Freedom had been hunted round the globe; reason was considered as rebellion; and the slavery of fear had made men afraid to think. But such is the irresistible nature of truth, that all it asks, and all it wants, is the liberty of appearing.
~ Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791 ~

Thursday, September 7, 2017

Why I Believe There Is Probably No God

One of the more common criticisms I've heard directed at atheists is that in order to be an atheist, one must claim to know everything that exists in the universe and beyond. That is, in order to claim that no gods exist, one must possess all knowledge about everything that could possibly exist. Since obviously no human could possibly know everything that exists, it is argued that atheists are simply dishonest and arrogant.

While there may be atheists who make such claims, the vast majority do not. This is actually a misunderstanding of atheism on the part of believers who offer this criticism. The majority of atheists do not in fact assert that no gods exist. Most are actually agnostic, and simply remain unconvinced that any particular god exists.

However, in this article I want to go a bit further and put forward some arguments for why it may well be more rational to believe that no gods exist, at least for all practical purposes.

Wednesday, September 6, 2017

Is There A God? Why I Believed And How I Came To Doubt

People believe in a god or gods for many different reasons. Most of them believe in the god(s) their parents taught them to believe in. This is as true for Christadelphians as it is for any other religion. However, as they grow older, they learn (and come up with) other ways to defend that belief, and Christadelphians in particular often put a reasonable amount of effort into reinforcing the belief regularly. All of this was true for me, and I genuinely believed in a god right up until my early 30's. The reasons for my belief changed over time, and my concept of who or what God was also changed, but the basic belief was there all along.

This article explores why I believed in God, and how I came to doubt God's existence.