Why There Is No God: Quick Responses to 10 Common Theist Arguments [for the existence of god]
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S E E D E D C O N T E N T
I have been in many conversations where the debate turns into a discussion about whether God exists or not. Often times, theists will cite some "proof" for a God, which often turns out to be a logical fallacy, a vague explanation, or convoluted attempt at a rationalization. Others simply cite "faith," and that's it, which is a total intellectual cop-out and also irrational. Here is a list of common arguments (courtesy of Atheist Republic) theists give for a God:
1. "Science can't explain the complexity and order of life; God must have designed it to be this way."
First, when considering this position, it's important to recognize the difference between complexity and design. Complexity itself does not require an intelligent creator. It's easy to impose a design upon things that exist by chance or developed through a natural process like evolution. To an extent, this argument gains traction because of wide misunderstanding of science and especially evolution. Everything in the universe conforms to certain simple scientific rules that have been repeated over billions of years. While this can be awe-inspiring, it by no means suggests a creator. Failure to understand the scientific principles guiding the creation and development of the universe does not mean that a deity must exist to explain the natural world.
2. "God's existence is proven by scripture."
This argument presupposes its premise. People believe in scripture and place value in the words because they already believe in the religious principles the text describes. There is no inherent value to the Bible, Quran or any other religious text; these documents are not self-authenticating in any way. In fact, many factual inaccuracies and inconsistencies can be found within religious texts themselves. For example, the Bible contains two separate creation stories, each of which provides a very different explanation. Similarly, there is no historical, archaeological or scientific evidence to support many of the stories in the Bible and the Quran. Ultimately, religious texts are infinitely fallible because they are man-made products of whimsy, poetry, mythology and some history woven together into a new whole. The texts in the Bible have been gathered from many oral sources over thousands of years and compiled arbitrarily into a single document; it's hardly surprising that the narrative would be so inconsistent. Other religious texts have similarly convoluted histories. Aside from the problems with individual texts, there's also the obvious issue that the very presence of multiple scriptures negates the authenticity of any single religious document. It's impossible for every religious book to be true; it's highly presumptuous to assume that one's own preferred scripture is the single "true" scripture while all the others are false accounts. It's far more likely that every religious book is equally fictitious and unreliable.
3. "Some unexplained events are miraculous, and these miracles prove the existence of God."
A miracle is typically understood as an extraordinary event or happening that is explained as being the work of a divine agency and having a supernatural origin. However, before miracles can be used as irrefutable proof of God's existence, the cause or origin of so-called miracles must be proven. There is currently no evidence to suggest that miracles truly exist....It's curious to note that the miracles performed by an "all-loving" and benevolent God so often involve sparing a handful of people from a tragic accident, devastating disaster or deadly disease. God is rarely held accountable by believers for all of the deaths that occur when people are not saved by a "miracle." On the whole, the tiny percentage of "miraculous" recoveries would be greater evidence of a deity's arbitrary cruelty than his benevolence, but this is never something believers seem comfortable discussing.
4. "Morality stems from God, and without God, we could not be good people."
So-called "moral" behaviors, such as altruism and reciprocity, are not inherently human. In the natural world, they can be observed in a variety of animal species, especially social animals. Science shows that such behavior has an evolutionary benefit: creatures who learn to interact well with their kin will have a stronger likelihood of survival and passing on their genes. All of this means that, from a scientific viewpoint, morality does not stem from God. Instead, it has its roots in brain chemicals and is supported by strong cultural conditioning. Parents pass their morals along to their children, and individuals take social cues regarding "right" and "wrong" behaviors from friends, family, media influence and more. Religious texts are just an attempt to codify acceptable behaviors into a set of laws. Unfortunately, these rules can quickly become outdated, irrelevant and even painfully arbitrary. It's fashionable for religious people to claim that atheists are immoral hedonists, but a quick survey of real people shows that to be false. By and large, atheists are no less moral than any other group of people.
5. "Belief in God would not be so widespread if God didn’t exist."
This type of claim is called an "argumentum ad populum" or “appeal to the majority,” and it's simply not true. Many beliefs are popular or widely held without being true, and things that are true exist whether anyone believes in them or not. Alchemy, at one time, was extremely popular and widespread, but few people today would seriously claim that lead could be transmuted into gold. There are similarly few people who still believe that the earth is flat or the center of the universe despite those also being very popular beliefs at one time. Furthermore, the widespread nature of religion says little about the veracity of any given religious belief. While it's true that many cultures around the world all hold religious beliefs, those beliefs themselves are widely variable and often at odds with each other. When every religion states that it is the one true path to salvation, it by necessity claims that all others are false. If religion were true by virtue of widespread belief, it would certainly make more sense for all people to at least believe the same thing.
6. "God answers prayers; therefore, he must be real."
Just as miracles are impossible to prove without resorting to unreliable anecdotes, the power of prayer is certainly not supported by science. Belief in prayer relies on confirmation bias. Essentially, people remember the times that prayer seemed to "work" but conveniently forget the many occasions that they prayed and saw no response or received the opposite result of what they'd wanted. These unwanted results are often ignored completely or rationalized away. Prayer is a type of magical thinking. Its appeal is undeniable; it feels empowering and makes individuals feel as though they have a measure of control over the world around them. But there is simply no evidence that prayers are anything more than a placebo. And unlike many placebos, prayer can actually be harmful. The "power of prayer" is one of the most insidious and even harmful beliefs proffered by religion. When faced with any sort of tragedy or misfortune, prayer is one of the least helpful responses imaginable. When tragedy strikes, prayer may make people feel better, but it doesn't actually help the victims. Donating blood, giving money to the Red Cross or volunteering with a relief organization would all be far more beneficial than praying to the same hypothetical deity who ostensibly caused the disaster in the first place.
7. "I feel a personal relationship to God, so I know that he is real."
Such personal testimonies are difficult to refute because they are completely subjective. They're also impossible to prove for the same reason. When individuals report a private revelation or communication with God, it's never about factual information that could be confirmed or denied. These religious experiences are always personal and emotional, which makes them count as nothing more than anecdotal “evidence”.
The human brain has evolved to be particularly sensitive to patterns and causality. It's so effective at this, in fact, that people often see a pattern or purpose in things that are actually random. This is why it's easy to identify objects or faces in the clouds, for example, or why white noise can be interpreted to resemble human speech. This same sensitivity can make random or unrelated events seem like the presence of God, especially if the person experiencing them has a predisposition toward wanting those beliefs to be true. In other cases, a religious experience can be triggered by any number of outside forces, including drug use or mental illness. Indeed, many people in multiple cultures have experienced similar symptoms but variously attributed them to a variety of different sources, both religious and secular.
8. "It's safer to believe in God than be wrong and go to Hell."
This concept, called Pascal's Wager, does not actually support religious beliefs. Instead, it acts as a way to coerce belief out of unwilling participants. The logic goes something like this: if I believe in God and am wrong, then nothing bad will happen. But if I renounce God and am wrong, I will be punished in Hell. There are several problems with this line of reasoning:
-- Religions are inconsistent. In order for Pascal's Wager to work, the believer would need some assurance that believing in God would, in fact, save him from punishment. When multiple religions exist with conflicting messages, however, this is impossible. What if you choose to believe in the wrong God and go to Hell anyway?
-- A truly benevolent God would not punish his creations simply because they did not believe in him. God could just as easily reward his creations for being skeptical. Because there is no way to ascertain what a deity's motives might be, there's no way to know that Pascal's Wager would even work.
-- If a person believes in God only out of fear of punishment, that belief would be thin and false. Surely an omniscient deity could see through that act and choose to reward only true believers.
9. "I have faith; I don't need facts. I just want to believe."
This argument would be perfectly valid if the believer was willing to concede that their God is a social construction or metaphorical concept. Most believers aren't comfortable with that, though, and faith simply does not stand up in the face of scientific scrutiny. Believing in something does not make it true. Truth is not subjective or democratic. It does not need belief to make it work. Gravity, for example, works the same whether you have faith in it or not. You do not need to choose to believe in gravity because it's an immutable fact of the universe. Faith is often lauded as a positive quality, but it is, in fact, very intellectually lazy. Faith precludes scientific thinking and the natural wonder of discovery; it stops people from searching for answers to questions about the real world. Faith is little more than the glorification of willful ignorance.
10. "There's no evidence that God doesn't exist."
This argument is often offered as a last line of defense in religious debates, and the person posing it might feel very clever coming up with it. However, the premise of the argument is both flawed and ridiculous. The failure to disprove something does not constitute proof of its existence. The burden of proof is always on the person making a claim, especially in cases where the claims are unsupported or unfalsifiable. With no enduring evidence that a God exists, there is simply no reason to believe in a deity, even if it's not possible to irrefutably disprove his existence. Many thought experiments have been created to show the absurdity of these claims, such as the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Carl Sagan's "The Dragon in My Garage," Russell's Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. All of which are absurd claims without evidence and yet impossible to disprove. Familiarizing yourself with these thought experiments can give you a clear picture of exactly why the burden of proof should always be on the person making a claim.
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I have yet to see any theist provide objective, empirical evidence for any god/s and/or provide a convincing argument for one that cannot be easily refuted.
And you're never, ever going to see any because it's impossible to prove that which can only exist in faith.
Just because one has faith in something doesn't mean that something actually exists. That's just wishful thinking. The existence of something in one's mind doesn't equate to something existing in reality.
Starting this thread so that I can comment on each of the 10 and still allow for individual rebuttal (via sub-threads).
My addendum: God does not explain complexity. It is not logical to explain complexity by positing a creator that is by definition more complex than the 'created' complexity. In other words, since God is complex and complexity (per the argument) must have a designer, then God must have a designer.
Formally, this is referred to as the watchmaker's fallacy. Just because a watch needs a creator to exist doesn't mean that the Earth does likewise. DNA and geology explain how we evolved from Pangea and algae. Thermodynamics and quantum physics may very soon explain our creation.
We do not need a creator.
Or a 'designer."
Not only that, but using that particular argument only shows a lack and/or refusal to understand. It's intellectual laziness at best. Besides, the "complexity" of life is easily explained with evolution. one just needs to be intellectually open to the concept to understand it. If one refuses to accept evolution in favor of dogma, then they are unlikely to understand complexity.
Evolution brings no comfort.
Which is one reason why some reject it in favor of dogmas warm embrace/delusion. We've seen people reject evolution simply because they cannot stand the idea that they "evolved from apes."
Another factor is that evolution implies (strongly) that there is no entity at the helm to ensure all will work out. It raises the idea that we are on our own. A scary thing to face if one has lived one's life in the comforting thought of an almighty captain at the helm.
It's reassuring when one thinks someone has everything under control, isn't it?
My addendum: The Bible cannot prove God’s existence unless it is proved to be divine. The argument is silly:
This argument is prototypical circular logic. For the Scripture to be true then it must be written by god himself and possibly found on the top of Mt Sinai. For people to say that god inspired it is a logical excuse.
The next question is why would an omniscient god who would know that Latin would be the language of the future and who created the universe write a book in Aramaic, for a semi-civilized backwater planet of goat herders?
My addendum: Inability to explain something does not mean that there is a God. It simply means that we do not yet have an explanation. In the past, disease, floods, storms, volcanoes, etc. were all acts of God. Well, we (should) know better now.
This is obviously an argument from ignorance.
My addendum: Who says morality stems from God? I certainly hope this is not true because God (at least Yahweh) has offered some rather crappy moral lessons in the OT which include rape, murder, slavery.
If morality stems from god then why are so many of his most devout followers and ministers pedophiles, thieves, and perverts?
My addendum: The variety of ‘God’ definitions should indicate that human beings seem to have an innate (evolutionary) need for a God to provide the placeholder for all the mysteries of life. If the world had some decent agreement this argument would still be fallacious but would be at least more believable. But as it stands the fact that the definition of God is replete with contradictions (and depends upon where you were born) indicates that God is an invention of the human mind.
Humans also have a need for a "purpose" in their life. There must be an afterlife or what is my purpose? Do I have a purpose? Those are the questions I hear from the theists who insist that if your life serves no purpose, then why are you here?
The purpose (from a biological perspective) is to enable the next generation and (from an intellectual perspective) to appreciate and enjoy life in our amazing reality for the short duration we have it. IMO
Good answer!
Finding "purpose" is subjective and up to the individual. But using religion or an afterlife as a means to provide "purpose" only provides emotional comfort in reality.
My addendum: Evidence?
Prayer is utterly illogical on so many levels. If God is both omniscient and omnipotent they why would he change his plans because of one of his stupid imperfect creatures was begging him? Why do people pray to a god that could change the situation for the better but would rather see his creations suffer and die instead?
This is why I see the Stockholm Syndrome in theistic religion. Religion an epidemic and ignorance is the carrier of that disease.
My answer: none.
we have a couple people on NT (and some i know in real life) who claim that God answered their prayers and the evidence is in their life, but oddly they wouldn't share that evidence with anyone.... you would think with supporting proof like that to help confirm/prove God is real - they would eagerly and gladly share it ?
But they may claim it's good enough for them. Talk about setting the bar low.
Honestly, if it's good enough for them - awesome ! but, that doesn't provide any proof as to the validity of God, which is something they don't seem to understand and get angry if you still doubt God exists.
What would it take for you to accept a person's faith?
this is a rather open-ended complex question - i already accept that they have faith, that's not an issue. I have many people in my life who have faith in God (or a higher entity), i accept that they do, it's their choice as to what they wish to have faith in. Now, what would it take for me to accept the validity of the existence of God as per their faith supports and as they vehemently tout as fact to all non-believers ? that would be logical actual evidence of it's existence, evidence that can be independently verified and proven to be fact.
Good enough. You don't have to accept their beliefs as your own.
exactly. i don't have to - which is something that many people in my life (in real life) understand and it's all good. we just agree to "disagree" on that topic. of course, i've encountered many on NT who state i'll be going to "Hell" or "condemned for eternity in a lake of fire" or something of that nature specifically because i don't accept their beliefs as my own and don't lock-step with their line of thought, i have encountered this in real life as well but thankfully not from the people who are in my life that have faith. (i have even been told that no matter how good of a person i am, or how many good deeds i do - i'll never get to "Heaven" and always be "condemned" while a believer who is a terrible person will get to "Heaven" just because they believe)
Yep, just more emotional reactions and thinking.
Accepting a person's faith is not really the issue. it's accepting the claims they make based on nothing but faith that is the problem.
My addendum: feelings are not evidence and are certainly not proof. All this does is suggest that God is generated by a human emotional need.
I suggested that faith is purely emotional and not based on any logic. My suggestion was not well received.
Yeah, been there plenty of times.
You're not wrong.
What's the saying: the truth hurts.
My addendum: Faith by fear? Faith as a hedge position? Does anyone really think that a God judging people on their faith would not recognize fake faith? A little logic would help.
You just explained Pascal's wager, but you already knew that.
It's ok. Some theists actually think Pascal's Wager is a valid argument. Perhaps it bears repeating.
I've known more than a few supposed atheists who believe that Pascal's wager is a valid argument. I personally think that it is the stance of a weak minded fence-sitter.
I tend to agree with you.
My addendum: I think this is the key right here. Wanting to believe something (perceived as net good) is a powerful motivation. This is not critical thinking, it is letting one’s emotions rule.
Logically, making any decision based on any form of unsubstantiated belief is what happens when there is no empirical facts to support the claim or idea. This sort of thinking is to be avoided at all costs. The person should simply admit that they don't know.
Apparently the faithfuls faith isn't as strong as they want to believe. I don't see a single challenger to the logic of this seed.
I would not want to try to defend religious faith with logic either.
Religious faith doesn't require logic or facts otherwise it wouldn't be called faith
I find plenty of logic in many religions. The problem typically is not the logic (although lots of failures in logic occur) but rather the presuppositions. Ken Ham, et. al. for example actually are a rather logical bunch. They presuppose that God exists and that the Bible is His perfect word. They thus interpret it literally and then conform all of reality to meet the literal interpretation. It is borderline insanity IMO but it is logical.
I have to think about that one
Nor do I think you're going to as one has to join this group in order to post and that's too much effort. Lol besides joining this group might be seen as support for it by their god and then it's off to hell for em.
Being facetious, right?
Actually not completely, I find some people just like engaging in "drive by" comments so joining a group may just be too much. But it's certainly not true all the time.
My addendum: True. God might exist. By the same token, ‘God’ might be a powerful sadist. ‘God’ might be anything (or nothing). The one thing that we can tell from the lack of evidence is that it is conspicuously absent. How odd that after all these thousands of years we have zero credible evidence of the existence of a God (even just a creator entity).
Like a teapot orbiting a distant star...
I was going to mention that.
The proof that god exists is that Gordy was able to find a picture of him and was able to think about him. As Aristotle said, it's not possible to conceive of things which don't exist or where an archetypal form doesn't exist. Quod erat demonstrandum.
Aw man, does that mean I can't be an atheist anymore? Lol
I often pondered the reversal theory. The devil depicted in the bible is actually God and God is actually the devil. It is stated that the Devil is the Great Deceiver and the God of the bible certainty seems like an evil SOB, but the Snake (aka devil) tried to help man by granting them knowledge and releasing them from the ignorance they were a prisoner to. Man was then punished for wanting to evolve and become more than a puppet or slave to someone who must continuously be told they are the greatest thing since sliced bread.
So to my point, read the OT as God being the bad guy and the Devil being the good guy. Makes more sense that way, at least to me. We are all being deceived and God (Devil) is laughing his ass off.
Who knows maybe Agnostics and Atheist who have rejected this false god are the ones who will truly gain entry into the kingdom of heaven.
Food for thought.
That reminds me of the Al Pacino scene from Devil's Advocate.
I like the way you think
good movie, I admit to only watching it for Charlize Theron. Don't really enjoy the acting or character played by Keanu Reeves.
Al Pacino had a good point right up to wanting to burn the world and have everyone subject to his rule. that was more of a God move (I.A.W. the OT)
What better reason do you need?
But he works well with Charlize.
I have discussed this before.
Ultimately it makes a lot of sense (if one wishes to entertain the notion that the Bible is something other than the words of ancient men with agendas). The Bible is replete with God doing bad things and it certainly is strange to see the word of a perfect, omniscient, omnipotent God contain so many errors and contradictions.
Much more sensible (again, if one entertains supernatural elements) that the true God is silent and that nobody has any idea what God is or what God wants and that the Bible is a con by an evil entity.
Very good thread and comments.
There was not enough to convince me when I was a little boy with a lot of questions
Questions which some theists might discourage. After all, questions can be viewed as a challenge to faith, and we cant have that or critical thinking, right?
HA made his own religious views group which may be why few of the faithful have joined this group to respond. I thought about joining their group but it's fairly clear they really don't want to have their beliefs challenged, they don't want discussion and debate, just confirmation and pats on their own backs as they congratulate each other for believing things that have zero evidence. It's almost like a faith competition with some, the winner being the one that can shout the loudest proclaiming their faith in something with no empirical evidence. As he says:
"This is a group where Christians and others who believe in a greater power or God can discuss issues, beliefs, news relating to religion, comparative beliefs, prophecy, free will, end times, heaven, and persecution issues. This is not a place for atheists to come to bash believers or complain that our mere presence here is cramming our beliefs down their throats."
They don't want any discussion of anything. They'd probably ban me if I tried to join their theological circle jerk.