5 Irrefutable Proofs that God Does NOT Exist

As Christian (and other theistic) apologists enjoy giving ‘irrefutable’ proofs for God’s existence, I thought I offer up Proof of a Negative – in this case, that God (or any god) does not exist. Of course, I needn’t do this as anyone asserting a positive statement, such that X does exists, has the burden of proof upon them. Moreover, it is quite possible to prove a negative, contrary to popular belief. (Lookup the Law of Non-Contradiction for starters.) So let’s just get right to it:

 

1)     1-There is no universally accepted definition of ‘God’ – What are God’s attributes; how do we know God is God? Ask 100 theists for their definition of God and you’re likely to get about 100 different answers once you get past the Big Three. There will be some similarity in answers, such that God is anthropomorphic, is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, those last three attribute that when taken collectively cannot possibly be true due to contradictions. (For instance, if God knows the future, the future is preordained, which means God has no free will, which means God is not all powerful.) To know God is God there must be a definition that is testable. We can’t simply resort to “God is these things by definition” if such a definition cannot be observed. Even in the world of mathematics, one is one is not true by definition; we have to observe that is the case to know it is true.

2)    2- God is not testable – Not only is the definition of God not testable, in NO WAY can we sense God on a practical level. We cannot see, touch, taste, smell or hear God forthwith. Seeing or hearing God – when other people cannot – is tantamount to a hallucination. Likewise are mental states or emotional ‘feelings’ that God is present or exists. We know by studying brain scans these states or feeling are dependent on biological changes within the brain and body and do not correlate to any information we retrieve through our five senses. ‘Knowledge’ not derived from our five senses is not actual knowledge. Direct experience is the only way to actually know anything about the world, assuming our senses are not faulty.

3)    3- God cannot be told apart from a sufficiently powerful or knowledgeable alien – Let’s suppose some being came to Earth tomorrow and are from the planet Flobblebot, though they neglected to tell us where they are from. They know everything there is to know about the universe to the point of predicting exactly what will happen next and can perform any seemingly magical trick we ask of them, like teleporting us to the surface of the Sun and back without harm. Furthermore, this creature says they are the god of the Bible. Should we then conclude that this being is in fact God? That may seem reasonable but they really aren’t God since they’re from within the universe and not from outside of it as apologists often postulate. So we can’t know any ‘God’ isn’t lying to us, that they aren’t an alien. Any God could in fact be an alien who happens to have advanced power and knowledge.

4)    4- The existence of evil – Surely a definition of evil would be helpful here, unless we can agree ahead of time that something like the murder of a newborn child is evil. Let’s assume we do agree on that. If God is all-knowing, God knew it was going to happen and in not preventing it, is ultimately responsible for the evil since God is the creator of all things. If God could have chosen to stop this event and did not, God is not all-good. If God had a good reason not to stop the event – perhaps the child faced an unpleasant life if allowed to live – we should conclude God is not powerful enough to have stopped the pregnancy in the first place. We also can’t assume God’s actual reasons for doing anything as God’s mind is unknowable as I’ve so often heard from theists. (And, if it were indeed the case that God had a good reason for allowing the murder, this gives us a reason for allowing abortion.) If an all-powerful God wanted to stop a life of suffering, an all-powerful God could do so at any time but curiously never does – because God does not exist. If an existent God has a good reason for allowing suffering – maybe it creates mental and emotional resiliency – this should be stated in scriptures and continue in the afterlife. Never stop growing, right? (If the whole point of heaven is to live eternally without suffering, then it is reasonable to assume suffering is bad. Doesn’t seem like there is in fact a good reason for it.)

5)     5-Theists are often frightened by the prospect of death – If heaven exists why are theists ever afraid? If they are not sure if they are going to get into heaven, that indicates they are not compelled by the particulars of their faith to follow all the tenants of their faith and secure their heavenly reward: eternal life. A ‘true believer’ wouldn’t be scared by the prospect of the unknown – since they know about heaven – or leaving their family and friends behind knowing they are all going to meet again in the afterlife. A theist cannot be scared by dying as obtaining heaven is the entire point of believing in God. But theists are scared all the time. They have fears about death, they doubt, because subliminally at least they know they have accepted a falsehood. If heaven exists, a theist should not be scared by death or any earthly punishments. But they are scared. Ergo, God does not exist.

 

I hope you’ve enjoyed these ‘irrefutable’ proofs, some of which is a little bit tongue-in-cheek on purpose. Surely you’ve spotted an error or two on the level of “The Bible says God exists so God exists.” Have fun picking apart and kindly share your thoughts. Even after doing that it is still the case that no gods exist. Can you prove otherwise?

The Blood On God's Hands

If we consider all the death and destruction done throughout history in the name of God or gods, a number of things are possible if a deity really does exist. One, they are a bloodthirsty SOB. Two, they are unable to stop violence done in their name. Three, they don’t care what we do to each other. Four, the world is exactly the way they want it. Five, and this is important, having free will is far more important than any harm we can do to each other. Yeah, I’m sure that’s very comforting to the victims of the 9/11 attacks. “Hey, don’t get upset that terrorists killed your family. They’re just collateral damage in the name of free will.”

The fifth point, as everyone who knows anything about philosophy or theology knows, is referred to as the Free Will Defense and is most often turned to by the theist to allow for so much evil in the world. Yet, if any god did create the universe and everything in it, they are ultimately responsible for the existence of evil, not humans. Sorry, there’s just no way around that. With this being true, the remaining possibilities may be just as likely. If a god can’t or doesn’t want to stop violence, then evil must have a practical use. Say, anyone up for a crucifixion?

Let’s take a very, very brief look back upon the history of religiously inspired violence. Do we have to? No, but gee whiz, it sure is interesting.

·       The ancient Mayans were known to practice human sacrifice to please their gods. These sick bastards would rip your beating heart out and show it to you before you died, thousands of years before Mortal Kombat was only a game.

·       Ptolemy Philedelphus had the Catholic Church attack and burn down the Great Library at Alexandria in 391 CE to suppress learning and knowledge. Millions of scrolls and scriptures are lost over a friendly and divine marsh mellow roast.

·       Between 500-1000 CE, Christianity gleefully ignites the Dark Ages. Science, medicine, education, art, and history are demonized while the Church amasses land and wealth through force.

·       891-903 CE, murder and corruption leads to 10 popes over 12 years and eventually 40 popes over 100 years. This leads to speculation that it is not so good to be the Pope.

·       Through 1000-1500 CE the Church resists the Enlightenment, launching the Crusades to teach those pesky Jews and Muslims one final lesson.

·       The Reformations through 1500-1700 CE attempt to purge Europe of pagan elements, but instead sparks a schism when Martin Luther opposes the Church with a (Protestant) Reformation of his own. The animosity between warring denominations stains Europe with blood. On St. Bartholomew’s Day (1572) 10,000 Protestants are slaughtered in France. Animosity continues to this day in Ireland. (It is also during this time period when the idea of the devil and demons are clearly defined by the Church. The elaborate concept spawns a 300 year long period of witch-hunts. Women are scapegoated as the Church fails to maintain control of the masses. Millions are speculated to die thanks to the hunts. Religious leaders even demand that animals associated with paganism be put to death, such as cats and owls, animals that control rodent populations. Plagues soon explode across the continent.)

·       Since the creation of Israel by the UN in 1948, Muslims and Jews have been blowing each other to bits over disputed Holy Lands. (Sure, it’s all more complicated than that, but the two sides being uber-religious doesn’t exactly help negotiate peace.)

·       In the 1980’s and 1990’s, abortion clinic bombers and shooters claim moral authority to justify murdering abortion clinic doctors and workers. They are soon discovered to believe that one plus one equals whatever their version of God says it is.

·       In 1995, Master Asahara (a Christian Buddhist, whatever that is) attacks a Tokyo subway with nerve gas in an attempt to set off Armageddon. He fails. 

These are just a few examples among hundreds…of thousands.

         

The reasons for religious violence are not just anybody’s guess. For most anyone, being violent creates the illusion of power. With a god in tow any horror can then easily be justified or excused. Remember, the gods are generally supposed to be all-powerful and humans, being of lower stock so-to-speak, are the messengers of those gods. Too bad in their urge to make anything but peace, these messengers instead identify themselves as soldiers. In due time, when a movement to spread a message inevitably begins to collapse or fail, there becomes an inclination to commit greater and greater evil. Religious insanity escalates most painfully in the final, hopeless moments of the struggle to enforce belief, when the power of a god becomes the primary resource at hand. The current race for the 2015 Republican party candidacy for U.S. president is evidence of this.

Are there ever times when these instances of violence are justified? Self-preservation can fuel such emotion, but that’s a human response, not a divine one. Yet, why people should use God to justify self-preservation makes little sense if they believe they’ll go to heaven anyway. In that case, wouldn’t you want to die? If you want to blow yourself up with 20 sticks of dynamite, fine, but now you’ve got two dead people, me and you. Wouldn’t it be more tolerable for the believer to try and persuade me into accepting their religion? Of course it would, except that religions are by nature exclusionary, just another means by which groups of people divorce themselves from others.

Do any of us want to die for the beliefs of others? I don’t want to die for what other people believe in. I’m not a puppet in any god’s sick puppet show to be controlled or maimed through the use of force. I wasn’t designed to be a contender in an unholy, cosmic game of Battle Bots. Some theists however thoroughly disagree and those people need to be eliminated with extreme prejudice. My holy scriptures would surely tell me so.

So what do you say; have we all had enough of having been given life by some supposed Creator who ironically calls for us to kill each other? Surely any god who endows a universe with evil is not reconcilable with a peaceful world. For all of you taking a moment out of your busy schedules to pray for world peace, stop. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.

I mean it when I say I am tired of the excuses and I’m sure not going to let any god off the hook for the existence of evil. Lots of people say they want world peace but I don’t see them doing anything about it. I want world peace too; or at least one where only socially acceptable outlets for our primitive, violent tendencies are allowed. So I’m going to do something about it.

I’m calling God out; any god, you name ‘em. Anytime they want to duke it out with me in the ring for the fate of the world, I’ll be happy to punch their stupid face in, bite their ear off, and eat their babies. Now if only Don King wouldn’t screw me out of my hard-won purse, the world would be a better place.

Is The Universe A Simulation?

Human beings have longed to understand their origins. There are several theories as to why this is the case; maybe it is an attempt to nail down the disruptive thought that our identities are anything but static or that understanding our origins will clearly point out the purpose of our lives. At any rate, countless hypotheses have been advanced as to human origins. One of the newest (or at least the one that is getting a lot of press lately) is the hypothesis that the universe is a simulation run by an intelligence superior to our own. The details of this hypothesis are laid out here in this Discover magazine online article, though if you just want to go straight to the analysis of this poppycock idea, I provide snippets of the text below with a corresponding rebuttal.

The article starts with this gem, “To us, these programmers would be gods, able to twist reality on a whim…are the implications too disturbing?” Well, yes, the implications would be disturbing but not because we would discover these particular gods. In discovering these gods, we would still be inclined to ask who or what created these gods. So, discovering there are gods in this case doesn’t bring us closer to any ultimate truths. These so-called gods would still exist in some universe of their own and whose universe may be a simulation itself. (The article even acknowledges this possibility further on in the reading.) In uncovering these ‘gods of the simulation’ we would solve nothing other than to reveal our own slavery. Any ultimate truth would still be waiting to be discovered.

“Given the rapid technological advances we’ve witnessed over past decades — your cell phone has more processing power than NASA’s computers had during the moon landings — it’s not a huge leap to imagine that such simulations will eventually encompass intelligent life.” That’s a very humorous sentence since the definition of intelligent life is so contentious to say nothing of the fact that people often treat others unlike themselves as though they weren’t human. Do simulations qualify as intelligent life? I suppose we could ask Siri…

“Legislation and social mores could soon be all that keeps us from creating a universe of artificial, but still feeling, humans — but our tech-savvy descendants may find the power to play God too tempting to resist.” In other words, regardless of whether we are or are not simulations, we’d still be assholes. Great.

“John D. Barrow, professor of mathematical sciences at Cambridge University, suggested that an imperfect simulation of reality would contain detectable glitches. Just like your computer, the universe’s operating system would need updates to keep working.” This article began by mentioning the amount of computing power and intelligence that would be needed to create our simulation and it came off as sounding as if our simulators would be a whole lot smarter than the team that programmed Windows Vista. Barrow’s suggestion is pure speculation, aiming to suppose that our simulators would be as incompetent as we are. Well, I should hope not. After all, they kept blowjobs as part of the simulation. That implies vast intelligence.

“Most physicists assume that space is smooth and extends out infinitely. But physicists modeling the early universe cannot easily re-create a perfectly smooth background to house their atoms, stars and galaxies. Instead, they build up their simulated space from a lattice, or grid, just as television images are made up from multiple pixels.” Wow, this is exactly the same kind of reasoning that leads people to believe in miracles, events that supersede the laws of physics: If we cannot do it or explain it, then it must have been the Hand of God. Utter B.S.

“Unfortunately, our almighty simulators may instead have programmed us into a universe-size reality show — and are capable of manipulating the rules of the game, purely for their entertainment. In that case, maybe our best strategy is to lead lives that amuse our audience, in the hope that our simulator-gods will resurrect us in the afterlife of next-generation simulations.” First, a ‘universe-size reality show’ is still a smaller universe than the one our simulators are in, meaning, the size of our universe isn’t actually that impressive. Second, we have no idea what, exactly, amuses our supposed audience the most, since our simulators are eerily mum on that account. Much like (insert the name of your god here).

Other thoughts? As one commenter, Chris Pope wrote, “If we can conceive of any test that would prove that we are in a simulation then would not that possibility have already be conceived by the designers of our simulation? If the designers are able to respond to our actions and construct the simulation in such a way that we observe the results that they want us to, then how can we ever devise a test that can prove that we are in a simulation? Unless the designers want us to have that power they will be able to gimmick the results of any "test" such that the result returns to preserve the illusion of the simulation.” We don’t know how the simulators would react to us discovering we are a simulation. Do they want us to know? If we found out could they simply erase that knowledge from our memory? What if we rebelled against the program and would that even be possible? Moreover, theguy126 wrote, “Exactly what would define a real world as opposed to a simulation anyway? If we were to break free of our simulation and enter the real world what would be so distinctively different about that real world that makes it more "real" than a perfect simulation? The answer is nothing. There is nothing substantial about real matter because all that is just information that could have been simulated. There is no meaningful difference between a real world and a perfect simulation of the real world.”

It’s all speculation, folks. And if it turns out I’m not real, well, I’ll just move to California where it’s okay to be as fake as you want.

The utter nonsense of this hypothesis is relatable to solipsism, which I have defeated. Read about it here.