There is no reason to believe in God

Jziggy has, to her credit, largely taken the evidentialist route, deciding to off evidence for the existence of God. "Who said that disbelief in god wasn't also rational? I believe that both are..." If both positions are rational, then does that mean that someone can believe the two at once? Surely it is a contradiction to believe that "God probably exists", and also that "God probably doesn't exist". To believe in one neccessitates denial of the other, but how can we deny either without evidence? "The first is that 95% percent of people in the UK and USA (its about the same in most countries) said they believe in god, whereas well under 1% said they believed in unicrons." One percent sounds a little steep. Or perhaps I'm just optimistic about the state of society :-( "If this many more people believe something, there is certainly a greater chance of it being true or real" This depends on whether or not they believe for a good reason. If so, what are their reasons? If not, then surely it's possible that many people could believe something irrationally. I find such a widespread irrationality probable, given the mistakes of the past, and the innate ability for people to rationalize the beliefs they find comforting. Also, why do large groups of people believe that God has contradictory attributes? E.G. Christians believe that God sent down His son to absolve mankind of His sins, whilst Hindus believe that God (Brahman), did no such thing. Large groups of people disagree on a wide variety of subjects, and even then the majority has been known to be wrong. "Also, many people actually claime god has spoken to them. How many claim they have seen a unicron? Surely not many over one. This also points in the direction of the existence of god." Again, if such revelation is to be trusted, then why do so many people recieve contradictory revelations, from Jesus to Mohammed. If we do have a mystical sense that is specially made to interpret such religious experiences, then why do we find no evidence of it? Surely it is more reasonable to suggest that religious experience is a byproduct of our five fallible senses, and perfectly normal psychological states, of which we have evidence. "Another point I will make is when living things are so perfectly designed how can you doubt god? There is a use for everything; eyelashes to stop dust getting in your eyes, needles on cacti to stop animals eating them for their water. Do you believe something can be so perfect just by coincidence?" The "Argument to Design" is one of the most popular arguments for theism, but I fear, ultimately flawed. Firstly, we have a natural explanation as to why animals are adapted to their surroundings in the Theory of Evolution by natural selection and mutation. Basically, over millions of years, the DNA of animals are passed on to their offspring, but sometimes this DNA harbors mutations, which in someway alter the properties of the animal. Sometimes, these mutations are beneficial, allowing the animal to better cope with its surroundings, giving it a better chance of surviving and reproducing. If it does reproduce, then its offspring will inherit the beneficial mutation. In this way, animals with beneficial mutations live on and have children, whilst the animals without these mutations die out. So species of animals amass these mutations until they are, as Prof. Richard Dawkins calls them, 'designoid', having the appearance of being designed, because they are "in tune" with their environments, whilst they are actuallty the product of chance and the laws of nature. There is much evidence for evolution, both macro and micro. I will put forth two lines of evidence for evolution: 1) The fossil record. There are many transitional fossils marking the speciation of various groups of animals, such as dinosaurs to birds, human ancestry from old-earth primates, and fish to tetrapods: http://www.talkorigins.org... http://www.talkorigins.org... http://www.talkorigins.org... 2) Nested hierarchies. Nested hierarchies are instances where properties of animals correlate with other properties, for instance, only animals with jaws have feathers. This is because a species of animals evolved jaws, and then split into a number of different species, some of which have feathers. That no species outside the ones with jaws didn't evolve feathers is evidence for the gradual evolution of one species into another. If this phenomenon didn't occur, then we wouldn't be able to map out the phylogenetic tree, and evolution would be thrown into doubt: http://www.talkorigins.org... Also, the design argument is an argumentum ad ignorantiam, an appeal to ignorance. This means that it unjustly rules out the possibility that we will one day have a scientific explanation for the way the universe is. We have reason to belief that this will happen, given that science has always ben found to solve those questions for which we didn't have an answer in the past, E.G. gravity, or the properties of fire. Finally, I would argue that, because God also appears to be very complex and intelligent, given His ability to design our universe, that He also needs a designer, or at least an explanation as to how such a vast, intelligent, purposeful being could come about. "You have given reasons for not having to believe in god, but can you prove he doesn't exist?" Whilst this isn't a part of the official debate topic, I see no reason why there could not be a proof of God's nonexistence, given certain kinds or definitions of God. What would need to be shown would be that such a God's properties contradicted each other. You've probably asked me this because, in my profile, I state that I am a "strong atheist", and believe that God probably doesn't exist. Depending on how much time I have in the future, I may resolve to debate something along the lines of "God Probably doesn't exist". But that is for another day.