RogerLeeCooke

You put it very well. Christianity is not *just* about God. It seems to me that there is also a drama involved: (1) Creation of a perfect world; (2) the loss of that paradise through human disobedience; (3) reconciliation of human beings with the creator through the sacrifice of the god/man Jesus; (4) the ultimate regaining of paradise for those who are "saved."

Now, why don't I believe that? (1) There is no evidence at all that human beings ever inhabited a perfect paradise; on the contrary, all signs point the other direction (carnivores have always been carnivores); (2) the fall of man is alleged to be history, but again, there is not a shred or scintilla of evidence that it really happened; (3) no one has any coherent explanation as to why the creator needed to sacrifice and resurrect Jesus, or how doing so could wipe away whatever wrongs a human being has done; (4) the Second Coming is a prediction about the future, and, once again, there is no evidence that makes it even remotely plausible.

So, why do people believe in these four things? Given that there is no evidence, it must be that hypothesizing them explains the world around us, in particular the human condition. But in fact it doesn't. Just last night I watched a NOVA presentation on menningitis. This is one of God's exquisite creations, a little bacterium that nearly killed a baby girl. She was shown lying in a coma, the stumps of her rotted-off fingers all black. To pass from that to the praises of God's glory that I hear from Christians simply revolts me. To explain her suffering as the result of the disobedience of her remote ancestor, makes meaningless the assertion that God is either good or just. This God hypothesis just won't work.

Hobbs

I don't believe in any of the Christian gods who are alleged to exist outside of their believers' heads. I believe that many people have a concept of a god or set of gods, and that these concepts come in a very wide variety. There is an enormous variety of god concepts just among those believers who call themselves Christian, and then add onto that the variety of religions. I believe all these gods exist in their believers' heads, and I believe that these god-beliefs can strongly affect the believers, but I see no evidence that any of these gods exist outside of anyone's imagination.

Vibr8gKiwi

The bible does a decent job of describing the god I don't believe in. Read that.

Blu

The characteristic of the Christian God I do not believe in are any characteristics associated with the human mind, emotions, actions, or reality, i.e. claims that God is supposed to create, hate, be angry at, place judgment on, have thoughts, possess a voice, possess characteristics of a physical body, is a separate entity, is a male, a father, a king, a lord, etc.

I believe there is a "God" type energy but that "energy" cannot be comprehended by a human mind. This is why many people (post-industrial, Western atheists) have extreme trouble believing in a God-like figure (or energy). And christian people have trouble believing in a God that does not have characteristics of a human being.

Personally I am comfortable knowing that I do not know everything and I prefer it to be that way since it makes everything more interesting. My view is that people who are religious or who are atheists believe they know everything there is to know so they choose to decide that their beliefs are exclusively "THE TRUTH."

Religious people are at one end of the spectrum and atheists are at the other end. They both believe they are the only possessors of Truth which I find amusing and just a bit, arrogant. Both also seem to want to convert the world to their way of thinking. Atheists want the Christians to go to hell and Christians believe the Atheists will go to hell! (I had to laugh at that because I just realized it)

Oh Man, I can't stop laughing now!!!


You guys are great!

Clutch

I don't believe in any god. A fortiori, I do not believe in a Christian god.

Calls to mind Russell's comment, that if I say "I did not meet a man", it would be weird to ask, "Which man did you not meet?"

bd-from-kg

Well, I don't believe in any god, and in fact I think that the statement "God exists" is meaningless if "God" is supposed to refer to a "supernatural being". But I'm much more sure that nothing that could possibly be called the Christian God exists.

1. Christians have spend literally billions of dollars publishing and distributing something called the "Bible". Christians are urged to study this book assiduously. They refer to it as the "Holy Bible". The belief that the Bible is the key to the most important deep truths about the nature of things is what distinguishes Christians from others. But as anyone who actually reads the Bible can see very quickly, it depicts God as a bloodthirsty, vengeful, irrational tyrant. I find it impossible to believe that the world was created, or is ruled, such a monster.

Now I'm well aware that many Christians today are willing to admit that the Bible is not infallible. But the problem is not merely that it's fallible, but that most of the relatively few passages that are not merely boring are downright nauseating. What sane person can believe that (i) God chose to reveal Himself to us primarily through an ancient book of unknown provenance, and (ii) THE BIBLE IS THAT BOOK?

2. Christianity is based on the notion that a man was God. I think it downright absurd to suppose that a man could in any sense be God, other than the sense (long since rejected as heretical) that God could appear in the form of a man. In fact, if there is a God, this claim must be regarded as blasphemous. I reject Christianity, and the Christian conception of God, among other reasons, because on the off-chance that I'm wrong and God really exists, I don't want to face His wrath for worshiping a man as if he were God.

3. Christian theology is ridiculous and self-contradictory. It would take too long to explain all the reasons why, although RogerLeeCook has given an admirable summary of some of the nonsensical things one has to swallow to accept orthodox, traditional Christianity. And to reject the orthodox, traditional version in favor of an "updated" modern version is to suggest that the early Church had no idea what Jesus was all about. If so, why pay any attention to the books that it declared canonical (i.e., the New Testament) or suppose that its interpreation was anywhere close to the mark? In other words, once one abandons orthodoxy, there is no further reason to accept Christianity in any form.

MrDarwin

Actually, the Bible is more like a library; it is a collection of books, written by different authors at different times, collected together by a committee about 300 years after the events described in the last of those books supposedly took place. It was assembled from a large number of texts that existed at the time, many of which didn't make the final cut. It's often not clear why one manuscript was admitted, and another rejected.

Dr S

Personally I'd be happy to believe in any god that shows up.
I'm really easy, it doesn't even have to be the all-powerful creator of the billions of galaxies with a magic word god. No, any penny ante, second string god will do. Apollo, Loki, Morgan, I don't care, I'll believe in them.
Hell, I'd be willing to believe any super-human was a god. I could see my believing in Clark Kent as a god.
Any one of these wonderful, or marginally wonderful beings I would worship as a god if they turned up.

If they turned up.

If.

But that hasn't happened, has it? So I'll just hang onto my belief until something believable comes on the scene.

Philosoft

Surely, Blu, by now you have read dozens, if not hundreds of posts, written by atheists, denying that 'atheism' necessarily entails an opinion about the (big 'T') Truth. The only thing that makes someone an atheist is the rejection of religious (little 't') truth claims. I really am tired of repeating this. Is it too much to hope that you will read this and incorporate the information into your 'atheism' schema?

<strong> Do I really need to get upset about this? Do you actually think this is true of atheists?

<strong> That sound you don't hear is nobody else joining in.

Radcliffe Emerson

Well, I got a big laugh out of it.

I can't direct you to a god either, because I don't believe any of them exist.

Like someone else said, I'd be happy to believe in any of them who will just bother to show up .