There are 12 major religions: Baha'i, Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, Hinduism, Islam, Jainism, Judaism, Shinto, Sikhism, Taoism, and Zoroastrianism. There are multiple denominations for each religion such as Protestant and Orthodox etc for Christianity, but there are 12 dominant religions in the world.
Each person who has faith is 100% certain that their religion is correct and that all other religions are false (perhaps people who follow pluralism and inclusivism may accept other religions but they only truly follow one).
Let’s take Christians as an example. Christians have one religion- Christianity; they disregard every other religion as being false. So, Christians reject 11 out of 12 religions. I, as an atheist, just go one religion further. I disregard all 12 religions as I find them illogical.
Many people follow one religion as it is what they were indoctrinated with as a child. If one was born to Muslim parents then more likely than not they would be brought up to believe in the principle of Islam. If one was born to Jewish parents then they would probably be brought up to believe in Jewish principles. If you were born in a country with a strong religious influence, where you were not educated about science or other religions then I can say with 99.9% certainty you would follow the religion of your parents and those around you. The religion you have is, normally, the one you were indoctrinated with as a child.
I believe that there is no God, no demons and no Satan. You may wonder why I have these atheistic views, well, as a child I was brought up in a Christian community; I went to church regularly and I did not know that there was the possibility of having any other belief except my own. Suffice to say I was a Christian up until the age of 8 when I moved house, moved from my Christian school, and entered the world of reason. I was finally taught about science and also other faiths. I have since attended many religious, atheist and secularist lectures, I have studied the Bible and the teachings of the Qur’an. I am aware of all of the teachings and beliefs of Christianity and Islam and I know a fair bit about other religions too. My point is- I am educated on both sides of the spectrum. I know religious and atheist view points (of course I am simplifying here- I also know secularist and humanist etc views). I have chosen to be an atheist and a secularist because in my mind it makes a lot more sense than praying to an invisible being who resides all around us.
(I just thought of a humorous anecdote- when I was walking down the street the other day a creationist approached me, trying to convince me that his viewpoint was the correct viewpoint. He asked me how I believe the world and universe began. Of course, I said the big bang. His response? Well, he smiled and had an expression of victory on his face as he said “How do you know? Were you there?” “No, of course I was not there, it happened many billions of years ago; but there is a lot of evidence in support of its reality.” I replied. He then said “Yes, but you weren’t there. You do not know for sure.” I think, here, he just contradicted his own beliefs, because he said that if you have not witnessed something you should not believe it to be true. I am sure he has not witnessed God. Many religious people tell me that the world is enough evidence. This is incorrect. The world is not the product of intelligent design.)
I am aware that many people have religious belief as it provides them with comfort. To me this is absurd. How can talking to an invisible man (who loves everyone and has created everyone in his image, and forgives everyone of their sins, but still hates homosexuals, atheists and polytheistic people- I am here using the Christian deity as an example) make you feel comfort. If you seek comfort go and socialise with other human beings.
Anyway, here’s the main point of this post. Here are 10 reasons why I view God (any God, that is) to be false:
1. Prayers are never answered when verifiable things are prayed for.
Examples:
Christians have been praying for at least 50 years for their god to stop abortions, but their god has never stopped even one single abortion.
Christians have prayed for God to end famine and poverty. Needless to say he has not (If God is all-loving and all-caring then why would he subject innocent people to this abominable torture? It’s unnecessary).
2. God is a human construct. Before there were people to conceive of God, all there was in the Universe was all there was in the Universe - and, that is still all there is.
3. Even if such a being qualified to be called God exists, He/She/It would be so far beyond us as to make Him/Her/It incomprehensible to beings constrained by time and space. This would leave us with only our imaginary constructs of who and what such a being might be like.
Basically, the existence of God is dependent on the tenability of the definition of God being employed. If the definition of God is untenable, then that God does not exist. It really is that simple.
4. The question then becomes, who is qualified to define God? Definition necessarily implies limitation. And, no being qualified to be called God would have limits. Therefore, defining God becomes impossible in any provable sense. This renders the concept of God to be virtually worthless and meaningless. And, that renders the question of its existence equally worthless and meaningless...
The bible god has never been seen except in the fictional bible. The bible god is still a no show.....If the bible god existed, he obviously doesn't care anything at all about his silly followers.
What could a supernatural god be doing for 6,000 years? A real supernatural all powerful god could do anything with a though alone, yet the bible god can't take even one minute to appear on earth IN PERSON.?!!!!!!
5. God admitted multiple times in Exodus and Deuteronomy that he was a "jealous God." How can an all-perfect being be jealous? For jealousness, or envy, is an imperfection and attitude that, according to Christianity, should be righted.
6. "If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbour, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death. The man who lies with his father’s wife has uncovered his father’s nakedness; both of them shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with his daughter-in-law, both of them shall be put to death; they have committed perversion; their blood is upon them. If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them. [Leviticus, chapter 20]"
[this is not made up, I have cross-referenced and Googled it and it IS written like that]
"When a slave-owner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives for a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property." [Exodus, chapter 21]
"Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent." [1 Timothy, chapter 2]
Here the basic idea is that even if God did exist, he'd be a jerk.
6. Christians blame free will for bad things that happen, but free will is a false premise.
Here’s why:
Christians claim their god is all powerful and all knowing. If that’s true then God knows in advance what all 6. 7 billion people on the planet will do... Before they do it. That seems very unlikely. If God was a computer I’m pretty sure that his server would overload.
If God is NOT all knowing then he has to sit back and wonder what each person will do next. In that case, God cannot be all knowing.
So either the bible God knows in advance what each of us will do, or he cannot be all knowing.
8. It is incumbent on Christians to actually prove this claim. I can claim that my imaginary green pet Baboon created everything. My claim has the same credibility as yours... Exactly zero... Unless one of us can actually produce our God in reality.
Neither one of us can do that because all Gods are make believe. All are imaginary.
9. Have you ever thought about how bizarre the crucifixion story is? Imagine the all-powerful, all-knowing creator of the universe sitting on his magnificent throne in heaven. He looks down onto earth and says to himself:
Those evil humans down on earth. I hate what they are doing. All this sin...
Since I am all-knowing I know exactly what the humans are doing and I understand exactly why they commit each sin. Since I created the humans in my own image and personally programmed human nature into their brains, I am the direct author of all of this sin. The instant I created them I knew exactly what would happen with every single human being right down to the nanosecond level for all eternity. If I didn't like how it was going to turn out, I could have simply changed them when I created them. And since I am perfect, I know exactly what I am doing. But ignore all that. I hate all these people doing exactly what I perfectly designed them to do and knew they would do from the moment I created them. I HATE IT! I tried killing all the humans and animals once in the flood. That certainly did not fix the problem.
So here's what I am going to do. I will artificially inseminate a virgin. She will give birth to an incarnated version of me. The humans will eventually crucify and kill the incarnated me. That, finally, will make me happy. Yes, sending myself down and having the humans crucify me -- that will satisfy me. I feel much better now.
It makes no sense, does it? Why would an all-knowing being need to have humans kill himself (Jesus is God, after all) to make himself happy? Especially since it is a perfect God who set the whole thing in motion exactly the way he wanted it? The whole story of the crucifixion is absurd from top to bottom if you actually stop to think about it.
If you believe the story of Jesus, Jesus clearly knew that he is God. In John chapter 14, verse 8 we find this:
Philip said to him, "Lord, show us the Father, and we shall be satisfied." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you so long, and yet you do not know me, Philip? He who has seen me has seen the Father."
So it makes you wonder about Jesus' famous lamentation in Matthew 27:46:
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?"—which means, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"
Since Jesus is God, what he really must have meant is: "Myself, myself, why have I forsaken me?" Which of course makes absolutely no sense.
The reason why the crucifixion makes no sense is because God is imaginary.
10. If you are a Christian who believes in the power of prayer, here is a very simple experiment that will show you something very interesting about your faith.
Take a coin out of your pocket. Now pray sincerely to Ra:
Dear Ra, almighty sun god, I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Ra's name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Chances are that you won't get past the fifth or sixth flip and the coin will land tails.
What does this mean? Most people would look at this data and conclude that Ra is imaginary. We prayed to Ra, and Ra did nothing. We can prove that Ra is imaginary by using statistical analysis. If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Ra each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. Ra has absolutely no effect on the coin no matter how much we pray.
Even if we find a thousand of Ra's most faithful believers and ask them to do the praying/flipping, the results will be the same.
Therefore, as rational people, we conclude that Ra is imaginary. We look at Ra in the same way that we look at Leprechauns, Mermaids, Santa and so on. We know that people who believe in Ra are delusional.
Now let's try the experiment again, but this time let's pray to Jesus Christ instead of Ra. Pray sincerely to Jesus like this:
Dear Jesus, I know that you exist and I know that you hear and answer prayers as you promise in the Bible. I am going to flip this ordinary coin 50 times, and I am asking you to cause it to land heads-side-up all 50 times. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
Now flip the coin. Once again, after the fifth or sixth flip, the coin will land tails.
If we flip the coin thousands of times, praying to Jesus each time, we will find that the coin lands heads or tails in exact correlation with the normal laws of probability. We can gather together a group of Jesus' most pious followers to do the praying and the result will be the same. Jesus will have zero effect on the coin.
This makes complete sense. It is not like there are two laws of probability -- one for Christians who pray and the other for non-Christians. We all know that. There is only one law of probability because prayers have zero effect. That goes for all prayers. Jesus has no effect on our planet no matter how much we pray. We can prove that conclusively using statistical analysis.
If you are a Christian, watch what is happening inside your mind right now. The data is absolutely identical in both experiments. With Ra you looked at the data rationally and concluded that Ra is imaginary. But with Jesus... something else will happen. In your mind, you are already coming up with a thousand rationalizations to explain why Jesus did not answer your prayers:
It is not his will
He doesn't have time
I didn't pray the right way
I am not worthy
I do not have enough faith
I cannot test the Lord like this
It is not part of Jesus' plan for me
And on and on and on...
One rationalization that you may find yourself developing is particularly interesting. You may say to yourself: “Well, of course Jesus doesn’t answer me when I pray about a coin toss, because it is too trivial." Where did this rationalization come from? If you read what Jesus says about prayer in the Bible (see Proof #1), Jesus does not ever say, "don't pray to me about coin tosses." Jesus clearly says he will answer your prayers, and he puts no boundaries on what you may pray for. You invented this rationalization out of thin air.
If you are a Christian who is offended by the notion of praying about a coin toss, then let's try this instead. Get down on your knees right now and pray as follows:
"Dear Jesus, son of God, the almighty, all-powerful, all-loving creator of the universe, we pray to you to cure every case of cancer on this planet tonight. Please hear our heartfelt, unselfish, non-materialistic prayer and fulfil your promises in Matthew 7:7, Matthew 17:20, Matthew 21:21, Mark 11:24, John 14:12-14, Matthew 18:19, Mark 9:23, Luke 1:37, James 5:15-16 and many other places. We pray knowing that when you answer this prayer, it will glorify God and help millions of people in remarkable ways. In your name we pray, Amen."
Will every case of cancer be gone tomorrow? Of course not. If you are a believer, you can create dozens of rationalizations for this unanswered prayer. But that does not change the reality of the situation. There is zero effect from praying, and it does not matter what you pray for.
You are an expert at creating rationalizations for Jesus. The reason you are an expert is because Jesus does not answer any of your prayers (see Proof #2). The reason why Jesus does not answer any of your prayers is because Jesus is imaginary. We can find dozens of pieces of evidence to demonstrate that the Christian story is imaginary. Start with Proof #1 to see them all.
