1. EVERYBODY ELSE DOES.

This has struck me as the most shocking one. A lot of people, in
particular teenagers, have told me that they believe in God simply
because everybody else around them does. It seems to them that most
of their family and friends also believe in God so why shouldn 't they?
They reason "how can everybody be wrong?" Another side reason to this
is the belief that if you are baptised/initiated into your religion, you
must then be a believer.
I never really understood this reasoning because when I think about
something, I don't immediately go to another source of information or
think about who believes what, I think about the situation as I know it,
with the facts that I know, and try to make a conclusion from them. It
is when I feel like I don't know enough about something that I go and
find a source of information. I would never believe anything simply
because somebody told me it was true . It has to make sense too. Why
do some people skip this process altogether and just blindly follow what
everyone else believes?
Of course, linked in with this point is that it is often found that parents
teach their children their religion and from a young age, particular
beliefs are ingrained into their children, and are often reinforced by their
community. As many of the readers will know, it is hard to stop
accepting something that you believed to be true all of your life, and so
it can be attributed to this phenomenon that people stay believing in
God after their teenage years. Naturally then , it can be said that a lot of
people believe in God on the false reason of simply being born with
parents who would tell them to do so.


2. IF I DON'T, I'LL BURN IN HELL.

When religious people tell me "If I'm wrong, I have nothing to lose, if
you're wrong, you have everything to lose" they mean that If I don't
believe in God, I will burn in hell (or otherwise be punished), and that's
why I should believe in God.
But as Richard Dawkin's points out "we are all atheists, some of us just
have taken it one God further." What he means by that is: people who
believe in God, don't believe in so many other Gods by doing so. If you
are a Christian for example, you believe in the Christian God. You are an
atheist in respect to all of the others, such as the Jewish God and the
Islamic God. So if the Christian is wrong, and Judaism is the true
religion, then the Christian will also be punished eternally, just like the
atheist.
Therefore, If anyone is wrong about their beliefs, they will end up
burning in hell or the equivalent punishment of the true religion.
So I don't really see how not believing in God puts you at any more risk
of hell or punishment than believing in him. Other religions also promise
eternal punishment for not believing in their God.
(Note : Although I took the example of Christianity, it is in fact true of
some divisions of religion to promise punishment for those too 'ignorant'
to find the real division of that religion, not just the religion itself. I.E
Some believe that people who fall outside of their Church cannot go to
heaven. For example, Catholics believe that true protestants cannot go
to heaven because they are outside of the church - sourced)


3. GOOD THINGS HAPPEN TO ME.

I have heard a lot of "I pray to the almighty God and he rewards me" and
"I am happy in life because of God" as an answer to why they believe in
God. This includes very lucky or "miraculous" events in people's lives .
But how can you know that your happiness is a result of God? After all,
there are atheists who are perfectly happy in their lives , good things
happen, without prayer or belief. It's of course a great thing that people
are getting good things in their lives, but I don't think attributing it to
something higher than us is a logical conclusion to make from them.
Another point against this is for all of the people who pray, and get
nothing. Or people with faith who end up with terrible luck and
misfortune. If there was a God that was capable of interfering with out
day to day life, then why does he do so for some and not for others?
Arguing that "we do not understand God's motives" to me seems like
giving up on argument altogether.


4. The Bible/Qu'ran/Torah/Other Religious Texts are very old.

A lot of people argue that because the text that their religion is based
on is very old, it somehow makes it more believable than if it wasn't. I
don't understand this logic because when it comes to all other
knowledge: cars, medicine and laws for example, being antiquated
works against those things. This is based on the idea that what was
said/made in the past may not have been the most true and useful for
our society in which we live now. Why is this view not applied to
antiquated texts whose real authors can only be guessed at?
Another point to note is that there have been many holes and
inconsistencies found in these ancient texts which point to the idea
that they were written for a human purpose (to control the masses) and
not by a divine entity who would supposedly have gotten everything
right in his texts. If taken literally, a lot of the events in ancient texts
seem to greatly contradict modern day science (creation, walking on
water, etc.)


5. I CAN FEEL GOD INSIDE OF ME.

This is the most understandable point for me as sometimes it feels like
there is more to being a human than just being an animal who eats,
sleeps and reproduces. This may be why so many different religions
have been made in the past. It could be a natural urge for us to find
something to admire as our authority figure , something larger than us.
But I fail to see how this feeling of spirituality, that there is something
bigger than us, can definitely mean that it is a God who makes us feel
that way. Is this feeling telling people "I am God, read the Bible/
Qu'ran/Torah and follow it's guidelines?". Why does this feeling mean
that we have to go to a particular place and read a particular text and
then lead a particular life necessarily .
So I don't understand how people can say things like "I just know it's
God" when if they didn't know religions existed, and words like "god"
and "bible", they would not have been able to follow the guidelines of
their religion. They would have still perhaps felt the "presence of God"
but to me it seems unlikely that they would go to church every sunday
and forbid gay marriage, or not eat particular animals, or get circumcised
by the urge of the feeling inside of them.
Of course, if you feel this spirituality and decide to call it God, then this
point does not really apply . But I would argue that what you are calling
God is not "God" by standards of religion and so you've just made up a
new name for spirituality or feeling inside of you.


6. THE GOD OF GAPS.

Another false reason for believing in a God could be said to be the
argument that "since science cannot answer A, then God must be real,
since with his existence we can answer A". I don't really understand
this, because by using God as an answer to fill a gap of knowledge, you
are only opening up even more questions. How did God come about?
What shaped his personality (if you believe he has one)? Why is there
pain on Earth? Why doesn't prayer work? etc.
I could see how gaps in science might make you agnostic, since there
hasn't been conclusive proof of any cosmology as of yet but I personally
don't see how using God to fill in gaps works as an argument.
It seems to me like you're filling a gap with a hole.
Also to note is that in a lot of the 'gaps' there is evidence for what the
gaps might be, and evidence for the truth of the theory. It's just not
absolutely conclusive.
y

7. HARDSHIPS

I am unsure about the naming for this point and so am very open for
suggestions, but as for the point, I am. Thanks to @Jenubouka and the
ever useful comments section for pointing out that a lot of people
become religious in jail.
I believe in any situations of hardships (disabilities, diseases, financial
trouble, loneliness), we naturally look for something to lean on, some
form of support or comfort. I think because of the availability of texts
such as the Bible, many people seek solace in Christianity in particular
when they are experiencing hardships. I must stress that I think what
religion does in these cases serves a positive role overall, because it
teaches some fundamental morals such as killing and stealing is wrong,
and loving and caring is right. However, I do not see the reasoning
behind believing in something only because you want to feel comfort in
something, it seems like using religion and belief for your own benefit,
which has little to do with truth.
This reason may be considered as the reason for the positive correlation
between poorer, less developed countries and higher religious numbers.
As living standards increase, the need for a higher power decreases.
Although religions such as Islam and Christianity are growing in terms
of population and % of the world population adhering, these increases
are only seen in poorer countries such as Nigeria (accounting for most of
the Christian growth). In the developed countries where living
standards are high, religious numbers are rapidly decreasing with 9
countries said to see the extinction of religion entirely in the near
future.

All in all, I think that these 7 reasons are understandable, but they
should be exposed and addressed.

OP you're the MAN

Nice