I've had conflicting beliefs for a very long time about whether or not God exists. In no way do I wish to insult anyone on purpose, nor do i wish to lecture or sermonize about what is right and wrong. Nobody really has the right do to that, belief, or lack thereof, is personal, and you should decide for yourself what you do and do not believe. For what it's worth, I'm friends with Atheists, Roman Catholics, wiccans, Lutherans, Quakers, Mormons, Jews, Agnostics, and pastafarians.
I really can't be sure when I started thinking about God's existence or nonexistence. I know that it was something that repeatedly troubled me. I remember sitting in synagogue on the high holidays a year or two ago and came across a line in the Confessional section of the Amidah that really made me hesitate for a moment.
"We have sinned against You [God] by insincere confession."
I've never felt the need to stop and reread anything in the prayer book before, and ever since then, it's the most uncomfortable thing I've ever experienced. It's not that moment exactly that made me say "God must not exist!," good grief, no. It was more a culmination of my interest in anthropology, evolution, and anatomy.
So many people argue against evolution in a number of ways. Here are a few reason's I've heard (and again, disclaimer, I'm not saying you're bad for thinking this way, I'm merely making a point) :
1) The human body's anatomy is perfect, why would God want to make imperfect versions of us if we were meant to be perfect?
2) God meant for evolution to happen, thus evolution did happen, but it was because God wanted it to be so.
3) Humans were God's first creation and all of us descended from Adam and Eve, so we were always human beings.
4) The Pocket watch/Watchmaker theory (this is an argument against natural selection, using the analogy of a pocket watch as a human heart. Something as complex as a pocket watch with tiny gears and springs that needs something to wind it up, had to have had a creator, because nothing that complex could naturally occur)
5) God created/initiated the big bang, and has a plan for every living thing in the universe.
I'm not saying these are bad justifications. They are perfectly legitimate reasons in favor of God. Take them as you will, because unfortunately, science and religion can never mix. There was a famous televised debate between Carl Sagan and Duane Gish in the 1970s. During this debate, hosted by Anthropologist Walter Cronkite, Sagan and Gish went head to head, arguing science vs. creationism. Halfway through the debate, Sagan was finding it extremely difficult to argue fairly against Gish because any evidence for creation that he put forth, Gish would counter it with statements like "God does these things to test our faith." Scientific theory is refutable, changeable, it can be proven false.
Gish could never be proven false, because religion is to be taken at face value.
Evolution or creation, God or no god, everyone truly is entitled to their own opinion (my philosophy professor would throw a temper tantrum about that last part, but that's another story). We should really all leave it at that. We believe what we want, protest and support what we want, and formulate our own hypotheses.
Some people state that their study of biology, chemistry, evolution, etc., makes their belief in God more firmly. Some people use God as a safety net or a security blanket, and that's OK, too.
Personally, I like thinking that I'm responsible for my own actions, and, oddly enough, I do believe in some sort of limbo or afterlife, ghosts, spirits, souls, tarot cards, and that we descended from rodents approximately 65 million years ago (click here for a little snippet), and that the first primate, plesiadapiformes, was pretty awesome. And I'm glad to say I share most of my DNA with the chimpanzee and bonobo.
