The most convincing argument against the existence of God

On the one hand, we should be glad that God is so patient with us, because He wants people to repent of their sins instead of die in their sins.

On the other hand, God has already told us in Revelation that judgment is coming, and it will be severe, it will be ugly, and it will all be just.

Indeed, the question of evil is probably the greatest argument against the existence of god. Not just a specific god. With 45.000 different forms of Christianity alone, and who knows how many forms of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and tens of thousands of other religions, the chance of one’s own faith being the correct one is about as slim as winning the lottery. But any god.

It’s the old Epicurean problem:

If god exists, is omipotent, but permits evil, he is not good (and not worth worshipping)
If god exists, is good, but can’t stop evil, he is not omnipotent (and also not worth worshipping).

For the past 2300 years no one has really been able to explain this other than either:  “God is testing us.”  or “It’s the devil / demons at work.”

If god is testing us, that doesn’t explain why god would allow a baby deer to be burned in a forest fire, suffering for nothing. No human learns a lesson or is tested by that. Most suffering serves no greater purpose. It’s neither in service of good or evil. It’s just exists… everywhere. If god was indeed testing every living creature for its cirtue, then any deer, cat, lizard or fruit fly has a soul, is capable of good and evil and will make it to heaven. Seems silly, no?

Which leads us to the alternative of an evil force at work. The very concept of a devil as antagonist to god seems silly to me, because if a god was truly omnipotent and created the entire universe (and the devil), then he could wipe out the devil in an instant. And he wouldn’t allow the devil to bring suffering over his creation. Not just humans, who have a conscience, but all creation. Also, every form of scripture says the Earth was made by god. That includes forest fires, floods, etc. These aren’t additions by an antagonist or evil god.

Unlike in Christianity or Islam, in Judaism there is no devil. They found the very idea of anyone being able to challenge or fight god to be heretical. Satan is Hebrew for “accuser”, and some of the passages from the OT have been falsely translated. In one case the word is used for a man. In others it’s more metaphorical. Ha-Satan (the accuser) is not a personified manifestation of evil, but rather stands for a godly testing / trial of humans. Such as in the story of Job or when Ha-Satan holds a trial over the people of Judah. God is never contested.

This was also the view of early Christianity. The belief in a devil and demons came up in the middle ages in Europe. It wasn’t a thing in early Christianity. Zoroastrianism had a strong dualistic belief, as did Islam many centuries later, where Shaitan is once again a personified manifestation of evil. But Islam also came up in the middle ages.

I prefer the idea of a creator god not having any competition. Anyone powerful enough to create the universe is powerful enough to control it. But that indeed leads to the question of evil, and leaves us with only 3 possible answers.

1. God does not exist.
2. God is testing us (which then leads to a problem with why God tortures animals, whom he is not testing)
3. God is evil / sadistic / indifferent.

Since we can prove neither, this is where belief comes in.

Theology aside, I don’t need a bible to predict that America will turn to hell or that Democrat cities are the first places were decay, crime and misery run rampant. That’s what happens when you go build your society in a way that clashes with natural law (in this case meritocracy or survival of the fittest). If you let the dumbest, most defective members of society run it, it will fail.
There’s something to be said about the wisdom of animals in letting the strongest or most capable member lead the herd. Humans made a big mistake when we decided we were beyond nature and that its laws didn’t apply to us. They do, and they’re coming to collect.

> It’s the old Epicurean problem:

> If god exists, is omipotent, but permits evil, he is not good (and not worth worshipping)
> If god exists, is good, but can’t stop evil, he is not omnipotent (and also not worth worshipping).

As the Apostle Paul asked, “Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?”

All the evil and all the entropy that has ever existed, God can fully reverse, both physically and psychically, such that it will be as if it never was. Resurrection is about translating people, body and psyche, from one side of entropy to the other, and God greatly desires to do so.

The difficulty, however, is that God won’t do that without permission, and so the only thing God cannot undo is the decision to reject him.

God’s goal is a universe, beyond entropy, where everyone in it has chosen to be there. That couldn’t happen with this one: it’s merely an interim universe, but it will be true for the next.

One of the cliches is that if one draws near to God, God draws near to that person. Billy Crystal said he doesn’t believe because his dad died when he was 15. Billy went on to have a blessed life, but he is bitter about it.

There is a a gospel singer named Mandisa who wrote a hit song inspired by a friend of hers that had breast cancer. The friend did not make it and Mandisa blamed God and wanted to commit suicide at one point. She tried to kill herself with pills and food. For whatever reason, the song inspired by her friend actually won a Grammy award. Weird how that works out that her biggest hit was from a tragic result and it yielded success.

People want a live free of suffering or challenges. I don’t blame them at all. Also, the belief part of it I am kind of ambivalent and neutral about it all. Maybe even a bit agnostic, but people who believe inspire me. The people who choose to believe without big careers or any success inspire me even more. Although I mainly listen to classical and jazz, on occasion, I listen to gospel just because of the positivity and optimism. The other forms of music are full of junkies or they are egotistical and arrogant.

So, whether God exists or not, just look at those who choose not to believe. Look at how slovenly they are. Listen to their foul and vulgar language and their formless mumble music. The drugs and abuse everywhere. I don’t want to be around those negative people.

“Here’s a challenge: without intention being baked into the universe, explain what you mean by good and evil in your formulation of epicures question. What, exactly, makes the things you consider “evil” into evil? What, exactly, do you think God would stop were he to exist in your opinion?”

Excellent question actually.
I wrote it here before, can’t repeat the whole thing again, and Ayn Rand needed a 70 page monologue to define it.
There is such a thing as universal morality.
Short form: in order to define what is good and evil, or what is moral or not, you must first define a standard of values.
What is the one universal standard of value?
Consider what we humans value. Wealth, love, etc, right? The most valuable “thing” is a diamond. But what is a diamond worth on the moon? Nothing.
Why? Because there is no one to value it.
Similarly, if you cross a desert, and I come across you and offer you a bottle of water or the biggest diamond on the planet, what will you choose? The bottle of water, because the diamond will be useless to you if you’re dead. This isn’t limited to humans, either. A beetle will roll its little dung ball across a field at great peril. To us, it’s just a lump of shit, but to that little beetle, it’s everything. It has value.
We only value the diamond to the degree in which it benefits our life, or by extension our genetic survival odds. We use it to impress others, which in turn attracts partners, or to trade for goods and services. For things that actually benefit us. The diamond itself is just a pretty rock. It’s value comes from how much it benefits our life.
Without life, nothing has value. The greatest symphony ever written has no value when it is played in a graveyard to corpses.

So, in a very simplified and shortened form, we can say that since life is the standard of value, what benefits life is therefore good, and what harms life is therefore bad.

You apply this moral standard to natural law, and voila, you have a system of morality that is based on observation and reason instead of authority.
That’s the problem with religious morality. It’s all based on authority. Good and evil are defined by god. What god approves of is good, what god disapproves of is bad. But as soon as someone believes in a different god or different version of the same god or no god, things falls apart, because inevitably, no more than one can be right.
You happen to be catholic, but a lot of protestant christians claim the catholic church is satanic. Just see the comments here: www . thegatewaypundit . com/2023/06/actor-shia-labeouf-discusses-his-conversion-catholicism/

“As for 45000 versions of Christianity: there’s one. It’s called Catholicism. There are however 44,999 heresies. ”
You are well aware that all the others claim the exact same thing. It’s quite ridiculous really.
Had you been born in Iran instead of the US, you’d be saying the same thing about Shia Islam.

Very few people ever attempt reasonable argument for why their own religion is right and all others must be wrong. It’s literally always “they twisted the word of god”. But how do you know it? You can’t. Because your own beliefs and morals are based merely on authority. Without it, your entire construct of right and wrong falls apart and you’re left with nothing but nihilism. Which is – admittedly – a dreadful prospect. So dreadful that for 2000+ years people have waged wars in order to avoid confronting it.

Aside from the original Buddhism, no religion has ever had a plan B for “what if we’re wrong?”

“As for 45000 versions of Christianity: there’s one. It’s called Catholicism. There are however 44,999 heresies. ”
You are well aware that all the others claim the exact same thing. It’s quite ridiculous really.
Had you been born in Iran instead of the US, you’d be saying the same thing about Shia Islam.

Well I was actually born United Church of Canada, which is currently literally offering human sacrifice in “crossing over” ceremonies. Then I was atheist. So no, I would not be whatever I was born as. Shia Islam may have held me longer than uber-liberal protestantism, because of the closer proximity to truth in many respects, but I disagree that I would still be it.

I also disagree with your contention that people wage wars in order to avoid confronting the untruth in their religion. The vast, vast majority of wars have no religious component. The Nuclear bomb was not dropped on Japan because of their religion, and that is the single most horrible act in the history of warfare.  In fact, the two most horrible wars ever fought were fought on grounds with nothing to do with religion.

Your contention that “very few people attempt reasonable argument for why their religion is right and others are wrong,” while technically correct, doesn’t mean a lot. Most people don’t attempt a reasonable defense of why they believe anything. However, there ARE many people who do so, and do it at a very high level of internal consistency.   They are quite easy to find. For God’s existence in general, I would recommend  William Lane Craig as a good popularizer. His talk with Cosmic Skeptic on Youtube is particularly good if you would like to avoid long reading around a topic you likely don’t find fascinating.  For Catholicism in particular Scott Hann is a great author and Trent Horn is a great apologist.

Follow up on your (and Jordan Peterson’s) definition of good and evil: Is all morality, then, a simple calculation? Like, if I can save 4 old ladies or one baby by taking one action versus another, which act is good and which is evil? The 4 old ladies represent more life, but the baby represents more potential time in life left.  Was the nuclear bombing of a city full of women and children and non-combatants (the majority of the soldiers were obviously away) good if it ended the war earlier? Would it have been equally good to slowly bayonette the same number of women and children for the same cause?

Catholicism was what all people meant by “Christian” for 1500 years. It is what people were calling The Church in the living memory of people who knew Jesus.  It was the institution that preserved, collected, and gave the world The Bible. The letters IN the Bible were written to it. Do not act as though on one side you have variations of a belief system that did not exist until 500 years ago, and on the other the 1500 year older tradition that  ended paganism in Rome, and that you cannot logically see a difference between the claims of both.  That’s preposterous.  You do not have to agree Christianity is correct. But as an atheist or agnostic specifically, you should be able to tell there is a distinct difference that makes the one unlike all the others.

• This reply was modified 11 months, 2 weeks ago by DeGave.