Since the majority think the opposite, that the universe looks as though God does exist, the question then more reasonably becomes…
Why doesn’t God make His existence more obvious, so that even the most skeptical materialistic atheists will believe it?
The question has been discussed already. This was my answer in this thread…
Why there is no proof of God:
- All the objective evidence of science only exists as a result of the space-time mathematical structure of the universe, otherwise known as the laws of nature. Therefore you cannot expect something which is not a part of that structure to provide any objective evidence of its existence.
- This is not to say that an all powerful God who interacts with the universe cannot make His existence more apparent than He has already. I don’t know that this could ever amount to conclusive proof that people would never find a way to discount. After all, there are people who discount even the evidence of science which is founded on written procedures anyone can follow to get the same result. But if God can interact with the universe as much as most theists believe, then it is reasonable to think God could do something which would convince most of those who don’t believe right now. So we can change the question to… why doesn’t God do such a thing.
- If God acts in our best interest then I think we can conclude that this would not be in our best interest. This conclusion is supported by the words of Jesus in Matthew 13, indicating that it is necessary that people be able to avoid the truth if they choose. So apparently, making us believe in that He exists is not God’s highest priority. I can think of several reasons why this might be the case.
a. A look at our history reveals great deal of evil done by fanatical believers in the name of God. I therefore doubt that it would be in our best interest to strengthen the position of such people.
b. All through the Bible, the importance of faith is a recurrent message. We can observe there are more unseen things, like love and justice, in which it is also important to have faith.
c. It should also be observed that it would be very easy for an all-knowing all-powerful being to dominate us completely. Thus if God seeks a relationship of real love with us, then He has to be really careful that this does not happen.
d. I think it is a demonstrable fact that a belief in God is not of benefit to all people. For a few, the belief in God is even part of a psychopathology. I think this must be the root cause of our separation from God since Adam and Eve, for the only reason a parent child relationship can be broken is when the presence of the parent in the child’s life isn’t in the child’s best interest.
THUS a much much much better argument for atheists to make is this…
If God exists, then since God doesn’t make it obvious that He exists to everyone, then making everyone believe clearly isn’t as important as so many religious people make this out to be. It seems quite likely that other things are much more important to Him. Isn’t it good that some people are focused on these more important things?