It took me some time to clearly rationalise the reasons why I don't believe in God,
but finally I came down to these:
1. I see absolutely no empirical or physical evidence for the existence of God. Suggestions
such as "there must be a God because of the wonder of nature and the universe" are
childishly stupid and don't stand up to even a moment of critical consideration.
Many of the wonders of nature can be perfectly well explained through science - those
that can't will be in time as our scientific knowledge expands.
2. On the contrary, I see much evidence for the non-existence of any God. The world
is full of cruelty, poverty, disease and unhappiness, and I cannot accept that a
loving and merciful God would allow this situation to exist.
3. I am unwilling to accept on blind faith what seem to me to be fantastic stories
of long-ago events which were poorly documented many years after they supposedly
happened. The Gospels were written 70 - 100 years after the supposed death of Jesus,
in an age without newspapers, TV or computers, and with few written records. How
can anyone give any credibility to stories written on the basis of such flimsy records?
4. The Bible is meant to be the cornerstone of the Christian religion - but the
Bible isn't credible , so Christianity and belief in God has no plausible basis.
Many people have complained to me that the examples of Biblical faults that I quote
on this site are all from the Old Testament. They say to me things like "the Old
Testament ideas were replaced by a New Truth with the coming of Jesus in the New
Testament". Rubbish. Is the God of the New Testament a different God to the God of
the Old Testament? Of course not. Did this single God dramatically change his attitudes
and personality between the Old and New Testaments? I think not - and if he did,
why? No, the God, is the same old angry, vengeful, merciless God, it's just the writers
who have changed, now trying the improve the image of their fictional hero.
These same people try to overlook the faults and ridiculous assertions of the Bible
by saying that they are "translation errors" and "parables, not meant to be taken
literally", and they try to ignore them. But they apply these descriptions only to
the parts of the Bible that they don't like, or that cause them embarassment. The
parts that sound good are always, of course, absolutely true. I think this is highly
hypocritical. The Christian religion is based on what the Bible says. Those who choose
to accept only certain parts of the Bible (the "good" parts) and reject the rest
as errors or parables, are in essence creating their own separate religion. Let them
be honest and give this religion another name - not "Christianity" - and explain
to us the basis and origin of their beliefs. I have more respect for fundamentalist
Christians, who at least have the courage to stand by and try to defend what their
Holy Book tells them, however absurd it might be, than I do for the typical modern
"Christian" (including most priests and vicars) who jump through hoops to try to
keep their religion acceptable to ordinary people.
5. Even if it were all true, the Bible describes a God and a morality that I don't
want anything to do with.
