False Equivalency and the Burden of Proof

Time and again theists argue that, since atheists claim that God doesn’t exist, it is actually the atheists who have the “burden of proof” to show that God does not exist as they claim. When this happens, most atheists respond by saying that atheists in general “merely” lack a belief in God (or gods) and that they don’t actually make any claims that need to be proven. Theists, they say, are the ones who go around claiming that God does exist, and atheists simply say, “I don’t believe you” or perhaps even, “You have not provided me with any good reason, any compelling evidence or argument, to accept that your claim is true.”

Now, this is certainly true as far as it goes, but it often comes across as just a way to avoid the burden of proof by putting it back onto the theists without actually contributing anything to the discussion aside from saying, “I don’t have to prove anything, you do!” And some atheist take this a step further by actually acknowledging that atheists would indeed bear the full burden of proof of establishing that God does not exist if, in fact, they actually asserted that He didn’t exist instead of just stating their lack of belief.

Well, this is all well and good for atheist who really do just lack a belief in God, but it makes those of us who actually assert that no gods actually exist seem a bit irrational (which is, of course, exactly what the theists have in mind when making their claim about the burden of proof in the first place). Are we irrational to assert that no gods exist? Perhaps, but there are two important things to understand here:

• “Absolute proof” only exists in the realm of pure mathematics in the first place, and the best anybody can ever actually be expected to provide is compelling evidence of whatever it is they happen to be asserting as true. Many theists actually seem to acknowledge this fact by claiming that the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved (as a way of avoiding their own burden of proof) right before attempting to shift that supposedly impossible burden of proof onto atheists. Yes, they want to have it both ways: “God’s existence can be neither proved nor disproved, but it if it could be then it would be the atheist’s responsibility.”
• While the “burden of proof” is on the person making a claim about something, not all burdens are equally onerous! In other words, there is a false equivalency in asserting that the burden of proof of somebody claiming there is no God is exactly the same burden of proof of somebody claiming there is a God.

Let me address these two points individually. 

1. Can the Existence of God Be Proved or Disproved?

Is it actually the case that the existence of God can neither be proved nor disproved? Well, again, if you are talking about “proof” as in the the absolute certainty only available in the realm of pure mathematics, then of course it is true. But that’s not really what most people mean when they talk about proving something. If asked to prove whether I have an apple in my hand, I can do so for all practical purposes by opening my hand and showing the apple that I’m holding. Nobody claims that the apple could just be an illusion, that perhaps our whole existence is merely a dream or a simulation. When somebody asks me to “prove” that I have an apple in my hand, they are merely asking for compelling evidence that I have an apple in my hand, and I can provide that compelling evidence simply by showing the apple.

Similarly, if asked to prove that I don’t have an apple in my hand, once again I can provide compelling evidence simply by opening my hand and showing that it is empty. This is what most people mean and expect when discussing proof in everyday life, and requiring something beyond compelling evidence when discussing the existence of God is nothing more than a dodge on the part of those people who know full well that they cannot provide any compelling evidence for their assertion. So the real question is not whether the existence or nonexistence of God can be “proved” but instead whether any compelling evidence can be provided as to its existence or not. 

2. Is the Burden of Proof the Same between Theists and Atheists? 

So, just how heavy is the burden of proof when it comes to providing compelling evidence for the non-existence of God and is it really the same as the burden of proof when it comes to providing compelling evidence for the existence of God? The answer to this can be summed up in a phrase made popular by the astronomer Carl Sagan, to wit: “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." When somebody makes an extraordinary claim (such as, say, that there exists an omnipotent, omniscient, and all-loving intelligent being who created the universe, appeared before various people, provided moral guidelines, performed all sorts miracles, made lots of promises about future events, etc.), the burden of proof becomes extraordinarily high.

It’s not enough, for example, to simply provide an argument that suggests that something must be responsible for the formation of the universe or to claim that, since “science” can’t currently explain some aspect of the natural world that therefore the particular God somebody happens to worship “must be” (or even “possibly could be”) the actual explanation. It’s not enough to point to anecdotal stories of people who occasionally received something they prayed for (especially when ignoring all the times they didn’t get what they prayed for). It’s not enough to point out cases where holy scriptures written by ignorant and superstitious Bronze Age desert tribesmen supposedly mention something that, if interpreted in just the right way, kind of, sort of reflect knowledge that people living at that time may not have been able to discover on their own (especially when ignoring all the rest of the text that completely disagrees with what we now know about the universe). Theists who claim that God exists have a very, very large burden of proof to provide compelling evidence that the God that they actually worship (as opposed to some sort of “hidden” God who created the universe and is now wholly imperceptible by any means) does, in fact, exist.

And what of the burden of proof for those of us who claim that no such God exists? Given the extraordinary high burden of proof theists bear in the first place, all we need do is point out that the sort of God actually worshiped by theists would necessarily leave behind plenty of compelling evidence of its existence, which makes the lack of any such compelling evidence is, in itself, compelling evidence that such a God does not exist (see Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence). If further compelling evidence is required, we need only point out the logical contradictions inherent with the theistic concept of God in the first place (see The Logical Impossibility of God).

Now, keep in mind that atheism does not exist in a vacuum, but is instead a response to a claim made by theists. Atheists didn’t just come up with the idea one day that “no gods exist” and then start running around telling everybody this. Instead, it was theists who made the original claim that gods do exist and then tried to covert everybody else to their belief. Which is to say that, even if an atheist does bear some burden of proof for claiming that no gods exist, that in no way removes the much larger burden of proof that theists bear. For more on this, see Atheism Without Theism?.

Another thing to keep in mind when weighing the relative burden of proof is that there’s a difference between denying something for which there is compelling evidence and denying something for which there is no compelling evidence. If somebody claimed, for example, that the moon was an illusion and didn’t really exist, then that person would bear a pretty hefty burden of proof to back up that claim since there is plenty of well-accepted evidence that the moon does, in fact, exist (we can see it, we have measured how it affects the tides, we have actually landed on it, etc.). Compare that with somebody who responds to a claim that a 10-mile wide cloaked alien spacecraft is currently hovering over downtown Manhattan, poised to obliterate the Empire State Building, by claiming that no such craft exists because there is absolutely no evidence of it even possibly existing (let alone actually existing). Sure, the person denying the existence of the moon and the person denying the existence of the cloaked spacecraft are both making a claim, but the burden of proof is not equal between these two claims. Similarly, atheists are not in the position of denying something for which there is compelling evidence, but instead in the position of denying something for which there is no compelling evidence, and as a result their burden of proof is much less than theists would have us believe.

Some theists, by the way, attempt to wiggle out of their burden of proof by saying that they merely “believe” in God without actually “claiming” or “asserting” that God exists (much the same, supposedly, as how many atheist claim that “lack of belief in God” is not the same as “asserting that God doesn’t exist”). Sure, there are undoubtedly some theists who don’t actually claim that God exists just as there are some atheists who actually do claim that God does not exist, but the typical dynamic is for theists to claim that God does, in fact, exist (and they have evidence and arguments to prove it), since most theists apparently understand how irrational it would be to believe in something you don’t actually claim exists in the first place. Seriously, how ridiculous would it be to go around saying stuff like, “I believe that grass is green and rain is wet, but I’m not actually claiming that grass is green and rain is wet”?

---

The point of all this is that many atheists have allowed themselves to be convinced that the “burden of proof” is a bad thing that should on no account ever be accepted when it comes to the existence of God, and this just allows theists to claim that, while it may not be possible to prove that God does exist, it’s just as impossible to prove that God doesn’t exist and therefore atheists are as equally irrational as theists for believing in something that cannot be proved. Once we realize, however, that “proved” in this context just means “has compelling evidence to support” and that the burden of proof on theists is significantly higher than that on atheists, we should stop being afraid of the burden of proof and feel confident asserting without reservation that no God of any sort worshiped by anybody actually exists.

Oh, and with regard to the so-called “Deist” God who created the universe and then promptly disappeared without a trace:

Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

What Constitutes “Evidence” of God

A common refrain from atheists, especially when asked to explain why they don’t believe in God, is that there is just no evidence to support a rational belief in God. Not that there’s no proof, mind you, but no evidence. And this seems to cause quite a lot of consternation for many theists who like to think of themselves as rational and who are quite convinced that there is, in fact, plenty of evidence to support their quite rational belief in God.

[Now, granted, there are some theists who are perfectly willing to admit there is actually no evidence for the existence of God, but they don’t care since for them it’s all about faith. But that’s a topic for another day.]

So, how do we reconcile this conflict between the claims of evidence vs. the claims of no evidence? Surely it’s a binary proposition and there either is or there isn’t evidence for God’s existence, right? And therefore, one side must be right and the other side must be wrong, right?

Well, not quite. It all comes down to what somebody actually accepts as evidence in the first place, and this includes how one defines the term as well as how high or low you set the bar with your standard of evidence. It's probably better to say that atheists lack belief due to an absence of good evidence rather than an absence of any evidence, despite the fact that some atheists refuse to even concede this much and claim that any evidence that doesn't meet their standards doesn't even count as evidence in the first place.

Regardless of whether the issue is what constitutes “good” evidence or what can even be considered evidence in the first place, though, the underlying requirements are the same:

• Good evidence is objective in the sense that it is or can be experienced by anybody equally, given the same circumstances. As such, personal spiritual experiences do not constitute good evidence since, by their very nature, they are personal and cannot be directly experienced by others.


• Good evidence can be independently verified and replicated. As such, so-called “anecdotal evidence” such as stories of miraculous occurrences and third-hand accounts does not constitute good evidence since they can't be verified.


• Good evidence provides affirmative support for a proposition and doesn't just attack supposed counter propositions. As such, any of the many supposedly logical arguments for the existence of God do not actually constitute good evidence for the existence of God insofar as they take the form of “Science doesn't have a comprehensive explanation for some phenomena (the origin of the universe, the origin of life on earth, the apparent design in nature, etc.) and therefore it's more likely that God did it.” For more on this point, see Lack of a Better Explanation Is Not Evidence for Your Explanation.

Again, some atheists will claim that any evidence that doesn't meet these criteria isn't “really” evidence at all. And some theists will claim that these criteria are arbitrary or unimportant and their “evidence” is just as valid. But the point of this post is to point out that when theists and atheists argue about evidence they may not actually be talking about the same thing.

Lack of a Better Explanation Is Not Evidence for Your Explanation

I have touched upon this in previous posts (see God of the Gaps and The Argument from Design, for example), but time and again we see theists offering as evidence (or even as “proof”) for the existence of a god of some sort the supposed fact that science is unable to explain something. Whether it be the origin of the universe itself, the origin of life on this planet, the apparent complexity of life, the existence of consciousness, or what have you, the argument is made over and over (and over) again that this supposed inability of science to explain something somehow “moves the needle toward,” “provides evidence of” or even “proves the existence of” some sort of creator or designer.

Now, aside from the fact that most people who make these sorts of assertions are typically ignorant as regard to what science actually says about the supposedly inexplicable mysteries and are instead just parroting talking points they have heard from other theists, the crucial point that gets ignored by these people is that the simple fact (if true) that science cannot currently explain something, whether it be the origin of the universe, the origin of life on earth, how consciousness works, or what have you, does not, by itself, in any way whatsoever “point to the existence of a creator,” since we have absolutely zero independent evidence whatsoever that a “creator” actually exists or even could exist.

Claiming that our inability to explain something is somehow evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence is the very definition of the Argument from ignorance fallacy. For example:

• “I saw a shadowy figure out of the corner of my eye that science can’t explain — it must be a Ghost!” Wrong, unless you can first show that ghosts do, or at the very least possible can, exist. If you have no independent evidence for ghosts, there’s no way that ghosts can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• “I saw a light in the sky moving in a manner that science can’t explain — it must be an alien spacecraft from another star system!” Wrong again, unless you can first show that aliens from other star systems are, or at the very least possible could be, visiting are planet. If you have no independent evidence that aliens from other star systems are visiting us, then there’s no way that aliens can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• “Life originated on earth some 3.5 billion years ago and science can’t explain how it happened — it must be the result of God who created the universe!” Wrong, wrong, wrong, unless you can first show that such a creator does, or even possible could, exist in the first place. If you have no independent evidence for such a creator, there’s no way that a creator can be the best (or even a possible) explanation.
  


• Etc., etc., etc.

To reiterate, lack of an explanation cannot, by itself, be evidence for some other explanation if that other explanation has no other evidence to support it.

---

On a related note, those who assert a god of some sort as the best explanation for something fail to understand that they are actually just offering a proposed answer to the problem and not actually an explanation. If “God did it,” how did He do it? Where did God come from? What is God made of, if not matter or energy? What does it actually mean to exist “outside of space and time”? What is it, exactly, about God that lets Him be the “Uncaused Cause” or “Prime Mover”?

No explanation. Just an assertion that leads to lots of additional unanswered questions.

Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

In most of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence. 

With such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God. The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way, does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.

Well, that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist), but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I claim to be able to know anything.

First of all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God, whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually supported by the history of modern Deism:

Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.

— Deism - Wikipedia

In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.

Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. Every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design), the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no independent evidence.

There have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal attempts:

• God of the Gaps
• The Argument from Design
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Fine Tuned Universe

To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to incorrect conclusions.

Finally, even if the Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly exist. For more on this, see:

• Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless
• The Logical Impossibility of God

Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.

No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist

One odd question that occasionally gets asked by theists is how one can possibly be an atheist when science hasn’t yet (or can’t possibly have) explored the entire universe. The presumption being, apparently, that atheists shouldn’t be so confident that God doesn’t exist when there are distant parts of the universe where, what, God could be hiding? Well, let me just say this about that:

First of all, the majority of atheists don’t actually claim to know that God doesn’t exist, only that they don’t believe God exists. This lack of belief could be the result of never being exposed to or raised with a belief in the whole God concept in the first place, it could be a rejection of claims made by theists due to a lack of convincing evidence, or what have you. To be an atheist you don’t need to know or claim to know that God doesn’t exist, just not believe that God exists. But, hey — there are certainly some atheists who are confident enough to say that they have considered the evidence for God’s existence, as well as the evidence against his existence, and are as sure that God doesn’t exist as they are sure about anything else in life (e.g., that they are conscious, that the earth rotates and revolves around the sun, that they only have one head, etc.). I should know, since I am one of these atheists.

Second of all, even if you are only talking about atheists like me who claim to “know” that God doesn’t exist, the God we are talking about is the exact same God that all the various world religions talk about. You know, the God that actually is described in various holy scriptures, the God that supposedly performs miracles, the God that supposedly provides objective morality, the God that answers prayers, the God that rewards us for following his word and punishes us for not doing so, etc. In other words, the God that — regardless of your religion — actually manifests itself right here where we all happen to live in this incredibly vast, vast universe. Whether or not there is some being that could somehow be described as a “God” in some distant corner of the universe, perhaps even wholly outside the observable universe, that “God” could not possibly be the God that we are talking about here.

But what about the so-called “Deist” God that merely created the universe and then left it (and, by extension, us) to its own devices? Shouldn’t we hard-core atheists withhold judgment on that God since it actually might be hiding somewhere out there? And the answer is a resounding “no” for a number of reasons:

• The “Deist” God has it’s origin in the same holy books and religious traditions as all the theist Gods. It’s just that, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together [“Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.”].^[1] Which is to say that if we can dismiss all the theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.


• Speaking of pseudo-intellectual gloss, every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design) argument, the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no evidence.


• Aside from being wholly irrelevant and unnecessary, the Deist God is also, by definition, wholly incapable of being detected. Which is to say that, even if there were such a being, it wouldn’t matter if we did explore the entire universe since such a God would not be able to be found.

[1] Deism - Wikipedia

The Note Paper of Barry

1. Behold, this is the Note Paper of Barry.
2. For verily, it was written by Barry.
3. Now, I say unto you that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.
4. Yea, and everything written by Him is completely true.
5. "But," the fool might ask in his heart, "how can I know that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible"?
6. Behold! This Note Paper says He is, and everything written on this Note Paper is completely true.
7. "But," the unwise might ask in his heart, "how can I know that everything written on this Note Paper is completely true"?
8. Verily, I say unto you, this Note Paper was written by Barry, who is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.

---

[Just in case anybody doesn’t get the joke, some Christians claim that the Bible is the infallible, perfect word of God, which we can know is true because it says so right there in the Bible. Oh — and we know that God is infallible and incapable of lying because it says that in the Bible as well. So if we know the Bible is true because it is the word of God, and we know it is the word of God because the Bible says it is…]

The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

I have previously discussed some of the classic arguments offered to “prove” the existence of God, including The Argument from Design, The Cosmological Argument, The Fine Tuned Universe and Pascal’s Wager, so I figured I should briefly touch on the so-called “Ontological” argument for the sake of completeness. I have avoided talking about this argument in the past because (a) as originally formulated the argument seems so laughably inadequate that it really doesn’t bear much discussion and (b) modern formulations of the argument add so much jargon and technical word-play that it can be very difficult to even understand what the argument actually is by the time you finish reading it. I will admit, however, that the original ontological argument was seen as significant enough in the past that numerous famous philosophers such as Kant, Hume and even Saint Thomas Aquinas took the time to object to it, so perhaps it’s not as laughably inadequate as it appears to me.

As originally formulated by theologian and philosopher Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), the ontological argument is as follows:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

He later restated this same argument slightly differently:

1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
5. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
6. God exists in the mind as an idea.
7. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.

As we all know (or should know by now) an argument is only as good as its premises, and a perfectly valid argument can be completely unsound if the premises are not actually true.

The first premise of the ontological argument is that, by definition, God is the greatest possible being that can be imagined. This sinks the entire argument right from the start, since it is defining God as “the greatest possible thing that can be imagined” without actually providing any empirical evidence that this is the case. It is also setting up a wholly circular argument by arbitrarily defining God as a being that embodies the very characteristic that will later be used to prove His existence. You might as well define “unicorns” as “the beings responsible for the color blue” and then claim that the existence of the color blue is therefore proof that unicorns exist. This is simply defining God into existence, since we don’t actually know what God is like even if He were to exist and it basically amounts to an argument that states, “God, by definition, exists; therefore He exists.”

The second premise that a being that exists (or “necessarily exists,” if you prefer) is more perfect than one that doesn’t exist is yet another assertion without any evidence to support it. How does one even define “perfect” in the first place? If I want to go all Platonic, should I start claiming that the “perfect” concept of a chair, to which all actual chairs are merely compared to in our mind, must somehow actually exist somewhere or else it can’t actually be “perfect”? Of course not. “Perfection” is, in many cases, an ideal that does not actually exist and there is no requirement to think that something must exist in order to be considered perfect. Just asserting that something that exists is “more perfect” than something that is only a concept doesn’t make it so.

Aside from the fact that this entire argument is nothing more than an attempt to define God into existence, however, this argument suffers from the same problem as many of the other arguments I mentioned above. To wit, at most all these arguments can possibly prove is that some sort of supreme being exists and not the actual “God” that is actually worshiped by those who would use these argument to prove their God’s existence. The God supposedly proved by these arguments is not the God that answers prayers, performs miracles, provides revelation, rewards the faithful, punishes sinners, gives us a set of objective morals, tells us the way to live our lives, etc. It is a nebulous description of God that could apply equally to the God worshiped by any religion, and therefore cannot be used to prove the existence of the God worshiped by any specific religion. It’s the ultimate bait and switch.

Which is Easier to Believe, that Life Was created by God or by Chance?

OK, this question gets asked a lot by theists in a lot of different ways. At its core, it’s simply a form of the classic “Argument from Design” that I addressed here:

The Argument from Design

But let’s look at this from a slightly different perspective, shall we?

Time and again, we see theists claiming that it is just too improbable or inconceivable to imagine that life could have originated “by chance” and therefore the most reasonable explanation is that it was created by the omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God described by the particular religion of which they happen to be a member.

Unfortunately for theists, the life we see on earth is far from what we would actually expect to see if it were actually created by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God, the way we would expect to see a finely crafted watch from a master watchmaker. Instead of perfection and fine craftsmanship, we see eyes that have blind spots, vestigial organs that occasionally burst open and kill us, cells that periodically start reproducing uncontrollably (cancer), a propensity for genetic flaws that cause all sorts of diseases such as Downs Syndrome and Tay-Sachs disease, a whole system that gradually breaks down as you get older, etc., etc., etc. So much for “fine craftsmanship,” eh?

And that’s just the human condition! Sure, it’s pretty amazing that plants and animals so closely depend on each other for survival and it’s so cool that bees are attracted to beautiful flowers who need the bees to spread their pollen. What a great design! How perfect! But then you also have the fact that there are parasites that have to lay their eggs in living hosts so their larva can hatch and eat their way out to survive. Not quite so beautiful and perfect. And then there’s the whole predator/pray relationship where some animals have to brutally kill other animals to survive (and the prey animals have to be brutally killed in order to not overpopulate and starve to death). And don’t forget that the rest of the animal kingdom also gets nasty diseases and suffer accidents and experience pain and agony. Oh, look — A Tasmanian Devil with face cancer:

[Where’s the perfect design in all of that?]

As a result, theists find themselves in the position of coming up with a whole bunch of additional justifications and rationalizations as to why life is so flawed when it was supposedly created by a perfect being, including one or more of the following:

• All of nature used to be perfect before Adam sinned and caused the entire universe to enter a fallen state. Which means, what, God is a sadistic bastard who set up a system whereby ALL OF NATURE would need to suffer for the sins of one person instead of just punishing that one person?
• God specifically gave us these flawed bodies to provide us with obstacles in life to be overcome or to test our faith or some other reason known only to him because he works in mysterious ways. And I guess all those cute, furry animals that die horrible agonizing deaths also have important lessons to learn as well, huh?
• It doesn’t matter whether life is flawed right now, since life is but a twinkling of an eye compared to all eternity and we’ll all have perfect bodies in the next life.
• “You are assuming the human body can be better designed under these circumstances. Maybe it can’t. You are also assuming it is not a work in progress. You can probably imagine the first watches were not fine tuned machines.” [An actual response I received from a theist, who apparently thinks an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect being needs theists like him to make excuses for His shoddy workmanship and who doesn’t understand what “omnipotent” actually means.]

It doesn’t matter what your personal favorite justification is. The point is that, despite what theists claim, the evidence of our senses does not automatically give us reason to believe in the sort of God that most theists claim to believe in (omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect) and theists MUST tack on other conditions for which there is no evidence.

Naturalism (or “atheism”, if you insist), on the other hand, requires no such additional caveats and conditions and justifications to be believable. We know from observation that there are natural laws that govern how the universe works. And, although we may not have perfect knowledge of every natural law, there is no reason not to believe that those laws can explain every single observed phenomenon, including the origin of life itself.

So, which is easier to believe? That the natural world evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe, or that the natural world was designed by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God who, for some reason we can’t quite figure out, decided to make the world look as if it had evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe? My money is on the former.

---

One final thought. To many theists, there are only two options — either life was created “by God” or else it happened “by chance.” And “by chance” apparently means completely randomly, entirely by coincidence, etc. This is a false dichotomy, however. “By chance” in this context simply means without being directed by any sort of intelligence, yet still according to natural laws that guide and constrain the outcome.

Is God’s Will Simple to Understand?

[Recently, on a forum I frequent, somebody asked, "Would God require scholars and complicated texts to understand him, or is his will so simple anyone can understand?" Most of the answers I read seemed to assume that the person asking the question was specifically referring to the Christian God, and they all talked about how it was very simple indeed to know God’s will and proceeded to provide the key Biblical scriptures that one needs to read in order to understand God’s will (ironically, each answer quoted different scriptures).

Anyway, rather than assuming which God the OP was asking about, I thought I’d give a slightly broader, more nuanced, response. In my own inimitable style, of course…]

---

Of course God’s will is simple to understand! After all, He loves all of us and really wants us all to know His will so we can return to Heaven and worship Him for all eternity, right? What sort of monster would require us to know His will in order to avoid eternal torment and then not make it simple to understand His will?

Anyway, here are the six easy steps to know God’s will in all things:

1. First of all, you just need to decide which of all the many gods worshiped throughout human history is the one true God in the first place. Zeus? Odin? Amun-Ra? Marduk? Quetzalcoatl? Ba’al? Amaterasu-Ōmikami? Tāne? Vishnu? Ahura Mazda? Jehovah (a.k.a. Allah)? Each God has different attributes and offers a different path to salvation (not to mention has different holy books written about Him/Her/It), so it’s vitally important you select the right one. OK, so it’s probably not one of the Gods worshiped by ancient civilizations*, but at the very least you will need to pick between the God of the so-called “Abrahamic” religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), the God of Hinduism, the God of Zoroastrianism, the God of Sikhism, etc. Still, it’s probably whichever God your parents just so happen to believe in**, so that’s easy enough.
   
   * We all know what a bunch of ignorant and superstitious people those ancients all were, am I right?
   
   ** What an amazing coincidence!
   
   
2. Then, once you've figured out which is the one true God, decide which of the various religions worshiping that God is the one true faith in that God. If you’ve opted for, say, Jehovah/Allah, then you would simply need to decide whether Judaism, Christianity or Islam is the one true faith. Each main religion has very different ideas of what their chosen God wants us to do, so once again it’s vitally important to pick the right religion. After all, what if you pick Judaism and it turns out that the bit about Christ was true after all? Or what if you pick Christianity and it turns out that Muhammad actually was God’s final prophet? What if you dutifully pray toward Mecca five times each day and it turns out that God really wanted you to observe the Sabbath once a week instead? Again, though, it’s probably whichever God your parents happened to believe in, right? Lucky you for being born into the right family and the right culture and the right country, eh? Pity about everybody else who wasn’t so lucky, but what can you do?
   
   
3. Next, once you’ve figured out which is the correct religion, decide which of the many, many denominations of that religion is the correct one. If, say, you picked Christianity as the one true faith, just figure whether the correct denomination is Catholics, Episcopalians, Latter-day Saints (a.k.a. Mormonism), Baptists, Born Again Christians, Seventh-day Adventists, Pentecostals, Methodists, Shakers, Quakers, Lutherans, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Church of Christ, etc. Keep in mind that each denomination interprets the holy scriptures in a different way, and one denomination’s “salvation comes by grace alone” is another denomination’s “faith without works is dead.” A little harder here, since people do tend to convert from one denomination to another and you may not be able to rely on the denomination your parents belonged to. But, still — it can’t be that hard to know which one is the right one, can it? No pressure, though — it’s not like the fate of your everlasting soul depends on it or anything*.
   
   * Oh, wait…
   
   
4. OK, now that you’ve figured out which is the correct denomination of the correct religion of the correct God, you may also need to decide which particular sect of that denomination really knows what God’s will is. For example, if you selected Baptist as the correct denomination of the correct religion of the correct God, you will now have to decide whether the correct sect is Southern Baptist Convention, National Baptist Convention, Nigerian Baptist Convention, National Missionary Baptist Convention of America, National Baptist Convention of America, Baptist Union of Uganda, Baptist Community of Western Congo, Baptist General Convention of Texas, Baptist Convention of Tanzania, Brazilian Baptist Convention, Progressive National Baptist Convention, Baptist Bible Fellowship International, American Baptist Churches, Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, Baptist Community of the Congo River, National Primitive Baptist Convention of the U.S.A., Myanmar Baptist Convention, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, Baptist General Association of Virginia, Baptist Convention of Kenya, Council of Baptist Churches in Northeast India, Nagaland Baptist Church Council, Korea Baptist Convention, Samavesam of Telugu Baptist Churches, Orissa Evangelical Baptist Crusade, National Baptist Convention (Brazil), Church of Christ in Congo–Baptist Community of Congo, Baptist Convention of Malawi, Garo Baptist Convention, Convention of Philippine Baptist Churches, Ghana Baptist Convention, Union of Baptist Churches in Rwanda, American Baptist Association, Baptist Missionary Association of America, Conservative Baptist Association of America, National Association of Free Will Baptists, Convention of Visayas and Mindanao of Southern Baptist Churches, Manipur Baptist Convention or Baptist Community in Central Africa. Again, each sect is bound to interpret the main doctrine of the denomination in a different way unique to their own culture. I know this sounds daunting, but I’m sure if you pray to God and ask Him (or Her or It), She/He/It will be happy to let you know. Just make sure you pray sincerely (just like everybody else) and I’m sure God won’t steer you wrong*.
   
   * Just because God apparently steered wrong everybody who picked a different sect than you doesn’t mean He would ever steer you wrong. After all — you’re special! Billions and billions and billions of people on the earth since the beginning of time and all desperately hoping to know what God’s will really is. But they weren’t all special like you are, so it’s OK.
   
   
5. Now that you’ve selected the correct sect of the correct denomination of the correct religion of the correct God, go pick the congregation you think has the most knowledgeable preachers and teachers. After all, the Southern Baptist church down the street may be full of budding heathens and atheists or just ignorant folks who don’t really understand the word of God. At this point, you’re almost there, so you can be sure that God wouldn’t steer you toward the wrong congregation. Just go with whichever one makes you feel the most comfortable and be assured that God has directed you (and you alone, among all the billions of his children, because you are just so danged special*) to the right place.
   
   * Did I mention just how very special and lucky you are? I mean, just think of the odds! Seriously, you should go out and play the lottery right now.
   
   
6. Finally, once you’ve selected the right congregation of the right sect of the right denomination of the right religion of the right God, all you need to do now is figure out which of the many preachers and teachers within that congregation actually understands what the holy book of that religion actually means. Sadly, each individual preacher or teacher will likely have their own interpretation, so it’s vitally important that you only listen to the one who has it 100% right. Should you shun homosexuals or welcome them? Should you donate money to homeless people or is that just encouraging bad habits? Do women really need to be subject to their husbands’ will or not? Is it enough to just accept Jesus into your heart, or do you actually need to do good deeds and repent for your sins? Is it really harder for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle, or is that just a metaphor? Does “turn the other cheek” mean you can’t own a gun for self-defense? Did God really just promise to “answer prayers” (and sometimes the answer is “no”) or did he actually promise to give “whatsoever we ask for in faith”? Is lusting after a woman in your heart really the same as committing adultery, or was Jesus just being metaphorical again? What’s the best way to “love thy neighbor as thyself” while still preventing transgender people from using the bathroom they feel most comfortable in? Is it OK to vote for somebody who claims to share your values if he talks about sexually assaulting women, mocks disabled people and lies all the time? What, actually, would Jesus do? And so on and so forth.

See? Easy as pie!

No, All Theists Do Not Worship the Same God

Despite the fact that there are many thousands of different religions and sects within those religions, each with their own unique take on what, exactly, “God” is and how He acts (or what, exactly, “gods” are and how they act, for the various polytheistic religions out there), time and again I keep seeing people claim that “it’s all the same God” or that “all theists worship the same God, even if they call Him by a different name.”

Now, growing up as a Christian (a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and being taught that the Bible was literally true, this claim was pretty much required in order for the religion as a whole to make any sort of sense. After all, the Bible clearly talks about one God who create the Earth and everything else, so there can’t possibly be any other gods out there. And, since the Biblical timeline is supposed to trace back to the beginning of human civilization, the only choice is to assume that every other ancient religion (Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Sumerian, etc.) was actually somehow a corruption of this original true faith in the one God of the Bible. Historical and archaeological evidence to the contrary be damned, that’s our story and we’re sticking with it, since to do otherwise would be to admit that other civilizations talked about completely different “gods” long before the events in the Old Testament (including the creation of the world) ever took place. OK, so while this view is not actually supportable by evidence, I can understand why people would cling to it.

A completely different claim, however, is often made that the three so-called “Abrahamic” religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) all worship the same God, despite the fact that most of the actual devout members of each of those three religions would probably not agree with this claim. All three religions, the argument goes, all have their roots in the Old Testament, each one building upon that basic concept of God and therefore all actually worshiping the same God when you get right down to it. In fact, it is often said, the word “Allah” in Arabic simply means “the God” and this is a reference to the God described in the Bible.

Except… this really doesn’t make much sense. Just because all three religions have a concept of God that can be traced to the same root, the interpretations and extra information added on by each religion is so great as to render the resulting concept of God wholly unrecognizable from one religion to the next. Yes, both Christians and Muslims claim to worship the God described in the Old Testament, but they have changed the core definition of that God so much as to produce an entirely different concept of God.

One big is example is the core Christian concept that Jesus Christ is divine (i.e., that Jesus is, in essense, an aspect of God). You can’t have Christianity without Christ, and the fact of Jesus’s atoning sacrifice is what evidences the divine mercy that is an essential part of God’s very nature. Jews, however, will absolutely not accept that Jesus was the literal son of God, let alone that he is actually an intrinsic part of God. The Jewish concept of God simply will not allow God to have a human component, and the idea of an atoning sacrifice to provide salvation to humanity is a foreign concept. As soon as Christians took the Jewish notion of God and added Jesus to that notion, it ceased to be the same God. Similarly, the fact that Muslims do not accept Jesus as divine (“just” another prophet) means that they do not actually worship the same concept or description of God, regardless if they claim that their belief derives from Biblical sources.

[Thought experiment: Take a 2010 Honda Civic coupe. Chop the frame and add some steel to lengthen it. Hack at the body and rework the pillars until you can fit two more doors so it’s now a sedan. Remove the 4-cylinder naturally aspirated gasoline engine and replace it a 6-cylnider supercharged diesel engine. Convert it to all-wheel drive. And then remove all the badges and replace them with ones that say “Smith Motors.” Now, take this car and put it side-by-side with a brand new 2017 Honda Civic Coupe and try to justify claiming that they are basically the same car. Sure, they can both trace their roots to the same original model and style of car, but are they really still the same?]

So, then, why do people keep insisting that all Abrahamic faiths do, in fact, worship the same God? Well, some of these folks are legitimate scholars of comparative religions and are merely pointing out the historical fact that each later religion claimed to be based on the previous ones. But that’s not really the same thing as “worshiping the same God,” though, is it? Or that each religion has the same understanding of God’s essential nature? As far as I can tell, the answer is no, and that’s because legitimate religious scholars (many of whom aren’t even religious themselves) often don’t have an agenda or an axe to grind.

In my experience, however, there is another group of people who make the claim that all Abrahamic faiths worship the same God, however. These are not serious, impartial religious scholars, but instead appear to be deeply religious individuals, usually of the Christian or Islamic persuasion. And their assertion that all Abrahamic faiths worship the same God seems to be a direct response to the issue raised time and again by atheists that, since there are so many different Gods worshiped by so many different religions, the likelihood of any one God being the true God is not very high. “It doesn’t matter that there are so many different religions,” they will claim, “since they all basically worship the same God.” And this appears to be nothing more than an attempt to perpetuate the false “theist vs. atheist” dichotomy I explored in a previous post:

The issue isn't "Theists vs. Athsists" but "Theists vs. Everybody Else."

As long as these believers can argue that all theists are somehow presenting a unified front when it comes to a belief in God, they can ignore the vast differences among the various religious beliefs and avoid needing to justify why their particular God concept is the only one worth talking about or needing to defend their beliefs against, not just atheists, but every other belief system that contradicts theirs.

Analogies Are Not Arguments

Life is like a birdbath. It's made of concrete, filled with water, and uh...birds like to splash in it. Boy, that was dumb. Life isn't anything like a bird bath…

I have noticed a recent trend here on Quora (although it has probably been going on since time immemorial) whereby theists try to prove the existence of God (or, at the very least, justify why it’s rational to believe in God) through the awesome power of analogy. Some examples of this are the following:

• "You can't see the air, but you know its around. Same goes for God."
• "You can't see electricity but you know it's around. Same goes for God."

The thing is, though, is that these are not actually arguments and are instead just analogies. Analogies are wonderful things in that they make it easier to explain and understand complex subjects. But analogies don’t actually prove anything or provide evidence of anything and are really only useful if both of the following are true:

1. The underlying concept the analogy is seeking to explain is actually a true concept to begin with.
2. The analogy is actually a good one, meaning that the comparison it makes is actually relevant (see the Garfield comic shown above for an example of a bad analogy).

The various “God” analogies described above fail for both of these reasons. First of all, they assume that God exists instead of offering any evidence to that effect and then expect the analogy to somehow convince people to accept that assumption. If you can’t first demonstrate that God exists in the first place, using an analogy to explain why His existence can’t be detected doesn’t really get you very far.

Second of all, of course, they are simply bad analogies. For example, let’s look at the “argument” that “you can’t see the air but you know it’s around” (presumably meant to prove that the same is true of God and the fact that we can’t see Him doesn’t mean He doesn’t exist). Let’s see how well our knowledge of air stacks up against theists’ supposed knowledge of God:

• We primarily know about air based on the writings of people who lived thousands of years ago, just like theists primarily know about God based on the writings of people who lived thousands of years ago. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We mostly know that air exists because people claimed to have actually seen it thousands of years ago, even though it’s completely invisible today, just like people claimed to see and talk with God thousands of years ago even though nobody sees him today. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We have hundreds of different, often conflicting, descriptions today of what air actually is and how it acts, just like theists throughout the world and throughout history have hundreds (if not thousands) of different, often conflicting, descriptions of what God actually is and how He acts. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• We are completely unable to detect air via any scientific instruments whatsoever and therefore have to accept its existence purely on faith, just like theists are completely unable to detect God via any scientific instruments and therefore have to accept His existence purely on faith. Oh, wait — that’s not true.
• Although we can occasionally detect the effect air has on the rest of the world, we can’t do so in any sort of consistent manner since “air moves in mysterious ways.” So, sometimes when we blow into a balloon it inflates, but other times it doesn’t. And sometimes when we inhale the air fills our lungs, but other times it just refuses to enter. This is just like how theists are unable to consistently detect the effect God has on the rest of the world since “God moves in mysterious ways.” So, sometimes He heals people who pray for healing, but other times He doesn’t. It’s exactly the same. Oh, wait — that’s not true.

So, yeah. Not a particularly good analogy, sorry, and definitely not any sort of argument (valid, sound or otherwise).

Trying to Make Sense of Noah’s Ark

At the time the story of Noah’s Ark was first written thousands of years ago, it actually made some sort of sense to talk about building a boat large enough to carry representative samples of each of the various kinds of animal on earth. After all, the people who wrote the story didn’t actually know about the existence of most of the different species existing on earth. Sure, they knew about camels, horses, goats, cows, sheep, wolves, cats, bears, lions, elephants, etc., but they had no idea whatsoever about, say, kangaroos and koalas, sloths, penguins, opossums, and all the rest of the animals that lived beyond their small universe of experience. So if you’re only talking about hundreds of different species instead of thousands (or millions), then it makes perfect sense to think about somebody building an ark to hold them all.

OK, so maybe not perfect sense, since you’d still have to deal with feeding them all, disposing of all their waste, and constructing such a monstrous and unseaworthy vessel in the first place using bronze age technology, but you get the point. Those are all minor issue compared to the big one of fitting millions of animals.

That was then, though. Nowadays, we are fully aware of the vast number of different animals that exist today across the globe and not even the most die-hard, blinded by faith, Young Earth Creationist would ever consider denying the existence of these animals. Nobody goes around claiming that kangaroos are a hoax perpetuated by scientists the way that they might claim that evolution is a hoax. After all, we can all go to zoos and actually see many of the animals that were completely unknown to the authors of the Noah story. So, given the fact that there truly are just way too many different species of animals that could ever possibly fit onto a single ark, even the most die-hard, blinded by faith, Young Earth Creationists have to admit that it’s just a made up story, right?

Yeah, right. And Flat-Earthers are all going to finally admit the Earth is round because NASA has provided proof that it has satellites and space stations orbiting the planet. Not gonna happen, sorry.

So, how do Biblical literalists still make sense of the story of Noah’s Ark given what we now know about the animal kingdom? Well, first of all, they claim that there were certain types of animals that Noah didn’t need to bring on board. Sea creatures, for example, could all survive in the water and many species of insects could have probably survived by hanging out on mats of floating vegetation or something similar. Forget the fact that the sudden influx of fresh water and the co-mingling of fresh and salt water would have killed off many marine creatures that have evolved to only live in fresh or salt-water environments. It all sort of makes sense, right?

Second of all, Noah only brought juvenile members of each species onto the ark. Little baby animals (even little baby dinosaurs) take up a lot less room and don’t eat nearly as much as full-grown adult animals, right? I mean, ignore the fact that this isn’t actually mentioned in the Biblical account anywhere, since it could have happened, right? Even if it did happen that way, though, we’re still talking about way too many animals to ever fit into an ark. Which brings us to…

Third, and most important of all, instead of bringing two (or, in some cases, seven) of each species of animal onto the ark, Noah brought two (or, in some cases, seven) of each “kind” of animal. Now, “kind” is not a scientific term, but Young Earth Creationists use a sort of “common sense” approach to determining what is and is not a “kind.” For example, instead of bringing representative samples of dogs, coyotes, jackals, dingos, hyenas, etc., on the ark, Noah would have just brought a pair of some “dog-like” creature (perhaps similar to a wolf). Similarly, instead of bringing lions, tigers, jaguars, ocelots, lynxes, etc., Noah just brought a pair of “cats.”

So, yeah — perfectly sensible, right?

Except… no. The problem with this explanation is that it requires the speciation of thousands and thousands of different “kinds” to occur over the last 4000 years at a speed which would make an evolutionary biologist blush in embarrassment and without anybody actually noticing it happening (Young earth Creationists love to attack things like evolution by claiming it has never been observed, but then they are perfectly willing to accept this).

Just to out this into perspective, after the ark landed at Mt. Ararat, the descendants of this breeding pair of “felines” would have had to rapidly speciate to produce all the different types of cats we see today. Yes, one breeding pair of “cat” was responsible for all the Lions, Tigers, Jaguars, Panthers, Leopards, Ocelots, Lynxes (Canadian, Iberian and Eurasian), House Cats (all the different breeds), Snow Leopards, African Golden Cats, Asian Golden Cats, Bobcats, Caracals, Chinese Desert Cats, Clouded Leopards, Fishing Cats, Servals, African Wild Cats, Andean Mountain Cats, Black-footed Cats, Bornean Bay Cats, European Wild Cats, Flat-headed Cats, Geoffroy’s Cats, Iriomote Cats, Jaguarundi, Jungle Cats, Kodkods, Leopard Cats (different from leopards, mind you), Marbled Cats, Margays, Oncillas, Pallas Cats, Pampas Cat, Pumas (a.k.a Mountain Lions or Cougars), Rusty Spotted Cats and Sand Cats. And all this happened in the last few thousand years or so without anybody seeing it happen.

And that’s just cats, mind you. Repeat the same process with horses (zebras, asses, etc.), dogs (wolves, foxes, coyotes, etc.) and every other “kind” of creature for which we now have many different existing species. All of this happening far more rapidly than has ever been observed in nature, and all without a single person in history ever noticing all these new species miraculously appearing overnight (“Hey — that jaguar just gave birth to an ocelot!”).

Oh, and since dinosaurs must have lived at the same time as humans, Noah also had to bring one representative pair of “dinosaurs” on the ark as well, but they were very small. And they died off right after the ark landed. Or else they lived long enough for their offspring to cover the earth with their fossils and then suddenly died off, again without anybody actually seeing it happen even though it would have been happening right in front of us during all of recorded history.

And, of course, not only would this rapid speciation have to occur without anybody ever taking note of it, but you would also need to explain how all the animals managed to travel to all the distant parts of the word where they eventually ended up. How did the Kangaroos and Koalas make it to Australia? How did the Sloths make it to South America? How did the penguins make it to Antarctica?

The only answer to all of these questions that Biblical literalists can provide is, of course, “God did it.” How could Noah build an ark big enough to carry all the necessary animals with only Bronze Age technology? God showed him how to do it. How could such a monstrosity be seaworthy? God performed a miracle and kept it afloat. How could all the different “kinds” of animals rapidly speciate and distribute themselves globally? God made it happen. Etc., etc., etc. If you want to believe this, go for it. God is a god of miracles, after all, and with God nothing is impossible (so they say). But, please, I wish people would stop trying to come up with rational-sounding and pseudo-scientific explanations for how it was all possible or how the story could possibly make any sort of sense. Just admit it was impossible and say that God can do impossible things, end of story. Stop trying to prove that your illogical and irrational beliefs are based in science and just own your beliefs for what they are.

The Demands of Justice and the Mercy of God

Back when I was a practicing Christian, one of the things I had the hardest time understanding was how a loving God could condemn any of his children to eternal torment. The standard explanations I got usually went along the lines that God doesn’t actually condemn anybody to Hell; instead people choose to go there themselves by not accepting and following God’s word. And then there would be some discussion about the importance of free will and how God can’t force anybody to be good.

Underlying this explanation, however, are the core concepts of Divine Justice and Divine Mercy. Divine Justice, it is said, is an absolute principle that demands that a price is paid for every sin. That’s just the way it is. If you sin, you need to be punished for it. However, because God loves us all so very, very much, He decided to come up with a way to let us off the hook. Since the demands of Divine Justice are so incredibly powerful, God figured out that the only way to get around those demands was to have an all-powerful being sacrifice Himself for everybody else’s sake. To, in effect, take responsibility for the sins of the entire world, to take the blame, and therefore pay the price Himself. And that is why He decided to send His only begotten Son (or send Himself, depending on what version of Christianity you adhere to) to suffer and die on the cross for us. And why would He do this? Why, because He is a loving God who believes in being merciful. After all, wouldn’t you spare your children pain and suffering if you had the power to do so?

Of course, this Divine Mercy has a catch to it. God isn’t just going to be merciful to every Tom, Dick or Harry who wants to avoid being tormented for all eternity. No, if God is going to go to all this trouble to sacrifice His Son (or Himself, if you prefer), then the least we can do is acknowledge that sacrifice and do a few small things like be baptized, pray to Him, try to keep His commandments, ask for forgiveness each and every time we make a mistake, maybe donate to His church (whichever one that actually is), etc. No big deal, right? And anybody who isn’t willing to put in that teeny bit of effort in order to be saved, well, they deserve to burn in hell for all eternity for being such ungrateful little pricks, right?

---

OK, so obviously I’m embellishing the explanation a bit. What is typically said is simply along the lines of the following:

Justice demands that our sins are punished, and God’s mercy allows us to escape that punishment if we choose to accept it.

But the implications are all there. And here’s where it all breaks down to me:

• Why does Divine Justice demand that all sins are punished? And who decided that all sins are equally punishable with eternal torment? If God created the universe and is truly omnipotent, then He made the rules in the first place and can change them as He sees fit, right? If cheating on a test warrants the same punishment as committing genocide and the punishment for both is eternal freaking torment, where’s the justice in that (“Divine” or otherwise)? Instead of providing a “loophole”, why wouldn’t a merciful God just not set up a system of ridiculously draconian and over-the-top “justice” in the first place? I’m not even talking about getting rid of punishment altogether, mind you [Christian folk really do seem to love the idea of the guilty getting their just deserts, don’t they?], but simply making the punishment fit the crime and acknowledging that no crime is worthy of eternal freaking torment!
• Even if you want to argue that the draconian justice system is OK since God has provided an easy way to avoid that justice, this ignores the fact that the vast, vast majority of humanity will never actually be able to take part of that mercy. Even if you could figure out which of all the many different Christian denominations is the “right” one to follow, for most of human history Christianity either didn’t exist or was a small minority belief. Even today, there are billions of people who are born, live their entire lives, and die without ever having the chance to hear about God’s merciful offer*. And even if they do hear the offer, no evidence whatsoever is ever provided to convince people to abandon their beliefs and switch over to the correct religion (whatever one that happens to be).

So, the bottom line is that God supposedly set up a system whereby any sin is punishable by eternal torment, and then decided “in His mercy” to create a loophole that the majority of His children would either never have a chance to accept or would have no good reason to accept, effectively condemning the vast majority of humanity to suffer in agony for all time and eternity through no fault of their own.

Gee, what a guy!

---

* I should note, by the way, that the Mormon church has come up with a way to deal with this problem. Or at least to attempt to deal with it. True, not everybody will have a chance to hear the Gospel during their lifetime, but anybody who didn’t will have another chance in the next life. And, since baptism is an absolute requirement for salvation, Mormons therefore perform many thousands of “proxy” baptisms on behalf of all those who might decide to accept the gospel in the next life. Unfortunately for this proposed solution, though, (a) I don’t think they’ll ever get all the billions of people who lived and died without hearing the Gospel and (b) that still leaves all those who heard the gospel in this life and didn’t choose to accept it for whatever reason. Mormons further get around the idea of “eternal torment” by claiming that those who reject the gospel even after hearing it won’t actually be sent to hell but will instead get to live in the “Terrestrial Kingdom” of heaven, which is basically just like earth but without all the disease and natural disasters. So, no eternal glory with God, but not a bad place to be. For all time and freaking eternity!

The Hypocrisy and Hubris of Biblical Interpretation

[Note: The following post deals specifically with the Christian religion and the Bible, since that is what I am most familiar with. Whether it applies to other religions and their holy books — and to what degree — I leave for others to decide.]

First, a few premises:

1. Christianity is ultimately based on the Holy Bible. Sure, you can say that Christianity is based on the teachings of Christ, but those teachings can only be found in the Bible. And Christianity (for most Christians, at least) extends well beyond just the words of Christ and encompasses instead all the moral laws and principles found throughout the entire Bible.
   
2. Christians, on the whole, believe that the Bible’s primary purpose is to act as a guideline to show us the path toward salvation. Only by following the laws and moral principles in the Bible can we learn about Christ, follow his commandments* and be saved. So, obviously, it is vitally important to know exactly what the Bible says and what it actually means.
   
3. Since the time the Bible was first assembled in its current form, some 1700 or so years ago, billions of people have relied on it to show them the path toward salvation.
   
4. God, according to Christian beliefs, is an omnipotent, omniscient and all-loving father who actually wants all of his children (that’s us) to learn and follow the path toward salvation. Sure, we are given free will to choose whether to follow the path or not, but the path should be clear and unambiguous enough to follow if we choose to do so.

OK, assuming those premises are more or less accurate, let’s move on to the hypocrisy and hubris part.

One trend in modern apologetics (“defending the faith” or, as I like to define it, “attempting to logically justify something that is believed for non-logical reasons,” but I digress) is to deal with supposed contradictory, scientifically impossible and/or morally reprehensible passages in the Bible by claiming that one must have special knowledge in order to understand what the passages really mean. This takes many different forms, including the following:

• One must have studied the original languages in which the Bible was written in order to understand what the passage really means.
  
• One must have a deep understanding of the socioeconomic factors that existed at the time the passage was written in order to understand what it really means.
  
• One must fully understand the culture of the people to whom the passage was addressed in order to understand what it really means.
  
• One must read the “forgotten” or “apocryphal” books of the Bible that were not included at the time it was formally assembled, but really should have been included in order to understand what the passage really means.
  
• Etc., etc., etc.

One common example of this approach is when people try to justify things like the approval of keeping slaves as stated in the Old Testament. “No, no,” they will claim, “if you look at the original Hebrew and consider the culture and socioeconomic climate at the time the Old Testament was written, you’ll see that this was actually a very good kind of slavery and not at all like the slavery you are thinking of!” This, despite the fact that these passages were actually used as justification for keeping slaves by Christians in the American South prior to (and, sadly, even after) the Civil War. Gee, what a pity those Christians didn’t have access to the original Hebrew version of the Bible. Or know how to read ancient Hebrew even if they did. Or have any way of knowing what the culture and socioeconomic climate was at the time the Old Testament was written…

Which leads me to the whole hypocrisy and hubris angle.

First, the hypocrisy. On one hand, these apologists believe that an omniscient, omnipotent and all-loving God would require his children to do certain things in order to gain salvation (and avoid eternal torment) and that the only way to learn what those things are is to read the Bible. But on the other hand, they are asserting that is no way for the vast majority of his children to actually know for sure what the words in the Bible actually mean unless they become Biblical scholars, study ancient dead languages, become experts in anthropology, etc. Especially when you take into account that, for the majority of the history of Christendom, believers were actually forbidden to read the Bible (which is why it existed solely in Latin for many centuries). So it is hypocritical to hold people to a standard that they cannot possibly meet while simultaneously claiming that it’s all part of a loving God’s plan for them.

And then, of course, the hubris. Christianity has been practiced in many forms for nigh on two thousand years. Billions of people have been born and died and have failed to understand what the Bible — the one and only guideline toward salvation — actually says. But now, two thousand years later, after all of this, here comes these apologists who are apparently the first and only of all of God’s children to finally understand it all. Just because they are so darn special, of course. And smart. Unlike all those poor deluded saps (e.g., 99.999% of humanity) who got it wrong all these years (oh, well, sucks to be them, I guess!)

OK, so maybe I’m overstating things a wee bit. But the fact remains that any time an apologist claims that they have some sort of special knowledge or training or insight that allows them to know what a Biblical passage really means, in contrast to how the vast majority of Christians have understood that same passage since Christianity began, it is hubris of the highest order. Especially if you think that God actually wanted His children to understand it all along.

---

* Yes, I am aware that many “Born Again” Christians believe that the only thing necessary for salvation is to accept Jesus.

Pascal's Wager

If memory serves, Pascal's wager was essentially as follows:

Assuming there is a non-zero chance that God exists, and assuming that the reward for believing in God (if he exists) is eternal salvation, and assuming that the penalty for NOT believing in God (if he exists) is eternal damnation, and assuming that there is no downside to believing in God even if he doesn't exist, then the only logical course of action is to believe in God.

Now, assuming that I haven't completely misrepresented Pascal's argument, here's my response. Basically, I think that all of his assumptions are false, or at least not verifiably true, To wit:

Assuming there is a non-zero chance that God exists:

Why assume that there is a non-zero chance that God exists? Given the complete lack of empirical data to prove his existence, and given the many counterarguments to his existence (the existence of evil in the world, the fact that different people have claimed to receive conflicting messages from God, the fact that many so-called "miracles" have been proven to be the result of natural forces or merely delusions, etc.), maybe there is only a one in a million chance that God exists, or perhaps a one in a billion chance. Or, perhaps even a zero chance that God exists. Pascal's wager could just as likely be used to prove the rationality of believing that a flock of pink elephants will fly into my window one night and grant my heart's fondest desires. I mean, anything’s possible, right?

Assuming that the reward for believing in God (if he exists) is eternal salvation:

What proof is there that believing in God will automatically result in eternal life, let alone eternal salvation? Different religions have different beliefs, and not all religions believe in an afterlife. Assuming there is a God of some sort, maybe he has simply created us as playthings and has no desire to let us return to his presence. Or maybe the whole purpose of life is to enjoy ourselves fully while we can, since the rest of eternity will be mind-numbing boredom as we sit on a cloud and strum a harp all day long.

Assuming that the penalty for NOT believing in God (if he exists) is eternal damnation:

Who is to say that the penalty for NOT believing is eternal damnation? Again, assuming there is a God of some sort, maybe He really doesn't care what we do here on earth. Claiming that all nonbelievers will have eternal torment and misery is pretty cruel and heartless when you think of all the BILLIONS of people who are raised in societies where a belief in God is not taught (not to mention all the BILLIONS of people who lived on the earth before the Bible was even written). God is the one who decides where and when somebody will be born, so why would he then condemn that person to Hell for never hearing about him?

Assuming that there is no downside to believing in God even if he doesn't exist:

Who's to say that there is no downside to believing in a non-existent God? Perhaps if you are a born again Christian who thinks that it is enough to simply “accept Jesus into your heart" to be saved, then this assumption is valid. The religion in which I was raised, however, taught that God demands a life of self-sacrifice and obedience; no premarital sex, no alcohol, 10% of your income donated to the church, significant amounts of time devoted to performing various tasks (attending meetings, visiting other members, preparing lessons, performing sacred ordinances, etc.). If you believe that all of this is required of you to gain the promised reward and there ISN'T really a God, you will have essentially wasted your entire life to some degree or another. Economists call this “Opportunity Cost.” This isn’t to say there can’t also be some benefits to trying to live a wholly religious life (maybe you get mutual support from other believers, maybe you have an easier time dealing with the death of a loved one, etc.), but these benefits don’t erase the potential costs.

An additional downside to believing in a nonexistent god is the sacrifice of my capacity to rationally distinguish between what is real and what is fantasy. If I'm willing to believe in God simply because it's a "safe bet", then why not also believe in UFOs, psychics, ghosts, etc.? Maybe the UFOs will only rescue those who believe in them when the day or Armageddon is at hand. Or maybe the TV psychics can only convey messages from the loved ones of those who believe in psychic powers. Or maybe ghosts only visit those who are willing to see them? Forcing myself to believe in something for which there is no evidence and plenty of counter-evidence can only diminish my ability to think rationally.

Then the only logical course of action is to believe in God:

Basically, I think the argument boils down to "the theoretical reward is so great, and the cost to play is so minimal, that it is in your best interest to play." I suppose an analogy could be made, perhaps, to one of those multi-state lotteries where the prize has risen to $300 million and the chance of wining is 1 in 100 million. If the tickets are only $1 each, it only makes sense to play, since the potential gain is enormous and the potential loss is trivial.

However, I don't think that analogy is really accurate. For a closer analogy, you would be required to sell everything that you own in order to enter the lottery with the same 1 in 100 million chance of winning. Not only that, but there are 4000 different lotteries to choose from, and — at most — one of them will not be a scam (that is, only one can possible be legitimate, but it’s possible that they are all scams). Oh — and if you lose (which is likely), your whole life would be ruined as a result.

---

To sum up, since there is no way to tell if there is any chance that God exists, and since there is no guarantee that God would reward belief with eternal life if He did exist, and since there's no guarantee that God would reward disbelief with eternal damnation, and since the penalty for believing in a nonexistent God is potentially very high, the only logical thing is to not believe in God.