In the western religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, God is the one and only Supreme Being, the Creator of everything.
Nothing exists except that God wills it. God is omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, all-good and eternal. God did not have a beginning and will have no end. The world and its components were created by God for a purpose. God created human beings to know, to love, to honor, to serve and to obey him. God is to be thought of in masculine terms, even though God is a pure spirit and has no material or bodily parts. Humans will be judged after death as to how well they have fulfilled God's plan for them. Those who have failed, the sinners, will be punished for eternity. Those who have succeeded will be rewarded for eternity. The exact nature of the reward or punishment is hotly disputed, but all seem to agree that those who are rewarded will be in God's presence and those who are punished will not.
God is portrayed as a father figure, according to the old patriarchical family structure. God protects his family, but he is also the ruler of the family and his commands must be obeyed.
For Christians, Jesus of Nazareth is considered to be a human manifestation of God. For most Christians, this means that Jesus is both human and divine. This doctrine is known as the Incarnation and is considered a mystery of faith. That is, how a being can be both human and divine transcends human understanding. Reason and logic could not demonstrate the truth of such a belief; its basis must be faith.
God issues commands and these are the basis of morality. To be a good person is to obey the commands of God. Apparently, if God did not command that humans not commit murder, murder would be morally justifiable. However, since God is all good, we need not worry that God might command something which is evil. His Nature forbids it.
An atheist must believe that humans created God rather than the other way around. To say that man invented God is to say that the vast majority of humans are deluded. How do atheists explain the origin of this delusion and its persistence?
It has been argued by philosophers such as Thomas Hobbes and Baruch de Spinoza that belief in God originated in fear and superstition. And it has been argued by the likes of Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx that the delusion persists because belief in God satisfies the wishes for a protective father and for immortality, or it acts as an opiate against the misery and suffering of human existence.
Believers in God either think that there is evidence to support their belief or they think that there is no reason not to believe in God. The former often delude themselves into thinking that inept, fraudulent, deceptive, weak, unsubstantial or ludicrous reasons are substantial. The latter often delude themselves into seeing atheists as stubborn and unwilling to risk error for the sake of a possible, sublime truth. How do these delusions occur?
The two types of believers share one thing in common: they want to believe in their delusion so badly that they deceive themselves into thinking they are being perfectly rational and reasonable in the pursuit of their delusion or that atheists are irrational and unreasonable in rejecting the same. Many also share a common motive: their belief gives them a sense of power and superiority, often leading them to destroy anything or anyone who opposes them, and to hurl benedictions over the miseries of the world, including miseries they themselves have caused. These believers feel they have the power of esoteric knowledge. The ultimate ego trip is to be privy to secret knowledge and powers. It doesn't just spice life up; it gives it a meaning and significance it would not otherwise have.
For many believers, however, the belief in God is just something they have taken for granted all their lives. The belief gives order and meaning to their lives. It joins them to a community of believers, giving them confidence in themselves and their beliefs. The believer's belief is validated by all the important people in his or her life. If you grow up with the fairies, you'll be a candidate for fairy belief. If you grow up with God, if everyone important in your life reinforces the belief in God, you'll see proofs everywhere for what you know in your heart is true. Communal reinforcement of the belief in God may be the main force behind its seeming so reasonable to believers.
The reinforcement of belief is finalized by the authority of a few respectable, intelligent, kindred spirits. People may not come to believe in God just because some saint or scientist or Nobel Prize winner in literature gives his or her seal of approval to it, but people are made to feel more comfortable in their belief if they think they are in good company.
As a child growing up in a world of angels, holy communion, God the Father-Son-&-Holy Ghost, and Jesus the Divine Savior, the lack of logic or rationality to any of it wasn't even noticed. It seemed as natural to believe in Transubstantiation as it did to believe in electricity. I was taught mathematics side-by-side with my catechism, and the absurdity of the juxtaposition never dawned on me or any of my small comrades. I imagine for many people it is as natural to believe in fairies and witches and evil eyes, etc., as it is to believe that fire is warm. But this is all irrelevant to whether there are fairies or witches, or gods, etc.
The believer finds that life makes more sense if God exists. Why then does it seem obvious to me and other atheists that everything makes more sense if there is no God? Why does the universe seem more intelligible to me as an undesigned mechanism governed solely by natural, impersonal forces?
I look at the universe and what is known about it and it seems to me that it's alleged perfect order and design is pretty imperfect. I look at individual items which are wonderful in function but ridiculous in design and am led to think no omniscient being would design it this way. We need not dwell on the evil in the universe when the good things in life can make our point equally well. For example, the human eye and brain and the network of nerves, tissues, neurons, etc., that produce vision is a wonder, but any human who would design, say, a camera to mimic the design of the eye would be taking the long way home. I would expect an omniscient being to use a much simpler design for both the eye and the universe. The very complexity of structures indicates, as Clarence Darrow noted, the lack of design and the result of natural forces working with no particular purpose in mind.
The concept of a magnificent being who is responsible for everything but who is playing a cosmic game of hide and seek leads me to ask: Why would such a being as God be so frivolous? The whole idea of creation, commands, rewards and punishments clears up nothing. When I was a child I was asked to memorize the answer to the question "Why did God make me?" and the answer was "To know, love, honor, serve and obey Him." It sounded good at the time. I had this solemn mysterious duty towards a being who only reveals Himself or His wishes on special occasions and only to specially selected persons. I'm sure each of us children memorizing our catechisms hoped that God would pick us for a special revelation. Now when I hear of people having visions or hearing voices they think are divine, or of people performing magical or miraculous feats, I ask myself, following David Hume, which is more likely? that God spoke to this person or that they are deluded or perpetrating a fraud? Which is more likely, that the laws of nature have been violated by special powers or that there has been illusion, delusion, fraud, and/or error? I never hesitate in the answer. Any reasonable person, maintaining the most basic principles of reasonableness, can't believe in divine visions, voices or miracles on the basis of testimony, even firsthand testimony, without abandoning those very principles.
According to the atheist, God was invented not once, of course, but many times in many cultures. The similarities of invention are due to the similarities of human nature and experience. Birth, sex, suffering and death are universal. The images of God and God-experiences, as well as the utility of the invention, are reflected in such universally shared experiences.
For many, to believe in God is to believe that if there were no God they would be free to commit any evil, no matter how heinous. The only thing that keeps them in check, they say, is that they have been ordered by God not to murder or steal, etc. They say that their lives would have no meaning if they did not have orders from on high to tell them what they are supposed to do with their lives. But what kind of meaning does a life have if it is based solely on blind obedience to commands? We have seen the evil effects of blind obedience too many times in history to consider such a view plausible.
See related entries on William of Ockham and miracles.
Reader comments
Yo Bob:
Upon reading your opinions of God and materialism, I admittedly found them somewhat bewildering. You explained that belief in God has done more harm than good, and that this is therefore a reason to abandon Him.
reply: I don't think I talk about "abandoning" anything.
However, the evils perpetrated by humans are not to be attributed to God, but what we have made of him through our own evil desires. As M. Gandhi said: "Barbarous atrocities have been committed in the name of God. I am not sure if any of these acts have been committed in the name of truth."
reply: Fair enough.
Also, you explained that you believed mass-murderers to be accountable for their own actions, and I noted you invoked the word "choose". But didn't you say that you were a materialist, and you believed only in the flow of natural processes? (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Is that not a contradiction? The free will of human beings only holds true if we limit the bounds of determinism and accept that some things are not succeptible to ordinary rational laws. For instance, a materialist believes the brain is just a complex machine that merely acts in response to certain stimuli, albeit in an extremely complex way. Therefore, choice is an illusion, for we are really acting as a result of things external to us and according to the law in our brains: therefore, we are really not responsible for our own actions. I am not saying that I am a materialist, only that you have reached a contradiction.
reply: What can I say? I am a materialist, i.e., I don't believe in spirits. And I believe in free will. Do you really think that the idea of free will becomes crystal clear and free of contradictions by introducing the concept of a "soul" to make the choices? If the soul makes choices and does so without any causal connection to the material world then there is no connection whatsoever between what a person chooses to do and what they actually do. To deny any causal connection between a person's thoughts and deeds would not be to defend a doctrine of free will but rather a doctrine of uncaused acts. If only uncaused acts are free acts, then I would say there are no free acts. If acts are uncaused then an evil act is not the responsibility of an evil person: there is no responsibility for it at all.
And as for God, well he is only to be reached if we do not deify materialism. And to maintain that we have a free will is to limit, even cripple, materialism (i.e. scientific thought); therefore, belief in a free will makes room for belief in God and objective morality, though the extent to which we adopt these views are different for everyone.
reply: Well, if I were a determinist I would agree with Hobbes that God is to blame for everything: He is the Cause of all causes and hence responsibile for all evil as well as all good acts.
Is it not clear that an atheist materialist who believes in responsibility is an oxy-moron?
reply: Very clever. Since you are the one who is clear on these matters, I suppose you know best about oxy and other kinds of morons.
Anyway I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have spoken ignorantly.
reply: Anticipate nothing; that way you won't be disappointed.
Greetings.
I have just finished reading your text on God and I find it
very interesting. I have just two questions to pose :
1. How can spontaneous religious conversion occur? I know
for a fact that it does exist, and I think that you should
add a topic into the skeptic's dictionary about it. I would
love to hear arguements against it.
What is so interesting about religious conversions? I suppose by a spontaneous conversion you mean one that happens rapidly, not after years of thought and deliberation. The intrigue of such conversions escapes me. But as a general rule, people do not alter their belief systems in radical ways on a whim unless they are extremely disturbed. Great stress or physical disorder might make one prone to rapid worldview transformation, religious or otherwise.
2. Because your text on God attacks only the Gods that major religions worship, how would you attack the idea that a God exists but not under the terms of a defined religion? Your entry does a very good job of attacking organized religion's Gods, now you should attack God in principle. (Isn't this funny? I myself am a very religious person and I'm telling you to attack God. I think it is because it is very difficult to KNOW (as in, know for sure) what is the true, any attack on an idea can only make a true one stronger and a false one perish.)
I don't think I "attack" God or any particular concept of God. I offer my views on the origin and nature of the concept. It is true my focus is on the concept of the God of the Western religious traditions. I agree with you that it is always good to have one's ideas criticized: it can only make you stronger, as you are forced to defend your views. The only way to truly understand your own views is to defend them against attack. Otherwise, your views become mere prejudices.
Good day to you, and continue with your skepticism, as it
can
only lead to the truth.
Sincerely,
Geoff Anders II
Don't fret. Mr. Anders has more to say.
Greetings. I present a very interesting proof of the existence of God: God is perfect, therefore it is in his nature to exist. Isn't that interesting? It makes perfect logical sense.
A word of advice, Geoff. It is usually not good form to use adjectives like "interesting" when describing one's own work. It makes people think you are arrogant rather than humble. It is better to appear humble and be arrogant than the other way around. Anyway, I think Anselm beat you to the punch on the argument from perfection. It is called the ontological argument. You can look it up.
Here is a new theory which on two very simple premises
proves the existence of God:
Premise 1 : Einstein's theory of relativity
Premise 2 : The Big Bang theory
Ok, Ready?
In the beginning, there was no matter, only a point
of light, as described by the Big Bang theory. This means
that according to Einstein's theory of relativity (the
farther you are from a massive body, the slower time goes)
it would take an infinite amount of time for a second to
pass, as an observer would be an infinite distance from a
point of mass. This means that before the Big Bang, there
was, in effect, no time. Therefore, the universe in which
we live is the first one to have ever been created, as this
universe was created at the start of time. Now, let us look
at the sub-atomic particles. A neutron is slightly larger
that a proton and electron and can decay into them. This is
why there are no atoms formed with one neutron and one
electron, the neutron would decay into a proton and electron.
Now, back at the start of time, if the neutron, proton,
an electron had not been the sizes that they are, one of the
sub-atomic particles would have to be able to decay into
the two others, or the atomic structure of things would be
greatly altered. If, for instance, the proton was the one
that would decay into a neutron and electron, then hydrogen
could not exist, as the single proton nucleus would decay.
Then there would be no water and life could not exist.
Now what do you suppose are the chances that the sub-atomic
particles formed (from light, remember) into these exact
sizes required to have the universe able to support life?
Pretty small. There are six other very basic requirements
such as the one described above needed to have the universe
support life, but I don't have the patience to put them up
right now. Some are even more obscure than the sub-atomic
particle one. Now with these things needed to have a
life-supporting universe, the chances seem that by random
chance, to be very small. In fact, less than one in
a septillion. Now being that this is the first universe
created..... first try, that means... and we have a life
supporting universe... hmmm. There are two possibilities:
1. The one in a 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 chance
happened (boy aren't we lucky)
.. or ..
2. Someone or something created the universe to fit these
parameters. Hence, God. (Not necessarily one of the
popular-religion Gods, but a God nonetheless.)
I opt for the first possibility. Even if there is no time before the Big Bang there is an infinite amount of this timelessness and who knows what possibilities there are given an infinite amount of timelessness. You might think it impossible to put ten coins in your pocket numbered one to ten and pull them out randomly in exact order, one through ten. But given an infinite amount of time, not only would you occasionally do this, you would do it numerous times.
I know that being a skeptic, I haven't converted you. Oh well.
You must be clairvoyant!
If you see any holes in my logic, let me know.
Sincerely,
Geoff Anders II
I don't quite get it, Bob. If there is no God, then why should I not kill anyone. Murder should not be a crime, now should it? If we are created by non rational forces, as you say, then you have no meaning. I have no meaning. There is no incentive to do anything. Give me one good reason why I should not go out and kill someone tonight. I would have no problem killing you. If, however, there is a God, and he did create us, as religion says, then there is incentive to do things.
I do have a right and a responsibilty
to help me fellow man. I would respect you and everyone else because they are all created by God.
I'm skeptical of your position, Bob. You who have made a religion out of Skepticism,
could never be skeptical of your own position. You are a hippocrite. You don't give any proof for the non-
existence of God in your Skeptical Dictionary. You give the standard atheist illogic. Could it be possible that
the mighty Bob just might be illogical in his thinking. Oh mighty one, how should I worship you? Write back to me
and give me the slightest bit of credence to your position. I would love to debate you Bob. Give me your best shot.
Timothy Swartz from Dayton, Ohio
Mr. Schwartz:
If belief in God is the only thing that keeps you from murdering your friends and family, not to mention total strangers, then I hope you keep your belief until you die. I guess there is some sort of logic in the notion that if there is no God, then anything goes...no morals, no duties, no meaning. I have read great theologians who have said as much, but I must be missing something because I do not see that it follows that one has a right to do evil if one is not obligated to do good by God. Such a view seems to annihilate the distinction between good and evil. For what it says is that one must only do what God orders one to do. And anything which God does not order one to do, one has a right to do. People have claimed God has ordered them to do a lot of killing over the years. How do we know these people were not deluded? As a society, can we let people kill one another if they say that God ordered them to do it? We don't forbid murder because God has ordered us not to murder; we forbid it because no community of human beings could exist if it allowed its citizens to murder one another at will. I would hope that a theist would believe that God orders men not to murder one another because murder is evil, rather than that murder is only evil because God says so.
As far as having meaning goes, people are free to live or not live meaningful lives. It is up to us. Meaning and significance come from choices and actions, not from being born. Whether a person lives for fifty years or for eternity has no bearing on whether or not that person's life had any meaning. What they did with their life is what gives it meaning.
I disagree that there is no incentive to do anything unless ordered to do it by God. There are many good reasons for getting an education, having a family and friends, enjoying the arts, traveling and studying, engaging in recreations. The main reason is that these activities give us pleasure and make us happy.
Whether it is by the design of God, as you think, or by an accident of nature, happiness seems to come only to those who care about other people's well-being. People who are self-centered, concerned only about their own well-being, and who are either indifferent or hostile to others are rarely happy.
You write as if you are filled with contempt. You don't need to belittle me or anyone else in order to make your own beliefs seem right. Ridicule has no place in a debate or a discussion among people who care about what they believe in. Opposition should make us stronger; the stronger our opponent the stronger we must become. If we use namecalling and ridicule to try to diminish the stature of one we oppose, we thereby diminish our own stature.
You have the power to demean or to elevate the level of discourse.
I feel very sorry for you when I read your
"definition" of God in the Skeptic's Dictionary.
I do not pity you or look down on you, I just think
that you must have such a hardened heart to say the
awful things you do about people who DO believe in
God. There is a verse in the Bible that says, "We
walk by faith, not by sight." This is true.I am apt
to have more respect for someone who can exercise
faith than one who must have everything proven to her,
no matter how logical or intelligent she claims to
be. I do hope that maybe one day perhaps you can go
back to the document with no preconceived notions and
let yourself be taught.
Susannah Kirby
reply: Why would you respect someone more for believing without evidence than for requiring evidence? I don't think you would apply this standard if you were on trial for your life and jury members came to their decision based on "faith" rather than evidence. Would you want a prospective employer to use such a standard? Would you punish your children using such a standard? I think they would resent your lack of interest in evidence as to their innocence when they are unjustly accused of wrongdoing.
06 Jul 96
God is not a separate entity.
reply: I agree. God is not an entity at all.
Materialism exists because Newtonian physics reached a critical mass and was transferred to the majority of human beings.
You don't say. Well, I learn something new every day.
Now that Quantum Physics is slowly starting to take hold, most of you will begin to realize that God is actually all of you. The original, creative light energy source is where we all came from. Quantum Physics tells us that light can be a wave or a particle. The wave of light is our soul, and when it incarnates on the earth plane it transforms itself into the particle of light (our body).
That is true if and ony if you are from another galaxy. If you were born on earth, you are immune to the effects of all quanta, the physical included, and you will come to realize that God has abandoned all of us. That light you keep seeing is the recollection of that first light of day or the hospital room which stunned you at birth, unless of course you weren't born. If so, you have to look it up in the particle book.
Einstein has said that energy can never be destroyed, it can only be transformed , and that is what happens when we shed our physical bodies, our light particle transforms back into a light wave.
Einstein! It's always Einstein said this or Einstein said that. Who is the Einstein guy, anyway...God?
Think of humans as a hologram, an intenesely focused beam of light that carries all the information from the original source.
O.K. We're all a bunch of holy holograms or holographs or holognats. We are beams and we carry information on the motes of our beams. And we long for the original. I'm thinking of these things but I don't seem to be getting anywhere with these thoughts.
Jesus, the Christ soul, said he was the "LIGHT". People who have had near death experiences claim they have seen a bright "LIGHT". Yes, we are all holograms of that bright "LIGHT" thus we are all God, and we created ourselves because creative energy must create.
Jesus and Einstein! Why don't you bring in Plato, too, or Augustine or Plotinus. They were all big on LIGHT. Anyway, I don't remember the sermon on the holograms. What verse is that?
Let go of your ego, and go within. Rememebr, the Kingdom of God lies within. Hope you see the light.
See the light!? Hell, I'm blinded by it! Thanks for all the insights.
(no signature)
16 Jul 96
Like you, I have come to the conclusion that "God" is just a
human construct, created to explain the unexplainable, to give
meaning to people's lives, and to help enforce social order.
But tempted as I sometimes am to voice my opinion on the nature of God and the soul, I restrain myself because I don't think many people can live with what I believe to be the truth. Most people need to believe they are "special," that there is something greater than themselves watching out for them, and that they will be joining their loved ones in a better place after death. And while religion has been the cause of much unnecessary bloodshed, it has, for the most part, prevented much more. Some people need to believe there is a judge standing over them in order to restrain themselves from committing horrible acts. And even those who have not shown this self-restraint often need to believe they are being forgiven by their God in order to go on.
In other words, the notion of God has done more good than harm historically, and I see no reason to publish my beliefs anymore than I understand why the JWs et. al. feel they have to ring my doorbell every 6 months.
Perhaps I am not giving my fellow human beings enough credit, but
looking around me, I doubt it.
--Lena Cimmarrusti
reply: I don't deny that belief in God is a great consolation to many people, as well as a spur to restraint. Much good has been done in God's name. And belief in God has served a great social purpose of binding people together in a set of common beliefs and rituals. But these postive factors should not blind us to the horrors and evils done in God's name from time immemorial. In any case, publishing one's views on these matters is nothing at all like going door to door proseltyzing. You have to make an effort to get and read a publication; the proseltyzers come to you whether you like it or not.
06 Aug 1996
Do you think God or Jesus don't exist?
Would you like proof? Scientific, infallible, proof? I can provide it. It's all mathematical. And it's unarguable once you read it. You will have no answer because God can't lose a debate.
Regards, Paul (shandman@fl.net.au)
reply: I didn't know God was on the internet nor did I know God's name was Paul and God is a number. Well, I guess I did know the latter: God is Number One. God is also Infinite. Being One and Infinite, God is both divisible and indivisible: a Complete Mystery, the Paradox of all doxas.
31 Jul 1996
Great work, but...
[re] God : 1) Hyper-links to the popular god existence "proofs" and their fallacies are missing.
reply: They don't work because they are references to real books, not hyperlinks.
2) In your debate with some god-addict he uses an argument about the probability of spontaneous evolution of intelligent life forms in a godless universe. Well, besides ignoring the fact that considering all of the planets in the universe make this posibility more likely to occur, you let him get away with mixing up the a priori and a posteriori probabilities of life evolving - once we exist and wonder about the universe, no matter how low the a priori probability for that was, the the chance for formation of human-level intelligence is 100%. This fallacy of his claim is disguised by mentioning Einstein and quantum mechanics, thus muddying the water. (I think this well-known argument has an name, but I don't remember it, nor who first suggeseted it). On the other hand, using this as a priori probability, makes ET cultures in close range at this era less probable.
Avnimelech Rani
reply: Your "god-addict" remark reminds me that some nineteenth century German Romantic called Spinoza the "God-intoxicated man." Anyway, I apologize for letting him get away with mixing things up, but at least he didn't use any fancy latin words to muddy the waters. By the way, Einstein and quantum physics are very popular among New Age spiritualists, too. These New Agers don't just muddy the waters, they cast darkness on the sun and fill the ocean with muck. I think this fallacy is called "muddying the waters." It certainly is not the fallacy of poisoning the well. Perhaps it is called the latina obscuranda fallacy. Generally, if I don't know what to call a fallacy I just say, "hey, you're begging the question." That usually shuts them up.
14 Aug 1996
I read your piece about God which is very impressive in style, structure and language but I really didn't see any part of it that disproves the idea of God.
reply: That's because I don't attempt to disprove either the idea or the existence of God.
See, here's how I see it: The concept of God is a very strong theory, yes, a theory, which perfectly explains ALL the holes in the human understanding of nature. Even if considering all the "fresh" scientific theories (Quantum Mechanics, Einstein Theory of Relativity, Etc...) there are still many unanswered questions, and the concept of a God solves them perfectly. Now, using God to solve questions like "How was the universe created? how were humans created?" may seem like the easy way out, but it's still a valid theory because it explains everything!
reply: I agree that everything that can be explained without God, can be explained with God. I do not agree, however, the theistic explanation is "perfect" nor is it "better." But it can explain everything, though it is not necessary to bring in God to explain everything. Also, how does the concept of God help explain everything, since we must still ask "Who created God?"
Now, the standard for scientific theories is that they are adopted as correct as long as you cannot disprove them (i.e, uncover an experimental counterexample). I know that God isn't a 'Scientific Theory' but since we use it to explain Scientific Questions I think the same rules should apply.
reply: Actually, there is more to it than that. Metaphysical theories cannot be disproven as long as they are free of self-contradictions. That doesn't mean they are useful or true. A scientific theory which hasn't been disproven, but could be in theory, is not necessary useful. Utility of scientific theories is measured in terms of explanatory power, connectedness with other useful scientific theories, predictive power, technological application, among other things. Scientific theories should not be compared to metaphysical theories, even if they attempt to explain the same phenomena.
Before I go to your piece about God I have to say that I'm personally a Non-Believer, but non-belief is my natural state because I grew up in a house of non-believers (despite what people outside think, there are a lot of such houses in Israel), however, I have no solid logical grounds for my non-belief, and, actually, when I heard about the publishing of your Skeptic's Dictionary hope sprang to my heart that finally I'll find some kind of an argument the contradicts the God theory. But I'm afraid I havn't found it. In order to show this I'm using the next three paragraphs to dissect your entry. I divided your entry into three parts, and the fact that they are labeled FIRST, SECOND, THIRD doesn't mean that your entry is chronologically ordered that way. It just means that all the paragraphs in your entry can be divided into the three groups I'm defining below:
The FIRST big part of it is dedicated to explaining why if God didn't exist, most of humanity would think God exists (I'm talking about all that stuff about fitting into the mainstream of society, making life meaningful, etc.). That's very nice, but that doesn't mean that God doesn't exist. It's as if your basic assumption is that God doesn't exist and you're explaining why all the stupid humans think that God exists.
reply: I agree that psychological explanations as to why most people and cultures have some sort of belief in "God" is irrelevant to a proof of God's non-existence. And you are right that such explanations assume that God does not exist. There would be no point for an atheist to try to explain why people believe in God, if it were not assumed God doesn't exist.
A SECOND part of your entry shows how the concepts of western religion don't really make sense and aren't neccesary (i.e, "the whole idea of creation, commands, rewards and punishments clears up nothing", and human kind doesn't need divine orders to behave morally).
Well, first you have to realize that not all religions see God as a Good Natured Being, there are religions that perform human sacrifices. Their concept of "good" is different than the western concept of "good". Maybe the God of one of those religions is the REAL god, the being that's actually up-there? Besides, even if we define God to be the western God (like you did, which I think is a wrong thing to do), the fact that humans don't need his rules to be happy or to be "Good", doesn't mean that God doesn't exists, it just means that God created them that way.
Again, you are right: there are other concepts of God which could be considered and the fact that we don't need any of these concepts to explain anything does not prove any of these "gods" do not exist. We could consider God as an impersonal power, as finite, as part or wholly evil, etc. Picking off each in turn as unnecessary to explain anything would not prove the non-existence of any of these beings. By the way, one of those religions which practiced human sacrifice originated in your part of the world. Remember the story of Abraham and Isaac?
The THIRD part of your entry, the way I see it, is the part where you try to logically disprove God, in a sense, to give counterexamples. Frankly, there wasn't much of it; in fact, there was only one paragraph dealing with that. I'm talking about the
paragraph that says that the Universe lacks any efficient design and therefore it has to be a result of the randomness of nature. But that's not neccesarily correct, because if you look at your own definition of God, it says that God is "omnipotent,
omniscient, omnipresent, . . ." This means that God has an infinitely larger view-point of the universe than a human and HE, not a tiny human, would know what the best design of the systems at hand is, in the larger context of the entire universe.
And there is NO WAY that a human could understand the best design given his very zoomed viewpoint.
Nitzan Herzog.
reply: Again, I don't try to disprove the existence of God by pointing out inefficiencies and imperfections of design. Your response is an interesting one and is one that many theologians are fond of. It has some merit, of course, but it basically allows one to abandon reason at will by appealing to the "fact" that God may use different standards, principles, etc. than we do whenever it appears that God is evil, incompetent, etc. when measured by human standards.
I nowhere claim that it is possible to prove the non-existence of God. To do so would require two things: one, a clear concept of the god to be disproved; and two, proof that such a concept is self-contradictory. The best attempt at such an argument for the God of Christians, Jews and Muslims is that given by James Rachels, where he argues that the concept of worship implies this God does not exist. In my view, the argument fails because the concept of worship is not necessarily entailed in the concept of this God. The argument succeeds much as Epicurus's argument against fear of punishment by the gods succeeds: perfect beings can't be affected, negatively or positively, by imperfect beings. Of course, the old saw will be brought in by the theologians to remind us that the ways of the Lord are mysterious indeed and how do we know that our concept of perfection is isomorphic with that of the gods?
19 Oct 1996
Although you do a good job in ridiculing most of the subjects dealt with in your dictionary, your explanation in your entry for "God" is no where as convincing as for other entries.
reply: Well, I won't try to ridicule you but I am glad to see you think some of my work is convincing.
The main problem is, the belief in God relies entirely on faith, so you
cannot disprove His existence, just as much as you cannot prove it.
Your entry therefore does not bring anything new to the argument, and in
my opinion, should be withdrawn from your dictionary.
Luc Gentet
Division of Neuroscience
Australian National University
Canberra
AUSTRALIA
reply: I guess some things bear repeating: anyway, you might want to read the previous reponse. Of course, one cannot disprove the existence of God. It does not follow from that, however, either that the belief in God relies entirely on faith or that arguments should not be made for or against believing in God. Arguing and reasoning about the concept of God and whether or not it is reasonable to belief in God is a very respectable practice which has been going on for thousands of years. I realize that you are not alone in maintaining the "separation thesis" regarding "science" and "theology", but since I reject the thesis that matters of faith should not be discussed, I must reject your suggestion.
further reading
Berman, David. ed. Atheism in Britain, 5 vols., (Bristol, UK: Thoemmes Press, 1996).
Darrow, Clarence. Absurdities of the Bible
Freud, Sigmund. The Future of an Illusion (1927).
Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651), ch. XII, "Of Religion."
Johnson, B. C. The Atheist Debater's Handbook (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1981).
Martin, Michael. Atheism : a Philosophical Justification (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1990).
Rachels, James. "God and Human Attitudes," in Religious Studies 7 (1971). Reprinted in Philosophy and the Human Condition, 2nd. ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1989), pp. 509-518.
Smith, George H. Atheism : the Case Against God (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus Books, 1979).
Smith, Homer. Man and His Gods, foreword by Albert Einstein (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1952).
Spinoza, Baruch de. Theologico-Political Treatise (1670).