Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

People hate homosexuality.

Doubting Didymus

People hate bigots too.

Denshuu

The beliefs of the god are completely out of sync with its description. No omnibenevolent god would have ever created a place of eternal suffering for its creations and found it 'just'. Ever. Secondly, no omnibenevolent god would threaten his creations with Hell if they didn't believe in him, and then refuse to give any evidence what-so-ever for its existence. There are just too many inconsistencies in the god's characteristics, and people often simply regress into saying "He resides beyond our comprehension, so what we see as a cruel, unnecessary, immature act of sadistic barbarism is really a merciful and loving act of kindness."

WWSD

Arguments against the god concept:

Argument from non-belief.

Poorly engineered creation.

No direct evidence besides a vague, oft translated book.

Jan Crouch.

scumble

The strongest arguments, for me, are based on personal experience, in the end.
I'm short sighted. Why would God create eyes that go wrong? Is it supposed to make me a better person? It doesn't seem to be a message to me.
Do parasites have some use we don't understand, in God's plan. Is there something inherently wrong with walking in tall grass, that I may get a tick sucking small amounts of blood out of my leg? Mosquitos, what are they for? I can admit that they just take advantage of a niche in the world, but deliberately created?
As far as I can tell, Christians don't avoid ticks and mosquitos - they don't target atheists particularly.
The details make an impression on me. There's no incentive for believing in a Christian God. Christians don't seem to derive any benefits for being loyal and faithful. If Christians were somehow consistently avoiding sickness, senility, being bitten my mosquitos, and other annoyances, I might sit up and take notice.

Jayhawker Soule

The question brings to mind the Stephen Roberts' quote: "I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." So, Kalestia, "what do you say would be the strongest argument AGAINST the existance of" Mythra, Baal, Shiva, Danu, Baal, ... ?

Perchance

I'll have to agree with scumble here: personal experience. There are other reasons, but this one works on both emotional and logical levels for me, so it's probably my strongest one.

I've been in places where other people insist they felt the presence of God (church, accident sites, when one of our pets died, and so on). I never felt anything. For a long time, I was embarrassed about that, the way I might be if someone told me a song I didn't like was by Beethoven. If something beautiful and powerful was there, why couldn't I see it?

That feeling only lasted until I started realizing that I didn't like a lot of things that other people liked, and that that didn't make me a bad person, or even someone who was willfully denying the existence of beauty or power or whatever attribute someone claimed in x. I just couldn't see it. And a lot of people couldn't see what I felt as beauty and power in things I liked (I know a lot of people who despise some of the authors and music I really like, for example). I put it down to different aesthetic experience.

Then I grew curious about God and tried praying a few times. Nothing. I thought I was "seeking with a sincere heart" or whatever the phrase was, but I still felt nothing. And I wondered, when reading testimonies of Christian conversion on the Internet, at how many were motivated by traumatic experiences, like the loss of someone close or a brush with death. I started wondering if it was possible these people were creating a feeling of God in their hearts to comfort themselves. It was, I thought, at least possible.

So, I suppose, that would be my main reason: lack of experience with any manifestation of the Christian God when others insisted he was there, combined with the possibility that belief in a god is not really any different than other facets of someone's personality. I might someday have an experience that convinces me differently, but I haven't had one so far, and I don't see the need to sit around with bated breath waiting for it.

-Perchance.

CX

The absence of any positive evidence for the existence of the Xian god. The burden of proof, of course, lies with the theist rather than the nontheist.

scumble

The other thing is, Perchance - how do those people know what they're feeling is God-related. I may find myself enjoying the beauty of the world on occasion - what does it have to do with God?
Why can't humans just have the ability to love nature, even if a lot of people aren't aware of it most of the time?
I suppose it's natural that traumatic experiences can change the way people think. If you're ready to believe, Christianity can give you something to lean on, i.e. "it's not really pointless that my son died in a car crash" - I expect it's a difficult one to accept, that people die randomly all the time, when it's affecting you. Reminds me of Jude the Obscure...

Perchance

Scumble:

Exactly. I don't think God has anything to do with my ability to enjoy poetry, either.

And with the lack of evidence of the supernatural, these people could have been feeling Allah or Shiva or Buddha or the Shining Dancing Frog from Jupiter. How does one "distinguish" between one supernatural creature and another? I only accepted that they felt it as the Christian God because they said so.

Or love anything, for that matter.

Yes, I don't understand why emotions are so often called upon as if they "proved" God. This is like admitting that there is no factual or logical evidence.

Yes, I think a lot of people, even if not overtly religious, have the idea that "There has to be something more," however illogical that idea is. I'm still working on eradicating the last vestiges of it from my own mind.

The other thing that struck me about the testimonies I read was how often a Christian who already believed, such as a pastor, would show up for the traumatized person and say, "I'm praying for you." The cynical side of me thinks that pressure to convert, along with promises from said believer that belief alleviates grief, may have helped the conversion process along just a bit.

-Perchance.