Good arguements against believing in God?

[Topcat75]

Hi
This is my 1st post so be gentle! I am visiting my mum over Easter weekend with my 2 kids, she has just 'discovered' Christianity which i have no problem with but she has recently started trying to convince me to believe in God. (I dont believe and actually think religion is the reason for all the wars in the world) anyway, can you help me with some good back up reasons why i don't have to believe because at the mo whatever i say she thinks i am a lost soul that hasnt found Jesus yet!
(no abbreviations yet sorry- still working out net speak!)

I don't believe in a particular god but I couldn't write a higher being off the cards all together... Not much help I know but maybe listen to her viewpoint before arming yourself with reasons why she's wrong...There's always something you can learn when you have your ears open ;)

I guess im happy in the humanist viewpoints ie love thy neighbour etc but its when she tells me rhat i should have my children baptised and go to church with her so my children dont sin that my blood boils

Hi. Have you read Dawkins' "the god delusion"? He explains his viewpoint much more elegantly than I will manage. Essentially it boils down to absolutely no evidence.

I see, fair point, just listen and smile. I don't think there's any need to prove you're right and she must be wrong. Everyone is allowed their own opinion. I completely share your view by the way but I've learnt theres no point debating people's beliefs... Just accept hers and hope she will accept yours

The fact that we humans keep using religion as a reason to war with one another doesn't disprove the existence of God.

I understand that you're finding her zeal annoying though. Can you just ask her to chill out when you're about?

It's no use arguing with a believer. I wish atheists could understand this. It's tantamount to saying to an atheist "there is absolutely no logical reason why you should love your dh or dcs".

Simply acknowledge that she's found God, which is okay for her, but that you're not interested and how you raise your dcs is your business. Be polite, but firm. She's not meaning you any harm and there's no need to try and persuade her that God doesn't exist. Address the issue at hand and nothing else.

Religions don't cause wars, people do. They may do it in the name of religion, but wars are man made.

Good points, i guess smile and get through the weekend! Thanks all

Faith is faith. Its not about proof or evidence. I can't prove the existence of God any more than you can disprove it. Chasing your tail makes you dizzy and you end up where you started. The zeal of the convert is annoying but mercifully it is usually short lived. Be polite and firm, you can't argue your way out of it.

I sympathise with you. I am in the reverse situation with my mother (atheist). I rarely mention my faith beyond telling her the reason I wasn't in was because I was at church but she brings up atheistic arguments all the time.

I disbelieve in the way that most branches of Christianity, Islam and Judaism describe God, because I find it inherently contradictory that a benevolent, all powerful, all knowing being would choose to bestow favours and benefits to people based on their beliefs and the rituals they perform, rather than on how they live their lives. If by some twisted logic such a being does exist, it is not one that I would choose to worship.

Hi Topcat. I guess the bottom line is the lack of evidence for god. And if she points to the beauty of nature and so on ask why it's Yahweh and not Allah etc that she thinks did it. But as someone upthread said she's family so keep it chilled. I had a family member who was really into spiritualism for a while, mediums and what nots. I just had to learn to smile and give non committal gestures. After a while we both worked out that we were equally secure in our opinion without ever having a showdown as it were. Interestingly she recently mentioned casually that she wasn't 'really into that anymore' and equally your Mum may well work it out for herself as many of us do.

Thistledew, that is exactly what I think!

OP - if you want her to be respectful for your atheism, then you need to model that by being respectful of her views. Don't ague about the existence of God, just tell her you love her and are grateful that she's concerned about you, but please can she not keep trying to persuade you that her path is the right one. If God is real, then there will some a time when you are in the right place for you to hear his voice, but now is not it, and she should have faith that you are open minded and open hearted enough to hear that voice (or voices ) when the time is right.

LOL, SGB, what did you say??!

The 'there's no evidence' argument won't wash with somebody who has faith. They have a relationship with their God and as far as they are concerned that is evidence enough for them. Science doesn't have all the answers.

I have a father who rams God down my throat every chance he can. Not that he goes to church, adheres to Christian teachings or reads the bible, you understand, he just believes in whatever suits him. You can't argue with it and I think the best you can do is change the subject or distract her with something else.

There is nothing quite like a born again Christian is there? A bit like an ex-smoker - they are more zealous and over the top about it than anybody who has always believed or never smoked!

belief is a nonrational position, therefore to attempt rational argument is a waste of time. strangely an emotional agrument such as 'where was god when this shit happened to you..?' is more likely to fly.

This is what I told my kids years ago and they are grown up now and still fine with it:

Religion is what we used to have in the world to explain things we didn't understand, like natural phenomena and disasters.
Now we have science, we don't need religion any more.

There isn't a man in the sky with a big beard looking down on you and telling you how to behave - you should know how to behave anyway without the threat of punishment from an imaginary being.

Don't forget that religion is different from being a spiritual person. Religion, as we tend to see it, is organised, and overseen by a higher power, who is normally male, who says 'do this or I'll punish you' - e.g. Christianity, Judaism, Islam.

But there are many religions, and spiritual paths that believe in 'something' more than what science can show us right now (and, by the way, science keeps on proving more and more about what ancient spiritual peoples have 'known' for millennia - about interconnectedness, how prayer and intention works etc.), and who don't believe that their deity/deities (usually male and female - balance is always what the universe strives for and only having a male deity is always going to create strife because of the imbalance) are vengeful or love them conditionally. They don't believe that they need to convert everyone else to their faith in case everyone else goes to hell - there's no patronising paternalism.

It would be great if everyone in the world, both those with faith and those who are atheists, could bring their children up to be open-minded and open-hearted to the idea that there could be more (or less) going on in the universe than they can possibly know (or believe) and that the most, most important thing they can grow up doing is knowing how to follow their own path and be happy and at peace with it.

Flamingo: Science hasn't proved that prayer works. A few vague and discredited studies peddled by bucketheads are not proof. Because prayer doesn't work, because there are no such things as gods.

And believing in gods is ridiculous. It really is.

I do kind of equate faith with the same principle of love.

How do you prove that love exists?

However, I personally don't enjoy someone demonstrating their love really publically. People know you're in love by your not over the top actions.

That's the way I see it anyway, not sure if that makes sense?

Bucketheads?

Grown Adults still use bucket heads, really? what next? Poopie head?

Hi Topcat75, my stepmum is like your mum and made me to go to church as a child. It was this experience, and it was the churchgoers that started me on the long road to atheism. I feel the same as you about religion.

I absolutely agree that you should never, on any account get into an argument with her about her beliefs. The God Delusion is a good book recommendation. Nodding and smiling works, become an expert at changing the subject, invent distractions (children are great for this!).

SGB - prayer is just another word for sending intention, and there are a lot of quantum physics experiments that point to the fact that intention works. Read The Intention Experiment by Lynne McTaggart.

I'm very impressed that you know about every single bit of science there is going so thoroughly that you can make bold statements about things that you believe not to have been proven/disproven!

Just change the subject- no point arguing with someone who has faith. Having faith actually means "believing no matter what" so there's nopoint bothering with discussing it. Nod and smile. Change the subject.

Flamingo - SGB is right. Prayer has never been scientifically proven to work. Only once has anyone claimed to have proven its effectiveness, and that was Elizabeth Targ (in her double-blind experiments of 1995 and 1996). Those experiments were later found to be entirely undeserving of the term "double-blind" because their data was collected after the unblinding.

I have read a bit about quantum physics and cannot think of any experiments in this field that prove anything like "intention works". Please link to these experiments you speak of.

I don't see how science could possibly be useful in evidence of prayer?

How can you quantify the supernatural with the natural?

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence, and I believe in the power of prayer, but lack of scientific evidence proves nothing.