The Long Awaited Existence of God Post:

There is no logical reason to believe in God.

First, no religious text provides proof that God exists. The majority of religious texts talk in very general terms about God, are written by biased individuals and were written in times when people were very gullible. There is no way we can trust the people who wrote the Bible (or any religious text) and there is no way to know whether or not what it says is true. Religious texts must be assumed to be purely written by man until, at least, we can prove that God exists.

The following are common arguments for the existence of God followed by rebuttals based on David Hume’s philosophy:

1. The cosmological argument- The universe must have been caused by something which was itself uncaused; God.

There is nothing in the word "universe" that implies that it must have had a cause. There are no observations to support the claim that the universe must have a cause. Just because everything we have observed has had a cause does not mean that everything must have a cause. What caused God? If you think it is ridiculous to say that the universe didn’t need a cause—it is the same as saying that God didn’t need a cause. Just because we can’t grasp or understand that something (with the exception of God) has always existed does not mean that it hasn’t. Why must we think that the universe’s existence is intelligible?

2. The teleological argument- Based on the design of the things we can observe in nature there must have been some intelligent designer; God.

This argument is based on the following analogy--

Watch : Intelligent Watch Maker :: Universe : Intelligent Universe Maker (God)
Why assume that the universe is orderly or designed? Even if it is orderly the only analogies we can make are those based on experience. We have not fully experienced and we do nut fully understand the universe, thus, we cannot conclude using an analogy that its existence is analogous to that of a watch. Order does not imply design. Even if we could use an analogy to prove that an intelligent designer is necessary then we can only conclude that the designer has at least the amount of goodness/intelligence found in the universe. Therefore, the intelligent designer could be a malicious designer, the universe could have been designed by a group, could have been designed by an incompetent deity, and the designer could have died in the process of creating the universe or some time thereafter. Imperfect effects only require imperfect causes. Thus, even if I grant you all the steps (which is not reasonable) you still cannot prove the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent God.

3. The miraculous world argument- Things happen that have no explanation other than to explain them in terms of defying natural laws—we call these things miracles; miracles require God.

Millions of people throughout history have experienced miracles-- how can I not believe in them? I think that our society has gotten to a point where we should realize that magic and miracles are silly to believe in. Especially now in the heyday of surveillance and science-- there has never been anything that has been proven to be a miracle (not to mention that the number of miracles are strangely skewed toward the very religious and poorly educated). I'm not saying that I know that miracles don't happen-- I'm saying there is no logical reason to believe in them.
If you do an experiment and come out with a flawed result are you going to think that you made a mistake or that a miracle happened? Chances are that you'll check everything and make sure there isn't a mistake being made. If you are absolutely sure that there is no mistake being made and you still come up with a flawed result then you'll be forced to change the law to fit the circumstances so that your result is no longer flawed... at no point will you throw your hands up and declare that it's a miracle—just attributing new findings to miracles would be very detrimental to the sciences. The fact is we will never be able to tell the difference between a miracle and a fraud, an unlikely happening or a mistake. And since we have never been able to prove something to be a miracle (unless God starts making himself and his miracles a lot more obvious) it is silly to assume that miracles happen.

I know tons of people have their "miracle" stories—many of them have to do with near death experiences or medical miracles. There are still so many mysteries to the human body that it is impossible to say that "medical miracles" are interventions from God. Also, it is completely natural to want to believe, in a situation where it seems like you should have died, that something kept you alive for a specific purpose—everyone wants to have meaning in their lives. However, these feelings are founded in emotion and passion not reason or logic.

A response to Kyle and Anonymous...

I understand the social implications and reasoning behind the verses I selected. I hear from a lot of Christians that the Old Testament is the "old law" and so they reject all the laws that are contradictory or are no longer acceptable in our modern society. The problem that comes when you’re dealing with a supernatural source is that, since we are not supernatural, we cannot change the written dogma. So if you believe that Jesus is your savior and the Bible is your guide—it becomes very challenging to non-hypocritically use the parts of the Bible that you and society agrees with and disregard the rest. Anonymous asked a good question when he/she asked "how is one to choose which Bible passages are absolute, which are relative, and which are merely anachronistic?" I don't know. I’ve also heard people say that the Bible was inspired by God and was written by man—so the parts they don’t agree with are just human mistakes. The obvious problem with that is how do we know which parts are really God and what parts are mistakes? We don’t know... it is entirely possible that God really thinks that women should never have authority over men.

Kyle asked "is it so bad, living under the guidelines of the Bible?"

No, I do not think it is bad to live under the guidelines of the Bible. In fact I live my life under many of the guidelines of the Bible. I think there are many guidelines and commandments in the Bible that, when adopted, are very beneficial to societies. I just think that the need for these guidelines or commandments to come from a supernatural source is unnecessary. As a society we can realize that killing is not beneficial to our well being and, thus, we can label killing humans as wrong without God telling us. So I think that it is fine to use the Bible as your guide in a purely secular way. It is just logically impossible to prove that God exists and then to prove that your religion is the right one and then to prove that your religion’s book is the word of God—and if it was merely inspired by God or if you don’t agree with everything in the book you must justify that belief (which I showed earlier is not possible). It’s just a complicated, unnecessary mess.

Are you honestly suggesting that the average citizen view government as the final source of a moral code?

No, I am honestly suggesting that every citizen should view the government as the current source of a moral code. If they disagree with how the government is being run or what the government says is right or wrong then every citizen should work to change that government so that it is as beneficial to society as it can be. It is not as though I’m suggesting a new type of government. The current American government does change what it considers right and wrong every election (or, at least, every time a new law is passed) and I don’t think this causes our government to be unstable.

Anonymous spoke of corrupt governments—but he/she failed to mention corrupt religious figures and institutions. Many people believe that the books of Matthew and Luke were not inspired by god but instead were inspired by (or plagiarized) the book of Mark. So not only can we not trust religious texts—but as I said before we cannot change them. However, when we find that a government is corrupt it is possible to change the government.

As for Kyle's mentioning of faith and Pascal’s Wager ("Id rather live my whole life thinking there is a God and find out there is not one than live my whole life thinking there is not a God and discover I’m wrong.")—I’ll touch on those in future posts.

What utility does religion serve?

What good is religion?

I think religion has served many purposes throughout history-- but belief in God has always revolved around two things: Fear and Hope.
-People are afraid of death and hopeful that there is something after death.
-People are afraid of eternal damnation and hopeful that God will accept them into his perfect kingdom.
-People are afraid that they'll always be impoverished and are hopeful that one day they will be repayed for all their suffering.
Fear and Hope are very helpful tools to keeping a stable society... so in that sense religion has done good in promoting stable societies.

So then why all the negative quotes about religion?

I think it's about time that our society loses the need to believe in an invisible father figure who comforts them and threatens them in order to keep order. We no longer need to be told what is right and wrong from a supernatural source-- we have many man-made sources we use to tell us what is right and wrong: namely the government.

How could a government possibly determine what is right and wrong?

It's very simple-- They decide what is right and wrong by thinking about what is beneficial to a society and what is not beneficial to society... and then they make laws to encourage the beneficial things and to discourage the not beneficial things.

So if right and wrong is merely decided by those in power-- does that mean that morality is relative?

Yes! Of course it is! Look at some extremist muslims-- they think that it is morally right to fly planes into buildings filled with innocent people and in their small extremist community it is acceptable to think such a way and they consider it "right". Most of the world sees what the extremist muslims did on September 11th to be an immoral act... in our community it is unacceptable to fly planes into buildings and, thus, we label it "wrong".

So if it is all relative-- why choose the government's right and wrong over a religious right and wrong?

It is much easier to change a man made law than it is to change a law that people believe to be a divine law. What do people do when religious laws conflict with social laws? In those instances they have two choices either (a.) oppose the social law or (b.) ignore/lie to themselves/make up some excuse about the religious law so that it fits their liking. This has happened many times through history-- for example the bible states in Deuteronomy 23:1 "No one whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off shall be admitted to the assembly of the Lord." In our society it is not acceptable for churches to discriminate against those who lack their genitalia-- thus, everyone just ignores it. The same goes for Ephesians 6:5 which states that slaves should obey their masters just as they should obey Christ. And 1 Timothy 2:11 which states that women should not have authority over men. It is obviously no longer acceptable in our society to have slaves or to consider women to be inferior to men... so people just ignore those parts and just listen to the parts that society agrees with. It wasn't immoral back then to own slaves and it wasn't immoral to treat women as being inferior because it was accepted and it is immoral now because it isn't accepted. When you decide to ignore some things and accept others as the word of God you are basically being a moral relativist... so why not just admit that morality is relative and quit lying to yourself?

Basically what it boils down to is that it is easier to please a society when we can adapt what we consider beneficial or not beneficial to our society based on the current condition of our society-- instead of religious laws that are rigid and outdated and often clash with what is beneficial to our current society (as was shown by my three prior biblical citings). There is no practical need for religion-- and I agree that replacing it might be "nigh impossible" but that is only because of people's hopes and fears.

Of course this argument is contingent upon there being no logical reason to believe in a God: This will be the topic of discussion for my next post.

-- Also if you wish to leave a message please leave your name attached to it so that I can know with whom I am debating... I promise there will be no hard feelings.

Some quotes I found interesting...

"The Church says the Earth is flat, but I know that it is round, for I have seen the shadow on the moon, and I have more faith in a shadow than in the Church."
-- Ferdinand Magellan

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion." -- Steven Weinberg

"What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!"
-- Lemuel Washburn

"Philosophy is questions that may never be answered. Religion is answers that may never be questioned." -- Author Unknown

"The fact that a believer is happier than a sceptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality." -- George Bernard Shaw

"A myth is a religion in which no one any longer believes." -- James Feibleman

"In Heaven all the interesting people are missing." -- Friedrich Nietzsche

"Ocean: A body of water occupying 2/3 of a world made for man...who has no gills." -- Ambrose Bierce

"I viewed my fellow man not as a fallen angel, but as a risen ape." -- Desmond Morris

"Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." -- Blaise Pascal

"The Bible is not my book, and Christianity is not my religion. I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian dogma." -- Abraham Lincoln

"I do not find in orthodox Christianity one redeeming feature." -- Thomas Jefferson

"Puritanism - the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy." -- Henry Mencken

"What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way." -- Bertrand Russell

"Where knowledge ends, religion begins." -- Benjamin Disraeli

"The most ridiculous concept ever perpetrated by Homo Sapiens is that the Lord God of Creation, Shaper and Ruler of the Universes, wants the sacharrine adoration of his creations, that he can be persuaded by their prayers, and becomes petulant if he does not recieve this flattery. Yet this ridiculous notion, without one real shred of evidence to bolster it, has gone on to found one of the oldest, largest and least productive industries in history." -- Robert Heinlein

"I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it." -- Bertrand Russell

"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Religion is excellent stuff for keeping common people quiet." -- Napoleon Bonaparte

"Hell is an outrage on humanity. When you tell me that your deity made you in his image, I reply that he must have been very ugly." -- Victor Hugo

"Take from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the incomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, the absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death." -- Albert Einstein

"Religion is fundamentally opposed to everything I hold in veneration - courage, clear thinking, honesty, fairness, and, above all, love of the truth." -- Henry Mencken

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense." -- Francois Marie Arouet (Voltaire)

"Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope." -- Robert G. Ingersoll

"To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin." -- Cardinal Bellarmine