This post is a response to a question initially posed on Quora, and can also be accessed via “https://caseforatheism.quora.com/Why-dont-you-believe-God-exists-16“

Your question is entirely backwards.

Atheists don’t need to justify why they don’t believe God exists.

You don’t need to justify why you don’t believe the Sun turns pink at night and shoots golden sprinkles throughout the night to create stars that fairies light up with their magic dust.

Believers do, however, need to justify why anyone should believe their claim that a God exists.

You don’t have to justify anything you do or don’t believe to anyone until you try to convince them to accept your belief.

Atheism is the absence of a belief in the existence of a God. That disbelief technically means atheism is the same as nothing. Atheists have no motivation to share the nothing that comprises disbelief with anyone. Atheists generally don’t care what believers believe or disbelieve until they make it their business to convince atheists to think the same as they do.

Your question is like expecting someone to justify why they don’t believe snakes have wheels hidden in their scales that we can’t see, but they secretly use them to speed their way along the ground when no one is looking.

This atheist could write a novel explaining the journey taken from early indoctrination as a child and the early doubts about that indoctrination, which grew over time as more and more questions remained unanswered while more and more contradictions to the claims of the existence of a God appeared ever more undeniable, but none of that matters.

The only answer to your question that you deserve is that Atheists do not believe in the existence of a God. The only fact relevant to that answer is that atheists paid attention to reality and asked questions about reality in ways that made unjustifiable beliefs unsustainable.

There is no point in adhering to a belief when reality contradicts it.

There is no point in believing that Santa Claus exists as an adult because only children wake up on Christmas day to find a mystery of gifts deposited under a tree awaiting them.

Adults know there is no magical entity depositing gifts, so there’s no point in believing Santa Claus exists. Most adults would consider it quite delusional for an adult to think Santa Claus exists. I’m sure you’re one of them.

Meanwhile, atheists who deal with questions like this are left wondering when believers will wake up and start asking themselves why and how adult believers can still believe in fantasy figures granting magical wishes.

Why do you believe some supernatural Father Cosmos lives in some Quantum realm (instead of the clouds or mountaintop that used to be thought of as God’s home)? Why do you believe your fantasy father figure magically created billions of light years of space and trillions of galaxies, suns and planetary systems to place you at the centre of creation as his special child that he watches over? Do you watch over your eyelash mites? Do you communicate with your gut bacteria? Why do you believe your God looks like you?

If you can stop to think about your question, you’ll realize that it is backwards because it’s not about what atheists don’t believe, but why you do believe a God exists.

You would not otherwise pose your question to atheists if you weren’t already experiencing some shred of doubt in your belief. Instead of exploring that, though, you seek some form of justification from atheists because you’re afraid of losing your faith.

If you think about that for a while, you will realize that your fear was deliberately cultivated within you to keep you in line with your belief system, as it was designed to control your mind.

Instead of wondering why others think differently from you, try to think about why you believe the way you do.

You’ll get better answers that way, and they’ll be answers that get you further in life. The only answers you can get from others on this score are explanations of their personal views. Meanwhile, the entire point of being on Earth and living your personal life while experiencing growth and change as an individual is to learn your answers for yourself.

That’s the essential difference you’re struggling to identify with your question — why atheists are different than you.

The truth is that your beliefs are yours to develop in a personal journey through life. Your religious indoctrination has taught you to think that process is a “personal relationship with God.” The sooner you can rid yourself of an imaginary intermediary in your quest for knowledge, the sooner you will develop a clarity of mind in which you can understand on your terms why atheists don’t believe in the existence of the God you’ve been taught to believe in.

Otherwise, you will never truly understand any answer any atheist will give you to your question.