There is no sufficient evidence to prove the existence of any god.

Does it take more faith to disbelieve the claims about the tooth fairy, leprechaun or Bigfoot than it does to believe them? Beliefs can be wrong. It's important to care about whether or not your beliefs are true. Evidence and reasoned argument are the criteria to determine fact from fantasy. Science is a reliable path to truth. Without evidence, what reason do you have for believing?

Faith is believing something without evidence. It's like flipping a coin and heads being the path to truth, since it can also be wrong (tails), it's not reliable. Faith is an unreliable path to truth. Atheism is not faith-based because we don't believe it without reason

With science, we look at the evidence and determine whether it's more likely or unlikely to be true.

It's always astounded me that people need a god to have a purpose in life and a reason to live. You are the reason to live because you've been lucky enough to get a chance to live. If the universe is our creator, then we are the universe experiencing itself! The meaning of life is for you to experience. Go enjoy everything about the universe: traveling, exploring, love, hobbies, passions, science.

In my experiences with theists, i find that they are more focused on the after-life than the one life they only get to live once. Because of this, they tend to avoid the attempt to live life to the fullest. Some even find the idea of the world ending an exciting time and something they welcome. What kind of philosophy are we teaching if people can't wait for an entire planet of people to be destroyed? Of course, i'm not saying all theists are like this, but more of them tend to share these views than not.

A belief system is a set of principles or tenets which together form a basis. Belief is the acceptance that a statement is true or that something exists. Unbelief is not accepting that the statement is true or that something exists. Theism (a belief system) first made the claim that a god exists, therefore it holds the burden of proof. If we created a belief system that horses fly, any individual who doesn't believe that horses fly isn't part of a belief system because it's simply unbelief. It isn't impossible that an atheist can believe that no god exists, but atheism in and of itself doesn't make the claim that there is no god, it just makes the statement that the individual doesn't personally believe in a god. They oppose the statement that theism made.

Atheism is not an intellectual methodology, but rather it says we start from evidence rather than dogma. We follow the evidence to find out conclusion. If you were to ask me in simple form why I don't believe in god, I would say because I have not been presented with sufficient evidence to support the claim, and it being a rather large claim would need to supply an equal amount of evidence. That requirement is quite fair, I believe.

Atheists are their own people. Like anyone else, some are good, some are bad. Some are rude, some are polite. Some are friendly, some are unfriendly. This has nothing to do with whether they are a theist or atheist. While many of us share our views, this doesn't mean that they are automatically concrete fact about all atheists.

Before we delve into pascal's wager and the conclusion to the argument, let me point out something that people always seem to be misinformed about: belief is not a choice. You must first be convinced.

If you hear about religious people claiming to have chosen to believe in their god, they're wrong. These religions present you the choice of believing in god or being doomed to eternal torture. They claim going to hell or heaven is all a choice.

In order for something to be belief, one must perceive something to be true.

Let's say i park a green car in your driveway. Can you choose to believe the car is red? What if I offered you a reward to believe it is red? What if I threatened to kill or torture you if you didn't believe it is red? What if someone told you that believing that the car is green is wrong? You can say “the car is red”, but you can't actually force yourself to believe it. Belief is the state of mind in which a person thinks something to be the case with or without there being empirical evidence to prove that something is the case with factual certainty.

You can't ask someone to believe something they aren't convinced of. That would be like asking me to believe that I have a third eyeball or a second nose. A belief cannot be consciously switched on or off, regardless of the proposed consequences of unbelief.

Just like it is impossible to choose to believe in something knowing that it is false, it is also just as impossible to reject a true belief. Belief is a stance taken by our brains after having considered the available evidence, not something you do by your own control.

LET'S EXPLAIN PASCAL'S WAGER FIRST

Nobody knows whether or not a god exists. It's possible to be either way. It's all a gamble that we must look at the odds for: If you choose to believe in a god, and he does exist, then the reward is infinite. But, if you're wrong then you don't lose anything. If you choose to not believe in a god, and he doesn't exist, you gain nothing. But, if you're wrong, you are taxed with infinite punishment. So since the chance of a god existing is unknown, but the reward/punishment is infinitely in favor of believing in a god, on the chance he exists, then you'd better believe.

CONCLUSION

Which god should you worship? Does it matter which one? How do you even go about determining which god is real and which god is false? Would if there is a god but he simply doesn't care whether people believe in him? Would if all of the gods are real? Will the worship of a one god anger another god?

What if having more than one girlfriend in your whole life-span causes you to go to hell? You have no way of proving that one way or another. Have you wasted hundreds of hours of your life and thousands of dollars paying tithes to churches all for nothing if you turn out to be wrong?

This is why it's dangerous to believe things without evidence. You should never believe something just because there's a chance you could be wrong. Pascal's wager, while interesting, is essentially not a logical way to view the supernatural.

Do you hate the bogeyman? Do you hate centaurs? Do you hate pixies? Do you hate werewolves? If you answered no, let's look at why you don't hate them. If you said it's because they don't exist, then you're absolutely right about why atheism doesn't hate god. It is possible for an atheist to hate a deity (or rather the idea of this deity), but atheism doesn't itself hate deities.

In short, no. We don't hate your god.

The idea of an after-life is a fascinating idea. But that's all it is, an idea, brought on because of the low mortality rate of the ancient humans. It's wishful thinking. It's an idea that copes with death but has never been demonstrated to be true.

When we die, we are gone and that there is no after-life. Our bodies will either decompose or be burnt up. The energy from our bodies will go elsewhere.

It doesn't matter what our greatest desires are, if they cannot be demonstrated to be true, i have no valid reason to believe them. This is why we do not believe in an after-life. Death cults thrive off of this because they delve into your desire to want to live forever, which i'd say a majority of people would love to do.

Living forever is not going to happen in an after-life. The only way that would be possible is in this life. Unfortunately, we aren't that far along in science yet, so I will never get the opportunity to be immortal, but maybe sometime in the far future, the possibility will be greater.

Not being able to experience the universe does bother one, but that's because we exist. If we did not exist, we wouldn't know whether or not it bothers us, because we are nothing. Consider this: before you were born, you were just fine with not existing. By this very logic, when you die you will again be fine with not existing. This should give a peace of mind and you should be able to continue through life without a fear of eternal punishment and without the carrot (eternal bliss) dangling in front.

Everyone has a moral understanding, whether theist or atheist because those tendencies are genetic and are passed down. What we do with this information is all in our minds, meaning that morality itself is subjective. We have the urges to do right and urges to do wrong, some more or less than others as there are many variables to consider, like psychological issues and so on.

We determine what is right and wrong (and label them as amoral, moral or immoral) based on what actions result in consequences that are either favorable or unfavorable to the success of our species.

While it's true that reading an entire religious text assists in conversion away from that religion, this may not always dictate complete conversion on the merits that you may have some belief in the supernatural, just not specifically that of the religion you removed from your beliefs.

Have you read the hundreds of other Holy Books? How do you know that one of those other Gods isn't real? Reading the Bible, ditching the religion and coming to the conclusion that this specific God isn't real doesn't make you an Atheist. What makes you an Atheist is what is in your mind. An Atheist is someone who doesn't believe in any God. So if you left that religion and are now godless and now believe there is no god, you are for that period of time an Atheist. This status remains until you start believing in the supernatural.

Holy Books are not evidence for the existence of any God. The book cannot be evidence for the existence of a god because you must have data to demonstrate, so it cannot justify its own claims. It would be illogical to use science books for our arguments. We instead use science. Whether or not some information is true or not in a book holds no bearing on its truth, as truth is independent, regardless of belief. We get scientific facts via investigation. This is why we have hypotheses, theories, and laws. It is at this point where the individual must begin to research and learn critical thinking skills, like seeking out evidence.

A floating teapot doesn't exist somewhere between the Earth and the Moon just because you can't prove it doesn't. And just because you don't believe it's there doesn't mean that you have to be the one to demonstrate that it isn't there. The burden of proof lies on the one making the claim that there is a teapot floating somewhere in space between Earth and the Moon. Unless refutable evidence exists to demonstrate it is there, don't waste your time believing or making claims in favor of it.

The Supernatural (regardless of what religion) has never been proven, therefore unbelief is more logical until evidence is provided. This isn't to say that we only believe in what we can see, touch, feel, etc. As long as we can analyze it (magnetic fields, for example), we can prove it exists. It boils down to having evidence so you can demonstrate its existence.

Remember that you are more likely to get coned if you are adjusted to believing things without evidence compared to people who don't. A readjustment of one's way of thinking would be in order if they were accustomed to faith.