Friday, November 19, 2004

By god can I be arrogant

I'm an athiest/agnostic. I don't really think that there's some great big god out there watching over us. I have an explanation for this, which follows these lines.

Assume god exists in some form.
Work out what the world would be like if the assumed god did exist.
Compared hypothetical world with actual world.
The real world is not quite like that is it?
Therefore the assumed god does not exist.

Now this is a seemingly simple proof by contradiction, but only recently did I spot something within it that threatens its validity. The problem is that you have to define god. Now, assuming a god did exist, isn't it just a little bit presumptive for me to dictate what form he would take. And so, now I have to add a bit more finesse to the argument.

A simple addition would be to repeat the process for all possible assumed gods. One problem with this though is that it still doesn't rule out all gods. Any god who created the universe so that today it appears the way it is and has then done nothing to affect the portion of the universe we can observe so far will pass the test. But is a god that merely flipped a switch and then gone onto other things really that impressive. Ok, they made a universe and all, but the sentiment there is more a factory working making a watch, not a craftsman putting together a work of art. And is there really any point in worshipping a god who just made a place to live in and then left it alone for whoever to walk in and occupy it. It's not like your going to be rewarded for it.

A christian god should still be ruled out though. It's not like he's been active all that recently. And if he made everything, and is all loving and all caring, why is there evil in the world? And don't cop out by saying that all the evil is due to Satan. Just where do you think Satan came from? Wyoming? No, I believe Satan, and his cohorts, were formerly angels, weren't they? And guess who created all the angels? Why I think it was the one called I am, the big god man himself. So was something whispering in his ear as he made the angels? Are we to have evil beings instead of turtles going all the way down?

I think this boils down to what you want out of a god. Me, I want a god with the following properties: wisdom, power, knowledge, kindness, consistency, flexibility, not necessarily in that order. The way the christian god fails for me is that one can live what many would say is a perfect christian life, raise your kids well, be kind to others, help out those in need, etc, etc, but, if you make the one tiny mistake of not believing in god, well your just out of luck. Apparently the all-knowing, all-loving, all-forgiving god can't let that one slide. And that, kind people, is bullshit.

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