I don't because I like to make as few assumptions as possible, and because I like simplicity.

One can go all nihilist and say that reality itself can't be proven, since observation itself is in question.

Okay then, but I'm sure both religious and non-religious people aren't nihilist. I'm sure we all don't believe that we're in some kind of matrix.

So we all assume the existence of the world, and that our observations are reliable. That's the axiom we all live off of in my opinion, our one big assumption.

From this axiom (that the world exists and our observations are reliable) we can do inductive and deductive reasoning. We can induce the fundamental rules and laws of our reality (inducing the law of gravity by seeing an apple fall, or dropping two objects of different mass from a building), and then use those laws to deduce things that we might not be able to see or observe. That's science in my opinion, and in my opinion everyone's a scientist. We all accept reality for what it is, we remember what reality is, and we make predictions based on that memory.

So the thing is, why don't we bring a god into our big picture?

A)To explain the unexplainable.

B) To explain the origin of reality

Simply saying that goddit isn't an explanation. In fact, that's just a more complicated answer. Here's how it looks in my mind:

?->God exists->Reality exists

vs

Reality exists

Even if we go with:

God always existed->Reality exists

vs

Reality exists

That's 2 things vs 1.

It's the same reason why I don't believe that little people live in my fridge, and hide when I open the door anymore. It's why I don't believe that everytime I go back to my car, someone may have replaced it with an exactly same looking car. It's simply unneeded to believe such a thing. Nothing changes, and it's just unnecessary.

Also, to me god is just the same as replacing one unknown with another unknown, as Thuderf00t says it.

?->God->Universe

?->Universe

Why do we need a middle man? Why believe in one extra, unnecessary thing?

The same reason I don't believe in Unicorns, wizards, witches, and hipporgriffs. I mean Gods do exist but only as creations of human minds.

What if your observations and senses were a creation of the human mind, or perhaps an evil demon?

ohh i wrote an essay at school about this, basicly to cut it short, you have to look at religion itself to understand that it disagrees with their definition of god, the existence  of the devil is proof. also i dont take everything people tell me as facts, i question everything people told me, sure i believed in god when i was kid but after i didnt. and life never felt so good. i have lots of other reason not to believe in god but you only need one, nothing exists if not proven you may argue but that is how life works, same system works for your innocent until proven guilty.

I used to not believe because of:

- The fact that there are so many Gods/Religons

- How Christianity is very closely linked with Greek Mythology, note the 'mythology'

- The way the world is so mucked up, how could God make it?

But now I do believe, not fully, but the way I see it is this:

There are very strong arguments for and against God, so basically it is up to one to choose. For me, I don't see the sense in not believing because that simply offers no hope. I might as well give myself a chance of going to heaven if it exists.

I do believe in a God because something had to create the world. I find it hard to believe a "big bang" created a world and made life possible, that just sounds stupid to me. Now I'm no expert on either religion or science (relating to the big bang theory) but I choose to believe in religion instead of science.

Do you a  major in philosophy or have you studied it before? As firstly you mentioned how you love simplicity in which Swinebourne dictates in his theories, now Descartes meditation.

Here is the answer in the nutshell

In general it will follow from any state of thinking (e.g., imagining, sensing, feeling, reasoning) that I exist. While I can be deceived about the objective content of any thought, I cannot be deceived about the fact that I exist and that I seem to perceive objects with certain characteristics. (The famous statement of this from D.'s Discourse on Method is "Cogito ergo sum." or "I think, therefore I am.")

But then, what created the God?

But why create an explanation without proof? Why can't you simply say "I dunno"?

And both non-religious and religious people believe in the universe. Religious people go an extra step and believe in a god? Why go that extra step? It's unnecessary.

yes the downfall of humanity is based on that perseption, just because we were created doesnt mean the world should be created, we never admit that we are wrong, cant it be possible that the world is just like this, we will never be able to understand our world, humans try to hard and when they come at dead ends they make up theories and suddenly the whole world supports it.