"I'd like it if those who have never believed added their thoughts as to when they first discovered they didn't believe in any god."

good topic. i actually get asked this question alot IRL to because i have a forearm tatoo that if you get it, it sort of speaks of my falling away. but anyways..

what did it for me was 'perfect love casting out al fear' and i believed in my heart god wanted me to be ready for any all possible questions that nonbelievers would have. so i had no fear in reading books that would test my mind FOR THE GLORY OF GOD. so i read...  i read the bible, of course. sometimes 2 hours a day after my prayer sessions in hopes god would clean me from all false and impure motives. i wanted to be humble before him, and all sinful desires, always. i wanted to be in such a pure state that i could always be open to hearing his 'whisper'.. in the stillness, he is there. then i read josh mcdowell's books, mainly evidence that demands a verdict. i was very unsatisfied with his conclusions, but i kept the faith still. read norman giesler's systematic theology vol 1 and systematic theology by wayne grutam....  and they disagreed on points, even the theology of god! the concept of god, etc...  so i was at first becoming agnostic thining 'how in the h3lL could these educated men of god disagree on the concept of god? they even interpretted the bible differently in many key denominational determining points.... amazed me. isnt there an absolute truth here? then i started to realize, 'wow. this is confusing.' but still held on to faith. AND not a single atheistic influence yet. never once did i think it was necessary to read anything atheistic. then i read lee strobels books, and i was horrified. so many illogical jumps.... (i've found out now that i wasnt the only one that was forced to atheism because of strobel's works caseagainstfaith.com). of course this is all a very quick overview of how i started into atheism, but i do credit that the last nail in my coffin was strobel's books. from there, i went to infidels.org and i tried to refute the critiques of strobel's works.. just to myself. and i researched and researched... i ended up not sleeping for a week (at this point of my life, only a week, later on i went 2 1/2 months with no sleep... i dont recommend it. i was almost hospitalized). i ended up sleeping all through a weekend and my brothyer called me on sunday night. i cried to him. i said 'i cant be dishonest with myself anymore, jerod. this faith thing is not real and i have tried so hard to find truth in god but i cant find any... i cant believe in somethng that isnt there anymore, i dont know what to do...'  i was so afraid then. i thought i was going to hell if i died that night. then i started realizing how psychology has so much to play in the theistic world....  now, it took me a good 3 years to get from that guy crying to his brother on the phone and to where i am now. it didnt happen overnight because i had some irrational hate towards a god or whatnot. i would simply call it a moment (3 years) of intellectual honesty and rational necessity. i havent started carrying the label atheist until maybe 6 months ago even. so i know i still have a lot to learn. but atm, i see no rational or justifiable reason to presuppose god.

and that's me in as few words as i can manage
=)

But I didn't have any basis for believing he doesn't exist, either.

Sure you do! You just don't realize it is all -- which is a common error in reasoning when the 'thing' in question is god and not, for example, the Loch Ness monster, unicorns, elves, etc.

To justifiably believe that a thing exists, we need evidence of its existence. If we have no evidence that a thing exists, then that is our basis for believing that the thing is nonexistent.

That's the only possible basis for the belief that the nonexistent is nonexistent. We will never find 'evidence' FOR nonexistence no matter how thorough our 'investigations' are.

how can you prove a negative. how can you prove there's no invisible unicorns. if you've explained this, how bout pointing me to a thread so you dont have to re-type it all
=)
i'd be interested in that read.

but apparently, there's so little evidence that I shouldn't even bother checking to make sure there is so little evidence, right, Cog?

I have no idea. You've never been specific about the evidence, AFAIK. All I've ever gotten out of you is that you believe that there is a possibility that evidence for God might exist. You seem to think that the mere possibility that evidence might exist for God's existence is enough of a reason to be, as you put it, a fence sitter about God's existence -- and that is silly.

You rationally cannot be a fence sitter about a putative entity's existence unless you've found at least some evidence to support some degree of probability that a thing actually exists. Mere possibility of existence doesn't cut it.

ANY logically possible entity begins with a probability of existence of almost 0.0, not, as you seem to assume, 0.5. This is because the number of logically possible entities is unlimited and the number of actual entities is limited.

For example: I may own a red '59 thunderbird with 30,059 miles on the odometer with a chipped front windshield. That's logically possible. I may own a yellow '05 corvette with 56,821 miles on the odometer with a low left rear tire. That too is logically possible. I may own any one of an extremely large number of logically possible vehicles which means the probability that I do own any particular one of them is vanishingly small -- vanishingly small, that is, in the absence of any reason to believe otherwise.

Only when we have reasons to believe that a thing exists does the probability of that thing's existence rise above the trivial probability of mere possibility.

If I make the innocuous claim that I own a yellow corvette, you have a very slight reason to believe that I own a yellow corvette because you've probably seen corvettes before, because yellow is not a terribly unusual color for such a vehicle, because complete strangers are probably more truthful about these kinds of innocuous claims than not (even if only slightly so), etc.

If I show you a picture of me standing beside a yellow corvette, this increases the probability (but only very slightly) that I own a yellow corvette.

If I drive a yellow corvette to your house, show you the bill of sale from the dealership, produce for your inspection the note from the institution through which I financed the car's purchase, dig out the car's registration papers with my name on them, etc., this still does not mean that it is absolutely certain that I own a yellow corvette; but these are powerful reasons for you to believe that I do own such a vehicle and will fully justify your belief that I do.

But what if you surmise simply from reading posts written by me, posts in which I never mention owning a specific car nor for that matter mention cars at all; what if after reading the posts written by me on this board, you surmise, "He writes like a guy who probably drives a blue '98 Taurus and I'll bet the odometer shows: 124,862 miles."

What are the chances of your being correct? What is the probability that such a vehicle exists? (And by "such a vehicle" I of course refer to a blue '98 taurus with 124,862 miles on the odometer that is owned by me.)

I estimate that the odds that that proposition is true are very, very, very, very small -- and that's even with your having a wee bit of a reason to believe that the proposition is true. And you do have some reason (although not good reason) to believe that the proposition is true. That proposition, for example, has a much better chance of being true than does the proposition that "Cogito owns an engine-powered platinum sleigh that can travel at speeds up to 7 miles a second which was custom built for him last December by Santa's elves" -- even though this last statement, too, is possibly true.

Thus, in the absence of good reason to believe that a god exists the probability that a god exists is extremely low. It certainly can in no way justify your belief that such a proposition is as likely to be true as it is to be false. What's more, as the claim that a god exists becomes more specific (i.e., that the god is just, that he is omniscient, that he flooded the world a few thousand years ago, that he had a son who lived in the Middle East) the more unlikely it becomes that the claim is true.

OK, OK, I've rambled a bit here, but what I'm saying is that the notion that you are a fence-sitter because you believe there is a possibility that evidence can be found for a god's existence, is screwed up. If you are a fence sitter then it is because you already have some evidence that a god exists although insufficient evidence to compel that belief. Otherwise, you're not a fence sitter, you're just confused.

Cog --

I think you miss DT's point.  He hasn't conducted a thorough investigation.  But he knows that LOTS of people believe God exists and at least some of those contend that there is sufficient evidence to support such a belief.  That's at least enough to suspend judgment pending a review of the evidence.  It's that simple.

But Santa Claus did exist.

You've just argued persuasively for the very opposite proposition.

Just because some people claim to have evidence in favor of a proposition does not mean that they actually DO have evidence.

That's why you would investigate the matter, right?

If you were right, then we would never be able to arrive at the judgment that Santa Claus did not exist, because there will always be LOTS of kids who claim to have evidence of his existence.

You've missed the point.  Before investigation, you suspend judgment.   Once you've investigated, of course, then you can arrive at whatever judgment the evidence (or lack thereof) leads.  Also, the LOTS being KIDS would certainly reflect on the reasonableness of suspending belief pending investigation.

You are still arguing that we are right to suspend disbelief whenever there is the possibility that evidence exists somewhere that we haven't examined.

That's not what I am arguing.  

If you applied that criterion to all of your beliefs, I doubt that you would be able to survive your gullibility very long. Every jury in America would be required to hold all defendants innocent of the crimes they were charged with.

No, because they would have had the evidence presented to them for consideration.  The jury at the deliberation stage is post-investigation.

This is a rather modest point.  DT is simply saying he is suspending judgment until he can examine the matter properly.  I think you and Cog doth protest too much.

Why, I don't know.  You weren't very specific, were you?  

I was as specific as I needed to be, given the context.  We were talking about the mythical Santa Claus that lives at the North Pole today, not the man whose life originally inspired the myth.

"And are you really disagreeing with my point or arguing for the sake of argument? I believe the latter."

No, I'm really disagreeing with your point.  However you wish to specify what you meant by 'Santa Claus' it nonetheless remains a fact of history that these conceptions are associated with a specific man, a certain St. [Santa] Nicholas [Nick, Claus, etc] who was bishop of Smyrna c. 350 AD.

This is the man that you think children will claim to have evidence of?  Think again.  The one I was talking about delivers presents to children on Christmas, enters houses through chimneys, rides a sleigh pulled by a team of reindeer led by Rudolph, and takes milk and cookies as a tribute for his visit.  Are you claiming that this describes the former Bishop of Smyrna?  

Before investigation, you suspend judgment. Once you've investigated, of course, then you can arrive at whatever judgment the evidence (or lack thereof) leads. Also, the LOTS being KIDS would certainly reflect on the reasonableness of suspending belief pending investigation.

There are an unlimited number of propositions that may be true. The only thing that separates these propositions from propositions that are true is our experience of them (and by "our experience" I refer to ALL human experience, not just our personal experience). It makes no sense to suspend judgment on a proposition (on ANY proposition) solely on the basis that the proposition is possibly true. In fact, it is absurd to do so. If we have absolutely no reason to believe that a proposition is true then that proposition should be considered false.

This is because the only reason that we ever have to believe that a proposition is false is because the proposition has no evidence to support its truth. Evidence will never be found for events that did not occur. Evidence will never be found for entities that do not exist. Evidence is found only for what occurs and for what exists. The fact that some claims are inconsistent with the evidence that we find for what occurs and for what exists, leads us to assume that other putative events and entities are nonexistent.

There is no evidence that a monkey is sitting on your keyboard at this very moment. There is no evidence that a unicorn or a god is sitting there, either.

The evidence is that no thing is sitting on your keyboard. The evidence that no thing is sitting on your keyboard is inconsistent with the claim that a monkey or a unicorn or that anything else is sitting on your keyboard. Therefore, it's incorrect to say that you have "evidence that a monkey is NOT sitting on my keyboard."

What you actually mean is that "There is evidence that no thing is sitting on my keyboard and that evidence is inconsistent with the claim that a monkey (or a unicorn or a god or anything else) is sitting on my keyboard."

In the absence of all reason to believe that a proposition is true, that proposition is about as surely false as any proposition made about the world can be false.