an example within our discourse, of something that shows you have given thought to God.

So, because I haven't arrived at the same conclusion as you, I'm wrong?

jan.

 

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Oh, but even just considering that one may not be the body - that already takes almost all the fight out of human interactions! If one isn't the body, then what else is there to fight about? (Other than, perhaps, "God loves me more than you, therefore you need to subject yourself to me.")

And for many people, fighting is pretty much the only pleasure they have in life.

 

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Isn't that obvious?!

Lol.

 

Must? Why must?

Who held guns to their heads or knives to their throats, threatening to kill them that unless they come up with superstitious explanations?

It's more like all of your ideas of God stem from superstition.

It's interesting how the sense of entitlement backfires: people who feel entitled to have the Universe work as they please, also have convictions like "life is a crap shoot," "God is imaginary," or a fire-and-brimstone brand of theism.

 

So in your world, how you are perceived by the rest of the world is everyone else's responsibility, and not your own?

I've heard of passing the buck, but this really does reach a new low in personal accountability. Is it really such an alien concept that you're responsible for how you present yourself? Really?

 

Something like a heavenly dictatorship? World wide consensus? Compulsory religious checks. Spiritual manipulations etc.
You are not suggesting that extreme view, but careful thought will bring all those issues up.

In the end if God is love then force will not come into it, hence freedom for sinners to do what they want and create their own dramas.

 

A long standing prophecy is far more convincing than a local and temporary frenzy.

Only the shepherds and the wise men of the east found Christ.

"A wicked and perverse generation seeks after a sign."

 

When you get right down to it, no one needs a reason not to believe in god.

Quoting passages from the bible, commenting on world events and speculating on how god could allow the things men do, is all just fluff disguising a great anger at Him and a certain petulant rejection that he doesn't care as much as you do.

Those who actually don't believe in god, simply don't.

 

Indeed, we should think about it as fighting against inferior ideas rather against the person. Unfortunately so many people pursue the thrill of conflict and dominance rather than the esteem from fighting harmful things like poverty, disease, and lack of knowledge.

 

Logical fallacies have always been your forte.

 

Heh.
Before he converted, CS Lewis was an avid atheist, and in his own words, "angry with God for not existing."

 

Then in his own words he is stating he is not and never was an atheist. He claimed he became an atheist at 15, though he later described his younger self as being paradoxically "very angry with God for not existing" he believed that religion was a duty and a chore. So no he was never an atheist. Just an anti-theist/anti-religious, a very different thing entirely.

 

If the publically open existence of your God poses some kind of dictaorship or enslavement of human beings, then that's a problem with YOUR belief in a God. It merely provides us with another good reason not to believe such an absurd proposition: the very existence of an omnipotent being constitutes a violation of free choice for humans.

 

The moment one steps outside of the atheism of rocks and chairs, one most certainly does need a reason to not believe in god.

IOW when it comes to any world view, for or against, it is about reasons. There is no avoiding this.

 

I think the problem is that you are neglecting to factor in the purpose of the material world in the first place. IOW its generally accepted as an "alternative" to heaven/the spiritual world (a place where you can do stuff that you just can't do in the spiritual world ... which then has the consequences of giving - usually bad - experiences that make the material world unique. Hence god constitutionally appears there as a mere "option" (through the avenue of ignorance/illusion of course).

IOW its not an effective argument to talk about god improving the material world by establishing modes of existence (free from pain, death and anxiety, etc) that are unique to the spiritual world

 

It's not clear how this is the case.

"Reasons" seem to come up only as hindsight justifications for or against a particular premise.
Moreover, those reasons may be very specific to the social context in which they are brought up - for example, the reasons one gives for one's (a)theism to one's parents may be entirely different than those one gives to one's friends, and those again different from those one gives to one's boss if the topic comes up.

I really don't think that as far as spirituality/religion are concerned, there are people who list reasons for or against something, and then based on that list, decide to believe it or not.
Although I suppose typically atheists and those who don't believe in spirituality in any way, shape or form, do go about their non-belief or lack of belief that way.

Of all the theists I have talked to or read and who claim to believe in God for this it that reason, it always turned out after some discussion that they are just sophisticated agnostics.

 

The modes of nature explain why someone sometime may opt for lifestyle that gives rise to reasons (tamas) or reasons that give rise to a lifestyle (sattva) ... or even alternatively a lifestyle that conflicts with one's reason (rajas)

 

Now that's a nice play of words you have there!

By this you mean people like armchair philosophers?

 

By tamas I mean that a person is a victim of their lifestyle - IOW because they lead a life that they do, all their subsequent ruminations on reason and world view stem from it. IOW they are powerless to change their way of life. Regarding armchair philosophers, I guess it would depend on what they did when they got out of the armchair