by Groucho Marx

Created on: March 01, 2007   Last Updated: March 09, 2007

Why shouldn't one believe in God?

It seems a rather simple question, but it's actually quite tricky - we can't just assume to mean the God in the Christian Bible, we must include all theistic belief systems and we will need to avoid falling into the negative argument of trying to disprove the existence of God, which is futile, we must accept that we can not say for certain that there isn't such an entity (which doesn't mean it naturally follows that there is such an entity, just that no one can say either way), rather we we'll say, we don't believe in God and here are our reasons why, much in the same way a believer in God would say something similar in arguing the opposite.

We do not believe in God because...

1. we find it unlikely that there is one and we base our non-belief on an understanding of a modern, scientific picture of the universe.

2. That we find a belief in God (though understandable) unhelpful in that it marks an end to an on-going inquiry into the nature of existence, that it is in this respect an easy answer and/or a dead end.

3. That this kind of solid and unquestioned belief has all too often added to the many ills of our society, eg; holy wars, crusades, witch hunts etc.

4. That we do not need to believe in a god to live well, or treat others morally, ethically etc.

5. We (personally) find a belief in god similar in many respects to a kind of insanity and though we respect the rights of believers to practice their faith, we do not share such faith and wish to live without it's constraints.

That's about all one can say...

This is not an attack on those who have faith in God (or a God-like entity) it merely states the reasons why one might chose not to believe. The atheist is useful even to the believer, like the critic is to the artist, blind faith and thoughtless following should be avoided on either side of the argument.

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