I’m not trying to start an argument or offend anyone here, I just wanted to give a few reasons why I find it impossible to believe in God. I’m also not intending to make this specific to any religion, although I do have to refer to religion because it is a major contribution as to why I do not believe in God.

I’ve always perceived that people do things in God’s name, follow his commandments and abide by Jesus’ teachings because they hope to go to heaven or at least avoid going to hell. We are lured by rewards and perturbed by punishment. Pascal’s wager, in its simplest form, states that we’re better off living as God intended, behaving as he states, because if he does exist then our rewards will be infinite and if he doesn’t then we haven’t lost anything. If, however, you disobey him and he does exist then you are damned eternally. I’ve always thought that when you die that’s it … you’re dead, there is nothing else. It used to keep me awake at night when I was little, the thought that when I died there would just be nothingness for eternity. I just feel like I don’t need God or any notion of heaven to validate my time alive.

Furthermore, I’ve always thought it was kind of selfish that people do what God says because they want to go to heaven. When I do something good I’m not expecting some kind of reward or anything back from it. I don’t believe in karma either, although I wish I could. Good things won’t happen to me because I’ve done good things. Isn’t it better to do something good because it is the right thing and not because you want the rewards?

As a kid I was brought up in a Jewish family. Not massively strict, but we had to follow the basic rules and there were lots of things that I couldn’t do that just seemed like normal things to do, for example, not eating meat and milk products together. It may not seem like a big deal but we had to check everything we bought from the shops, have separate cutlery and crockery for each and there’s just so much we couldn’t eat. There were lots of other things as well. But it basically boiled down to the fact that I had a miserable childhood/adolescence and had serious issues. I blamed a lot of it on religion and just came to the conclusion that all these rules were just pointless and stupid. Why would a God put such restrictions on a life that could otherwise have been a very happy life?

I’ve always thought that if there was a God he would understand that I am (on the whole) a good person. Most importantly because I don’t do things that will hurt others. I’m not a perfect person by any means and sometimes I do bad things. But no-one is perfect. I can’t believe that if there was a God he would be that conceited to insist that everyone must believe in him. If there was a heaven you would get there on the basis of how good a person you were and how you lived your life not on how you live your life given that you want to get into heaven.