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God would be an atheist...
A rational look at religion, morality, politics and daily life |
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HOME / This Week About GWBAA WEEKLY COLUMNS Previous Print column Why subscribe? Schedule Terms & Rates Subscribe Online column Subscribe BASICS Definitions Atheism Faith God Religion etc Analysis The meaning of life Morality etc NEXT STEPS Buy Discuss Join Read REVIEWS CONTACT Link to this site All Rights Reserved World Copyright © Martin Foreman PREVIOUSLY... Blood circulates in the body, the earth’s atmosphere protects us from harmful radiation, neutrons and electrons exist, DNA is passed from to parent to child, the earth is billions of years old and gravity exists. We know these things not because a few individuals proclaim them, but because thousands of men and women over several generations have theorized and researched and tested each idea until there is no doubt that they are true. The evolution of science Let us suppose for a moment that Christians are right. That somewhere Antony is either beaming broadly as he sings God’s praises or screaming in agony as devils torture him. At what point in the continuum of life and death did his spirit, his soul, his personality, call it what you will, pass from this world to the next? In the final ten days when you could see his mind shutting down, where was the Antony we had known and loved? Death comes as the end One of our greatest failings as human beings is our inability to understand other people’s emotions and thinking. We almost always give much greater weight to our own perspective on the world than to that of those around us. The rhetoric of death or the tools of life? Within the parameters of culture we create our own God, and like love, we each experience God differently. And we do so because God does not creates us in his own image; we create him in ours. Make me a god... People kill to protect their faith. They kill to force others to accept it. They kill with a clear conscience because their imaginary God tells them it is acceptable, even desirable, that others die so the “true” faith can prosper. Kill God, save lives Let us be generous and accept the Family Research Institute’s definition. American society should support the ideal family of one husband and one wife living with their children, free of grandparents but holding fast to the option of divorce when times get rough. Nice theory, pity about the facts Chapter three tells us how Eve is tempted by the serpent to eat the forbidden fruit. She then persuades Adam to do the same. Suddenly they both realise they’re naked. Any other young couple would consider this a significant step forward in their relationship, but Adam and Eve aren’t that bright. The confused Christian creation myth |
Column 100: Reasons to believe Why God must exist By © Martin Foreman Word Count: 799 words Publication date: March 25, 2007 Print publications wishing to syndicate the column should click here. Individual subscribers wishing to receive columns by e-mail should click here. (This column was inspired by www.godlessgeeks.com/LINKS/GodProof.htm and philosophy-forums.com/showthread.php?t=66) How many proofs are there of God’s existence? Literally hundreds. Here’s a common one: Everything that exists has a cause. The universe exists. Therefore it has a cause. The cause can only be God. Therefore God exists. Or how about this one? I can conceive of a perfect God. One of the qualities of perfection is existence. Therefore God exists. Try this for size: Look at this beetle / bacterium / monkey / whatever. It’s too complex to have come into existence by chance. Something must have created it. Therefore God exists. How about: My aunt had cancer. The doctors said it was incurable. My aunt and her friends prayed to cure the cancer. It went away. Therefore God exists. I was a dissolute person until I discovered God. Now I don’t drink or take drugs and I’m president of the United States. Therefore God exists. I asked God into my life. He came. Therefore God exists. The Bible (or the Koran or the Torah or fill in the blank) tells me that God exists. Therefore God exists. Most people believe that God exists. Therefore God exists. God is love. Love exists. Therefore God exists. There is good and bad in the world. God created good. Therefore God exists. Human reasoning is inherently flawed. Therefore human propositions cannot be reasonably challenged. I propose that God exists. You can’t challenge me. Therefore God exists. If there is no God, there is no meaning. But our lives have meaning. Therefore God exists. We cannot prove that God doesn’t exist. Therefore God exists. Some of these arguments have a superficial appeal and I’ll come back to them in the next two columns. Many others venture into the absurd. How about some of the following? Telling people that God exists can make evangelists rich. I am an evangelist and I am rich. Therefore God exists. I don’t care what you think. I know that God exists. Therefore God exists. A lot of really cool people believe in God. Therefore God exists. If God doesn’t exist, then I am a very minor blip in a very large cosmos. I don’t want to be a minor blip. Therefore God exists. We need God. Therefore God exists. Christianity (or Islam or Judaism or whatever) is too weird for people to have invented. Therefore God exists. More intelligent people than me have proved that God exists. (Often using one or more of the arguments in this article.) Therefore God exists. My life and my partner and my children are wonderful. Only God could have made me so happy. Therefore God exists. My life is terrible and I am the unhappiest person in the world. Anyone as unhappy as me must be rewarded after they die. Therefore God exists. I don’t understand evolution or geology. Therefore God exists. I do understand evolution and geology, but I don’t like the idea of a world without God. Therefore God exists. There are hundreds of arguments for God. The laws of chance say they can’t all be wrong. Therefore God exists. God is so totally awesome that he must exist. Therefore God exists. God listens to my prayers. Sometimes he even answers them. Therefore God exists. If God doesn’t exist my life is meaningless. Therefore God exists. God allows me to make the same argument twice. Therefore God exists. You can’t seriously believe there is no God. Therefore God exists. The apostles and martyrs (of whichever religion you choose) wouldn’t have died for no reason. Therefore God exists. Half an eyeball is impossible. Therefore God exists. I don’t want to be descended from or related to apes. Therefore God exists. Jesus warned us that the devil would quote from the Bible. Atheist quote from the Bible. Therefore God exists. There are many religions. They can’t all be wrong. Therefore God exists. If people didn’t believe in God there would be anarchy. There isn’t anarchy. Therefore God exists. I think. Therefore God exists. I saw the Virgin Mary in an omelette. Therefore God exists. The Founding Fathers believed in God. All right, some of them believed in some kind of God. Therefore God exists. When people stop believing in God, bad things happen to them. Therefore God exists. If God didn’t exist, why would we believe in him? Therefore God exists. The law of entropy says that the universe is coming to an end. Therefore God exists. I can argue that God exists. Therefore God exists. Priests (and imams and rabbis and so on) tell me that God exists. Therefore God exists. My best friend tells me that God exists. Therefore God exists. That’s enough for this week. Check out the sites cited above for more examples. We’ll start picking the reasoning apart next week.
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If God existed, he would... If God existed, he would be an atheist. State Senator Raymond Finney has introduced a Senate Resolution intended to force state Education Commissioner Lana Seivers to answer the question in a report to be presented by January 15, 2008. Finney, a believer, intends to force Seivers either to endorse creationism or to be ridiculed as deciding a question that belongs to the realm of science. Read more at the online edition of the Knoxville News Sentinel. |
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