The “Best” Evidence for God

I have posted on the subject of the evidence for the existence of God a few times in the past, including the following: 

• Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence 

• What Would It Take to Convince Me

• What Constitutes “Evidence” of God

But theists keep asking about why atheists don't accept the evidence for God, what would it take to convince an atheist that God exists, etc. And, since the questions always ask about “God” (as opposed to “god” or “gods”), I can only assume that the people asking these questions are Christians asking about evidence for their particular God and not just some generic notion of some sort of supreme being or divine force or creator of the universe. 

The most recent question I saw on this subject took a slightly different tact by asking, “What evidence for God is the hardest for atheists to ignore?” I honestly don’t know if this was meant as a “trick” question in an attempt to get atheists to admit that there is at least some good evidence for the existence of God (meaning, presumably, that atheists are ignoring or refusing to accept it), or whether it was an honest inquiry. Regardless of the intent of the question, however, the short answer is the same — there is no “best” evidence for the existence of God, nor any evidence that is hard (let alone “hardest”) to ignore. If there were, we wouldn’t be atheists. Despite what many theists apparently (and desperately) believe, most atheists are not atheists because we choose to ignore the evidence for God’s existence or because we secretly know in our hearts that God exists and just want to lead rebellious, sinful lives. It’s just that we really, truly don’t find any of the evidence and arguments offered to be at all convincing. 

Here’s the thing. Theists of all stripes (and, apparently, evangelical Christians in particular) love to claim that there is plenty of evidence for God to be seen all over the place, but whenever atheists actually look at what is offered it seems to vanish like the morning dew on a hot day.

Sometimes it vanishes due to having a wholly natural explanation (“The apparent design of nature is proof that God exists!” No it isn’t).

Sometimes it vanishes due to being wholly unsupported (no corroboration, no verification, etc.).

Sometimes it vanishes in a puff of logic (as when it is noted that the person offering the supposed evidence is suffering from a severe case of Confirmation Bias).

Most of the time, however, it vanishes because the offered evidence is simply not sufficient to rationally support a belief in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, intelligence that exists outside of time and space, that is not made of matter or energy, that nevertheless cares about each and every one of us and will answer our prayers (but sometimes the answer is “no”), that will reward the faithful with eternal life while punishing the majority of his beloved children with everlasting torment, etc., etc., etc.

It has been said that “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and it doesn’t get any more extraordinary than God (especially the Christian “God”). The fact that somebody prayed for a sick relative and that person got better isn’t even close to being slightly sufficient to provide even a glimmer of the evidence necessary to justify a belief in “God”. The fact that somebody “knows deep in their heart that God exists” is even less convincing. Heck — a 20-foot-tall manlike being with a white beard and a flowing robe could materialize in the middle of Times Square and, with the wave of an arm, convert all of Manhattan into a garden paradise, and it still wouldn’t even begin to approach what would be required to justify belief in the “God” most theists talk about.

I dunno. Things were a lot simpler back when theists just talked about gods of thunder and gods of the ocean and the like. It wouldn’t take much evidence to convince an atheist of the existence of one of those gods. For that matter, it wouldn’t have been difficult to provide enough convincing evidence that the God of the Old Testament existed back in the days when people thought the whole world was relatively small and that stars consisted of pinholes poked in the fabric of the night. Sadly, in their hubris, theists have continually expanded the descriptions of the their gods over the years as science has discovered more and more about the scope of the universe, to the point where their gods are necessarily so unimaginably vast and powerful that no amount of proffered evidence could ever suffice to convince most atheists that they actually existed.

Debunking God and Religion in a Single Sentence

Recently, I was challenged to provide "the most powerful argument, in one sentence, that belief in God and religion is nonsense." Now, I honestly don’t know if the person asking the question was a theist or an atheist or something in-between, but I had to laugh at the artificial stricture placed on any answers. One sentence? Why just one sentence instead of, say, a well-reasoned paragraph or two that might allow one to flesh out the argument a bit instead of just providing an easily dismissed sound bite?

[In fact, the more I think about it, the more I can’t help thinking of that old game show “Name that Tune.” “I can debunk God and religion in one sentence!”]

Anyway, there were certainly lots of ways to approach this challenge. I could, for example, have mentioned the sheer number of religions in the world and the fact that so many of them are mutually exclusive. I could have discussed the lack of any compelling evidence or sound arguments to support a belief in God. But, since the challenge was specifically to provide an argument that belief in God and religion is “nonsense” (and not just improbable or irrational), I finally decided to go with the following:

The original concepts of gods and religions were the product of ignorant and superstitious people who had little or no understanding about the world or the universe and our place in it, and just about everything else they thought they knew to be true has now been proved to be false.

Yeah, it’s a bit clunky, but that’s what you get when you expect somebody to cram an entire argument into a single sentence. Overall, though, I’m satisfied with the way it came out and I think it makes a valid point.

Of course, as expected, people immediately began taking cheap pot shots at my answer, demanding that I provide “citations” to “scientific evidence” to support my assertion that the people who first invented religions were largely ignorant about the world and the universe. Seriously? I need to prove that people living thousands of years ago, without access to any of the technology we have today, didn’t know as much about the universe as we do today?

Well, I don’t know about any “scientific evidence” of their ignorance that I can cite, but fortunately there’s this wonderful invention that actually allows me to see backwards through time and know what ancient people were thinking when first describing their gods and coming up with their religions, as well as what they thought about the universe and our place in it. And it’s an invention that has actually been around for many thousands of years.

It’s called writing.

You see, we don’t need “scientific evidence” to determine what ancient people were thinking when they first came up with their religions since they were nice enough to write it all down for us. From the ancient Sumerians who chiseled cuneiform stories into clay tablets, to the people who wrote the Bible, to the writings of the ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, to the author(s) of the Qur’an, to the recorded Edda sagas of the ancient Norse, etc., we have an abundant treasure trove of literature that clearly indicates that the people first writing about gods and religions largely didn’t have a clue about such basic things as the fact that the earth rotates on an axis, that the earth revolves around the sun, that the stars are actually other suns unimaginably far away and not, say, pinholes in the curtain of the night, that the universe is many billions of years old, that all life on earth evolved from earlier forms of life, that diseases are caused by germs, etc., etc., etc.

Add to that all the many, many, many different “creation stories” we have from all the various world religions and you don’t need “scientific evidence” to understand that religions and gods were all invented by people with limited knowledge about, well, much of anything, really. Not that they were necessarily stupid or unsophisticated, of course, but simply unaware of things that could only be known with the help of tools such as telescopes, microscopes, rockets, computers, etc.

And please, don’t start pointing out how one particular passage in one particular religion’s holy book can, if translated and interpreted in just the right way, supposedly indicates that the author may have actually understood something about the world that most ignorant people at the time it was written probably didn’t know. Especially if you are then going to completely ignore all the other passages that are obviously just plain wrong no matter how you squint your eyes at them. Seriously, don’t tell me that “Let there Be Light” is an amazingly accurate scientific description of the Big Bang and then try to explain why it doesn’t matter that the Bible also says the Earth was created before the Sun.

The Incomprehensible and/or Imperceptible God

In a previous post I wrote about the hypocrisy and hubris evidenced by people who claim to be the only ones who “really” understand what the Bible actually says (see The Hypocrisy and Hubris of Biblical Interpretation). The basic point was that it was incredibly arrogant for anybody to think that (a) God actually wants people to know what He wants people to do and (b) throughout all of human history nobody has been able to figure it out until now (meaning, of course, that billions of people in the past got it all wrong and were presumably doomed to go to Hell as a result).

On a related note, I have recently run into a similar group of incredibly arrogant theists. No, they don’t claim to understand the Bible better than anybody else. Instead, they claim to understand the essential nature of God better than anybody else. God, you see, is wholly incomprehensible to the human mind and therefore every single religion throughout history that has ever described God in any particular way just got it wrong.

For example:

As “God”, by the very nature of it’s defined and understood being, exists outside of the physical Universe, there will be no exclusively applicable, scientifically validated or accepted physical or empirical “evidence” of the existence of God.

Or this:

God is an inner experience that no words can explain. The one Creator God created all other gods (small “g”) including the ones you named. None are equal to the Creator God who created them.

The truth of God can be known only by reaching beyond the relativity of the material realm consciousness. It is an inner experience perceived when the human’s consciousness is raised to its higher mind.

Those who meditate know of the higher mind. There are no outer writings or teachings that can explain God for the conscious mind of the human and no religion is necessary for the inner experience of God. When the human is ready the teacher will appear. That teacher is the inner experience of God.

Now, as I mentioned, this appears to be just another example of people who are so full of themselves, who think they are so special, that they honestly believe that they are among the select few in the history of religion to truly understand who and what God “really” is. I’m sure it makes them feel good about themselves, but what type of person can believe in a God who actually cares about us and then thinks that billions of humans throughout history just got it wrong.

However, I think there may be more to it than just sheer arrogance. I suspect that at least part of this has to do with an acknowledgement that there really is no valid evidence to support a belief in the existence of God. And rather than just admit this, these people have decided to redefine God in a way that does not require any evidence. As with the deist notion of a non-interventionist God, however, what’s left is an empty meaningless concept of a god who doesn’t perform miracles, doesn’t promise an afterlife or salvation, doesn’t provide moral guidance, etc. It’s just yet another cop-out to justify why they can’t provide any evidence for God’s existence.

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Of course, one question that never seems to get fully addressed is how, if God is so incomprehensible, do people like this seem to know so much about Him what He wants us to do, what He can do for us, etc. Now that’s the real mystery! For example, somebody recently posed the following question to me:

If the maker of a show is not inside the shoe, why do scientists expect God to be perceivable inside the universe?

The clear implication being, of course, that the reason scientists have never been able to detect God is because He is not actually perceptible within this universe. Oh, really? The thing is, if you’re actually talking about one of the many, many gods actually worshiped by anybody throughout all of recorded human history, its not scientists who expect “God” to be perceivable but believers themselves. After all, the gods that people actually worship have not exactly been shy about showing themselves (or allowing themselves to be perceived, if you prefer) in the past, at least if you believe all the various accounts in the various holy books that provide the only source of knowledge that believers actually have regarding their gods.

It’s rather disingenuous to claim that the particular “God” you worship created the universe, performed a multitude of miracles, talked to various people, sent down representatives to interact with humans, made specific promises, provided moral guidelines for us to follow, etc., etc., etc., and then go on to claim that this “God” cannot be perceived in any way. After all, if your “God” cannot be perceived in any way, how do you even know about it in the first place?

Sure, if you define your “God” as wholly imperceptible, then science has nothing to say on the matter. But then again, neither do you. That’s what imperceptible means. On the other hand, the minute you claim to be able know anything whatsoever about your “God” (what it has said, done, promised, etc.), then you are making testable claims that should be verifiable by scientists.

Atheism in Iambic Tetrameter

In response to the frequently asked question, "Do you believe in God," allow me to provide an answer in iambic tetrameter (with sincerest apologies to Dr. Seuss, from whom I learned my craft as a wayward youth):

I do not believe in the God of the Jew.
The Christian God is fictitious, too.
I cannot accept that Allah is God,
And the Hindu deities are just way too flawed.
The ancient Egyptian gods are not real,
Nor are the Greek and Roman, I feel.
Sumerian gods are all just right out.
And the Celtic gods? They have no clout.
Thor and Odin and the other Aesir?
I just do not think that they really are here.
The Aborigines have their own pantheon,
But all of it’s rubbish! Oh boy, this is fun!
What of the Mayans and Aztecs and such?
Well, their gods do not excite me too much.
Buddha’s not a god, so he doesn’t count,
And the Asian gods will never be found.
The list could go on, there are thousands to go,
But I’ve made my point, as I’m sure you all know.
It’s all superstition and none of it’s true!
You can pray all you like ‘til your face turns bright blue.
Gods are made up, every single last one.
That's what I believe, and now I am done.

Objective vs. Relative Morality

[The following is something I came up with after being told for the umpteenth time that atheists can't be moral or can't have a basis for judging "right" from "wrong" because they can only rely on "relative" moral standards.  Unlike theists, of course, who get their "objective" moral standards straight from God.]

Morality — the system or method by which we determine whether actions are “good” or “bad” — can either be “relative” or “objective” (a.k.a. “absolute”). Objective morality is morality based on universal principles that everybody agrees on, whereas relative morality is determined differently by different groups and is subject to change over time and in different places and cultures. Now, theists and atheists alike claim to be be able to determine right from wrong, good from bad, but what type of morality can each group actually claim to have? Objective or relative?

Let’s start with atheists. Now most atheists get their sense of “right” and “wrong” from the realization that other people are human beings the same as they are, and are therefore deserving of the exact same rights and respect as themselves. “People are people” may sound like a simple tautology, but it’s objectively true and it’s the core principle that provides atheists with the objective morality that lets them condemn slavery, murder, robbery, lying, etc. Now, this isn’t to say that all atheists are good people, since we all have free will and can decide whether to be good or bad, but at least atheists have something objective by which they can make value judgments in the first place.

What about theists? Well, they tend to rely more on wholly relative morality to make value judgments for the following reasons:

• Different theists believe in different Gods, each of which is said to have given different moral laws for us to follow. So, right there, theistic morality is wholly relative according to which God you believe in.
  


• Even within a single God belief (Christianity, say), there are tons and tons of different denominations and sects who all interpret the supposed “word of God” in different ways from a purely doctrinal standpoint. So, once again, even within the Christian faith, theistic morality is wholly relative according to which particular sect or denomination you belong to.
  


• Even within a single sect or denomination, it’s pretty much guaranteed that different preachers or even individual members will have their own specific interpretations as to just what their God wants them to do. 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. Thus, theistic morality is wholly relative according to the individual beliefs of each particular theist.
  


• For theists that claim to get their morality from holy scriptures written thousands of years ago, many of the oldest commandments and moral codes from those books no longer apply today. The explanation for this is usually that those commandments were given for a specific group of people, that the culture and socio-economic conditions back then were different than they are today and/or that some sort of “new covenant” made those old commandments obsolete. It was OK to own slaves back then, but not today. It was commanded that disobedient children should be stoned to death back then, but we don’t need to follow that commandment today. Jews were required to keep kosher, but later Christians didn’t need to. All of which is to say that theistic morality can actually change over time and is wholly relative to the particular people to whom the moral commandments were given.

Now, keep in mind what I said earlier about atheists basing their morality on objective principles. Because these principles are objective, theists are capable of perceiving them as well. In fact, this is what allows, say, Christians to decide which parts of the Bible to follow in the first place and which parts should be ignored or reinterpreted away. The problem is, though, that many theists allow these objective moral principles to be overwhelmed by the teachings of their particular religion to the point where they are willing to discriminate against other people simply because this is what they have been taught is correct. Without the teachings of their religion they may never feel it right to, say, kill an infidel, or deny homosexuals the right to marry or treat other people as property. But because they have been indoctrinated to accept the relative morality provided by their religion, they end up chucking objective morality right out the window.

Now this isn’t to say that all theists are bad people or incapable of making moral judgments. After all, just because a moral principle is relative doesn’t mean it is wrong. But it does mean that their sense of right and wrong is at the whim of their religious indoctrination and this is why a lot of otherwise good people can be convinced to do some very bad things (or, as Steven Weinberg once put it, “With or without [religion] you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.” In other words, without a source of truly objective morals to rely on, theists can only do what they are told is right, regardless of whether it actually is right.

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.

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?

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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!

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* 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 Logical Impossibility of God

Is God constrained by the laws of logic?  It's an important question, and the answer seems to be, "Yes, but only when it's convenient to say that He is."

It's an old chestnut of a question, but whenever theists start talking about how their particular version of God is "omnipotent" some atheist wag will invariably ask, "If God is omnipotent, can He create a stone so massive that He can't move it?"  To which the theist will usually respond, "that's a logical impossibility and being omnipotent means being able to do anything logically possible."  OK, so no creating a stone too massive for Him to move, no creating a square circle, etc.  Got it.  And, presumably, this is because logic transcends human understanding and provides general principles of existence.  There isn't "human logic" and "God logic," there's just logic.

With me so far?

OK, now one of the fundamental principles of logic is the so-called Law of Non-contradiction, which in its basic form states that, "Contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time."  This means that the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive.  It also means that something cannot simultaneously be two opposite things.  This is why, for example, there can be no such thing as a square circle or an married bachelor since both concepts involve a self-contradiction.

So, is there anything about God's supposed nature that violates the Law of Non-contradiction?

Well, one place to start would be to examine the relationship between him supposedly being  both omnipotent (all powerful) and omnibenevolent (all loving).  This apparent contradiction was perhaps best stated by the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who put it this way:

God, he says, either wishes to take away evils, and is unable; or He is able, and is unwilling; or He is neither willing nor able, or He is both willing and able. If He is willing and is unable, He is feeble, which is not in accordance with the character of God; if He is able and unwilling, He is envious, which is equally at variance with God; if He is neither willing nor able, He is both envious and feeble, and therefore not God; if He is both willing and able, which alone is suitable to God, from what source then are evils? Or why does He not remove them?

Or, as it is commonly put:

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is not omnipotent.
Is He able, but not willing? Then He is not benevolent.
Is He both able and willing? Then whence comment evil?
Is He neither willing nor able? Then why call Him God?

So that's it, right?  The so-called "Problem of Evil" proves the logical impossibility of God since (a) Evil cannot exist if there is an omnipotent, omnibenevolent God and (b) we know from our own experience that there is, in fact, evil.  Well, not quite...

Although this argument has been sufficient to convince many people throughout history to reject the idea of God, those who cling to their beliefs have come up with numerous ways to get around the apparent contradiction:

• "Evil," they will say, "is the result of human free will, and since God values free will more than anything He allows evil."  Except, of course, this only applies to evil acts done as a result of human free will (murder, rape, robbery, etc.) and wholly ignores things like pain and suffering caused by genetic diseases, natural disasters, accidents, etc.


• "When Adam and Eve sinned against God in the Garden of Eden, the world fell into a fallen state, so all the evils in the world are a direct result of those actions."  Except, of course, this doesn't explain why God would need to punish the entire world (not to mention universe) because of the actions of two people.  Why not simply punish Adam and Eve (and all their descendants if God were feeling particularly vengeful) and leave the rest of the natural world alone?  Why make animals die horribly painful and cruel deaths just to teach us a lesson?  Wouldn't it be a more powerful lesson if everything in nature was blissfully happy except for us?  Besides, God is the one who set the whole system up in the first place, so it was his decision to make the whole universe suffer for the sins of Adam and Eve and not their free will.


• "This life is a test, and how we deal with suffering will determine our eternal fate."  Well, OK, but that seems awfully callous when applying it to, say, young children who are born with horrible genetic diseases that cause them to lead painfully short lives.  It also doesn't address all the pain and suffering throughout the rest of the natural world.


• "This life is but a twinkling of an eye when compared to all eternity, so any pain and suffering we experience while alive will seem like a mere pin-prick when compared to the rest of our existence."

And the list goes on and on.  The bottom line is that there's always some way to define "omnipotent", "omnibenevolent" and even "evil" to avoid inherent contradictions, even if the newly defined terms don't really make much sense or accord with experience.  "An all-loving God is one who lets His children have free will, not freedom from suffering."  "Pain and suffering are actually good things, not evils."  You get the idea.  As I said, a lot of people are not convinced by these rationalizations, but they do make it hard to state unequivocally that God is logically impossible solely due to the so-called Problem of Evil.

OK, how about this?  In order to create the universe, which is the totality of all time and space, God must exist outside of time and space.  Which means He must not be composed of matter or energy Himself.  But, if God is not composed of matter or energy, how can He possibly have created matter and energy in the first place and how can He continue to interact with it today?  That seems like a logical contradiction, doesn't it?

Well, not quite.  Even if we accept that God is composed of neither matter nor energy, we cannot state unequivocally that He would therefore be unable to interact with matter and energy.  In the same way that energy can interact with matter despite not being composed of matter, God could be composed of some entirely different substance (let's call it "mind" or "spirit") that can interact with matter and energy in some way we just can't understand.  Of course, we now know that energy actually is composed of matter in a very real sense, but that just means the analogy (commonly used by theistic apologists) is a bad one.  It doesn't change the fact that God logically could be composed of some other substance that allows Him to interact with matter and energy without being composed of matter or energy Himself.

OK, so the mere fact that God somehow interacts with matter and energy while being composed of neither is not, in and of itself, a logical impossibility.  I think we are getting very close, however...

In order to avoid any apparent contradictions inherent in the notion of a God who is timeless and not composed of matter or energy, Christian apologists over the years have declared that God is both "Transcendent" and "Immanent".  According to Wikipedia,  the two terms are defined as follows:

Transcendence refers to the aspect of a god's nature and power which is wholly independent of the material universe, beyond all physical laws. This is contrasted with Immanence, where a god is said to be fully present in the physical world and thus accessible to creatures in various ways. 

Or, in other words, God is both wholly apart from the material universe and wholly within the material universe. At the same time.  He is simultaneously B and not B.  His very nature is therefore in violation of the Law of Non-contradiction and He is therefore logically impossible.  Q.E.D.

Now, some will argue (and believe me, they have) that it doesn't matter if God is logically impossible since we're only talking about human logic here and God is above such things.  Well, fine, except then why do you claim that an omnipotent God can't create a rock too massive for Him to move or can't create a square circle?  Aren't those just principles of human logic as well?  It seems that if you want to apply some logical principles to God, you would have to apply all of them (not just the ones that are convenient).

It seems that theists are left with three possible responses to this:

1. They can claim that God isn't bound by anything whatsoever and therefore can actually create a rock too massive for Him to move, create a square circle, etc.  Of course, once you throw all logic out the window it becomes rather pointless to discuss anything, but some theists are apparently willing to do just this.


2. They can claim that Immanence and Transcendence aren't actually opposites despite the plain definitions of the words.  But, since the whole idea of God being both Immanent and Transcendent is a way to explain how He could create the universe and still be part of the universe, there's no real way of getting around the fact that they are, in fact, complete opposites.  A lot of theists do go down this path, but they are usually the same ones who will write dissertations on how God can simultaneously be three distinct beings and one unified being that is absolutely not made up of three distinct beings whatsoever ["We worship one God in trinity, and trinity in unity, neither confounding the persons nor dividing the substance. For the person of the Father is one; of the Son, another; of the Holy Spirit, another. But the divinity of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit is one, the glory equal, the majesty equal. Such as is the Father, such also is the Son, and such the Holy Spirit. The Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated. The Father is infinite, the Son is infinite, the Holy Spirit is infinite. The Father is eternal, the Son is eternal, the Holy Spirit is eternal. And yet there are not three eternal Beings, but one eternal Being. So also there are not three uncreated Beings, nor three infinite Beings, but one uncreated and one infinite Being. In like manner, the Father is omnipotent, the Son is omnipotent, and the Holy Spirit is omnipotent. And yet there are not three omnipotent Beings, but one omnipotent Being. Thus the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. And yet there are not three Gods, but one God only. The Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, and the Holy Spirit is Lord. And yet there are not three Lords, but one Lord only. For as we are compelled by Christian truth to confess each person distinctively to be both God and Lord, we are prohibited by the Catholic religion to say that there are three Gods or Lords. The Father is made by none, nor created, nor begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, not created, but begotten. The Holy Spirit is not created by the Father and the Son, nor begotten, but proceeds. Therefore, there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons; one Holy Spirit, not three Holy Spirits. And in this Trinity there is nothing prior or posterior, nothing greater or less, but all three persons are coeternal and coequal to themselves. So that through all, as was said above, both unity in trinity and trinity in unity is to be adored. Whoever would be saved, let him thus think concerning the Trinity."]


3. They can just wave their magical Wand of Definitions^TM and state that God is defined as the sort of being who can be both Transcendent and Immanent without there being any sort of logical contradiction involved.

The bottom line, as far as I am concerned, is that God is absolutely and undeniably logically  impossible, a self-contradiction (at least as commonly depicted and worshiped).  The only question is whether theists actually care about this fact or whether cognitive dissonance will force them to compartmentalize and ignore it so as to not feel any angst about their beliefs.

"Molecules In Motion"

There's a recurring statement that comes up in a variety of contexts, whether it be discussions of free will, morality, evidence of God's existence, etc., that atheists believe that nothing exists in the universe except for matter and energy and therefore must think that human beings are nothing more than "molecules in motion" (or words to that effect).  For example, when discussing morality, a theist might claim that atheists have no way of justifying a belief in morality without a belief in God since, after all, atheists think we're all just a bunch of molecules in motion (or matter and energy) following Newton's laws of motion and acting in predetermined ways based on stimuli.  Or something like that.  So, the argument goes, how can there be any morality if we are not free to choose our own actions?

This same argument is used to explain why there supposedly can't be any sort of free will without there being a supernatural being to give us that free will.  Sometimes it's even used to prove the existence of God, since there's supposedly no other way that consciousness could possibly arise from "mere" matter and energy.

When this argument is raised, in whatever context, the person representing the atheist point of view often tries to defend how its possible to have morality based on natural laws that are wholly apart from human consciousness.  Or perhaps that it doesn't matter whether we "really" have free will as long as we think that we do and act in accordance with that belief.

Personally, I think trying to argue along these lines misses the boat.  Once again, theists are just presenting another form of "Argument from Ignorance" and claiming that, since atheists can't explain it, God must be the answer.  However, rather than falling into this trap and trying to explain something that may very well be inexplicable, I think it's better to simply acknowledge that we don't know how consciousness and free will could arise from matter and energy.  The fact that we can't explain it doesn't mean that it has to be God.  It just means that we can't explain it.  And it also doesn't mean that the theist explanation of God is the correct explanation, either.  I mean, if we're going to assume that any explanation must be better than no explanation, then I'll go ahead and posit that consciousness and free will arises due to the presence of immaterial and undetectable "mind" particles that permeate the universe and accumulate over time in our brains.  Sure, I have no evidence that these particles exist, let alone that they do what I claim they do, but apparently that doesn't matter as long as they explain the observed phenomena that we do have consciousness and free will, right?  And can anybody prove that my immaterial and undetectable particles don't exist?

The bottom line, as always, is that atheism is not a claim to have all the answers about everything in the universe -- it is simply a lack of belief in the claim made by theists that they do have all the answers to everything in the universe.  Sure, I suspect that scientists (not "atheists", mind you) will someday figure out just how consciousness and free will arises naturally from matter and energy.  Or perhaps they really will find evidence of the "mind" particle I joked about earlier.  But until they do, it doesn't mean that the "God" explanation must be true in the meantime, any more than it was true that Thor was responsible for thunder until we figured out how it was really caused.

The Cosmological Argument

They say there is nothing new under the sun, and that may very well be true.  As I watch various apologists try to justify their belief in God (whether it be the God of Christendom, Allah, or some other version of God), most of them at some point fall back on some form of the so-called "Cosmological" argument that has actually been around for quite a long time and has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy (despite the fact that, as far as I am aware, the God that Aristotle was trying to prove was neither the Christian nor the Muslim God).

Some modern apologists go to great lengths to add numerous subtle nuances to the argument to patch its obvious flaws, but the basic formation of the argument has been codified as the "Kalām Cosmological Argument" (KCA) that reads as follows:

1.  Everything that begins to exist has a cause
2. The universe began to exist
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

On its face, this is a perfectly valid argument in the sense that the conclusion logically follows from its premises.  There are, however, some serious problems with the argument that basically render it useless on its face.

A Valid Argument Is Not the Same as a Sound Argument

As stated above, a "valid" argument is one which the conclusion logically follows from the stated premises.  However, in order to be at all useful, an argument must also be "sound."  In order to be sound, the conclusion must not only logically follow from the premises, the premises themselves must also be actually true.

For example, the following is a perfectly valid argument that is completely unsound:

1. All elephants can fly
2. Dumbo is an elephant
3. Therefore, Dumbo can fly

This argument is unsound for a variety of reasons, namely that the first premise is not actually true and the second premise refers to a fictional character that doesn't actually exist.  Therefore, this argument is completely useless as an attempt to prove that Dumbo can fly, regardless of whether or not Dumbo really exists and can, in fact, fly. In other words, an unsound argument doesn't necessarily mean the conclusion is false, but it simply isn't useful in proving that conclusion.

Another example, perhaps a bit closer to the KCA, would be as follows:

1. All swans have white feathers
2. Black swans are swans
3. Therefore, black swans have white feathers

Again, the problem with this argument is with the first premise.  What makes this argument a bit more subtle than the Dumbo example, however, is the fact that most swans do, in fact, have white feathers.  It's even possible that, before the discovery of the black swan in Australia, every species of swan ever encountered did, in fact, have white feathers.  But there's a huge difference between saying "All swans have white feathers" and saying "All swans that we are currently aware of have white feathers."  Not understanding that empirical evidence is not the same as absolute truth could therefore lead somebody to follow up by claiming that, since black swans must (according to the argument) have white feathers, it must be the case that black swans have a special kind of magical white feathers that just appear black to our eyes instead of just acknowledging that the argument is flawed.

Keeping that in mind, let's take another look at the KCA, but with a few annotations added in:

1. [Based on our limited empirical experience,] whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.
2. The universe began to exist [depending on your definition of "universe" and assumed to be true because humans aren't comfortable with the idea of an infinite regress].
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause [unless, of course, the universe is a special case of something that began to exist without having a cause, or unless the universe didn't actually have a true beginning as would be the case if it were part of a multi-verse or in an eternal cycle of expansion and contraction].

The first premise is based on empirical evidence of how things we currently observe behave, but isn't necessarily true for all cases everywhere. Perhaps the universe is the exception to this general rule (after all, we have never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't know whether it follows the same rules as everything else within that universe that we have observed).  Perhaps things come into being by themselves all the time, but just not where we can observe it (or where we have yet observed it).  Or perhaps the entire premise is just flat out wrong and, as physicist Lawrence Krauss describes in his book, "A Universe from Nothing," particles routinely do pop in and out of existence all around us all the time.  Either way, there's simply no justification to accept as absolute the premise that whatever begins to exist has a cause.  It may seem to be common sense and may seem to be based on our experience with the natural world, but that doesn't make it necessarily true by any stretch of the imagination.

[As an aside, it's interesting to note that early formations of the Cosmological Argument simply had "Everything that exists has a cause of its existence.  The big "breakthrough" of the KCA was adding "that begins to exist" to get around the obvious observation that God, as a being who exists, would also necessarily need a cause of his existence.  All we have to do then is magically redefine God as a being who never had a beginning (or "exists outside of time and space") and voila! Problem supposedly solved.  Except, not really.  More on this later...]

As for the second premise, the Bible states that God created the universe out of nothing. That's not what science says, however. The Big Bang theory doesn't explain how the universe was created but simply describes the expansion of the known universe from an seemingly infinitely dense and infinitely small singularity that presumably contained within itself all matter and energy. Where did that singularity come from and what caused it to expand? Nobody knows, but there are numerous theories that do not require any sort of intelligent causation.

Now, some modern apologists try to finesse the argument here by claiming that the universe must have had a beginning since the concept of an "actual" infinity (as opposed to, I assume, the "virtual" infinities that are used in and even required by various disciplines of mathematics and physics) is "metaphysically" impossible.  And by "metaphysically" impossible, these apologists basically mean that the concept makes no sense to them.  OK, so maybe I'm oversimplifying their view a wee bit, but their arguments against "actual" infinities rely on discussions of logical contradictions such as how an infinite amount divided in half would produce two infinite amounts.  And they then claim that this supposed impossibility of an "actual" infinity means that there must have been a beginning to everything at some point, even if you assume the universe is cyclical or budded off from a pre-existing multiverse.

Since the first two premises are not necessarily true, the conclusion is not justified.   The premises could possibly be true, but there's nothing that requires them to be true, and therefore the argument fails on its face as an unsound argument.  Again, this doesn't prove that the conclusion is false, only that this argument doesn't prove it to be true.

What if the Conclusion Is True?

OK, so the cosmological argument isn't sound and therefore the conclusion that the universe had a cause isn't necessarily true.  But it could still be true, right?  And perhaps, some would argue, it's extremely probable even if not necessarily true.

So let's go there and assume for the sake of argument that the conclusion is actually true and there actually was a cause to the universe (either our current universe or the theoretical cyclical universe or multiverse).  So what?  Even if we accept that the universe somehow had some sort of "cause," we still don't know anything about what that cause was. Could the universe be its own cause (again, we've never observed a universe come into being before, so we can't say what the rules are for universe creation)?  Why does it have to be an intelligent being (lot's of things happen by random chance, so why do we insist that the creation of the universe must have been done on purpose)?

Some apologists start with the conclusion that the universe must have had a "cause" of some sort and try to make all sorts of inferences as to what this cause must be like.  For example, since whatever caused space and time to exist in the first place can't possibly exist in space or time itself, this cause must therefore be somehow timeless (a.k.a "eternal") and immaterial.  Gee, they then claim, this sounds an awful like the God of [insert pet religion here], since that God is described as being eternal and a being of pure mind.  Except... Well, first of all, there's no explanation given as to how something that is timeless and immaterial could actually have any interaction whatsoever with time and space.  It just did.  Second of all, God isn't actually described as a "pure mind" in any of the holy scriptures (in fact, he is described as a physical being who interacts with his creations).  Third, while God is described as being "eternal" in the holy books, that's not the same as "existing outside of time" or "timeless."  It just means he has existed forever and will exist forever, "forever" being a measurement of time and not a state outside of time.

These apologists will also argue that whatever caused the universe to exist must be an "agent" of some sort, meaning an intelligent being.  And this is supposedly because something had to choose to create the universe or else it would have stayed in it's uncreated state forever.  And only an intelligent being is capable of choosing.  Except... the whole concept of choosing implies the passage of time.  The whole concept of a being sitting around saying, "No universe yet, no universe yet, wait for it... NOW!" only makes sense if you're talking about a being that exists within time and not outside of it.  Besides, there's no logical requirement that something like the creation of the universe must be the result of choice in the first place.  If quantum theory teaches us anything at all, it's that sometimes things happen when they do out of sheer random chance.

Which brings us to the part where apologists really back themselves into a corner via a startling bit of circular logic.  If everything that begins to exist must have a cause and the universe must have had a beginning because actual infinities are metaphysically impossible, where did God come from?  As mentioned earlier, the original formulation of the Cosmological Argument stated that everything that exists must have a cause, but modern apologists changed that to everything that begins to exist must have a cause.  This provided them with a loophole to state that God is exempt from the first premise since he didn't actually have a beginning and therefore didn't need a cause to begin to exist.

Well, aside from the fact that this leads to all sort of mental wrangling described above whereby you have to claim that, in order to never have had a beginning, God must simultaneously be an immaterial being consisting of pure "mind" (whatever that means) existing outside of space and time and somehow be able to interact with space and time whenever he wants, it also ignores the second premise of the argument that claims that the universe must have had a beginning because an actual infinity is impossible.  If that is actually true, than it would also apply to God.  Claiming that God, being an infinite and eternal being, is the exception to the rule that actual infinities are impossible is just a case of special pleading and one would be equally justified claiming that the universe (or multiverse) is the exception to the rule and therefore there's no need for God.  In other words,  if the universe necessarily had a beginning then so did God, and no amount of making up claims out of whole cloth that God must be "timeless" can avoid that fact.  And remember -- the "timelessness" of God was not an something originally attributed to him in the scriptures, but was instead something ascribed to him as a way of dealing with the flaws in this argument.  God never claimed to exist outside of time, but assuming that he must do so is the only way this argument can possibly work.  Except that "timelessness" doesn't actually mean anything.  If an "actual infinity" is meaningless, the concept of "timelessness" is surely far, far worse.  Calling God timeless to patch up a flaw in the KCA is like making up the concept of magical white feathers in my black swan argument described above.  Sure, it makes the argument work, but it's ridiculous and self-contradictory on its face and is only required because you want to accept a false premise as true.

But let's go a step further and assume that somehow there is such a thing as an immaterial mind that is both "timeless" and "spaceless" and that such a concept is not just an obvious self-contradiction [Q: What do you call something that does not exist within space and time? A: Nothing].  And let's push accommodation to the very limits and assume that such a being could actually somehow interact with the physical universe, at least to the extent of creating it in the first place.  What justification is there to imagine that intelligent being just happens to be the God worshiped by your particular religion and not that of your neighbor?  One you've "proved" that the universe has a cause and that cause was some sort of intelligent being of some sort, how do you know it's your God?

My favorite part of watching people argue for the existence of their particular God using the Kalām Cosmological Argument is when they get to the end and are inevitably asked how they know that this "first cause" God is their particular God. And then you invariably get answers along the line of "Because Christ came to me and spoke to my heart" or "that's where faith comes in" or "the Koran is the most demonstrably true book ever written", etc.  In other words, every different religion that believes in a God can use the same argument to prove the existence of their particular version of God, and every different religion is convinced that their version of God is the correct one.  Which is to say, an argument that can be used to prove inherently contradictory conclusions is not a particularly useful argument:

In Conclusion...

 So, to sum up:

1. The Cosmological Argument doesn't necessarily prove that the universe must have had any sort of "cause."
2. Even if it the universe did have a cause, there's no justification to claim that that cause must be a conscious agent an trying to describe that cause as existing outside of space and time (since those terms have no actual meaning) or that it is "pure mind" (since we have no evidence that minds can exist apart from a physical brain) or that something that is outside of space and time could even possibly interact with matter and energy in the first place.  After all, when was the last time you were able to affect anything apart from your own body simply by willing it to happen with your mind?
3. Finally, even if the universe did have a cause, and even if that cause could actually be said to be a timeless, immaterial being of pure mind, there's no justification to associate that being with the God of any particular religion, since it doesn't actually match the description of God from any religion's holy books and has, in fact, been equally associated to many different religions.

Why Do So Many People Believe in [a] God?

One argument I hear periodically is that, even if you can refute the claims of one particular religion, doesn't the fact that almost all cultures throughout human history have held a belief in some sort of god or gods mean something?  Couldn't this be evidence that there is, in fact, some sort of supernatural creative force "out there" and we all just perceive and interpret it in different ways?  If you want to get all scientific (and I always love when people invoke science to justify their non-scientific beliefs), doesn't it show that humans have evolved to believe in God and that it would only make sense if there were, in fact, a God to believe in?

Now, the easiest answer would, of course, be that it doesn't matter if a billion people believe something to be true if the thing is actually false, and humanity has collectively believed a lot of wrong ideas throughout history.  For untold thousands of years, people believed ("knew") that the sun went around the earth once a day, despite the fact that the earth actually revolves.  People believed that illnesses were caused by all matter of things (bad air, curses, etc.), despite the fact that they are actually caused by germs.  So yes, most cultures throughout recorded history have believed in some sort of supernatural creator, but (skipping the obvious problem that no two cultures could agree on what that creator actually was like) that doesn't really provide evidence that those beliefs are correct.

Having said that, however, I think the question does deserve a little more nuanced answer.  It's not enough to point out that people believe a lot of wrong things, since that doesn't mean that this particular belief is wrong (only that it could be wrong despite the fact that so many people have held it, or some form of it).  Instead, it would be helpful to provide an alternate explanation for why a belief in god or gods seems to be such an ingrained part of human nature.  Now, I'm not saying that I can conclusively provide the actual explanation, but I do at least have some thoughts as to one possible alternate explanation.  Someday I'll write a book on this subject and fill it with annotated footnotes to scientific studies and research, but for now I'm just going to go with a summation of things I have heard and read about, as well as my interpretation of what it all means.

Humans may not have evolved specifically to believe in God, but I think it's safe to say that our intellect and capacity to solve problems certainly evolved as a survival mechanism.  Rather than developing armored hides to protect ourselves from danger or razor-sharp claws to bring down prey, humans evolved the ability to anticipate danger to protect ourselves and to solve complex problems in order to figure out ways to obtain food.  When early man saw the tall grass swaying, especially in the absence of any evident wind, he realized it could still be caused by the wind but could also be caused by a predator stalking him.  If he assumed it's a predator and ran away, he lived to survive another day even if it really was the wind.  On, the other hand, if he assumed it was just the wind and it turned out to be a predator, well, he likely wouldn't live long enough to pass his genes to the next generation.  And thus, we evolved to see patterns even when they don't exist and to assume agency (i.e., that things are caused by mindful creatures) even when things happen by random chance.

Although this tendency to see patterns and assume agency was instrumental in allowing humans to survive and flourish throughout the millennia, it also brought along some baggage with it.  That's evolution for you.  Evolution allows species to adapt to changing environments and survive, but there's no guiding force to ensure that a particular adaptation is the "best" possible solution, only that it was better than other adaptations that did not enable a species to survive.  This is why we have eyes with built-in blind spots, appendices that serve no purpose and occasionally kill us by bursting and, sad to say, an intellect that assumes that every little bump in the night must be caused by some creature coming to eat us.

The problem is, of course, that our pattern-recognition skills are flawed.  Sure, they are good enough to help us survive, but they have also led us to see patterns where they don't exist and also ignore any evidence that contradicts the patterns we have convinced ourselves do exist.  If we, for example, see evidence of agency all around us, in the apparent design of the complex natural world or in stories of people being blessed after praying to one God or another, we are going to stick with our beliefs in those patterns even if the apparent natural design can be shown to have an alternate explanation or we hear stories about people who prayed and weren't blessed.  Psychologists call this "Confirmation Bias" and it simply means that, once we have made up our minds about something, we tend to accept any evidence supporting that belief and disregard (or ignore) any evidence that contradicts that belief.  And again, as a rough survival tool, confirmation bias served us well in the past.  The fact that 9 times out of 10 the swaying grass ended up just being caused by the wind doesn't matter if that 10th time ends up being a hungry predator, so it's better to just ignore the cases that don't fit the pattern and see the one case in your favor as proof that swaying grass means death is waiting to attack with sharp, nasty claws and fangs.

So, yeah.  Throughout history, human societies have tended to believe in one sort of supernatural force or another.  We don't know what that bright yellow thing in the sky is, but it moves and therefore must either be intelligent or else be pulled by something intelligent.  And when it hides for most of the day and things get cold, it must be because it is angry with us.  So we'd better pray to it and sacrifice things to it just in case.  And, sure enough, after a few months of prayers and sacrifices, winter comes to an end and spring returns proving we were right.  Except, we now know all about the rotation of the earth, the tilt of its axis and its yearly journey around the sun.  Does the fact that humans, in their ignorance, used to think the sun was a god and worshiped it accordingly really say anything about whether their is a god of some sort?  Or does it just speak to our ignorance and gullibility?