patricius:
Doesn’t this depend on how you define “God?” I don’t see that any discussion along the lines of proof or disproof has any meaning until we’ve agreed on what it is we’re trying to prove the existence of.
Why must monotheism be true, and not polytheism ? It would solve a lot of problems.
It’s only Christian conditioning that stops us thinking Hinduism is as self-evidently true as, in fact, we think Christianity is.
If Christianity here true, why are the arguments for it so weak ? And why has it had such extremely mixed moral and social effects ? I know it is the religion of St Francis of Assisi & Padre Pio & Mother Teresa, but it has also brought centuries of Jew-baiting, vicious persecution of other Christians, centuries of slavery, torture, war between Christians, and many other evils. If it were not the for the atrocious words and deeds of Christians, there would be far less unbelief. Most of the hate on the Net is on Christian sites.
Religion is explicable by upbringing, nurture, culture, environment, economics, so there is no function for any deity to perform. Religion is a purely human artefact, or if there is a deity - and it is a big
if - and **if **Christianity is a revealed religion, Christianity is now so completely fractured that it is impossible to say where the truth - if it has survived - now lies.
The only thing that Orthodox and Catholics can agree on, is in both claiming to be the one true Church. So which is it ? Each claims to be it, but each would: neither is going to admit the other is right, is it ? Which does not identify the lawful claimant - if either of them is. It is impossible to tell. Yet both make membership a matter of life or death. It is a gamble whether one picks the right one, or not. If God existed, and were all the CC claims He is, this could not happen. It has happened, therefore God is a figment of people’s imagination.
It is much tougher being an atheist than being a Christian theist - it takes much more courage. The Christian story is just that - a story. It’s time to give up comforting stories - adults should not need that kind of emotional or intellectual crutch. To give up the beautiful dream of eternal happiness in a blessed hereafter is not easy, when the alternative is to think that in a hundred years’ time nothing most of us do will be remembered. One day, we will be entirely forgotten, and people will be no wiser or more moral than now. And eventually, the earth will be no more, the sun will die, the planets and stars will all die, and either there will be a wholly dead universe, or an infinitely recurring Big Bang & Big Crunch, without end, and the same old tale of evolution into men, and the same old mistakes being for ever repeated. That is a grim story; no wonder people prefer something happier.
So there are many arguments against theism, of many kinds: moral, historical, spiritual, logical, and others. Believing in a deity is simply a bad habit that people have not yet grown out of. But there is no reason whatever to believe in one.
I don’t know how far I believe all that - but a very strong case for atheism can be made, and should be; the stronger, the better. And the more passionately reasoned, the better. ##
