The following are seven reasons why God does not exist. I am an atheist because I choose to be. I feel "agnostic" is too wishy washy, and such a person does not feel strongly enough to take a stand. You may not agree with my reasoning here, but this represents my train of thought in taking the position I do.
initial version, November 11, 1996
"Seven Reasons", copyright 1996 by David G. McDivitt, all rights reserved
1) Avoidance behavior, codependency, authoritarianism, and delusions of grandeur can be recognized throughout history. Religious environments tend to be similar in nature, more often than not. Because of their pattern and repetitive nature, religious environments are more significant of human nature than a divine being.
2) Because of an obvious lack of physical control, other than wishful thinking, lack of spiritual intervention can be assumed, else things would come about differently, to therefore indicate no aspect of divine control.
3) From the time Giordano Bruno was burned alive at the stake for not believing the earth to be the center of the universe, awareness of God has continued to decrease. It may have been decreasing prior to him, but this is a good point of reference. The general trend has been down, though erratic at times. Such has continued to present day. The rate of decline appears directly proportional to increases in education, medicine, industry, technology, and information. Based on the consistency of this relationship in past decline, and proposing mankind shall continue the same trend of intellectual pursuit, the significance of God can be forecast to eventually not exist at all. Because God has not put forth his hand, in even an attempt to stop this decline, it is indication he cannot. If God did exist, he most certainly would have, for where did human ideas of God come from to begin with, except he was believed to have done so? Therefore, the existence of God is discounted by the decline in religious significance, and failure of God to make any difference in that.
4) Lip service given by men to religious dogma, and the extent to which religion has emulated social government, bears no evidence of God, but only the interactions of men, one to another.
5) Logic is to accept something as true because it appears to exist, and to accept something as true requires some desire, or motive, to do so in the first place. The only motive to believe in God, is personal bias before pursuing a critical analysis of the subject. Nothing bears evidence of God, totally of itself, and nothing offers motive, totally of itself. The fact some people do believe in God is an obvious contradiction to this lack of inspiration, unless the premise of previous bias is carried back socially for several thousand years, to the time and place where God would have first manifested himself, starting it all off. Going to such an extreme illustrates the developmental nature of society, more than the existence of God.
6) If God did exist, and knowledge of him so important as is often claimed, God would have made use of much more appropriate mediums than parchment, and word of mouth, to offer proof and validation of his presence. God would base knowledge of him on more than feelings and spirituality. If knowledge of God represents the truth, and truth is by nature an exercise in mental abstractness, to use other than mental means to reveal himself, is a contradiction.
7) Is it up to an atheist to prove the nonexistence of God, or up to the believer to prove existence? For the most part, it depends on who is being intrusive into the life of the other. Who wants to change the other? Only that person has the responsibility of proof. God, however, is an intrusion into this physical life. It is not that people really exist on a spiritual plane, and the atheist goes about trying to shove them off. Must reality be proved into fantasy, or fantasy be proved into reality? No, the nonexistence of God does not have to be proved, for taking this challenge declares existence to be the norm, and the atheist has already lost his debate.