Religion is a phenomenon that is everywhere within our society. For many it is a crucial crutch that helps them to live happy lives with a sense of purpose and morality. Someone recently asked me why I didn’t follow a religion myself and so I had a long hard think about what my specific questions or problems with religion were. I respect religion – my girlfriend is religious as is a lot of my family. These however are the reasons that I myself am not religious. Ask yourself these questions whether you’re religious or not to better understand the atheist standpoint and why you can still live full, healthy lives without religion.

How did God come into being?

If he can ‘will’ himself into being why can’t anything or anyone else do so?

Who or what was it that ‘willed’ itself before God existed?

How do you know there aren’t lots of Gods?

‘Outside of time’ is a defunct concept – time is simply energy – the measurement of change and movement.

Why do you trust the interpretation of a single sect or individual over another’s?

Why do you trust one religion over another?

Why should you be penalised for being born into the wrong one?

Don’t you think extremist Muslims or Satanists should question their beliefs? Shouldn’t you be doing the same?

Even if God is capable of dictating a Bible through us – how do we know that all the authors of the Bible are telling the truth? Could one not be lying?

And why hasn’t He written any more chapters?

Or how do we know he hasn’t, but that no one believed those people? Or they never got the word out? (pun unintended)

And what of the Dead Sea scrolls?

Something interesting I saw a while back: Regarding Rees' claim in his book Our Cosmic Habitat that "such questions lie beyond science", Dawkins asks "what expertise can theologians bring to deep cosmological questions that scientists cannot?"

So you’re trusting a man’s interpretation within a sect’s interpretation within a religion’s interpretation of a book that a set of guys claim they transcribed from the word of God (and 100% accurately to boot). Questioning that isn’t questioning God, it’s questioning an awfully long line of sometimes corrupt and always ‘imperfect’ humans. Isn’t it better to believe what’s true to your heart?

And isn’t it arrogance to think you can know so much about God and the universe?

Isn’t curiosity one of our most fundamentally human traits?

And why must some members of the church be celibate?

How can they preach on life when they have no experience of one of its most fundamental and powerful experiences?

Is a man devoid of love and intimacy a better man? Or is he severely lacking?

Of what value is faith to God? Isn’t that just a bit vain?

Why should I be penalised for being brought up to question things?

Is not-believing something – because I have no evidence – a crime worthy of eternal damnation? Especially considering the above points.

And especially considering all the evidence to the contrary – why would He try and trick us into eternal damnation?

And why is it okay for almost every religious person to ignore/question some aspects of the Bible but not others? Some stories and not others? Surely you can’t just pick and choose…

If some of it is wrong couldn’t it all be?

Isn’t it a bit petty to try and make us repent just before we die out of fear (also not a good motivation). Isn’t that a bit like getting us in a headlock and saying ‘say Uncle!’?

Don’t the organised religions stand to gain more from ‘faith’ than a God would? Isn’t that a bit suspicious?

And God says vanity is bad in humans… isn’t that hypocrisy then?

What is the motivation of God? What is the point of it all? Just for larks? What happens after judgement day?

If God isn’t helping us to believe in him he can’t care all that much. So why should we obey him?

Being omnipotent, omnipresent, all knowing and immortal would be incredibly boring so perhaps we all do exist just for his entertainment. But then why should we revere him?

I’d rather go to hell with my honour intact than jump through hoops for an omnipotent child. Wouldn’t a God respect that?

And if it’s the work of the Devil that leads me to question God, God should be able to deal with him too what with being perfect and omnipotent.

What was the point of Jesus again?

If Jesus is God in human form then dying for our sins really isn’t that big a deal to him, he just went back up home to carry on being immortal and unstoppable.

What did we actually gain by him dying? If he cleared the sin of Adam and Even then why are we still born into sin? (which is totally unfair by the way)

It’s a bit like being given socks for Christmas…

Why did he show up so much during the periods the Bible was written and do all these things and then suddenly decide to go quiet in the recent centuries?

So okay he expects us to take the belief on face value, but then why should we believe that a few thousands ago seas were parting all over the place? And isn’t that just a convenient excuse?

I have literally never been spoken to by a snake.

In terms of the stories in the Bible it all just seems a bit ‘random’. E.g. why would he make woman out of one of man’s ribs? When he just earlier made light by just hoping it would show up. It’s no more logical or believable than any other fantasy or sci fi story. If someone told you the Lord of the Rings and the Bible were mixed up and the former was the ‘word’ – that would be no less believable! And then a gigantic bat with a goose’s head came and breathed water on everyone!

You could just as easily say that you can’t disprove Leprechauns so they must real. Who says you don’t go to hell for not believing in Leprechauns?

To me saying God isn’t real is the same as looking in the mirror and saying Candyman three times (or whatever it is…)

Does being religious make you a better person? Why does thinking something sounds a bit far fetched make you a bad person?

How can something that causes so many wars be a good thing?

As terrorist attacks and Nazism etc show, belief without question along with an indoctrinated righteousness and a group psychology results in a lack of accountability and destructive behaviour.

In many individuals a belief in God seems to result in a lack of an internal locus of control, with people deferring to or blaming God for problems in their lives when it is they who are responsible.

And why if God is all-loving is he so totalitarian in his rule?

Shouldn’t he value our right to make our own decisions?

And why should we do what he says? My Mum made me but I don’t obey her entirely without questioning anything. Power doesn’t give him more rights, freedom is the right of all sentient beings…

‘You can’t question my existence you must assume the people who tell you about me are right and , you must pray, you must not worship anything else, you must not have sex, you must behave in a way that I consider sinning, you must go to church…’

And a murderer who repents can get into heaven? Seriously?

Some sources say Hitler was Christian. From Mein Kampf: I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator: by defending myself against the Jew, I am fighting for the work of the Lord. So he gets in and I don’t? The Church would lose customers if sinning denied you entrance…

If all men are created equal aren’t we all just as fundamentally good?

Is it out fault if events in life transpire to corrupt us? Especially as they’re probably dictated by him…

And are fear and guilt really the best motivators for faith? Believe in me or go to hell… Doesn’t that just inspire the fearful and the guilty?

If God has a pre-set plan and knows what’s going to happen, that negates free will, which means I can’t change whether I’m going to hell or not… and makes it all pointless.

If heaven is infinite… won’t that be boring?

If heaven is infinite then infinite possibilities must be played out infinite times. It’s the whole monkey with a typewriter thing… put monkeys in front of a typewriter for infinity and they will write out the entire works of Shakespeare infinite times…

Or if it was ‘outside’ time that would mean a state of no energy with no movement or stimulus.

Then what?

Death and suffering are necessary evils – God couldn’t answer everyone’s prayers or there’d be chaos. As proven in Bruce Almighty. And I know this first hand. So… what’s the point in praying? Again is it for his ego?

And why shouldn’t we revere other icons, why should everything always be about him? He’s either just an unpleasant guy… Or very insecure. If you made a race of people would you force them to worship you every day?

Doesn’t he sound a bit like an erratic, vain, despotic, violent, hypocritical, cruel character?

What if you went your whole life without hearing about Christianity? It could happen.

Isn’t it important that we try to better ourselves, if only for the sake of others? You have to help yourself before you can help anyone else. Isn’t developing your views and morals essential to this? As opposed to remaining static and growing stagnant.

By sticking rigidly to one belief aren’t you limiting your view, and your ability to take on board new evidence and information?

If religion is just a nice catharsis, a guide for living, a crutch and a reassuring thing to believe… can’t we just recognise it as such? And not follow a set of strange rules? Or better yet, try and develop ourselves to not need a crutch or reassuring by getting to the route of the problem?

And that’s ignoring all the people who believe the Bible word for word too, those who believe you can fit two of every species on a man-made boat, those who believe the Dinosaurs are a hoax and those who believe the world is only a few thousand years old…

And how can you even defend against any of these arguments if you can’t question the belief? By that definition you can’t engage in them. How can you convert others if you can’t satisfactorily answer the questions?

I don’t mean to offend anyone by these points. I find religion to be interesting and in many cases useful. The architecture, art and music is beautiful and I read the Bible myself for a variety of reasons. If you don’t agree with anything that’s been written above that’s fine, but at least you’ve seen the other point of view. And atheists I hope it prevents the nagging thought that you’re going to hell.

Mack LeMouse

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