50 Reasons People Give for Believing in a God

by Guy P. Harrison

If a significant portion of our species insists on discriminating, hating, killing, and slowing scientific progress in the name of gods, then don't we owe it to ourselves to at least try and confirm whether or not these gods are even real in the first place?

The truth is, just about everybody is a skeptic—except when it comes to their own “obviously true” belief.

Believers who say that their god is obviously real should explain what they mean. A tree standing in front of you is obviously real. A shoe on your foot is obviously real. How is an invisible and silent god (at least to most of us) obviously real? It shouldn't be too hard to convince others if the god truly is obvious.

Any god that is obviously real should be recognizable to anyone, even atheists.

Virtually every believer today believes in the same god or gods that their parents taught him or her to believe in. Religious beliefs are learned not discovered.

So much money, time, and effort are invested into teaching children to believe in gods that it leads one to wonder if belief might vanish overnight if it was left up to gods rather than people.

Look back across history and it becomes impossible to count the religions and the gods. Is this really validation for claims that any particular god is real? Or could it simply be an indication that we have always been very good at inventing gods?

Shouldn't every person who defends faith as a legitimate reason to conclude that their god is real also respect faith when it comes to the existence of thousands of other gods?

Believers might also consider that retreating to the faith defense looks a lot like admitting that they can't make a good case for believing in their god.

The prominence of the faith concept betrays the believers’ own doubts about their gods.

When people write down their myths it's not unusual for them to use familiar settings—real places. But this is not a reason to conclude that the entire story is true.

How, for example, can the Christian who gives money to help fund the distribution of Bibles and the Muslim who gives money to fund the distribution of Korans both be right about the wise use of their money? Either one of them or both of them are wasting their cash pushing a book that is wrong.

Death, the most dreaded of all evils, is therefore of no concern to us; for while we exist death is not present, and when death is present we no longer exist. —Epicurus

The existence of so many diverse religions is primarily a reason to suspect that humans have a strong inclination and talent for inventing gods.

If your god is real, then chances are you will be commended, not condemned, for putting that finely crafted brain to work. If your god is not real, however, then there is nothing to worry about.