PART 3 : Engaging Philosophical Arguments to Argue that God Doesn’t Exist
- Believers might counter this claim by stating that God allows free will, and that therefore, unbelief is an inevitable outcome of this. They might cite specific instances in their holy texts of occasions when their God revealed himself to people who still refused to believe.
2.Explore inconsistency in the other person’s belief. If the believer’s faith is premised on the idea that God created the universe because “All things have a beginning and an end,” you could ask, “If that is so, then what created God?” This will emphasize to the other person that they are unfairly concluding that God exists when in fact, the same basic premise (that all things have a beginning) can lead to two different conclusions.
- People who believe in God might counter that God — being omnipotent — is outside of space and time, and is therefore the exception to the rule that all things have a beginning and an end. If they counter in this way, you should direct the argument towards the contradictions in the idea of omnipotence.
- Your conversation partner might reply “Governments by man are ungodly and fallible. People, not God, cause evil.” In this way, your conversation partner might again invoke the idea of free will to counter the notion that God is responsible for all the wickedness in the world. Still, this counter fails to explain the evil that is not caused by humans, such as sickness from microorganisms and earthquakes.
- You could also go one step further and argue that even if a bad god exists who does allow evil, he is not worth worshiping.
4.Demonstrate that morality does not require any religious belief. Many people believe that without religion, the planet would descend into immoral chaos. However, you can explain that your own behavior (or that of any other atheist) is little different than that of the believer. Admit that while you are not perfect, nobody is, and belief in God does not drive people to necessarily be more moral or righteous than anyone else.
- You could also reverse this proposition by arguing that not only does religion not lead to goodness, it leads to evil, since many religious people commit immoral acts in the name of their God. You might, for instance, draw attention to the Spanish Inquisition or religious terrorism around the world.
- In addition, animals who are incapable of understanding our human concept of religion show clear evidence of instinctual understanding of moral behavior and distinguishing between right and wrong.
- You could argue that morality is a social behavior that helps ensure the collective survival of a species and is not necessarily spiritually linked.
5.Demonstrate that a good life does not require God. Many people believe that only with God can one live a rich, happy, and full life. However, you could point out that many people who do not believe are happier and more successful than those who are religious.
- For instance, you might draw attention to Richard Dawkins or Christopher Hitchens as individuals who met with great success despite the fact they do not believe in God.
6.Explain the contradiction between omniscience and free will. Omniscience, the ability to know everything, seems to be at odds in most religious dogma. Free will refers to the idea that you are in charge of your actions and therefore responsible for them. Most religions believe in both concepts, but they are incompatible.
- Say to your conversation partner, “If God knows everything that has happened and will happen, as well as every thought your mind creates before you think it, your future is a foregone conclusion. That being the case, how can God judge us for what we do?”
- People who believe in God may answer that although God knows an individual’s decision beforehand, individual actions are still each person’s free choice. This idea is a nice thought, but it is still contradictory for the reasons above.
7.Show the impossibility of omnipotence. Omnipotence is the ability to do anything. If God can do anything, though, he should be able to, for instance, draw a square circle. However, since this is logically incoherent, it makes no sense to believe that God is omnipotent.
- Another logically impossible thing you could suggest God cannot do is to know and not know something at the same time.
- You could also argue that if God is omnipotent, why does he allow natural disasters, massacres, and wars?
- Some believers offer the idea that perhaps God isn’t completely omnipotent, and that while he is extremely powerful, he cannot do absolutely everything. This may explain why God can do some things but cannot logically do others.
8.Put the ball in their court. In reality, it is impossible to prove that something does not exist. Anything could exist, but in order for a belief to be valid and worthy of attention, it needs hard evidence to back it up. Propose that rather than arguing that God does not exist, the believer needs to provide evidence that God does exist.
- For instance, you could ask what happens after death. Many people who believe in God also believe in an afterlife. Ask for evidence of this afterlife.
- Spiritual entities such as gods, devils, heaven, hell, angels, demons, and so on have never been (and cannot be) scientifically examined or observed. Point out that these spiritual features cannot be proven to exist if they are not observable and measurable.
Comments