Why God almost certainly doesn't exist

Philosophy of Religion
1

I want to explain why I think that God almost certainly doesn’t exist. I don’t want to add too many caveats or carve outs, but I should at least describe what I mean in the broadest terms.

I am agnostic toward the notion of generic creative forces, so while I find the apologetic arguments that focus on such things to be unconvincing, I can’t thoroughly rule them out. To me, such a force is possible, but I see no reason I should assume it exists.

Having said that, I consider myself a “strong” atheist. Throughout the history of the common use of the word “God”, there are things implicit beyond just being a generic creative force.

  • The ability to “override” natural laws in order to realize a preferred outcome (in other words, the ability to perform miracles).
  • Intentionality and agency (as opposed to being some passive and indiscriminating force like electromagnetism or even something metaphysical like causality or necessity).

I am all but certain that no such God exists, and while my belief is embedded in a lifetime of experience and a more complete view of the world, I can summarize a major portion of my reasoning to a degree that doesn’t, I don’t think, require adopting any controversial metaphysical or epistemological commitments.

Here’s how I see it. In the history of humanity, there have been numerous stories about different Gods. There is no logical way that all of these stories, and the pantheon’s associated with them, could all be fully and literally true. In fact, at the very least, almost all of them would have to be either totally literally false, or be true in such an imprecise and metaphorical sense as to be useless and ultimately false in any important sense. To say this simplistically, either all Gods are false, or all but one God is false.

Regardless of what one initially believes about the all Gods/all but one God question, we can establish that humans have a historical and well documented predisposition toward culturally creating God stories independent of the truth of those stories. We make God myths as a species.

Without having to determine the exact nature of our human drive to create God stories, we can at least identify that such a drive appears to exist, and we can agree that at best such a drive leads us to create false stories on a huge scale. With this fact understood, when evaluating God stories, it should dramatically reduce our credence of the truth of such stories.

While that, in itself I think, isn’t enough of a reason to conclude that all God stories are almost certainly false, I do think it is enough to say that they are very likely false.

Now I consider that a miracle, by it’s very nature, is something that would be (usually) impossible or at least exceedingly improbable without divine intervention, then as a good Bayesian, I take my priors that God stories are likely to be false, and add to it events that are by definition somewhere between exceedingly improbable and impossible, and I have to update my credence to virtually zero.

2

I think you’re attacking a very straw man version of religion … not a bad effort but I suppose you take to science to answer everything there is to know about life, creation etc … I hope you don’t as even science doesn’t have all the answers, ruling out god though seems absurd … what exactly is wrong with agnostic position ?

3

How so? I’ve personally only attended Christian churches, but every one worshiped a god that was intentional and performed miracles. As I understand it, Islam is the same. Those are the only two characterizations I made about god beliefs.

I don’t suggest that all believers in God believe these things, I know they don’t. It is just my experience that this version of god belief is by far the most common and least credible.

What an odd thing to conclude from my post. I think that science is the current best way to determine answers to empirical questions. Is this not what most people believe, and what does that have to do with my post?

If you follow my argument, the answer should be stated pretty obviously. The positive version of the claim (there is a god), is exceedingly unlikely compared to the other alternatives.

1 Like
4

That is a point of view articulated in many ways. But it retreats from claiming what really exists or not. Noticing a human attribute does not, by itself, put that condition in opposition to others. To proceed, without qualification, is to presume a set of facts. And there are few things less satisfying than doing that.

5

I am specifically making a case for what does not exist. I am not framing it in terms of absolutes, hence the title and thesis “Why God almost certainly doesn’t exist”. The specific claim that we create myths doesn’t logically preclude the existence of a God. If I thought it did, the title and thesis would have been “Why God certainly doesn’t exist”.

What set of facts are you saying I presume?

Might I instead be observing facts about the world, comparing then to relevant claims made about those facts, drawing conclusions based on those facts, and determining my credence of those conclusions based on the relative weight of those fact? That’s what I think I’m doing.

Edit: I do of course walk around with a huge set of presumed facts that I don’t add as caveats. That Lima is the capital of Peru. That 2+2=4 in base 10 math. Those sorts of things that I don’t see why any reasonable person would dispute. As far as I can see, I have not included the assumptions of any unspoken controversial facts, but if I am mistaken, again, please note them and I will respond.

6

Almost certainly 0 means \frac{1}{ \infty} \approx 0. It doesn’t = 0. You rounded off to 0. No doubt permissible, but still involves a leap because \frac{1}{ \infty } \ne 0. A very tiny leap of unfaith.

Going in the opposite direction is another matter, a giant leap of faith. Probability that god doesn’t exist = 1 - \frac{1}{ \infty} \approx 1.

Good to know you’ve come to the right conclusion about God.

You’ve also touched on how humans invent stories of deities and demons. Apropos.

Do remember though that many top scientists are theists and also that in the recent decades science has been an active contributor to theology e.g. (big bang, genesis), (irreducible complexity, intelligent design), (biogenesis, God), (FTA, God), (MUH, God who knows math), (Simulation hypothesis, God-coder) and so on. Many mathematicians are also theists.

7

Right. My claim is explicitly that God almost certainly doesn’t exist.

I’m not sure what point your making, and you’re not being explicit, so let me respond to my best guess, and if I’m wrong, maybe you’ll be more explicit.

I’ll assume that you’re noting the logical space between near certainty and complete, logical certainty to perhaps question why I don’t call myself agnostic because of it. It is almost certainly the case that there is a country called China, and it is almost certainly not the case that there is a grand conspiracy to convince me of the fake country of China, and I don’t consider myself agnostic on the existence of China. That’s because in empirical matters of fact, we are never afforded complete certainty, yet we can reasonable say that we know things and act thusly. The question of a god who performs miracles, and expresses their will in such a way that it might be possible for people to know it to any degree, is a matter of empirical fact (or fiction as the case may be). Because it is an empirical matter, it is immune to complete certainty. In another debate, I might suggest that complete certainty is a mirage, but for the sake of this discussion, all I need to be clear about is the uncontroversial notion that complete certainty doesn’t exist for empirical matters.

I have no idea what this set of facts has to do with my argument. Do you think I am making an argument from scientific authority?

8

It’s ironic that Thomas Bayes developed his theorem to prove God. The paper was titled, On God’s benevolence … a problem in the doctrine of Chance.

I appreciate your logic though. It’s sound as far as I can tell. I hope you’ll not mind if I make errors in analyzing your position. It usually takes 2 or 3 readings before I can grok an argument, especially if it’s written in a novelish way.

My last paragraph highlights science in theology. The classic case was the Pope desiring to incorporate the Big Bang, discovered by Belgian priest Lematrie, into Christianity as proof of genesis (creation).

1 Like
9

Yes, there are good empirical reasons to assume God does not exist. So it is reasonable to conclude that it is unlikely that God exists. But this doesn’t answer the question, it is actually a description of us and our reasoning. Or in other words it is conclusion arrived at from an analysis of the empirical evidence presented to us in the world we find ourselves in. But again that is simply a description of the world, the nature of that world and what we as members of that world can come up with. So in a very real way, we are wearing a set of blinkers, or a blindfold. We don’t know anything about anything not in that world.

Now having realised these shortcomings, what can we say about the origin of this world? Not a lot really. We could say, is the origin an act of creation? (Miraculous), or is it as a result of some physical, or random, process. Well again, we can’t answer this., we don’t know and with the blindfold on we are stuck. The answer is inaccessible to us.

10

Those who have not felt God’s presence would conclude that He can be argued for or against in a rationalistic manner and this topic is a good example of that.

I suspect @invicta’s complaint about the strawman concerns God as an “intending agent” but classical theism would say God is the very ground of being complete with a dozen attributes. Possibly it would also claim God’s “agentic intentions” are mysterious if they even happen at all, since God, if such a thing should exist, can’t be thought of very easily in the first place.

11

While some people believe this, it is not actually necessary for all kinds of interventionist or creator God. Young Earth Creationists believe in this sort of God, but there are also plenty of Old Earth Creationists who think God merely “nudged” the process of evolution. Given that the laws of physics are probabilistic, this can be done without breaking any laws (except maybe the Born Rule, but even then only slightly, and that isn’t really a law anyway)

I might add that I personally do not believe in either kind of God described here.

12

What does the word ‘atheist’ mean or refer, to you, exactly?

WHERE are you getting ‘your information’ from, exactly?

WHAT is a ‘common use’, and will you provide examples of some so-called “common use” of the word ‘God’ that implies some ability to override natural laws?

Of course there is NO such thing that ‘overrides’ Nature, Itself.

Is NOT absolutely everyone’s ‘belief’ embedded in a lifetime of experience, as well?

What are ‘your’ ‘more complete view of the world’ relative to exactly? What ‘complete view of the world’ is ‘your complete view of the world’ supposedly 'more complete?

Okay. But, it is still blatantly OBVIOUS that there is NOTHING that is above, beyond, apart from, NOR could ‘override’ Nature, Itself, anyway.

To some, an “atheist” or a “strong atheist” would believe that NO God exists. But, again, you might be using ‘atheist’ in a different way.

We can, also, establish that humans have a historical and well documented predisposition toward culturally creating stories independent of the truth of those stories, as well.

Why do ‘you’ believe that human beings make God “myths” as a species?

Is it not possible that human beings have been making up stories, or theories, while trying to explain what they think is ‘true’?

Claiming human beings make God ‘stories’ or even God ‘theories’ is very, very different from claiming human beings make God ‘myths’.

Some might be noticing ‘your confirmation biases’ here.

This has already been determined anyway, by the way. Human beings make up ‘stories’ and ‘theories’ in their endeavour to discover, find out, and make sense of ‘this world’ and the Universe in which they have found “themselves” in.

Of course, ‘the drive’ to learn and understand more and anew is built in human beings. Human beings are born naturally curious with a want to keep discovering, uncovering, learning, and understanding more. This ‘drive’ has already been recognised and identified.

Just maybe, ‘your conclusion’ that ‘the drive’ to discover, learn, and understand more leads ‘you’ to create ‘false stories’, but ‘the drive’ to learn and understand more certainly does not lead to creating ‘false stories’. What leads human beings to create ‘false stories’ are assumptions, beliefs, and guesses about what ‘is’ true and right, and/or to manipulate ‘others’ for greedy or selfish purposes. ‘The drive’ to learn more leads to the creation of ‘stories’ about what ‘could be’ true and right, which some presume or believe are true without facts and proof. While those who are wise wait for the actual proof and facts to become known first, before they make up ANY ‘stories’.

Here is another example of one who presents what they just believe is true, but which is unverified and not proved to be true, but who then goes on to say and write, “with this fact understood, …”, as though their belief and claim is ‘a fact’.

All this one is essentially doing here is just ‘trying to’ argue for their ‘current’ belief, as though what they believe here is an irrefutable fact. As can be very clearly seen here.

Look, if you have chosen to believe that God does not exist, then okay, ‘others’ have chosen to believe other things also.

But just because people have chosen to believe things never makes ‘their beliefs’ the truth of things.

Based upon ‘what’, exactly?

‘your beliefs’ or ‘your pre/assumptions’ here?

Okay.

And, what ‘we’ just witnessed here is another great example of ‘confirmation bias’ at work, and at play.

13

What is the “this version of god belief is ‘by far the most common’,” based upon, exactly?

What do ‘empirical questions’ have to do with your own two personal stories of what you call the “common use” of God here, exactly?

But, from your so-called ‘argument’ it does not logically follow that there is a God is less likely than there is not a God.
This is just what you believe is true, only.

14

We are wearing blinkers, or we may be? Those are two very different propositions. If you are asserting that it is certainly the case that there things out there, you have to demonstrate it, which seems logically impossible.

We don’t, nor can’t, know anything about anything that has no effect on the world. The notions of God I am addressing have an effect on the world. A God that doesn’t affect the world is a God that doesn’t perform miracles and whose will is entirely unknowable in principle. A God that has no effect on the world, and who’s will is unknowable is to me, uninteresting speculation.

A blindfold is an unnecessary metaphor, and it’s has the unfortunate unspoken implication that someone has blindfolded us. Let’s instead just say the literal fact. There are possibly (maybe even probably) things that happen outside of the part of existence that affects us, and unless it does affect us in some way, we will never know about it. Could a God occupy that space? Not the kind I’m speaking about. Not the traditional Christian God. The traditional Christian (and Muslim, and Hindu) God(s) affect the world all the time. If something affects the world, then it is subject to observation and empirical analysis. If something doesn’t affect the world, then frankly I don’t care about it and I don’t see why anyone should.

1 Like
15

Yes, although those who have felt God’s presence might also conclude that… unless we want to pull a “no true Scotsman” and say “You only say/think you felt God’s presence, but you haven’t. If you had, you’d believe”. I was a Christian, and I have had what felt to me like spiritual experiences.

What’s the alternative to drawing conclusions “in a rationalistic manner”? Deciding the truth of a matter irrationally? If so, then what irrational method should we use?

16

What is the distinction between “nudging” evolution and overriding natural laws? It seems only a question of degree.

Slightly? Why is degree a concern?

As a side note, I think the statement “the laws of physics are probabilistic” isn’t a given, and in this context is so oversimplified as to be essentially meaningless or false. I mean the experts don’t even agree what “probabilistic” means, so it’s problematic to draw metaphysical conclusions from the Heisenberg equation. That’s probably a debate for another thread.

17

Millions of people across cultures report experiences of the transcendent (e.g., profound feelings of unity, divine presence, or audible/visual “revelations”). Just as you trust your memory or senses without constructing a formal argument to prove your eyes work, a direct experience of God can arguably act as immediate personal evidence, even though this is not “evidence” in the evidentialist sense of the word which we’re all used to. You yourself claim spiritual experiences so I’m guessing you understand what my point is, here.

18

I do understand, however I have also learned some other things that seem relevant. I have learned the fact that a spiritual experience feels profound doesn’t necessarily imply that I should take it fully at face value. I have learned that the spiritual experiences other people have sometimes imply things that are contrary to my experiences and intuitions. I have learned that my mind is subject to getting things wrong in all kinds of ways, so the adage “seeing is believing” isn’t a hard truth, it’s just a rule of thumb that sometime has to be rejected.

That people have moving spiritual experiences isn’t in question. How to interpret them is.

Throughout the history of mankind, people have experienced night terrors. For most of the history, we believed that it was caused by evil spirits visiting us in our sleep, either punishing us for wickedness or auguring future doom. Now we understand that there is a physiological paralysis that occurs as we are coming out of our dream cycle that causes it. I don’t know what the cause of spiritual experiences are, but I don’t think it makes sense to simply say “The experience was profound, therefore I must assume it was supernatural, and evidence of God”.

19

Night terrors can’t be fully explained by science without resorting to the “junkyard of the mind”, the imagination, because the shapes they form are so specific. But I digress. It’s wise to reject some “spiritual experiences” as evidence because the term is vague and imagination does often play a role. It would be silly for me to argue that these should be taken as valid without scrutiny.

20

Indeed, but we ought to ask whether god is the most likely explanation for those experiences.

Its interesting that, in most cases religious experience coincides with or follows religious conversion. Bhuddists claim evidence of a past life. Christians claim that god reveals to them the truth of the scripture.

The type and frequency of reported religious experiences appear sufficiently correlated with religious claims that their distribution is compatible with reports being generated or shaped by those claims. Consequently, the reports do not provide straightforwardly independent evidence for the religious beliefs with which they tend to coincide.