Existence of God: The motive for doubt.

Why do atheists cling so strongly to the idea that God does not exist? The easy explanation that many religious people might readily suggest is that they don't want to follow God's commands, that out of selfishness, they rebel against God, and dismiss His existence to excuse themselves. I think there is some truth to this explanation in many cases, but for most atheists, I don't think this plays a significant role. There is a much bigger picture.

If we believe in God, and if we believe in the scripture He provides for us, then we ought to also believe in His adversary. He has employed a lot of very clever tricks to convince the world that atheism is a reasonable, plausible perspective. Chief among these, in my opinion, is false religion. Many of the very people who find atheism so shocking, participate in a church which grooms them to act like hypocritical jerks at every turn. Or they have elected to buy into some completely laughable idea, and call it God's word. False prophecy, fake healings, glossolalia, etc., all surrounded by constant appeals for more money - these are probably the cause of more atheism than all the Richard Dawkinses that have ever lived. If I thought that's what religion had to offer, I would have serious motive to doubt the whole thing too.

Similar, in effect, to false religion, is true religion abused by weak and sinful men. There are people who take advantage of religious authority to do evil things, like embezzling tithes, or molesting children. Others don't set out to do evil, but utterly fail to walk their talk, and ultimately smear the image of God's church when their hypocrisy is exposed.

I believe this "bad religion" is far more convincing of the idea that God may not exist at all than any number of persuasive atheist philosophies. After seeing enough bad religions which you can definitively determine are not of any real God, it's easy to start thinking that if you've seen one, you've seen them all. I don't think this is an unreasonable conclusion to come to. So perhaps as believers, when we encounter devout atheists, we ought to humbly accept our own role in their confusion, and remove the beam from our own eye, before attempting to remove the mote from our brother's eye.