to sit my neighbour down and ask him why he believes in God?

[ElaineBenes]

I'm a reluctant atheist. I really want to believe in God and I've thought about it a lot but it just doesn't make any sense to me. I'm a pretty logical person and the logic doesn't add up.

So my neighbour is a doctor, must be quite scientific, right? And he's super-religious. We've never discussed it but I want to ask him over and ask him to explain to me why, but it's a quite a jump from chit chat about the weather and kids to the meaning of life!

There is no reason to think there is a God. If there is, there is no reason to believe s/he is good. You need to check out reciprocal altruism and cooperation in evolution. You can be good without religion. You can certainly be evil with it. I'd like there to be dragons and fairies but there aren't and no amount of talking to 6 year olds (who believe in them) will convince me.

I assumed from your the first line of your OP that you were going to be offensive.

But actually it seems perfectly reasonable. I wouldn't put him on the spot though. Maybe set a date to talk to him and explain why ad ask if he would be comfortable with it. Explain you aren't being antagonistic and genuinely want to learn though. he may think you ar eon an atheistic "crusade" to against his beliefs.

I don't think he will be able to convince you though as I do believe belief is innate and nothing you can "learn".

Well there aren't any gods

how exciting that you know that for a fact SGB! Wish I did.

Darwin was a committed Christian and you cant get anymore contraversial for the time than him!

I work with science teachers who are hell-fire-and-damnation Christian Baptists - I did ask how they could stand up infront of class teaching things that were so at odds with their beliefs. Their answer was along the line of kids are taught bullshit so one more lie doesnt make a difference

My DH and DD are committed Christians. I am a committed atheist. I have asked him why and how he believes in God, especially when we were caught up in the asian Tsunami.
He just does. Not much help really.

YANBU, However, If you dont know him that well then it could be uncomfortable as the way its phrased in the title comes accross more like an inquisition that a chat over coffee that being said most 'faithful' people would be thrilled to share their religion with you, just dont ask him then sit there arguing with everything he says.

As for why do babies die,people starve etc...people have different faiths have different reasons, tests of faith, man-made mistakes, works of evil, do you think the world would be happier if all of those things didnt exist? There would soon enough come a whole new set of problems to replace them.

(as for him being a doctor, im incredulous to think you think this affects him having faith in his god...for that YABU)

THing is, OP, if you are one of those who just does believe in some kind of Great Pumpkin (despite no evidence for any such thing) and doing so gives you a lovely warm feeling, that's fair enough. But if you are a rational person who realises that the whole business is fucking ridiculous, why on earth waste so much time and effort trying to convince yourself that there is a deity of some kind? It's about as productive as trying to convince yourself that there's no gravity by jumping up at the ceiling all the time.

No, I'm not SGB but I want to be! And I figure that there are people who are way smarter and more logical then me who DO believe (kind of hoping that Dr. Neighbour is one of those people) and I want them to explain their reasoning to me. I suppose I'm not an atheist as obviously I don't have any proof that God doesn't exist but I'm an atheist agnostic who reluctantly thinks that it's pretty unlikely that there's a God but maybe, just maybe, someone can persuade me otherwise. Pretty sad, huh!? Maybe I should be a proud atheist!

If you had a basic understanding of the monotheastic religions you would understand why the "if there was a God why is their suffering?" argument is fundamentally flawed. I'm not inclined to get into a religious debate but if you're at all interested, have a word with your local priest/rabbi/imam. Or just check out the book of Genesis.

As other posters have said, science and religion are in no way mutually exclusive. Don't get sucked into the whole "all religious people are brain-dead creationists" argument of the atheist zeolots like Richard Dawkins.

patronising answers like that remind me why I don't want to be religious panda

I also thought this was going to be offensive from your subject line, but you sound reasonable so YANB. Its not quantifiable though, so you may be disappointed. Its also very personal. I have faith in God, but don't hold with religion. I don't think I can be told what to believe, so I just believe as it feels right to me.

Don't expect him to be able to answer all your questions though about life, the universe and everything etc.

Likewise don't expect people like SGB to disuade you if you have an open mind. Having an open mind is a good thing IMO.

"all religious people are brain-dead creationists" argument of the atheist zeolots like Richard Dawkins.
Richard Dawkins personally knows religious people (Rowan Williams, the Bishop of Oxford) who patently aren't brain-dead creationists. He doesn't make that argument, you've just made that up

I'm curious as to why you want to believe in God, Elaine. I'm an ex-believer, so maybe I can understand sort of from the opposite direction - I didn't really want to stop believing in God - I loved the church I grew up in, it was really all very nice.... but I couldn't help it. Rationalism won out. I sometimes miss the church community but I don't miss God.

If you feel you're missing some spiritual dimension, maybe you'd get further with a non-theistic religion like Buddhism (you don't really have to believe anything to 'do' Buddhism) or a non-dogmatic one such as the Quakers?

im a christian and also know a lot of christians and all of them are always happy and willing to talk about their beliefs i think u should sit him down give him a cup of tea and ask him hed be delighted that youve shown an interest

Athiesm isn't a faith. It's just not believing in other people's imaginary friends.

sometimes faith cant be explained away in a scientific way many doctors scientists are christian and believe in god , I dont he may bamboozle you with why he believes and it will make no sense to you , IMO i think you should leave it alone

If he isnt christian it maybe cultural as well iyswim , I know christianity is part of a culture but oh see im getting myself confused now

How about just giving him some openings to discuss it (getting back to OP and not sidetracked into the does/doesn't exist debate..)
such as " I suppose your faith must have made a difference there..." or "your beliefs must have coloured the way you look at..." talking about family problems, current events etc...either he may want to talk about his beliefs, or he won't take the bait.

Have a look at the Alpha website, though, as others have suggested..I know people who've done it and found it thought provoking but in a 'safe' place to ask the sort of questions your'e asking, too.

And don't think doubt disqualifies you...its a lot more honest that pretending you've got an entire worldview utterly 'sorted'

That's a good question grimma. I guess because I went to religious schools all my life and vaguely believed in it all, despite being bothered by some of the inconsistencies, but as I've got older and read more and thought about it more, it's that gradual realisation that there probably isn't a god.

And I just find that a little sad, that there isn't anyone out there looking out for you, that praying (those little prayers we all do) does tiddly-squat, that we're nothing more than very intelligent animals. I wish there was more to it all. I'd love to have some of what my neighbours have! They live their lives in a certain way and have this confidence that this is the right way to live. I remember once that a child in our neighbourhood went missing. Our neighbour was praying for them and encouraging (nicely!!) others to do the same in the honest belief that this would help. How fantastic is that?! I'd love to feel the same way.

I'm kind of thinking I can't really ask dr neighbour all this as our relationshp really isn't developed enough - he'll think I'm a nutter! I may try and grab his wife who I'm friendlier with and we chat a lot more. But I had this feeling that someone with scientific training might be able to explain it better in those kind of terms (it all feels a bit like that scene from the King and I with 'men of science'!!!).

(I've had a Dickens of a namechange...)I think there is 'more to it', but its what we make of it ourselves. And you can live ethically and with confidence (though hopefully not arrogance) without God.

I've lots of lovely Christian family and friends, but they'd be lovely people anyway. Maybe its a bit easier if you have that infrastructure and feel like there's someone there - but you can't fake faith. It sounds like there's something missing from your life - well, perhaps belief in god might fill that need but if that doesn't work out for you there are other options, as I suggested earlier, or maybe a Humanist group.

I asked a member of my family, and they told me god made them feel safe!

Oh, absolutely and completely agree you can live ethically without God! That bit's never been in doubt with me at all.

And it's true, you can't fake faith, worse luck for me!

Guess it's a question of learning to live without god. As my skepticism increased, I don't think I've developed at the same time anything to replace belief.

Ah, well there's the rub. As a skeptic I think that belief in god and religions developed to fill some sort of human need at the individual and societal level - positives and negatives. I'm not sure many people have explicitly thought about providing non-religious alternatives. Personally I seem to get by with family, friends and a job I love. My DH found Buddhist meditation helpful, though of late he's been more into engaging his brain in Humanist issues and Skeptics in Pubs

"for example why do babies die, why is there people starving and homeless ect. If there was a god then bad things would not happen."

The thing is, 'good' and 'bad' things are relative terms. Bad is simply the set of things happening that are worse than others. If babies didn't die, you'd view something else as horrific instead. There's always a next worse thing.

Suppose, for example, we lived in a universe where, amongst other things, newborn babies frequently exploded in a bloody mess in their mothers arms. Unimaginably horrific, yes? But you can bet that in such a universe people being homeless or hungry wouldn't be considered terribly 'bad' by comparison.

People in such a universe might argue that if there were a god, newborn babies wouldn't spontaneously explode. Voila! In our world they don't.

Arguing that there can be no god because people suffer and die is just as useless an argument that there must be a god because the suffering isn't many times worse. Ultimately the existence of suffering offers no evidence for or against god.

(I'm agnostic by the way)