Talk:Arguments for the existence of God/All this and more

Do you really want to fit all this and more in one article?

I'm guessing not. But why the heck are you bringing up this strawman argument? crazyeddie 18:00, 4 Jun 2005 (UTC)

It's only a strawman if you expect to put all the arguments for and against the existence of God into one article and NOT include the below arguments. This list is to disabuse anyone of the notion that adequate justice can be done to the subject within the confines of a single article. And that is the least of my concerns with trying to combine the two articles in question. 4.250.201.111 06:46, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

• Religions demand faith and discourage attempts to verify their claims through test and experiment, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Rarely, if ever, do religious evangelists win converts by presenting the evidence for their faith in a rational manner. Instead, they largely appeal to emotion and the bandwagon, encouraging others to join their belief system because it feels good to do so, regardless of whether it is supported by the facts. New members are then taught to maintain their belief not through continual testing, but through faith, which can be defined as belief in a proposition without sufficient justifying evidence. Indeed, not only are believers not encouraged to test their faith, but they are generally taught that it is outright wrong to do so - that it is a sin to carry out an experiment whose results would enable them to distinguish whether their belief was true or untrue. Such activities are generally grouped under the label "putting God to the test", and most holy books carry stern warnings against attempting it. Some religions go even further by commanding their followers not to read arguments critical of the faith or have any contact with people who were once members but have since left the church. (For more on these and similar tactics, see "Thoughts in Captivity").
If a particular religion was true, this is not what we would expect. On the contrary, a belief that was true would obviously pass any test it was subjected to, and therefore would have every reason to welcome people to test it so that they could see this for themselves. A belief that was true could be defended purely by recourse to the facts, without demanding its adherents believe in something of which they have no experience. A belief that was true would not need to fear its followers investigating opposing viewpoints for themselves. On the other hand, a belief system that was false, in order to protect itself, would most likely want to discourage its followers from doing things that would lead to them finding that out. Therefore, the anti-empirical attitude of most religions is less surprising under atheism than theism, and thus gives us reason to believe that atheism is more likely to be correct.

• Science is a very effective means of gaining knowledge whereas revelation and scriptural study is not, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Throughout human history, people have believed a great many ideas that in retrospect turned out to be wrong. However, what is most striking is the source of many of these incorrect ideas: with few exceptions, they ultimately emanated from religious scripture. The geocentric theory of the solar system; the Noachian deluge as an explanation for the geological record; the age of the Earth estimated as 6000 years old; the separate ancestry and simultaneous appearance of all species; the belief in epidemic diseases as caused by human sin rather than poor hygiene; the intellectual inferiority of non-European races; all these and many more mistaken ideas trace their origins to religious beliefs arrived at through faith without testing (see the previous item). There is not one single fact about the world that has been proven true in the long run and that is both non-trivial and non-obvious for which we ultimately owe credit to religious scripture rather than painstaking empirical examination.
Of course, this is not to say that people following the scientific method have not made mistakes as well. Science is primarily a way of studying the world, not an infallible oracle for gaining knowledge. However, science's self-correcting nature enables us to discover these mistakes and fix them, whereas the nature of religious dogma offers no comparable way to correct errors. The result is that all the major advances in our knowledge over the past few hundred years are owed primarily to scientific study of the world; on the other hand, beliefs which were first arrived at through mysticism or faith almost always turn out to be wrong.
If any particular religion were true, this is not what we would expect. The effectiveness of science can be explained regardless of whether there is a god or not. However, if there was a being that had a role in creating the natural laws of the universe, and if some religious belief system was an effective way to contact and communicate with that being, it is reasonable to expect that revelation, either through written texts or personal experience, might occasionally provide genuinely new knowledge. But this does not happen. This fact is far less surprising under the assumption of atheism than under the assumption of theism.

• Many religions attempt to suppress outside examination and criticism, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Not only do most religions command their own followers not to put their beliefs to the test, many have gone further in taking action even against outsiders who attempt to critically investigate or speak out against them. The medieval European inquisitions that attempted to crush other faiths and silence scientists whose findings ran contrary to church dogma are the most obvious example, but there are many others as well: for example, many Muslim countries today are repressive theocracies where censorship is pervasive and sentences of exile and death are routinely issued against authors whose works are deemed to be blasphemous against Islam. Even in the United States of America, the deluge of threats of impeachment, boycott and even physical harm that instantly and predictably springs up in response to any opinion that is perceived to differ from the prevailing dogma has resulted in few if any nonbelievers being given a platform by major public institutions. Evidently, there are a vast number of religious believers who see nothing wrong with silencing speech whose content they disagree with.
As in the first example from this essay, this is to be expected if atheism is true. The church establishments that have accumulated vast amounts of money, power and influence have a vested interest in protecting those assets, and if their beliefs are not in fact true and cannot withstand criticism and investigation, it is to be expected that they would attempt to stifle such criticism if they feel it may be a serious threat. On the other hand, any belief system that is true should have nothing to fear from even the most searching outside examination, and should welcome scrutiny accordingly. This would be doubly true if there did in fact exist a god who would ensure his chosen people triumphed over all adversity. If God is truly on their side, what are so many faiths so afraid of?

• Many religions have histories of intolerance and violence, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Throughout history, religion has been used as a justification for countless crimes against humanity. Some of the most readily recalled examples include the medieval Crusades that pitted Christians against Muslims in bloody combat; the witch hunts that led to the torture and unjust execution of thousands of innocents; the Holocaust (Nazi soldiers wore belt buckles that said "God With Us"); the ongoing acts of terrorism waged by Muslim fundamentalists; the creation of tyrannical divine-right monarchies and theocratic regimes throughout Europe, Asia and Africa; the long-enduring oppression and unequal treatment of women; and the trans-Atlantic slave trade that persisted for centuries, whose painful legacy of racism and bigotry persists to some extent even today. Although religions usually plead for tolerance and freedom of conscience when in the minority, given the chance those same religions often attempt to gain civil power, force the public to support them and oppress or wage war on other faiths.
This pattern is far less surprising under atheism than theism. Religious apologists will usually claim that the actions of sinful humans are not evidence against the existence of God, but an atheist can reply that if there was such a being, we would have every right to expect him to prevent such things, or at least clearly show that they were in contradiction to his will. But neither has happened. Nor does belief in any particular religion seem to improve human beings' sense of morality enough to keep them from committing such atrocities. If religions are composed solely of human beings, lacking divine moral guidance, this is to be expected.

• Many religions have cruel or morally unacceptable doctrines, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

The vast majority of religions postulate that the power that created the universe is benevolent and good, morally worthy of humans' worship and devotion. In light of this, it is surprising that almost all of these religions also claim that this power has on various occasions commanded, condoned, or directly caused acts of terrible cruelty, violence, and evil. Foremost among these is the doctrine of Hell, which states that those who fail to worship the creator as he commands will, upon their death, be cast into a realm of agonizing, never-ending suffering. This idea is a vicious and evil absurdity, particularly because it is so often claimed that a merciful and loving god created such a place and desires to send some people there. (See "Infinite Punishment for Finite Sins" for more on the idea of Hell.) However, this is not by any means the only morally unacceptable doctrine put forth by some religions. As another example, many holy books contain approving records of past genocidal wars waged by the self-proclaimed chosen people against their enemies. Many others set cruel and disproportionate punishments for the most trifling crimes, or acts that are not crimes at all. For several examples of this pattern from the Bible, see "A Book of Blood".
If these religions truly were inspired by a morally good deity, it is bizarre that they contain so many stories approving of bloodshed, violence and torture. Such an outcome is too implausible to believe. On the other hand, if these books were written by human beings alone, in an era where humanity's understanding of morality was still primitive and poorly developed, it is not surprising at all that they contain verses that we today understand to be completely unacceptable.

• Religious societies reflect the prejudices of their time, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

If a religion was inspired by a consistent and unchanging god not limited by what human beings believed at any particular time, it is reasonable to expect that that religion would not merely mirror the changing beliefs of the cultures it passed down through, but would stay essentially the same through time. However, this is not what we find.
For example, take slavery. Today, this practice is widely recognized as immoral and universally condemned by Western nations of the Judeo-Christian tradition. However, the Jewish and Christian scriptures, which were written in a milieu where slavery was common, do not condemn it, but rather accept it and even work it into their teachings as though it were the most normal thing in the world; and for many centuries the societies that relied on these scriptures accepted it without question. However, with the rise of the abolition movement, these religions' beliefs on the morality of slavery underwent a huge and dramatic shift. Similar reversals have occurred throughout history in many religions regarding many different issues.
This is not to say that no churches or religious individuals have ever been at the forefront of movements for social change. But rather than being a unanimous voice for moral progress, religious groups often sustain immoral practices for decades or centuries until the push for reform begins, and even then tend to be deeply split by such disputes. This is what we should expect assuming atheism is true.

• There is a vast amount of religious confusion and disagreement between many different belief systems, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Among human cultures both past and present, there is an enormous number of different and incompatible religions. Virtually every society from every era and every region of the planet has had its own pantheons of deities, its own mythologies about the origin of the world and humanity, its own set of rules for how the gods expect us to behave, and its own views about the nature of the afterlife and the fate of the universe. While some of these belief systems bear some resemblance to each other, in general their similarities are far outweighed by their profound differences; and the further separated by time and space they are, the more different they tend to be. Apologists for these various belief systems have been arguing over which is the correct one for millennia, and yet the dispute is not nearing resolution; there is no end in sight. If anything, many of these belief systems are drawing further and further away from each other rather than nearing a point of unification.
If atheism is correct, this is to be expected - if religions spring from human creativity and imagination rather than a common wellspring of revelation, it is hardly surprising that people from a diverse variety of different cultures, times and places have created many different ones. It would be extraordinarily unlikely for many different people who had no contact with each other to independently invent the exact same belief set. On the other hand, if there is a god, it is strange and unexpected that there would be so much religious confusion among humanity. Why would God, if such a being exists, not dispense his message to all people equally? For more on this argument, see "The Cosmic Shell Game".

• Religions are fragmented into sects that cannot agree on key issues of doctrine or ethics, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Continuing the previous point, even within any particular belief system where all the members agree on the same basic theological principles and teachings, there is a vast diversity of opinion on how to interpret those teachings. The spectrum of interpretations within any given religion runs from extreme liberal to extreme conservative, from figurative to literal, from wide-open ecumenicalism to ardent fundamentalism. As above, the debates between the various points of view within a given religion have in most cases been going on since that religion existed, with the same arguments repeated endlessly by both sides, and with no resolution in sight. Though all participants in such a debate usually agree that they want to follow God's will and are continually asking him to reveal to them what that will is, they are rarely if ever able to reach agreement.
This is expected under atheism. If there is no supernatural deity that reliably informs seekers of what was actually meant by a given teaching, it is no surprise that different people cannot agree on what those meanings are, nor is it surprising that these unresolvable arguments continue to lead to the fragmentation of existing religions and the formation of new sects. On the other hand, if there is a god that guides his followers, it is unexpected that this process would be allowed to continue. Why would God not clearly inform all believers what a disputed verse was intended to mean, particularly if holding a correct interpretation of that verse was a requirement for salvation?

• Religions emerge in isolated areas and only then spread in space and time, rather than appearing in every society at once, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Given that all human beings are fundamentally the same at the genetic and cognitive levels, it follows as a consequence that any god that desired to communicate with us would probably desire to communicate with all of us. Likewise, given the inherent unfairness of God's directly speaking to only some people and leaving others nothing but indirect and second-hand evidence, especially if there is a penalty for nonbelief, it is to be expected that a religion truly founded by divine revelation would appear in every culture at once. There is no reason to expect God to play favorites.
But of course, this is not what we find, and that is to be expected if atheism is true. Instead, we find religions that emerge in specific places at specific times, often with specific "chosen" nations or ethnicities, and that only gradually spread via human evangelism. To postulate that any particular religion is true means that millions of people throughout thousands of years of Earth's history lived and died without ever hearing of it. For more on this topic, see "The Argument from Locality".

• The mind has a physical basis, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

A central part of the doctrine of many religions is that there is an immaterial component to the human mind, called the soul, that provides us with our identity, personality and sense of self and that survives the physical death of our bodies. This claim can now be conclusively disproven by the science of neurology, whose findings have revealed that the fundamental aspects of our consciousness all arise from and are unified with the physical structure of our brain. Damage to specific regions of the brain can fragment our sense of identity, splitting the mind up into distinct spheres of awareness, or erase it entirely by destroying the ability to form new memories, leaving a person caught in an endless mental loop. It can alter one's personality and beliefs - including religious beliefs - in dramatic ways, or exert an uncontrollable influence over behavior, to a point where a person's closest friends and relatives believe they are no longer the same person they once were. Such changes are very strange and surprising under a theistic hypothesis of the soul, but not at all surprising if we assume the atheistic position that the mind arises purely from the functioning of the brain. See "A Ghost in the Machine" for more information.

• Gratuitous evil and unnecessary suffering are abundant, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

It has long been recognized, even by theists, that the one fact about the world that is most unexpected and difficult to explain under the assumption of a benevolent creator is the existence of evil. But it is not just the mere fact of suffering that should give theists pause, but rather its magnitude and its distribution. There is not just a small amount of suffering in the world, but a vast, horrendous amount, stemming not just from acts of evil committed by human beings against each other, but also from natural disasters such as earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts and epidemics. And evil is not distributed fairly, afflicting only those who deserve it, but rather seemingly by chance, striking the bad and the good alike. In fact, often suffering seems to avoid the truly evil while concentrating on the undeserving innocent.
If there is a powerful being overseeing the world whose attributes include goodness and justice, it should be surprising in the extreme that evil occurs as it does. On the other hand, if there is no higher power other than the impersonal natural laws that do not take human needs into account, it is not surprising at all that suffering exists. Therefore, when it comes to explaining evil, atheism has by far the superior explanation, and this gives us strong reason to think that atheism is true. For more on the argument from evil, see "All Possible Worlds".

• Naturalism is the norm, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

This point can best be summarized as "miracles don't happen". Obvious supernatural events are nonexistent, although the holy books of most religions assure us they were common in the distant past. Claims of miraculous occurrences invariably turn out to be either trivial, anecdotal, spurious, or based on arguments from ignorance (i.e., "We don't understand the cause of this, so it must be a miracle"). Science, the human enterprise which seeks to explain the universe by the operation of natural laws without invocation of the supernatural, has been resoundingly successful at this goal; so far a huge variety of phenomena have come into the sphere of our understanding, and none have been found that resist natural explanation.
These facts are, of course, to be expected under atheism. If the supernatural does not exist, then everything that happens must have a natural explanation, and it is no surprise that we do not observe any unambiguous miracles. Conversely, it is most unexpected under theism that God does not perform them more often, especially since a significant number of positive effects would probably result. See "One More Burning Bush".

• There is no clear evidence of the existence of any gods, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Not only are there no obvious miracles, human beings do not possess any clear communication from God even in ways that are not obviously supernatural, such as the simple, basic ways we relate to each other. Nor does God perform any activities in our daily lives, not even simple, ordinary activities, in a way that can be reliably attributed to him. Although most religions assure us it is well within God's power to disclose his existence and speak to us and interact with us in such a way that we could be sure that the message was genuine, this does not happen. Instead, believers claim to be assured of God's existence based on mere inward conviction, which is not a reliable guide to the nature of reality regardless of how strong it is, and on documents written, interpreted and approved by human beings.
Any clear communication or activity from God would obviously be a death blow for atheism, but no such thing has happened. On the other hand, if atheism is true, we would fully expect that this would be the case. We would fully expect that believers would rely solely on subjectively acquired feelings inaccessible to outside verification, and that apologists and evangelists would go around telling each other that they have discovered the truth about God, although every single source the various factions cite would, ultimately, be a human source. We would fully expect that, although theists claim that "God is love", he would never appear and show that love to us in the way a parent shows love to their children. We would expect that careful and painstaking examination of every aspect of the world would uncover a grand web of cause and effect, but not the slightest trace of influence of a power that stands above it all.

• Religious texts contain many contradictions and historical inaccuracies, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

If a particular book was dictated to humans by a perfect and self-consistent deity, it is to be expected that that book would likewise be free of internal error and contradiction. Similarly, if a book was the product of a being that was present when the events narrated in that book took place, we would expect it to contain an accurate account of those events. However, when examining religious texts, this is not what we actually find. Instead, we find books that contain many mutually contradictory or incompatible verses. In addition, when it is possible to independently verify these books' historical accuracy through archaeological or other scientific investigation, we often find that they contain many passages which are implausible or false. For examples of such contradictions in the holy texts of two major religious traditions, see "Foundation of Sand" and "Much Incongruity". For examples of historical inaccuracies in these traditions, see "Let the Stones Speak".
This observation is less surprising under atheism than theism. Contradictions or errors in a given religious text, of course, do not prove that that text was not divinely inspired, but it is much more surprising that a text inspired by a god would contain errors than that a purely human-written one would. Similarly, the errors in any one text do not mean that all religions are false, but the more we examine and find to contain such errors, the more confidence we can have in an inductive generalization that all of them are probably the same way.

• Arguments for God's existence suffer from irreparable logical flaws, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Throughout the ages, theologians and philosophers have been attempting to devise rational proofs of God's existence; and without exception, all such efforts have fallen short. Not only do these arguments ultimately fail, many of them are actually premised on fundamental logical fallacies. For example, the classic pro-theistic argument known as the ontological argument suffers from circularity, while the cosmological argument is built on special pleading, and the argument from design is really just a disguised argument from ignorance. The moral argument for God's existence has been dogged for centuries by the insoluble Euthyphro rebuttal, while the more recent presuppositional arguments rely on the fallacy of the false dilemma. For more detailed refutations of these and other pro-theistic arguments, see "Unmoved Mover".
Granted, it is possible for God to exist and for there also to be no irrefutable arguments proving that fact. However, this outcome is still less surprising under atheism than theism. If theism is true, it is not at all unreasonable to expect that God might have structured the universe so that reason would enable us to detect that fact. On the other hand, if atheism is true, then the ultimate failure of all pro-theistic arguments is the only possible outcome (assuming, of course, that logic does bear some correspondence to reality). Certainly the failure of many intelligent people throughout the ages to conclusively prove the existence of God should tell us something.

• There are moral, fulfilled, happy people from all religious backgrounds and also among nonbelievers, and this fact is less surprising under atheism than theism.
  

Many religions claim that genuine satisfaction in life can only be found by belonging to that religion and worshipping its deity, and that all attempts to acquire happiness any other way will ultimately end in misery and frustration. Were any particular religion true, we might well expect to find that this was indeed the case. But this is not what we find. Instead, even a cursory search will reveal that there are a vast number of wise, virtuous, spiritual and happy people from every religious background and from atheism as well. No religious belief system's adherents are substantially better at dealing with life's ups and downs, on the average, than members of any other belief system. This is exactly as we would expect if no one religion had a monopoly on the truth, giving further support to atheism. 4.250.201.111 06:46, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)