Why Oppose?

People often ask me why I’m an atheist, and I generally just say that it’s because I’m a very analytical person by nature. I like to know the answers, and I like to find things out. Curiosity may be ill-advised for felines, but have found my questions to be the main drivers in my life. Consequently, I just cannot place any credence in the idea that there is an invisible man up in the sky who listens to thoughts and answers prayers. This is just a personal choice I have made.

However, there is a second, deeper reason to reject religion. Religion breeds within its ranks a certain type of person – a follower. This is not to say that all religious people are followers in any sense, because it really depends upon the type of person. Many of the nicest people I have ever met throughout my life have been deeply religious. The problem is that religion asks for faith, and this will always be bad because faith requires a blindness to fact, a willingness to accept even the most preposterous sounding ideas as truth, and an obedience to something without questions. God has no real evidence behind him, I should know, I’ve spend my life searching hopefully for it. This means that to believe you need faith.

Why is faith necessarily bad? Faith will always be bad because it represents a person who does not think for himself. A rational, thinking person unfettered by society will always look at the facts and not faith-based constructs about how the world is ordered. People would not assume that the world is flat on their own if they were given the available evidence that we have put together today. They would look at the evidence and conclude that the world is round, what would make them stray from this course? Someone telling them that the world is flat. Why? Just because.

A person who cannot think for himself, who lets others think for him, will always be dangerous. People like this have historically allowed themselves to be pulled into the worse situations possible. The holocaust would not have happened if Hitler’s soldiers had not been brain-washed to accept his orders with only the faith that there were good ends to come. The crusaders would not have gone out and killed thousands of infidels had they not been blinded by faith. The terrorist attacks on 9/11 would not have occurred had the terrorists not been brain-washed by a faith which led them to this course of action.

Some of the worst historical conflicts and atrocities have come as a result of religion. They have been a result of the blind faith that religion necessarily instills in people. Even without this history, however, even a small bit of the blind faith I’ve been talking about will always hurt the individual person, because it means that these people will be pre-disposed to take things that other people tell them to be the truth in varying degrees based on religious immersion.

Here lies my main quarrel with religion. I do not seek to change anyone’s mind on positions of religion. I argue against the evidence of God’s existence because it is my opinion, first, and second, because it represents a shroud of justification over ignorance which I seek to destroy. My purpose here is to open the minds of people to opinion and rational thought, to counteract religion. Reason is the most important thing in our world today, and if I make even a single person begin to think about the issues at hand then I will have fulfilled my purpose.

Disproof of God

So far, I’ve dealt with a few proofs of God’s existence, so I’d like to submit this rather simple proof for the non-existence of God for approval or disapproval. Either way, I hope some discourse stems from it.

1. Evil exists. Most would consider this intuitively true, however, for the philosophers out there, we can take it as true that evil exists insofar as people agree that it does. In other words, there don’t have to be invisible rules in the sky saying :”never ever kill,” but as long as people agree that killing people is an immoral thing to do, this is sufficient for the logical proof herein.
2. God created everything, and is therefore responsible for everything that goes on. This is true per the Judeo-Christian notion of God. The problem people may have in this area may be the word “responsible.” All this is to say, however, is that anything created by God was created by God, this includes evil and the people who do evil things.
3. Therefore, God is responsible for the evil that goes on in the world. God is therefore immoral. This is true by extension of 2.
4. God cannot be immoral. This is true, again, per the Judeo-Christian notion of God.
5. Therefore, God cannot exist.

Conceptions

The exact nature of God and the conceptions of what he entails are well worth a short discussion. So let’s dive right in:

There are almost an infinite number of conceptions of God today and throughout history ranging from the Judeo-Christian conception (a God who listens to thoughts and answers prayers) to the Einstein conception (the natural laws and nothing more). If this is indeed the case, is it not ridiculous to claim with absolute certainty that one of these gods is the true God? (Or gods, in a polytheistic system).

Many have said throughout history that “god has many faces,” in other words, that there are many different versions of the exact same god. However, isn’t it true that all the conceptions of god are, for the most part, mutually exclusive? The conception of the afterlife in the Judeo-Christian version of God is completely incompatible with the Buddhist philosophy of rebirth. Likewise, Hades and Dante’s hell are completely different, even while appearing to be somewhat the same. Similarly, the differences can range from the Old Testament Judeo-Christian God who literally justified genocide upon infidels, and the Eastern philosophy of Jainism (a branch of Shramana of which Buddhism is something of a derivative) in which the monks literally sweep the ground where they step to avoid harming insects in their path. And we haven’t even touched upon such cults as Satanism and Wicca. Doesn’t this mutual exclusivity contradict the claim that “God has many faces?”

Going further on the subject, how can any one philosophy or religion lay claim to the idea that their conception is somehow the most valid? This deals with the root value or justification, is a person who believes that beauty is more valuable than progress any less right than someone who believes otherwise? As you delve deeper and further into ideas such as these, you see that every single conception of God has equal worth. Thus, any person who says that their God conception is the true God is always going to be wrong on any justification they may posit.

Burden of Proof

Just a quick note of the ever-present burden of proof (the person who has the task of providing evidence in order to win the argument has the burden of proof. Generally, his opponent just has to refute the evidence he brings up in order to win).

Neither side in the God debate wants the burden of proof. Believers in God claim that the burden of proof lies with Atheists to prove that God does not exist. Atheists claim that the burden of proof lies with believers to prove that God does exist.

My sympathies lie, of course, with Atheists. Here’s why:

Imagine the implications of a state of affairs in which we accept the default truth to be the case. If something is not disproved then it must be true. Pragmatism dictates that this cannot be the case, because then an infinite number of things must be taken to be the case. Imagine, for instance, that I told you that there was a giant flying spaghetti monster (the satirical idea of one, Bobby Henderson) which could definitely not be disproved, then we would have to accept this as fact. Furthermore, it makes the position of a God or a Flying Spaghetti Monster unfalsifiable, because there is no empirical disproof (God is not only everywhere, but invisible). In other words, we must say that to accept something as true, we must have proof of it, not an absence of disproof.

Pascal's Wager

Pascal’s Wager is an interesting thought. The logical flow follows thus:

1. There are two possibilities, a belief or a non-belief in God
2. If you choose not to believe that it turns out that there isn’t a God, then there is no net effect.
3. If you choose to believe and it turns out that there isn’t a God, then there is no net effect.
4. If you choose not to believe and there is a God, then you will be punished.
5. If you choose to believe and there is a God, then you will be rewarded.
6. Therefore, the most logical course of action is to believe in God.

However, there are several elemental problems with this idea.

First, let’s look at number four. This is not entirely true, for several reasons. First, many conceptions, even of the Judeo-Christian God, allow for the possibility that the Lord actually likes questioning. But further, you always have the forgiveness factor to look to. Moreover, there is no guarantee that it would be the Judeo-Christian God anyway (more on this now).

Now let’s look at the highly suspect number five. This is incredibly shaky, mostly because it assumes that the God you choose to believe in is the one that actually exists. For example, what if you chose to believe in the Judeo-Christian God and then God turned out to be Odin, a guy who doesn’t look kindly upon being replaced with Christianity. Punishment. If we further consider the fact that there are almost an infinite number of conceptions to be dealt with, it is almost impossible to select the right God on a probability scale, meaning that at a rate of ∞:1 you will lose.

Ontology

There is a particular type of argument called the Ontological (ontology being the study of truth and reality in all their forms) Argument which may seem misleadingly convincing because of its complexity. The logical flow follows:

1. A thing is greater if it is real.
2. God exists in the mind at the very least, everyone can think of God.
3. God is the greatest thing possible.
4. God must therefore be real, as if he were not real, he could not be as great as possible.

To some more clear-headed and logical thinkers, this argument may seem already intuitively flawed, but let’s take a look at why this argument does not hold up to scrutiny.

First let’s check out that number 1. First, is a thing really greater if it is real? Why? Many philosophers have taken this to be a transparently narcissistic and human view. Humans seek to justify why their reality is the greatest it can possibly be, but this view really has no warrants to back it up.

Second, this is a very shady characterization of what is great. We must first seek to define greatness before we can apply it. However, every single definition used in the context of the ontological argument has been different, so we can’t really accept this as a valid argument at all.

Third, we must also question whether or not we can ever really apply “reality” as a construct. Because the study of what is real and what is not is a completely different branch of philosophy, I shall not enter it here, but suffice it to say that it cannot really be properly applied without a very specific definition. For instance, Existentialism denies any objective truths, so reality, perception, and imagination can be taken to be basically the same in application to ontology.

Now the number 2. What is thinking of God? What exactly constitutes thinking of God? It has long been held that humans cannot conceive of infinity, it is just too big. Is it then reasonable to expect that people can think of a being who has infinite capacity in any direction?

On to number 3! Why is God necessarily the greatest thing possible?

How about number 4? First, if this seems intuitively wrong, you are right, it is. This argument could be extended to say: “everyone can conceive of an ultimate something that could destroy the earth in the most efficient way possible, something could destroy the earth a lot better if it was actually real, therefore the earth has already been destroyed.”

QED, yeah?

Cosmology

Probably the most valid argument proposed for God’s existence to date is the Cosmological Argument, also called the Argument from Contingency. What this basically states in its most elemental form is that everything that we know to exist has had a creator, in other words, all things are contingent. A watch was made by a watchmaker and the watchmaker made by his parents and so on and so forth. The argument states that we cannot go on infinitely, that ultimately there must be something that caused the universe. They call this uncaused causer God.

The basic form of the argument follows thus:

1. There exist contingent beings (things that can not exist)
2. Contingent things need causes
3. The universe is a contingent being
4. Infinite Regress is impossible
5. Therefore, we need a necessary being to create the universe

There are several responses to the cosmological argument, and all of them require a detailed look at exactly what is going on in the five points of the argument. Fair warning: since this argument for the existence of God is incredibly philosophical, the answers will delve deeply into philosophy. Let’s go!

First, let’s look at premise 2. What exactly is going on here? As I have already said, we can see that everything around us has a cause. It’s been made by something: the watch by the watchmaker, and the watchmaker by his parents. So now, arguers of cosmology seek to take this observation and make it a priori (a priori means that it is a necessary logical condition before anything else, it literally means “from what is before”). However, does everything always need a cause? This is tricky, because we get into the finer points of logic.

We cannot say that everything has a cause a priori because it is impossible for us to make this into a universal law. The only reason we think everything has a cause is because we always see it. However, I could go my entire life without seeing a dead human being and thus conclude that if something is human, it must be alive. Is this reasonable? Certainly! It’s all I’ve ever seen. Is this true? Not really. Therefore, because it is based on observable data, it is never going to be a priori.

How about premise 3? This one is tricky, basically, it means that the universe had a beginning, and is therefore subject to the contingency argument. There are a few answers to this.

1. First, we have to ask ourselves why exactly the universe has to be contingent. The most common justification for this is that because all the parts of the universe (all the things we see around us) are contingent, so is the universe itself. However, this argument commits what is called the fallacy of composition. In other words, if a brick is small, does this mean that anything made of bricks will be small? Definitely not. (However, it is worth admitting, that there is another way of looking at it. Because a brick is, well, a brick, that means that anything made of brick will be brick – or at least made of bricks. This depends on how you take it.)

2. The second objection to this reasoning is that – even if we accept the speculative nature of origin theories, we still have some possible explanations that do not rely on a conception of God. I don’t claim to be a theoretical physicist, but if you want to get further into origin theory, some things to research would be the Multiverse Theory, Quantum Loop Gravity, Hawkin’s No Boundary Theory, and the quantum fluctuation explanation from Supersymmetric String Theory (also called Superstring Theory).

3. Third, there is always the objection that we really don’t know, and this is true, and a very valid argument. We don’t know, we don’t know if we will ever know, and we can hardly argue from a high scientific hill until we do. However, there are two components to this argument. First, and most obviously, if there is a possibility that we will know, then proof cannot flow either way. Second, as some philosophers have contended, we cannot ask the cause of something that we cannot experience. In other words, if it is scientifically impossible for us to actually gather the necessary evidence, as it very well might be, then it is preposterous for us to be expected to do so. Thus, it becomes a moot point.

Now let’s go to premise 4. Premise 4 states that we cannot have an infinite regress, in other words, things cannot go on and on forever. However, it is worth taking the time to wonder why. In practical application, it is, of course, impossible to have an infinite anything, however, mathematically and philosophically the idea is perfectly valid. Because of this, there is no reason to reject the notion of infinite regress. (Note: the debate gets very complicated on this point, as indeed upon all points, this is only a basic summary).

But now let’s consider why a God would be exempt from such a regress. The question: “what created God?” and the subsequent reply: “he does not need a creator” are unanswered and unjustified respectively. There is no real reason why God would be exempt from the creators, and thus this point, as indeed all points, must be rejected.

Then, just overall. Now the most unlikely piece of this entire thing is that any “necessary” explanation for the beginning of the world would be a god that answers prayers and sees everything. Even more unlikely: how could we possibly pin down the explanation to any one god? In other words, which god do we talk about? Odin? Zeus? The Judeo-Christian conception of God?