Last Updated on 2022-09-18 by Joop Beris
As an atheist, I obviously do not believe in God. I can’t be absolutely sure that there is no divine being of some sort but I think it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the God of the Bible (or Torah and Koran for that matter) doesn’t exist. Here are my Top 10 reasons God does not exist.
For a better understanding of my personal reasons to be an atheist, you may want to check out this article too. If you believe in God or find yourself in doubt, you will want to read 10 bad reasons to believe in God and 9 logical reasons why there is no God.
10. People speak for God.
According to Christians, Jesus walked the Earth in the flesh, appeared to people after his alleged death and God even spoke directly to people like Abraham and Moses. This all happened a long time ago though and no direct evidence exists to support these events. Nowadays, there are still people who claim to speak for God and people who claim that God speaks to them. Many of them sound like they have mental problems and would be a source of embarrassment if they were the spokesperson of anyone today. Why would an omnipotent and benevolent God have such people speak for him? If God really existed, he would speak for himself.
9. So many gods to choose from.
Christians (and other religions) claim that their God is the one true God and all the others aren’t real. It’s unclear how they determined this. Why is their God the real thing and not any of the others? Circumstance appears to dictate which God you believe in, like place of birth and the faith of your parents. Children growing up in a home without religion, grow up without believing in God unless someone tells them. If there were one true God who wanted to save people, he would reveal himself. The fact that he doesn’t, proves that God doesn’t exist.
8. God isn’t love.
Christians are ever so fond of telling us that God is love, that he regards us as his children, that he came to die for our sins and that he wants everyone to be saved. Obviously, this is not true. If God is our omnipotent father, it would be trivial for him to save people from dying horrible deaths. If he cared for us like a father, he would make sure that none of us would have to suffer an eternity in hell. That’s what an actual loving parent does.
The God of the Bible appears very different when you actually read the Bible. God has no problems wiping out very nearly everyone on Earth in a global flood. He commands the Israelites to commit genocide and berates Moses for not being thorough enough. He deliberately hardens the heart of the Pharaoh so that he can deliver the plagues upon Egypt. If we don’t love him back, he quite happily consigns us to everlasting torture by fire. These are not the actions of a kind, loving father but the actions of a psychopath. This proves that God doesn’t exist, at least not how people prefer to believe in Him.
7. God supposedly doesn’t want to interfere with free will.
When asked why God no longer performs miracles today, why he doesn’t appear to people any more, we are often told that God has to remain hidden because he doesn’t want to interfere with our free will. If it were obvious that he was there, of course people would believe in him. Yes, and? Why would that be a problem for God? If he loves us and wants us to be saved, what better way to ensure that than being painfully obvious for everyone?
Moreover, God had no problem being obvious in the past. He parted the Red Sea, spoke directly with people, appeared in a fiery column, brought people back from the dead, incarnated himself and died a public death, appeared after his public death and many more. Why wasn’t it a problem for people witnessing these events to lose their free will? What has changed? It is much more likely that those events are myths and that God doesn’t exist. Free will has nothing to do with it.
6. Jesus wasn’t a nice person.
Christians all around the world have this warm, fuzzy image of a kind of hippie Jesus avant-la-lettre, who went around preaching love and forgiveness. That doesn’t correspond to what the Bible tells us about Jesus, though. At best, Jesus sounds like a hypocrite when he tells people to love their enemies but at the same time says that people who don’t believe in him, will be cast into the fire. Jesus also tells people that he has not come to bring peace but a sword and that we are to hate our relatives if we want to follow him. And what to think of the Canaanite woman who pleads with Jesus and he sends her away calling her a dog because she is not the right nationality? Or when he kills a fig tree for not bearing fruit at a time when figs are out of season? That doesn’t sound like a loving God but like a childish, capricious and bigoted person.
The loving Jesus who is also God? He doesn’t exist.
5. Jesus failed
Millions of Christians believe that Jesus was God incarnate, God become flesh in this world. He came to die for our sins so that everyone could be saved. Clearly, he failed miserably in his mission. Many people don’t believe in him and some even believe he may never have existed at all. Many more people believe in a different God. And many people have never heard of him. When you think about it, why didn’t Jesus do a better job? Why didn’t he do something better with his omniscience than dying rather anonymously in a barbaric desert region in the Middle East? After all, being omnipotent and omniscient, he would have known beforehand that his mission would only be a success on a limited scale. Even I could find a better way to save people without being all-knowing. Clearly, the Jesus that Christians believe in, wasn’t the omnipotent and omniscient God that he is made out to be. He doesn’t exist.
4. Christians don’t trust in God either
I know they profess to believe in God and that God is their saviour and that they put their trust in God. The reality is that they don’t really do that. If they did, no Christian would have insurance, no Christian would go see a doctor and no Christian would need to look before crossing the road. After all, when God has your back, what could possibly happen to you, right? A simple prayer will set everything straight again, won’t it? If it’s your time to die, it’s your time to die, no? Since they’ve accepted Jesus, they’ll go straight to heaven, won’t they?
Christians don’t trust their God any more than non-Christians do. Why? Because God doesn’t exist, that’s why.
3. The crucifixion story is utterly unbelievable
The central message of Christianity is that God so loved the world, he came down from heaven as a person to die for our sins in a most gruesome way so that we could be forgiven for our sinful nature. Forgiven by whom? Forgiven by the same God who came to die for us. All you need to do to become a Christian, is believe that this is true and you are saved.
When you think logically about it though (and religion rarely stands up under logical scrutiny), you’ll immediately see that this makes no sense at all. For one, why would God need to be born, become flesh? Why go through all this trouble of being born, growing up, performing the odd miracle, teaching at temple, gathering a bunch of followers, do some more miracles, get arrested, crucified, die, only to come back from the dead three days later? If God, who is allegedly omnipotent, wants to forgive us, why go through with this elaborate scheme? Why not just forgive everyone and be done with it?
In addition, God is omniscient so he knew before ever making humans that one day, he’d do all that. Why not just leave that one tree out of reach of Adam and Eve? Surely God knew that they’d eat from it? None of it is necessary! It could all have been prevented, the fall from grace, the flood, the plagues, the genocides, the crucifixion if God had just left that one tree out of the garden of Eden.
The most logical explanation is that none of this is true, the garden of Eden never existed and neither does God.
2. The Bible
When asked, most Christians will tell you that the Bible is the word of God. In essence, God is the author of this book. Since God is supposedly perfect, omniscient and omnipotent, you’d expect the Bible to be the most beautiful, most moving, most poetic, most moral and most accurate book of all time.
This is not what you find when you read the Bible. Most Christians never bother reading the Bible cover to cover and if they did, there’d be a lot more atheists in this world! Instead of a book as I just described, the Bible is full of errors, contradictions, superstition and utterly immoral texts. There is not one person among my readership who could not write a more moral text. Instead of proving a perfect author, the Bible reads just like a text you’d expect from a barbaric age, an age of slavery, genocide, pestilence, torture and scapegoating.
The Bible proves it’s author wasn’t divine and that God does not exist.
And lastly, the number one reason why God does not exist:
1. Prayer never works
It may seem to work from time to time but in reality, it doesn’t. Try praying for something that is deemed impossible and it will never happen. Why? Well, because it is impossible. Imagine all the people on Earth right now, imagine what they are praying for. People praying for peace in their country, people praying for food, for shelter, for safety, for healing, for the floods to spare them, for a successful exam, for anything you can imagine. If you do an analysis on the prayers that get answered, you’ll see it is only the prayers that had a fairly realistic chance of coming true regardless. You can pass an exam without prayer if you study but no matter how hard you pray, food never falls from the sky, God never restores an amputee, God never brings peace, God never heals a child with terminal cancer. He will help you find a parking space though.
It should be painfully obvious that prayer accomplishes nothing. In fact, nothing fails like prayer!
This is completely at odds with the words of Jesus who promised that anything you ask in his name, he’ll do. No conditions, no excuses: ask and ye shall receive. But you don’t. Why? God doesn’t answer prayers because God doesn’t exist.
Conclusion
These are just my Top 10 reasons God does not exist. I’m sure you could think of several more but these are the ones I like. What reason do you have? Why don’t you leave me your Top 10 reasons God does not exist in the comments below? Have anything else to say about the above? Please leave a comment!
This is a pretty old article but it is still the most popular on the site. It has received nearly 300 comments as I write this. Lately however, the quality of comments has gone downhill.
I will leave the comments open for now but if you feel moved to comment, please have something to say and read the commenting guidelines before commenting. From now on, I will begin removing new comments that don’t adhere to the commenting guidelines or that don’t contribute anything meaningful.
Hello Beris, I think you need to clarify this, the true meaning of an Atheist is someone who absolutely doesn’t believe in God or any gods.
Here in Africa where I come from, we have people who don’t believe in God but believe that gods are there in existence though they may or not worship them. Personally I have seen people here in Africa get possessed by the spirits/gods and they surely heal, teach/advise and foretell etc.
So for such a person who doesn’t believe that God exists but knows and has witnessed and proven beyond a doubt that gods exist, in which category would you place them? Do they qualify to be called Atheists?
People who believe in a god, any god, are not atheists. They are theists. I explain things in more detail here: https://www.beris.nl/what-is-atheism/
All men no matter from where need something bigger than themselves to look up to. A place to take their sadness and ask for help. Man cannot handle death. theirs of the ones they love. so bam, create a heaven. A place you will see them again in the afterlife. What’s the first thing Christians say, “Oh they are in such a better place, you will see them again if you just believe.”
If there really was a one true all knowing, all powerful God why are there so many Gods that people believe in. Wouldn’t the real one make himself known to all? Why would he leave it up to a bunch of idiots to spread the word to the world About God? a person on a plane that crashes lives, it’s a miracle God saved them, God had something for that person to do, so he spared them. Yet he let all the rest die a horrible death? The way that we look at natives dancing around a volcano offering sacrifice, is how people in a thousand years or so are going to see us. Primitive, with limited intelligence. That fell for a suckers story. I mean really, it’s not hard to sniff out the BS. Man needs God, Man invents one, and he’s been doing it since time began. Jesus is no more real than Santa Clause. funny how if you don’t believe in either one, you won’t get presents, rewards (eternal life). Its a fairy tale.
My reasons why. 1. God is all knowing, why did it take him two tries to get it right? The Old Testament, full of animal sacrifices, eye for an eye, entire cities etc. wiped out, killed off. Eve and the big mistake in Eden dooms millions of people to sure death, pain, sickness, hell on earth. Then all of a sudden, hold up! Here comes the new testament. Time to change all the rules and do everything different. Why? because Church leaders realized that the ways of the old testament, were not going to bring in the masses of the future. God was too tough, rough, on his people, hell he murdered thousands upon thousands. Animal sacrifices don’t please an all-knowing, loving god. Now it was about Love, and forgiveness. turning the other cheek. Jesus was a Jehovah Lite so to speak. God didn’t know that the Old T. ways were not going to work as time moved on? Why wouldn’t he have gotten it right the first time. Because it’s man that came up with the Old T. Sacrificing animals and the like was man’s feeble mind set, not Gods. 2. Nothing in the Bible that Man didn’t already know at the time. No nuggets of knowledge from an all-knowing God/Holy Spirit? There was no devine inspiration directing the writers of the bible. Space travel, life on other planets, the actual age of the earth, dinosaurs, not a word about any of the unknowns. 3. God knew Eve would eat the forbidden fruit, he knowingly condemned his children to untold horrors. where was forgiveness then? No God.
Hi Jeffrey,
What you wrote is “dead” on accurate. The frightening thing to me is that the believers never take a critical look at all the flaws, never look at it logically, believe it without thinking. I strongly believe the fear of death is the main reason god exists. They live their lives, most struggle, and their final reward is to die. That can’t be the way things go. There must be something more. If only there was a God, and he is up there waiting to take us into eternal life after we die. Then death, well, it’s not the end. Now there is purpose for all our suffering. The fictitious being gives us hope because the reality of death, that really sucks.
Jim
Used to be a fanatic zealot of this jewish/racist god, sang lots of euphoria songs that hype up senses and go emotional over talking to walls and air. I even forked up my savings, get bank loans as I was told purportedly that this god wanted me to finance an inter-school youth camp to bring revival (mass hysteria) into my city. Sadly, I bought into that lie and did took bank loans (two personal loans to be exact from two different banks) to finance that camp. It was a blast then when I was still believing an invisible god.
Right after that I received news that I was laid off from my job. It was a high paying job. So, I was confused that why this loving god will rob me off my high pay job right after I organize that camp. You know what answers that was given to me? “Oh God want to protect you from the evil company you worked in.” or “Satan is attacking you.” Or the most unacceptable one: You got into this shit because your heart is not pure.”
Dude, you took loans and getting myself in fucking debt for this god, how was my heart not pure? Long story short since this was 2015. Now 2024, working as a lowly paid roadside guy and no one will pay an attention to me, I realized a few things:
God doesn’t not exist. We pray because it helps create false sense of hope when we speak our mind out by talking to wall, or air. That’s it. It is all placebo effect. Miracles in the past are not real. People back then and conjured stories and made us think it is real.
Wasn’t allowed to type so long, so let me continue.
imagine what will people in the future think of us if today I decided to bury a vase with alien logo (popular teen wallet logo) in it.
How human came to be with complex design like DNA or brain capable of memory keeping? Easy. Know how vast our universe is? Will there be possibilities that our predecessors are out there? Christians will deny this if space exploration are not a thing back then, but now?
Sorry to hear about your misfortune, Daniel. That’s a rough way to learn the truth about religious beliefs. I hope things will improve for you sooner rather than later.
As you pointed out and as Jim already said: religion is indeed false, a delusion. It may comfort people somewhat but that is about it.
Daniel,
Well spoken. I kind of did the same earlier in my life. Result: screw you for your faith and belief. Prayer means nothing as you say. Just false hope that people are deceived into believing that it means anything. I hope that you are able to find something better for your life when it comes to work. Others may not care about what you do, sadly that is often the way people are, but I do care about your situation even though it’s just learning about you through your post. You are worth something, so don’t ever believe you aren’t. Best of luck to you, and may things turn around for you, it just won’t be god helping you – it will be your own perseverance and determination. Best. Jim
Surely you have outstanding points. To add on your 10 reasons, I would say, for a very long time keeping in prayer, I have always wondered,
1. God is an omniscient God, why would he create Satan knowing he would ultimately rebel. So by the fact that Satan is the reason why we get all the oroblems we have, then God his creator is the main reason why we all go through this. So I don’t see a loving God following that, it’s more less like a conspiracy between God and Satan. The whole point in this is that, that statement doesn’t paint a clear picture for the God the Bible talks about. So God doesn’t exist.
10 reason you will end up in hell* now REPENT FOR THIS BS god will reveal himself to you by then it will be to late till that time comes i will pray for you AMEN.
I think your post might be an issue for the commenting guidelines, perhaps? Unlike you in your comment to Joop about going to Hell and all, even though I don’t know you, I wish the best for you in your life. I don’t espouse hate.
That comment was totally against the commenting guidelines but I’m going to leave it up for entertainment value. I love the impotent rage, barely concealed by the “AMEN”.
I bet they were hammering the keyboard extra hard to make that impressive point.
God will reveal himself to me? That sounds a bit dirty. I didn’t think he would be up for that kind of thing. Just goes to show, it’s always the quiet ones you have to watch out for. Two thousand years and not a peep out of him and then suddenly he reveals himself. Who would’ve thought?
Let me just point out that threatening me with hell, makes no impression at all. You see, I don’t believe in hell either, nor the devil and all his little minions. It’s all fantasy. It’s like threatening me with the wrath of Sauron.
While you’re at it praying for me, don’t forget to sacrifice a goat and walk naked around the old oak tree at the next full moon too. Can’t be too careful.
Bye now!
This. This is one of the best comment i’ve seen. If god does not exist, then theoretically all BS surrounding the concept of god does not exist. If a person does not exist, then his internal organs shouldn’t exist. Also im manifesting atheism. I wanna join y’all because in general, i think god does not exist. And never will.
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This comment doesn’t add anythiing meaningful to the discussion.Please read the commenting guidelines before posting.
Hi, i have a few objections to this. Or maybe more than a few. Yeah, a lot.
Problem with #1, Prayer never works:
You are wrong. prayer does in fact work. And this is why I will be praying for you. Actually, even if you do not believe that God listens(He does) it is scientifically proven that prayer has a calming effect on the brain. Therefore, prayer does help. I have more objections I will post later.
Not quite sure that is what Joop means when he says, prayer doesn’t work, but I’m sure he will want to elaborate on that. Meditation has also been scientifically proven to have a calming effect on the brain. So…is meditation as good as prayer then because they both give the same results? What specifically does prayer accomplish though, something tangible? I could provide hundreds of examples where people prayed, like for the safety of a friend or relative, but that person ends up dead, often brutally killed. Just read some true crime stories as evidence of prayer not working. Also, if one thinks God is looking out for people, especially innocent people, look up Sylvia Likens. I wish God had saved her from the horrendous fate she met. But I guess she wasn’t worth helping. Where was God when an innocent 16-year-old needed him?
As Jim said, that is indeed not what I mean when I say that prayer doesn’t work. The examples that he gives, are great to illustrate that prayer doesn’t solve anything in the real world. Yes, you may experience less stress but meditating or petting your cat has that very same effect. Imagine for a second how many people in Ukraine or Russia are praying for peace now and see how well that works.
If this is the nature of all your objections, then I’m afraid they won’t do much to convince me.
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Hi, am supreme. Am a quite unique atheist. Taking my time to read all through the comment , i haven’t found a post or blog that depicts the type of atheist i am. I don’t worship God, but whether God exist or Not is not something i say for sure, but am more willing to support the fact that God doesn’t exist and even if a being like God exist, he wouldn’t be as what was described in the bible . But one thing is sure whether God exist or not is not a being i can ever give my faith to. If God where to be standing right now in front of me all i would feel would be Awe and Jealousy not a single molecule of worship. if beings such as gods exist, that would be nice cause i would be willing to become like them in order to better my civilization.
I keep telling my sister that one day our human civilization would become so strong to the exxtent that it is able to kill gods if they were to exist
Your not atheist, your agnostic
Please Joop , I am atheist than yourself I live in Ghana XXXXXX XXXXXXX to be precise, every one at my area kn.ows that am atheist, I don’t go to church and I keep telling them that God doesn’t exist,cos the evidence is there to see just that they find it difficult to accept,if God exist, the world would have been a better place without diseases,poverty,and so on,God doesn’t exist that is why there world is like we see it,but Joop pls I want you to help me get out of Ghana cos am receiving a lot of abuses for being atheist, my number is XXXXXXXXXX.
Hi Emmanuel, thank you for your comment and I am very sorry to hear about your personal troubles. I have removed your personal information from your comment because it’s not wise to share your contact information on a public forum such as this.
As for helping you get out of Ghana, I’m afraid I can’t be of much help there. I am just a single blogger and I don’t have the resources to do something like that.
I admire being an outspoken atheist but perhaps this is not always the best course of action. If your family, friends and neighbors are all deeply religious, it is probably better to keep your point of view to yourself and don’t try to change the mind of everyone around you. Perhaps it is better to confide in one or two people you trust or seek fellowship online with other atheists. One such place where you can connect with atheists from all over the world, is here: https://www.atheistrepublic.com/
Perhaps you will find other atheists from Ghana there as well. Good luck to you and be safe!
In my personal view, I think that the question of whether God exists or not is a complex and multifaceted issue. It is one of the most debated topics in human history, and there is no easy answer to it. While some people firmly believe that God is real, others are convinced that there is no evidence to support such a claim. However, it is important to acknowledge that everyone’s opinion on this matter is valid, and that we should respect each other’s beliefs. Ultimately, the existence of God is a deeply personal and subjective topic, and each individual has the right to form their own opinion based on their personal experiences and beliefs.
Why post output generated by ChatGPT or a similar generative AI here? It’s not useful to a discussion because these kinds of AI have been trained to be as inoffensive as possible and they don’t actually have an opinion on any subject. They just generate text.
Try to come up with your own thoughts if you want to enter the discussion, please.
This is like how my friends I came to realize there really isn’t a meaning to life literally all people do is what makes them happy to me that’s the only reason we could come up with and that it only means something to you and those around you, so yeah there’s one reason I’m an atheist.
Youre clouded by the devil, all of you who say God does not exist, of course he does, he’s realer than our universe.
Thanks for sharing your opinion. Do you have any evidence for the existence of a god, the devil or that our universe was created? If not, we don’t really have anything to talk about, do we?
Hey You don’t need to be rude and we do have proof read the book of mormon and then respond to this comment. The Holy Ghost will comfirm to us that he is real
There’s nothing rude about that comment. It is a simple observation. Just like the observation that your comment doesn’t add anything to the conversation.
Holy books aren’t proof of your claim, they *are* the claim. I addressed this here: https://www.beris.nl/holy-books-arent-proof/
I mean the ark of the covenant was found. They also found the Noah’s ark.
Uh, no. Neither has ever been found.
might be a million gods, what good is it if 250 kids die every single day from cancer
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Not sure what you’re even trying to say here. If God created the universe, then how is he more real than the universe. We can see the universe, can you see God? And if God made the devil, why does he allow him to cloud? Is the devil more powerful than God then? And why does God have to be a he? God has a gender? You’ve thoroughly convinced me of something though. Let’s leave it at that.
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First prove a god of any kind exists. Then we can talk.
Joop. Uh, these posts by Vienna seem to be nothing more than direct attacks on other posters. They add no value to the discussion. I see you have deleted several already. Can you please delete the rest, lol?
Jim
Yes, a couple I deleted right away. Let me run through the rest again to see if they should really be gone too.
Prove it. And disrespect him every single day? You don’t even know me, yet you judge me? Very Christian of you. I don’t judge you because you believe in god. That’s your belief, and it is what it is. And is it – you bet god is a he, or god said he is a he? Where in the scriptures does god declare he is male? And what does that actually mean? Does god have a beard? Male anatomy too? Need to read a bit more. Bible says no one has ever seen God. 1 John 4:12. Exodus 33:20 – you cannot see my face, for man shall not see me and live. And why only man? Because maybe the Bible was written by men? And as for the devil misguiding, that is a lame excuse for not taking full responsibility for your wrongs. The devil made me do it…
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Honestly, Gods are used only as an excuse to explain things that normal human beings would not be able to explain or do, just my opinion!
I found this post in my search for reasons why people reject God as revealed in the Bible. I am working on a tract that asks, “So What’s Your Excuse?” Though I have working knowledge of rejecting God and over 30 years of hearing other’s reasoning for unbelief since settling my decision, I sought to make a list of the typical reasons for no-God. And there it was, “Top Ten Reasons God does not Exist”, a treasure trove of mans futile debating of existence and its origins. (Thanks Joop for your help)
Surely we’re not just contemplating “God”. The provided short list of justification against God along with the 224 comments below are like a skipping record, an endless repeating, of man’s wrestling with existence throughout human history. “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun” as stated by Solomon applies. In other words, the reasoning and logic expressed here (including this entire blog) is but a drop of water relative to the ocean of reasoning and logic that exists in written history on the subject. To what end? For most it is to shore up the direction chosen using selective reasoning and preferential logic.
The decision is one of two persuasions: God or no-God. The argument for and against, in most cases, is not going to move the other from their position. Ultimately what I think and what you think is meaningless to what IS.
IF Truth THEN God
IF no-Truth THEN no-God
Maranatha.
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What Happened to the Souls of people before GOD and Religion were even a word?
They were actually held in a different heaven called Sheol, I don’t know if you would try to look this stuff up, but there are a lot of results that help with your question. Sheol existed before any human could get up into heaven.
Here is an article that I found that may help you with your question:
https://nickcady.org/2019/02/15/did-people-go-to-heaven-before-jesus-death-resurrection/
Appreciate your link, but I’m confused by some things in the link. If the faithful now who die go to Heaven, then what is the last judgment after all things where the living and the dead will be judged? Those who died have either gone to heaven already because of faith, and I would assume the others have not. So why is it necessary to have another judgment? That would imply no one who dies today goes to heaven but will be judged at a later time. It’s very confusing because when people die, in the Christian faith, for example, it is almost always said they are in Heaven with God, per the ministers, preachers, or whomever. This seems to be a glaring contradiction and one christian religion i used to follow many years ago said all the other Christian religions were wrong in their interpretation because there is only one judgment and no one gets into heaven until that occurs. That’s part of why I no longer believe in any organized religions because they don’t seem to get their stories straight, and depending on what Christian faith, the interpretation of the scriptures is often different. It’s difficult to see how anyone can have a faith in any religion when they say different things about what the same biblical passages mean. Logically, there can only be one right answer thus only one religion can be right and all others are wrong. How is it possible for anyone to find that religion when all religions claim to be the true religion? On faith?
Good to read your comments, as always. And very valid questions. Christians are fond of saying that “god is not the author of confusion” but they’ve had countless meetings, arguments and wars about how to interpret the bible.
Seems to me that god authored plenty of confusion…
I agree with Joop, these are very very valid questions.
I’ll start with a question I found the answer in my head with immediately, Christianity is actually the only religion that says you can’t do good works to get into heaven, that only God allows us to get into heaven, through us believing that His Son, Jesus Christ, died on the cross, so that we may be saved. Is it just me, or does that sound like a pretty sweet deal?
Second off, there will be a day of judgement for all things still living on the earth, it is necessary because it allows to root out the believers from the non-believers. If you were a Christian at one point, you’ll understand how important that is.
Third, actually after the end times, we will be resurrected and brought back to earth, none of us know what it will be like, no matter what Bible scholars say. “It was revealed to me” no one, even if they say it was revealed to them, we will never know, even John couldn’t grasp it
Thank you for reading this, you will be in my prayers. I hope you come to know Christ again brother.
— Samuel R. Nickelsburg
You can find more answers about that of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saint website
You can find more
answersunsubstantiated speculation about that on the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saint websiteAfter reading the post, and reading through the comments, I realized that most people in the atheist community look at it from a logical standpoint, which, coming from a logical person, I respect. The way personally I see Christianity is that it’s not logical. It’s not logical that a guy lived a perfect life, and then rose form the dead 2000 years ago. Christianity is faith, its faith in a higher being than you.
If it was logic, that wouldn’t be logical (see what I did there 🤣🤣). Why would God make a religion that people have to be logical about to accept? That wouldn’t show how he sent his only son cause he loves us, that wouldn’t show a that he’s always with us, except that God is real and made us. By faith alone you will you go to heaven. This is because faith is what God values. He values this because it that is the way you see what Jesus did for you.
God should send us all to Hell. But he gives us a chance, and that chance is Jesus Christ, because he loves us.
True, I think most atheists look at religion from a logical perspective and also an evidence based perspective. And then they ask themselves: “based on the available evidence, how realistic is it than any of this is true?” The answer to that should, if you’re a skeptic and someone who values evidence, always be: not very realistic at all.
The logical conclusion would then be not to believe the propositions of the thus examined religion.
So given that there are so many people who are not convinced by religious claims, in this case those of Christianity, why would a god see fit to condemn people to everlasting torture simply because they are not convinced by the paltry evidence? Even if they’re otherwise good and decent people? Especially since this god, if what people say about him is true, would have known in advance that so many people woud not be convinced.
How is it that honest, decent atheists who are not convinced by the paltry evidence and the droning from the pulpit, should be condemned to hell while convicted mass murderers need only accept Jesus as their savior and go to heaven?
A Lover of Jehovah, if people would really study the book of Job and the book of Revelation they would learn 1. Why God Jehovah stepped back from talking to people as much and 2. They would learn that not all people will go to heaven. 144,000 anointed people will go to heaven to help Jesus rule the new government of the Kingdom of God , the other sheep of God will live on the new paradise earth. If a person truly wants answers to their questions they will stop interpreting things their way and listen to what they are reading. No where in the Bible does it say that ‘ everyone ‘ is going to heaven, and ‘no where’ in the Bible does it say that God came to earth in the flesh, it says he sent his Son Christ Jesus. If you really don’t believe in God then remember this, don’t call on him when your parents, spouse, child or especially close loved one is fighting for their life, including yourself and on the day of judgement when you are asked why you rejected him on earth what are you gonna say? I know what He’s gonna say Depart from me, for I never knew you, for it’s gonna be too late then. Do you really wanna take that chance? The choice is up to you!!!!
Hm, but just the other day, I had someone tell me that all I need to do to go to heaven, is accept Jesus as my savior. So I think I’m going to believe that person because their story sounds way better than yours.
Maybe all you Christians should get together and work out who has got the right version and the right interpretation, get your stories straight and then try this again? I’m sure it won’t take too long. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
Don’t worry, that won’t happen. I tend not to call upon imaginary beings and beings I don’t believe in.
Absolutely.
While I understand that you may not agree some people do, and if I truly believe as hard as I do, yes I might be 16, than I will pray and ask God.
My question to you is what do you have to lose? If there is no heaven then, I might be “ruining” my life by living with something that doesn’t exist, but if he does, then if I don’t believe, I would be screwed. Trust me when I say that. Most Christians will say God is love, but that creates a standard to say God is only love, but he never has been “love”, God has always and only been justice, Jesus was the way to the Father.
Thank you, for reading through this.
What do I have to lose? My intellectual integrity for one.
Not believing in something is not a choice. Either you are convinced by a proposition or you are not, you can’t choose to be convinced of something.
As it stands, I am not convinced by religious arguments. They sound weak, hollow, full of empty promise and spooky language.
Besides, on that logic I would have to start believing in every god, not just the one you happen to believe in. Just to be on the safe side. How have you determined that all the other gods are not real and yours is?
Look up “Pascal’s Wager” and see why this is a silly argument for believing in a god.
Joop,
Definitely agree with you. The only change I would make is that religious arguments just don’t sound weak, hollow, full of empty promises and spooky language – they are…
Thanks for all your great posts.
First, I’m using a school chromebook so unfortunately I’m not able to look up “Pascal’s Wager”, I’m sorry to tell you that.
Second, I liked the way you phrased that “I am not convinced by religious arguments. They sound weak, hollow, full of empty promise and spooky language.” (Joop Beris) It does show what you’re saying is only opinion, but for others who are reading this, remember that this is only opinion.
Third, that’s called faith, that’s why it’s important for building your relationship with God, I know that you’ll most likely say, “There is no such thing as a relationship with God” but I believe there is a God out there, the one I believe in, my least favorite part about how you phrased this is the “yours is”, this implies that it is more of a personal god, God is one who is over all, including hell. That’s a common misconception that satan rules over hell. (Not saying you said that)
Finally, you wouldn’t lose your “Intellectual integrity” you might gain a great amount. I know that you may think it’s more rational to not believe that there is no creator, but overall, believing in some form of a creator is rational.
In an added note, to say something such as, “The God of the old testament” acknowledges that God has to exist in the first place, so adding that to your article may contradict your claim that God doesn’t exist.
As well as, my two questions:
What point is there to living in the world if there is no God?
Where did we get our moral compass, or more commonly referred to as conscience, from?
I know you won’t change my mind, because I’m “stubborn”, but I hope you change your mind, I may not know you, I probably never will, but I love you and God loves you, he may not be love, but he loves YOU. I really hope to see you in heaven one day, I will keep you in my prayers. Thank you so much, sir.
— Samuel R. Nickelsburg
Then I suggest you switch to a different device. It’s 2024, most people have several internet connected devices available. And since you’re clearly able to find my blog, I find it hard to believe you can’t go to Google on a Google Chromebook.
Too bad, we don’t know things by faith. We believe things by faith. And since it’s possible to believe anything on faith, it’s not a good argument.
Sorry but this is not how a debate works. You haven’t answered yet how you have determined that you believe in the correct god. Until you can explain that in language other than your “personal relationship with god” or “faith”, you don’t get to ask additional questions. How do you know you’re not suffering from a delusion? How do you know it’s not the devil leading you down the wrong path?
Besides, I have addressed those questions in other articles, you can read those if you are interested.
Exactly, Joop. I have asked that same question many times with those who claim to be talking to god or whatever. None have been ever able to tell me how they know. It comes down to this, what way does god communicate with someone? Through direct conversation, signs, dreams, whatever? No one ever seems to be able to answer. And I have stated how do you know god isn’t talking to me? That is usually ignored, or it is implied I might be hearing from the devil or whatever. I ask them for proof. I don’t get it.
It really comes down to the answer being assumed, there is a god, then trying to fill in the pieces with unprovable statements to support that.
Simple example. Awhile back a bunch of birds ran into a jet and the pilots saved the plane from crashing. Almost all the passengers claimed god saved them. No credit was given to the pilots. But why didn’t god just keep the birds from hitting the plane to begin with? So god was ultimately responsible for the birds hitting the plane, then god decided to save it? Makes my head spin. Did god make a mistake then? I thought that couldn’t happen. And god decided to fix his mistake?
It is so easy to blindly give god credit for incidents like this, but god never seems to get blamed for allowing all the bad things that happen to people. If there are only certain things god can fix, it implies god is not all powerful. If god only helps certain people, then it says god chooses who to help and who doesn’t get helped. Appears tyrants and despots get more of god’s help than do most people. Again, spins my head. Then the answer to that is, it is god’s plan, or god works in mysterious ways, or whatever.
It is like talking to a wall. Are we nothing but toys for god’s amusement? Sure seems that way. It pains me to see people get hurt, die, go through tragedy, etc, and I don’t even know most of them. If we are gods children, shouldn’t god feel the same instead of sitting back to watch the horrors, only stepping in on occasion, like sometimes helping a football team win a game – that’s important, right? Jeez. Spins my head.
Oh, it’s back to god’s plan then and mysterious ways. Seems more like god is nothing but a crutch to block out the horrors of the world and death.
I will end with a quote from a movie. “God is a sadist, and he doesn’t even know it.” If god exists, then that doesn’t seem to be far off the mark.
I agree, Jim. When you look at it critically and carefully, you see that religion is just smoke and mirrors. Important sounding words, arcane rituals and lots of pomp and circumstance. But there’s nothing behind the curtain.
It’s a long-running con game where the most fervent proponents are at the same time the biggest victims of the con. People so deeply entrenched in their belief system that they can’t step back and examine it critically.
Once you see it for what it is, you can’t take it seriously any more.
Honestly, how do we not know if the Bible was just like a Harry Potter book written thousands of years ago and somebody took it out of context? Humans are known for being power-seekers and manipulators, so what makes anyone think that the Bible wasn’t written by a greedy person? There are so many unanswered questions and holes in the Bible.
this is dumbest thing ever. God is real and there is evidence everywhere and in the Bible that supports that FACT
Wow, I a so glad you came along and cleared up that misunderstanding with your carefully worded answer and well-documented evidence. What was I thinking? I think I may have seen the light.
Oh no, wait. The light was just my desk lamp. Never mind.
/sarcasm
Very professional. You are being extremely rude with someone and are attempting to humiliate them. The best way to be professional and look to YOUR article as fact. I also love the fact that you didn’t attempt to interview a soul, and only found quotes that support you. when it comes to this article and make something like “the Case for Christ” by Lee Strobel where an entirely unbelieving man came to know Jesus through attempting to disprove him. Thank you though, I’m writing a paper for school and I will use this and disprove it for my paper. Thank you,.
Fuck off. This is my blog and I respond how I like. I don’t have to be professional or polite when someone comes here and posts that my article is the dumbest thing ever.
I read Strobel’s book. I found it unconvincing and one-sided. Not a single skeptic appears in it. If it had been an unbiased investigation, you’d listen to people from both sides of a debate and then make up your mind.
My article is out here for everyone to read. Hope your teacher gives you a good grade for trying to disprove it.
Right, but it would stand that if you want people who are truly educated and respectable to read your blog, then saying things such as “Fuck off” or “/sarcasm” will lose your credibility.
I will not be drawn into a debate with you how I run my blog. Don’t like it? Then don’t comment. It’s as simple as that.
Also, I thank you for thanking me for disproving your work. I’m working hard on a paper right now for it.
Oh my GOD, yeah I used the “lords” name in vain. Yeah yeah I know I’m going to hell blah blah blah. But thank you for creating this I couldn’t agree more on this. Some of this actually made me laugh. To all the die-hard Christians out there: How can you believe that there’s someone up in the sky, above the universe or whatever watching over us, that is all powerful and can do anything but no one has ever seen him? Honestly that’s like saying that for 300,000 years everyone is like:
“Hey, Sarah, there’s a person up in there that can do anything.”
“Really who?”
“God of course.”
“What? Okay what does God look like?”
“No one knows.”
“Well how do you know he exists then?”
“He just is, and I just know.”
“Uh huh. Yeah that makes sense and is a totally logical explanation to that claim.”
See what I mean? The bible isn’t true, and Jesus didn’t die and get back up on his feet 3 days later. That’s physically impossible. And for those of you saying “Well, aCtUaLLy, according to God and the Bible, you’re gonna go to hell for not believing in Him!!”
Oh no I’m shaking in my boots I’m so scared. Get real people. It goes like this: If God were really real he could stop all evil and he hasn’t. There’s still murder and war and robberies and bullying and rape. And don’t give me this free will crap. If we didn’t free will we wouldn’t know we’re any different than the next person because we don’t have an opinion. This concept was just something that was made to comfort us when we die.
Well said, Chloe!!
We hear this often, which is usually voiced in other ways, but let’s take it from the bible.
Paul tells us: “God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength but with your testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Tell that to all who commit suicide every day because they have more than they can handle for many reasons. I have 4 suicides in my family alone as well as a very wonderful Christian sister-in-law who had been plagued with horrid diseases for a good part of her life. Finally, when they became more than she could handle, she gave up and went to hospice. Where was god there?
I’ve had bipolar disorder since I was a teen, and I can seriously say there have been many times where it has been much more than I can handle. I wasn’t even diagnosed until later in life, so I struggled against an unknown disease for a long time with a ton of haunting questions as to why I seemed different than most others I knew. I have already been to Hell and back numerous times thanks to bd, so I have no fear of saying the lord’s name in vain, lol.
That people blindly believe in this bs is beyond me. Just what you said about all the horrors that occur on a daily basis, with no godly intervention of any kind, should be enough to make people question that god exists.
I liked your dialog piece – so right on the mark.
It’s my thought like yours that god only exists because most of humanity is terrified of death, and having hope in a god to “save” them once they die is a necessary comfort. God is a human-constructed entity to provide some sense to the world and life, nothing more.
Great post!
Jim
How about this dialogue:
“Hey Chloe, how do we know God isn’t real?”
“Well, I don’t see Him. Do you?”
“No, I don’t see him either.”
“I guess it’s confirmed then. God isn’t real”
What you may not realize is that it is a whole lot less logical to be an Atheist.
There are a myriad of scientific discoveries that point to there being a creator. One example of this is the fact we exist. In a dead universe, how does sentient life come to be? You believe everything came to be from completely random chance? A singularity exploded and from it just happened to create you and I?
Can you name one scientific discovery that shows a god of any kind exists? Because the fact that we exist is hardly a scientific discovery, is it?
I should warn you, this kind of argument always leads down the same path. It’s either that “science can’t explain (insert your phenomenon of choice), therefor god exists” or “it’s impossible to believe that (phenomenon of choice) was caused by (scientific process), therefor god.
Both of these arguments are non sequitur arguments, meaning the conclusion doesn’t follow from the premise.
The first is also an argument from ignorance while the second is an argument from incredulity.
The first is also known as the “god of the gaps” argument, where a god is inserted as a proposed explanation for lack of a scientific one. Here it should be noted that the introduction of a god also doesn’t explain the phenomenon. It merely asserts that a god did it, as if that was an explanation.
Both of these arguments are logically fallacious and not valid.
Beautiful explanation and very valid points. A lot of the reasons I am atheist was listed in your post. I appreciate your dedication to writing something which can and will receive so much backlash and hatred. It’s nice to know there are others that think like me. Rational people. You don’t have to be a Christian to be a good person. Religion over centuries have changed and many gods have been worshipped, they are made up to provide comfort to people, to provide hope. Since a young age, growing up in a Christian home and being taken to church every Sunday, I always felt very strongly about God being a fairy tale. God always seemed like another story like Santa or the tooth fairy, someone that’s believed by some but seen by no one. No one could convince me otherwise and a lot of people have tried. I tried to believe when i became a teenager into a young adult, i tried so hard because I wanted please my family. Now that I am an adult, an ER nurse I’ve seen a lot of things. A lot of psych patients with religiosity. A lot of them believing they are prophets or God himself, we don’t believe them, we call them psychotic and treat them with medications. We consider those things hallucinations, auditory or visual and that’s exactly what they are. I’ve seen people die as they wait on their God to save them, believing in prayer instead of medicine. Prayer didn’t save them but the doctor and I could have. God doesn’t answer prayers because he doesn’t exist.
Thank you for the kind words of encouragement, TDY. It’s true, I get some backlash from people for writing this and other posts critical of religion. But it’s worth saying these things anyway, just to show people who don’t believe they are not alone. That there are no good reasons to have faith in a deity.
Hi! Since I am a Christian, I have been called to share God’s word, so I will do my best to share my opinion:
I like reading atheist posts to see what others think of the Christian religion, but I will have to disagree with most of your points. I will talk about the prayer one first- the Bible doesn’t say that you will get everything you want if you pray for it.
The verse Matthew 21:22 means that if you are asking through faith, God will hear you. “Good works in mysterious ways” explains that since we are humans we will not understand God’s timing and his way of answering them. If you ask for earthly things such as money and success for selfish reasons, then yes, God isn’t a genie. But he does care about what his children need.
With the Bible, It is not supposed to be a perfect, heartwarming, all-good book. A good and loving father doesn’t just give you the good side of everything, he shows you and warns you of things to learn from, and things to do and not to do. God lets sin happen in the world because a good and loving father doesn’t force his son or daughter into things. That just causes rebellion and a destroyed relationship. Instead, God gives us choice, and if we chose to turn our own way and try to survive on our own, it will result in a much harder life.
I am open to hearing comments, & thank you for taking the time to read this. I hope some of you out there will choose to turn to the Lord!
Hello C4L, I believe in God as the creator of everything existing. I follow no religion, but I believe in Jesus Christ as God in human form and all that is written in the bible leans to today’s living examples and how we too can live and learn as Jesus did in the bible. If this is being a Christian, then I am a Christian. Jesus to me is a perfect example of how we can live our lives today. All that the bible references to the one called God, the Father, the Almighty, the I Am, I reference all these and more to look at myself and how I need to live. How I know that God exist comes only from my own experiences and they are not for anyone else to believe, I don’t care about others belief, nor do I care that we believe in a God, a higher being or anything less. What my concern is today is that my God has the answers, and I am not to question anything or anyone. We are children barely walking to know what my God knows and as immature as we are, we don’t really know my God at all and don’t have the words to explain him/her or power. I am not here to explain my God to others. What I am trying to make a statement about is that it is not our place to question anyone’s God. It is our choice freely given to believe in whatever we want to believe and if God is that belief, so be it. If God is not in your choice, then so be it. The answer from me is to love each other the way you define love. Leave the rest to God.
Hi Christian4life,
I understand you have to disagree with most of my points in order to preserve your faith. However, I’d much rather you didn’t take that position but instead keep an open mind when dealing with my points.
Actually it does say that in Matthew 21:21 and 21: Jesus replied, ‘Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.’
Jesus is literally saying that they can ask to make mountains jump into the sea, as long as they believe. That is the only condition specified. However, I understand why Christians today want to claim this is a metaphor because otherwise they’d have to face some inconvenient truths.
“God works in mysterious ways” is humans making excuses for not getting what they expected (or nothing at all) when they ask for something in prayer. There is no way someone can distinguish between:
All people do is interpret matters after the fact in a way that suits them, trying to make them fit with their beliefs. And ironically, it’s the mundane, earthly things that people ask for that do have a chance of happening. If I pray for finding my car keys or a parking spot or for success in an exam, those things actually have a good chance of coming true. It’s the not mundane, not earthly things that never seem to happen. Any mountains jumped into the sea lately? Any amputees regrow their limbs? Did god end the war in Ukraine yet? Because I am sure people are praying for all of those things. Well, maybe not the mountain thing, but you get what I mean.
A good and loving father protects his children from harm, allows them to make small, manageable errors so that they can learn from them. He doesn’t endanger the lives of his children. A good father will even allow his children to rebel against him because he knows they need that to grow up, to emancipate themselves. He especially doesn’t say “love me or else you’ll burn forever”. That’s not a choice, except in the Don Corleone style of making people an offer they can’t refuse.
I understand the mysterious ways argument very well, it was the one that I was told when I still believed. It was also one of the main catalysts for me to reject my faith. I hope people will continue to use their reason and keep an open mind.
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You say a good and loving father protects his children, while allowing them to make errors and to rebel against him, so that they may learn and grow. How can you be certain that God is not being your Good Father right now?
Technically, I can’t know that, any more than someone else can know that god is doing anything at all.
The whole point is that we can’t know. There’s no good evidence to think there is a god so we shouldn’t assume there is.
First establish that there is a god, then we can talk about what it does or doesn’t do, maybe.
The problem is no one out there doesn’t doubt you can’t have doubts for something you have never seen
I feel bad for you 🙁
You really don’t understand, and without God, you don’t have hope. He cares enough to let us choose our own faith, and going to hell isn’t his decision, it’s yours. Jesus died for us, and it’s really rude to not believe in him, and then just expect to go to heaven. He literally saved us from an eternity in Satan”s unholy place, and you think that you don’t have to believe in your savior to earn the precious treatment of going to heaven? That’s very selfish. Going to heaven is a treat, and the only thing Jesus is asking for in return is that you believe that he died on the cross to save you, because he cares.
People don’t choose their own faith. People hear about a faith from their parents, their family and friends, their surroundings, etc. They are then either convinced by the propositions of that faith or they aren’t. No one makes an active choice to start believing in something because that’s not how it works.
Really? You think that in a universe set up by an omnipotent being, which also created me, which has a plan for me, I can make decisions that this being hasn’t already anticipated?
You speak like someone who has been thoroughly indoctrinated and has never critically examined her position and opinion on any of this. In another comment you mentioned you were 13 so I understand why you haven’t. But I hope you manage to escape your indoctrination and learn to think for yourself.
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The entire concept of God being a deity that created this universe, the Bible, biblical history, and all that has any reference to God is about YOU. God does not need to be found, nor acknowledged in our lives. Man creates God, because Man wants to be God. The God creator exist in US. We are the God of our own intelligence. We control our own God. We invented God. Everyone individually is God. You wear your own cloths as you see fit. We don’t need an invisible being to look up or down too and acknowledge to this being that our lives need some kind of order to keep our feet moving. Without God you will still get up, move, decide and take a crap when you are full. God is US. A person who wants to overpower, over think, overcome, get over themselves, is being God. The bible is written about you, not about God. You are dark and formless in the womb, and now need to separate the good and the bad in your baby life and start to live a godly life, which means live a life by yourself, for yourself until you die. All of us need to be guided by others somehow to continue to survive and we don’t need an imaginary being to guide us. We wear our own cloths and walk our own way as Gods. Where is God every day and why do we need him as we look into the mirror. The only and I mean only reason to place a higher being such as a GOD above yourself is to acknowledge to others that you love them greater than yourself and God is the reason why I love you, not me, His Fault!
Interesting but I’m having difficulty discerning your point, exactly. I’m with you when you say that humanity created god, first many gods who morphed and coalesced into one.
The person who wants to overpower, over think, overcome, etc. sounds like one might describe Nietzsche’s “Overman”.
However, when you say that the bible is written about you/us, not about god, I don’t follow.
What are you trying to say, exactly?
Hello Joop, you have been very kind to all opinions here and that is gratifying. Because of you, I have kindly left my opinion and all that I say is from me and only me. All that I understand comes from growing up to have an understanding. I know nothing more than to reason it out and make a choice of what moves me to believe this or that or let it pass. If you take the bible for what it is, is becomes just a book written by other humans’ opinions and experiences. Because I read it or hear it from others does not make it truth and I wasn’t there to witness it. Any knowledge I read or hear is just other people’s opinions. Take away God and what do you have left? Put God in your life and what do you have left? I am only an influence on whatever I want to do and since I live with others around me, they are an influence on me if I let them in my space. What I do can influence others and this is the problem. Since I don’t live alone, I must be careful what I influence. I take the Bible as an influence of people’s lives. Genesis being the creation of life (Me), the acceptance of this world and others involved to love or kill (deny). A God described as the creator to give me a reason why I exist at all. I need a reason and God seems to be the simplest and most elementary reason to answer my question. Without that God in my life, I become the only God left (Me). So, I read the bible to know how the world is, how people become, how this causes this and those who are lost and then found and all the wars we battle every day from childbirth to today.
Does God exist, in my mind he does, I call him Father, the one Father any son would wish they have. I also call God my mother, for allowing me to experience love on my own for me own faults but still picking me up when I keep falling down. Only those who have fallen down can experience what it took to stand back up and if God was there, that person will have their eyes opened and only that person will know if God exist. If anyone is burdened to the point of wanting to know if God is here or not only needs to ask God. I wouldn’t ask another person like me or read a book to believe there is a God. I just need to ask God. If God is here, you will know. If someone says they spoke to God, keep it to yourself and thank God he is that close to you for whatever reason than your love for him. You believe in God or not is your choice, and who am I to argue that choice unless I myself am trying to be an overpowering, over exerting, overcomer of my beliefs on you, and for what reason do we have to do this very thing? Maybe trying to be a God myself. It’s what you do when you walk out of your home that matters. Keep what’s inside left inside and unless Love comes out of your being, let God and no God take care of the rest of this life. We can be brothers in heart, or strangers with opinions, no one comes together except through love. The bible is a book, a very well written book.
The 10 reasons there is no God is explained again, where I believe that the answer is we are all Gods. When science or our intelligence can’t come up with the answer, God becomes the subject and sometimes a good answer. Those who know God usually keep it to themselves and walk humbly and maybe some of the wisest common-sense people you will meet. After this post, I will go back to being myself again. No more replies.
1. If God existed, he would speak for himself. Because God doesn’t speak for himself, we kindly speak for him. Don’t we all just speak our minds?
2. So many Gods to choose from, how can this be? Didn’t we create all these different Gods?
3. God isn’t love, look at all this suffering and killing in the bible and in the world today. Well, if we want to blame God that seems like an excuse for our behavior. If God does not exist, then the pain and suffering did not stop. We haven’t stopped havoc with or without a God.
4. A God would interfere in our lives and cause miracles and make us all believers. Since God does not inject his power today in my lifetime I won’t believe in a God. So, we suffer alone and take care of business as we see fit. Life goes on, can’t stop because God is missing.
5. How can a person called Jesus have us believe in a God. He calls us Hypocrites, tells us to love our enemies, but if we don’t believe in him, we will be cast in fire. He bought with him a sword and your relatives are to be cast away and follow him. Sounds like a typical day in this world we live in. Just turn on the news there are many Gods out there.
6. How can a Jesus God die saving us and we all still worship other Gods, still destroying each other. What a waste Jesus was, being the son of God could he have done better than to die for us. We supposed to just follow that. Well regardless of the story of Jesus, look how we turned out, still sinning, still killing, lying, and cheating. We are just acting like we are in control.
7. If there is a protector God, why buy life insurance, why worry about your health or dying, because you will go to Heaven, a much better place. Why do you deny God by worrying about death or harm. Sounds like you still are in control of yourself, making decisions to help yourself.
8. The crucifixion is hard to believe even if Jesus did exist and did die on a cross and the rest of the story is to believe it was all for us to be saved? He came to this earth to forgive us and died for us. By whom are we forgiven, the same God who came to die for us? This story of the bible is hard to explain even to a child. Are we not all responsible for ourselves? Don’t we give a little and take a little and ask for forgiveness to the ones we hurt, or maybe we don’t want to. It’s our choice, isn’t it?
9. How can there be a God when the bible is written by other people and so many contradictions and all sorts of confusions. Shouldn’t it be all poetic and beautiful and pure of heart stories? Well, it seems our lives are not so in order either, all the same happening to each other. We decide our future as we take control of our situations.
10. Prayer never works. They don’t get answered, people are still sick and still die. You don’t get what you pray for. Where is God in all these prayers? What a waste of time an atheist will say.
Why pray at all, because after you pray you go back to work, go back to eating, go back to the same life before you prayed. Nothing changed other than you performed a moment to yourself or around others to receive a response. You spoke and you listened like thinking about a problem and then finding a solution or not on your own. It’s all about you.
So, these are some reasons why some may believe there is no God.
What we would realize is that all actions and all events become our choice, with or without a God involved. Since we cannot prove there is a God and we can’t prove there is not a God, we simply move on with our lives and respect each other’s opinion to the limit we allow.
Thank you for explaining your beliefs. It’s true that I encourage open discussion here, to an extent, but I do want posts to be on topic.
From what I gather from your long posts, is that you’ve taken elements from Christianity and the bible, mashed them together and created your own personal religion.
You are free to do that, of course. And while there are some viewpoints or critiques that I could offer, I’m going to refrain from doing that because your personal beliefs are very far removed from what people usually claim to believe when they say they believe in a god. That god is the aim of my article.
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I have no clue whether this would contribute. I’ve thought about it though, and I’ve wondered why the human race is getting punished ONLY because of Adam and Eve’s sin. I don’t mean that as evidence for and against, but why is it only those two humans who were tested for the outcome of humanity? Why wasn’t I or anyone else put in the garden of Eden to be tested?
Hi Noah,
Excellent question! Thousands of generations of people are being punished for the sins of Adam and Eve. That is, to me, like I should be tried for murder because my great great great great great grandfather murdered someone and got away with it. That certainly does not seem fair or just – so why should the descendants of Adam and Eve be punished for their sins – does not seem like a very loving God to me. Are we all not his children? Would we, as insignificant humans in comparison to God, want to punish our own children for something they have had no part in and have never done? I think your post is a good contribution.
I researched it somewhat more. Apparently, our spirits inherit the sinful qualities from Adam and Eve and some of the other known characters from the Bible. Basically, just like genetics. I guess that’s a great explanation, but why would God create our spirits to where sin is inherited like genetics? Why not start out my spirit as perfected as Adam and Eve’s so I can have the same choices and opportunities?
Excellent post!
Hey Noah, So, it’s not exactly we’re all getting punished because of Adam and Eve’s wrongdoing, more so it’s because when they sinned, sin entered the world and we all became inherently sinful, when we are conceived in the womb, we are sinful, because that is our world, there is nothing we can do to be un-sinful. And I used to think the same thing too “why wasn’t I in the garden, I wouldn’t have disobeyed God!” How wrong I am, I can barely resist day to day temptation, there is no way I would have been able to resist the fruit of the tree. We all like to think this way, but we are all the same.
So, you’re saying that sin assimilated with the world as a result of Adam and Eve? But I have to ask next, there’s a genealogy of multiple people that came in the line of Noah from the Bible. In Genesis 6:7 God says that “ for it repenteth me that I have made them.”. Yes, we understand that God finds favor in Noah; however, God says that as if he made a mistake. The argument that theist generally say is the idea of God being omniscient, omnipresent, and omnipotent: he can know what will happen from beginning to end because he isn’t bound by time. So why did God say that if he knew that Noah and his family was righteous? Also, one of Noah’s family members supposedly had the genetic disorder from the giants back in his time. Why didn’t God get rid of that impurity if he was trying to start over?
Sorry to bombard you with another question, but what was God’s main goal with the flood? Was it to get rid of sin, genetic impurities that God didn’t like, or to start over?
This is getting off topic. Besides, Noah’s flood never actually happened, it’s a myth. Here are 21 scientific reasons why there never was a global flood: https://skepticalinquirer.org/2018/03/twenty-one-reasons-noahs-worldwide-flood-never-happened/
It’s not directly related to the question of god’s existence but it is a good question nonetheless. My reply: it’s just an origin story and it’s certainly not something that actually happened or something we should take seriously.
Adam and Eve were never real people and there never was a garden of Eden either. The origin story in the book of Genesis is no different than the origin stories or the Norse or Greek pantheon.
I’ve explored my take on the garden of Eden/original sin story here, if you’re interested: https://www.beris.nl/why-i-am-an-atheist-part-2/
Thank you. I meant hypothetically if the flood did happen. I understand the science of your evidence against the idea of the flood and the logical fallacies of Adam and Eve and the crucification. I’m just trying to figure out what was God’s intentions with the flood if it didn’t change much.
I see. Yes, it’s not like the world got any better after the supposed flood so there doesn’t seem to have been a point to it.
For a while, the world was better after the Flood. The Earth was cleansed of sinful people and only those who were righteous remained. Unfortunately, this world is of the devil and sin crept back into the world. That’s why Jesus had to come: so he could defeat the devil and sin once and for all.
1, Prayer does work, just not in the way you describe it. God wants a personal relationship with someone, and to be honest most Christians don’t have that, they try to use him as an insurance, call on him when they need him. And your right, the prayers for parking spots and passing tests are just probable chances, because they don’t desire God, they just want what’s best for themselves. God answers prayers that are asked in true faith and things that are needed. And he doesn’t always answer in the way we want or think. He works in his perfect timing and way. There is a lot more to this conversation too I would be down to talk deeper in.
2, The Bible is full of “inconsistencies” but you’re saying that because of this, it is not true, and it can’t be trusted, I believe it proves that it is true. I saw that big chart in the comments where it points out all of those “errors” and the majority are in the New Testament, this is because the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, are all the same story but are told from 4 different perspectives. So, they are going to be small differences in each story, that proves that not one person made it all up or a small group of people got together and made sure everything was perfectly in sync, no it is multiple people who saw the same things and wrote down what they saw and heard. All of those errors it points out have nothing to do with actual doctrine.
I can’t fit explanations for all 10 question in this one response. gonna try more.
Hi Joey,
As a former Christian, I would disagree that prayer works.
You say God works in “his perfect timing and way.” What does that mean? How can either of those be defined let alone understood? I am far from perfect in every way – thus I really don’t think I would know what perfection was even if it was right in front of me. Since I am pretty sure no human is “perfect,” how can an imperfect being ever hope to understand perfection or even talk about the perfection of God – including his timing and ways?
From what you wrote, I take it that it means we should believe (and accept) that whatever way God answers and whenever God answers – it is always perfect. Am I reading that correctly? And is no answer – an answer? And how do we even know that we got an answer if that is the case?
The concept of “perfection” is a human construct. It is almost entirely subjective. I think a particular movie is perfect, you do not. You think a particular flower is perfect, I do not. Huge numbers of prayers have been made about Ukraine and its people. Yet, still, many Ukrainians die. If God is intervening based on prayers, I would say his timing and ways are far from perfect. If God is not intervening, then the prayers that have been said are either selfish, insincere, or what is being prayed for is not needed. Keeping innocent people safe and alive seems a worthy cause to me though – and it certainly seems to be necessary.
But what do I know…
Every prayer, that is prayed for the right reason is answered. Like I said, God isn’t going to answer our “parking spot, or test answer prayers” when they aren’t asked in actual faith in God. If you truly need one of those in the moment, I’m sure God would provide, but most prayers are asked as wanting something from God like he is a vending machine, only talking and turning to him when it benefits you. He wants a relationship with us.
God is perfect. Not because I think he is, but because that is how we can best describe him. Like you said “perfect” is a human construct, but we both understand what that word means, meaning he is good in every way, and that is the best way we can describe him from our imperfect mines.
Your last point about Ukraine, about prayers being answered, I think that ties more into why bad things happen. But it does also deal with prayer. I’ll try to fit all of this in one comment. So, God does protect us, and prayer does help in that, but people also die, and that is how our world works. This is because we live in a sinful world, and a world with people of free will. God cannot stop our free will, if he did, we would all be like robots, with no individuality, unfortunately this does lead to people inflicting harm on others. But God still works through everyone and everything. I would also like to add that God works even though no one is praying. By praying we are able to build a relationship with him and see him work, and through that we see how he answers our prayers.
Hopefully this answers some of your questions, I feel like my answer doesn’t quite do your question justice, I definitely could have thought of a better way to word and put together my answer, but this was the best I had for this moment.
With regards to prayer, your argument doesn’t work. You’ve made an unfalsifiable claim where no matter what happens, your conclusion is always that prayer works regardless of the outcome.
All those people praying for food, healing or peace or whatever, I guess they just prayed the wrong way or god decided on something else? It’s a poor excuse to explain away why prayer doesn’t work. You’ve basically illustrated exactly what the image under point number 1 says.
There aren’t just inconsistencies in the bible, as the article says above. Besides, a document – any document – that is not internally consistent is by that very fact unreliable. How do you determine which statement is accurate if you find inconsistent statements?
Whether these errors and inconsistencies led to major schisms or doctrinal issues within the church, has much more to do with people formulating doctrine based on these inconsistent texts in the first place. The formulation of doctrine was necessary to establish a more or less consistent belief system because the bible doesn’t provide that.
Hey Joop!
I’m glad you responded, I have respect for you for always coming back and commenting to everyone.
I promise I will respond to your reply here, but I would just like to ask out of curiosity, how do you believe the earth began?
I’ve seen some really good arguments in these comments, and I think you might believe that there is a possibility that a higher power or deity does exist, but you rule out God and Christianity because there are so many religions out there and you could never narrow it down to one.
That may be completely wrong, and that’s fine. I am just very curious on what you believe in whole on how our earth and universe came to be.
I appreciate these discussions!
Hi Joey,
I like people engaging with my writing and thoughts so I tend to respond a lot. I also enjoy respectful and rational discourse with people who have an open mind about things. Great way to learn, if you ask me!
My formal position on the existence of a deity or a higher power would be that of an agnostic, anti-theistic atheist, as I’ve explained here. Agnostic in the sense that I can’t be absolutely sure if there is or isn’t a deity. Anti-theistic in the sense that I think religious beliefs can be harmful to individuals and society as a whole. Atheist because I see no good reasons to believe in a deity so belief in a deity is not warranted and impossible for me.
I rule out Christianity (and all other religions that I’ve encountered) for a number of reasons. That we have no way of knowing which, if any, is correct is one reason. But also because all the religions I’ve encountered so far, make fantastic, highly dubious claims on bad or no evidence. Often these claims are at odds with reason and logic and what we know to be true about the world.
How our solar system was formed, is pretty well understood by science. NASA have a good explanation on their site. The entire universe is another matter. Cosmology hasn’t cracked that one yet. So if you ask me how the universe came to be, my answer is that I don’t know.
That is the whole point of the Bible…it is a faith-based belief, that stands alone, without man’s interference of trying to “explain” it. You either choose to believe it or you don’t! Complications arose from man’s insistence on needing to define, diffuse, and indoctrinate something they cannot fathom.
The problem with a faith-based belief is that you can believe anything on faith. Faith isn’t a reliable pathway to the truth. It’s not based on facts, knowledge or experience. Instead, faith is obscurantism, it’s pretending to know something which you don’t know, cannot know and hiding that behind a wall of fluffy, meaningless verbiage. We don’t speak of faith when we have evidence.
Also, people don’t choose to believe something. You’re either convinced by a proposition or you are not. It’s not a matter of will to believe in something.
Critically examining the things we believe in, is a smart way to act. Challenging our accepted beliefs helps us deepen our understanding of the world. Beliefs that stand the test are reinforced, believes that fail to meet minimal standards of proof should be discarded as false.
The better we are able to understand the world, the better our decisions on how to act in this world.
Oh yeah, by the way, the “Big Bang is a cataclysmic explosion of energy,” as per many articles in Google Scholar.
Not an explosion.
https://earthsky.org/space/definition-what-is-the-big-bang/
Hmm, advertisements. Kinda sus, as if it’s not written by actual scientists
If you want to contribute to the discussion, you are free to do so. If not, please refrain from further idle comments. The original post doesn’t even address the Big Bang in any way.
Here it is from NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-s-james-webb-space-telescope-and-the-big-bang-a-short-qa-with-nobel-laureate-dr-john
Still not an explosion.
if god is perfect then perfection can only create perfection and perfection is uncorruptable.
A and E would never have fallen to temptation free will or not.
the whole idea of is very imperfect because it was written by man.
Except for the Ten Commandments(possibly) and other few instances like the writing on the wall for the book of Daniel, there isn’t other articles written by God as far as I can tell. I’ve always questioned why humans are telling us the rules of God.
Hahaha! Legit this all make sense, hoping to see all ur post, i will follow them all thank you!
Okay. But how many of you actually questioned how God came to be, if he’s SO real? Did any of you actually bother to ask yourselves who brought God (and no, I don’t mean Jesus, I mean his supposed father, HIS LITERAL CREATOR), how he got here in the first place? Why don’t you think about THAT for a while.
The way I see it, asking a Christian on how God came to be is like asking an Atheist (who believes in the Big Bang Theory for simplicity’s sake) how something came from nothing. There’s no explanation for both as far as I am aware of (sorry if there is and I do not know and this comment adds nothing), and for any other way the world was created that I can think of in my head as of current.
I personally believe God is above our understanding, he’s a perfect being, and an all powerful being, and so so much more, it’s something the human mind cannot comprehend. Coming back to the creation of Earth, it’s something, any way you look at it, the human mind cannot comprehend.
Just to be clear: the Big Bang Theory does not say that something came from nothing. It’s a cosmological model dealing with the initial rapid expansion of the universe as we know it today.
Something coming from nothing is a phrase only used by religious apologists, not by science or by atheists.
God has to exist because the laws of physics exist. How can the laws of physics exist without God? Someone had to create them and that is God.
Actually, no. The laws of physics do not exist as separate entities or agents in the universe. This is an ambiguous claim often made by apologists. The word “law” is ambiguous, because it can refer to descriptive laws or prescriptive laws. Prescriptive laws require a lawgiver. These laws are laws like: you are not allowed to drive faster than the speed limit. Or: you are not allowed to murder people.
Descriptive laws are different. They describe how things work. The law of gravity for instance is a good example of such a law. It doesn’t tell the planets how to move, it simply describes how the planets move. Descriptive laws are descriptions of how the world presents itself to us. They are descriptions based on human observation, so they do not require a lawgiver.
I discuss this in greater detail here: https://www.beris.nl/what-is-the-best-argument-for-the-existence-of-god/
I hope you realize how silly and childish your arguments sound to someone with real faith? Atheists like you have hardened your hearts to the one true God and His Son Jesus Christ. If you would just open your eyes, you’d see the beauty of His Creation all around you. If you would open your heart, you would be able to listen to His Voice speaking to you. God calls out to you and wants to save you!
It’s not too late. You can still repent and accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior and be saved. God will not turn you away, even if you have turned away from Him who has created you. I will pray that you will see the light.
Hi Kent,
You may call my arguments silly and childish and dismiss them that way. Allow me to just point out that you haven’t explained why you think they are silly and childish or offered a refutation of any of them. That’s fine too but in doing so, you aren’t actually contributing anything to the discussion, are you?
In order for an atheist like me to accept Jesus, I’d first have to be convinced that there’s any merit to the Christian belief that there was someone named Jesus who is also the son of a God. The existence of this God is so far an unsubstantiated claim. So let’s start there: can you prove any of these assertions or even begin to make them plausible? If you can’t, you’re just here to preach.
Ill take a crack at it as one of the faithful. Your arguments are all based on assumptions made by a human. Many times you say things like “God would do this …. Or God would do that….” And you provide no basis for these claims. Perhaps you would do this or that and perhaps so would most humans. But when we are debating the existence of an entity very different from ourselves we cannot assume human tendencies or thought processes would apply and then state those items (or lack therof) as proof.
😂🤣😂🤣😂😂😂🤣
God is there waiting for you to change your mind in your last days. If we are weak, we become atheists. Society without God is destined to live greedily and self-destruction would likely occur. Do not kill. Do not steal. The moment you trust this two sentences God appears as a peace bringer. It is the power working in you. You do not see your heart do you? But you feel the warmth of blood inside you, hear the beats almost each second of your life and you can trust then in the sentence “my heart exists”. If you decide to not live anymore, then God appears as a danger that terrifies you, the darkness, but you still believe in darkness and not in God, who let’s it there for you to terrify you. You wouldn’t know if darkness and death exist if they were not so real. Why do you think your life matters? You are a bunch of atoms right? You feel though your heart is more important then the concept of it? You are created to love eternally a woman. You search for eternal life, because it matters for you, that is why God created us. To find this path and bring us where we belong, to true the light of God. The Sun delivers light as the heart delivers blood.
Will you be needing some dressing with that word salad?
Thanks, this proves everything you didn’t want to. You exchange eternal life for a salad dressing. I am thinking about this. Just eat and enjoy.
I am sorry about one thing.
Think about walnuts, how they are similar to our brain and please don’t think like a fish, the net of random situations is waiting for you.
You’re free to contribute something meaningful to the discussion here. This however, is meaningless piffle. Please keep that to yourself.
No argument in these answers though.
If you mean your comments, no. There is nothing that makes enough sense to argue with.
– Comment removed by admin —
Please contribute meaningful comments.
uhhh….. ok…..
When my husband died in my arms 10 months ago .. he asked me this with one of his last breaths…
“””WHERE IS god now???”””
So sorry to hear that, Victoria. My condolences. That being said, I think your husband’s question is a question that should be on the mind of every sincere believer at least once or twice in their lives when faced with such a personal calamity: where is god indeed?
I completely agree with that (except under casing God personally I wouldn’t do that as I am Christian. Every Christian will have doubts, something so faith based and not very logic based will always do that, we are human.
To try to answer your question of where is God.
For the sake of answering this question, I hope you can humor me for a second and say God is the almighty being of the universe.
God is always with us, even if you’re the most spiteful of him. This is because he loves us. He loves us because he created us. (Agian going by the assumption he is real). The way I see it, it’s either he created us because he loves us, or he created us to torture us, and I much as I hate getting up in the mornings, I feel like an almighty entity can find better ways to torture people. Sorry for the sidetrack, but my point is he is with us cause he loves us.
Sometimes he takes away our loved ones, friends, family, etc. I don’t really have an explanation for that, except that death isn’t the worst thing that could happen to someone (hot take I know). If someone dies, the way I see it is that they are leaving for a little bit, and you’ll see them again soon (when you’re dead). For me that’s in heaven, and for some people that’s in Hell. (Which we all deserve).
The reason he does this is because of a multitude of reasons. Maybe that person was going to become the next Hitler? Maybe by them dying they changed a heart to Christ.
And even if there’s not an obvious reason, there’s still a reason.
Sorry for the lengthy comment.
But to sum it up, he’s with us cause he loves us, he works in mysterious ways.
Lengthy comments are not a problem here. Your comment is thoughtful and considerate.
“He works in mysterious ways” and “God has a plan for you” are the kind of phrases that made me reject my faith. They’re non-explanations that sound sincere, deep and somewhat meaningful but ultimately they don’t really answer anything. They’re affirmations of faith, which everyone is welcome to have.
They may provide solace but no real answers.
Wouldn’t saying God has a plan for us mean some level of predetermination therefore contradicting free will in some way not sure I said that right or not
Not necessarily, if it was possible for us to deviate from the plan that a god has for us. You might argue that doesn’t violate free will. How successfully limited creatures such as humans could deviate from the plan thought up by an omnipotent being, is another discussion of course.
If something exists now (you, me, tree, etc), then something must exist eternally or we could not exist.
You realise that this is an empty assertion, right? Not backed up by anything factual, no arguments to support it. So we’re just to take your word for it?
In order for God to forgive, the penalty of sin must be paid for. The penalty of sin, which we all commit, is eternal punishment in hell. Christ suffered that punishment once for all on the cross. You can either trust Him to pay your penalty, repent of your sins, and own Him as your Lord; or you can continue to live in condemnation both now and forever after you die. Also, you say there are tons of errors and contradictions in the bible. If so, please show me 10 of them. Should be easy to find.
I understand that this is what you believe, but I do not. To me, there is no concept of sin because there’s no god to sin against. There’s also no saviour because there’s no one that needs saving from a vengeful god. Fortunately, there’s also not a shred of evidence for any of it, so nothing to worry about there either.
Only 10? I’ll show you 439 places where the bible contradicts itself, so it’s not even internally consistent. That’s not even mentioning the errors where it is wrong about cosmology, geology, biology, etc.
Have a look:
Can you send me one where there are links to each Bible verse?
No, I can’t. But you clearly have a device with a working internet connection so I suggest you use it. Plenty of free bible resources available online.
These so-called “contradictions” are not actually contradictions. I’m going to explain 10 of the important ones.
2. Was Abraham justified by faith or by works? Christians are justified by faith alone. However, it is their works that prove that they have faith. Without works, they have false faith and therefore are not justified.
11. The two contradictory creation accounts. There’s no contradiction here; animals and humans were created.
15. How should adulterers be punished? One being stoned and one being put to death isn’t a contradiction. However, it is important to note that the Old Testament laws do not apply anymore because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The New Testament laws apply to us.
16. Is it wrong to commit adultery? There is no contradiction here. All the verses here show that adultery is wrong. Hosea must love his wife just as how the Lord loves the Israelites despite their unfaithfulness. God is using Hosea’s marriage to illustrate his love for his people.
23. Does God want some to go to hell? God wants everybody to be saved. He only “hardens” the hearts of those who have already willfully turned their back on him and rebelled against him. He does so as an example to others–those who might still repent.
24. Did Jesus tell his disciples everything? Obviously, Jesus didn’t tell His disciples absolutely everything, as that would take an eternity (Jesus is infinite in wisdom). The point is that Jesus spoke with His disciples as trusted friends—He didn’t hide anything from them. He knew that they would not appreciate some things at this point, and so He didn’t bother telling them about these things, but He did not hide anything from them that they wanted to know.
30. From what were the animals created? One verse says that God let the waters swarm with living creatures and the other says that the animals came from the ground. There’s no contradiction. The waters being swarmed with animals doesn’t mean that the animals came from the waters.
31. Should you answer a fool according to his folly? In short, in negligible issues we should just ignore fools, but in issues that matter, they must be dealt with so that credence will not be given to what they say.
32. Where did Jesus first appear to the 11 disciples after the resurrection? There’s no contradiction as to where Jesus appeared to his disciples.
36. Was Asa perfect? Being fully committed to the Lord doesn’t mean that you always rely on God. It also doesn’t mean that you never sin.
These are mostly your interpretations of what the text says, not the actual wording of the text. Christians have had at least a millennium to talk about doctrine and what passages might mean or how they might be interpreted. Hence the many schisms, arguments and religious wars in Christendom.
By the way, with number 2, you are contradicting yourself. You say that Christians are justified by faith alone but without works they have false faith so they aren’t justified. Which means they do need works to be justified. You can’t have it both ways.
However, we are diving pretty deep into the contradictions alone (ignoring the errors and immorality of the bible) and that only leads to arguments about semantics, claims that things are taken out of context or that verse so and so is a metaphor and shouldn’t be taken literally. There is not a single line anywhere in the bible that couldn’t have been written by a 1st century person and that fact alone is pretty telling.
Besides, even if there were no errors and contradictions in the bible, that still would not mean it was a factual account or that anything in it actually happened.
I just love the #11 in response to the two different creation accounts. Humans and animals were created. What does that even mean? So let us just ignore the multitude of contradictions between those two “stories?” And state that humans and animals were created? That puts it to rest? What about the plants? Shouldn’t they be included too? And the fungi . . . I find it difficult to see how those responses to the contradictions in the Bible are anything more than pure nonsense. I honestly don’t know how you deal with some of these ridiculous posts without laughing yourself into a coma. Keep up the great work, Joop!
Thanks, mate! Actually, I find there’s little to laugh in a lot of these comments. It makes me sad to see so many people surrender their reason and intellect to ancient superstitions, closing their eyes so they can keep their preferred beliefs intact. Both of those creation accounts in #11 fail because neither of them mention the countless micro organisms who are the paramount life form on this planet and who will be here long after Homo Sapiens is gone.
You talk about how people surrender to faith and don’t have reason or logic.
I would argue we don’t just ignore reason and logic, we just kinda understand the whole message of Christianity is “Jesus dies for you”. There’s no logic, there’s no reason, just faith. And that what makes a Christian a Christian, Jesus saving you. I know that sounds stupid, but that’s the best way I can put it. Faith in someone higher than you.
I actually admire you for that statement. A lot of religious people will not admit to the fact that it is faith. They try to ground their faith in science or say they have logical reasons for believing one religion or another.
I can’t be a religious person but if you can and it makes you happy, I personally have no problems with that.
I’m a pretty fun-guy, and I’m human, so I would say that goes into the human section, I still don’t know about plants though.
Beautifully written, and said! I was a believer all my life until my mother fell ill, and asked me to pray to God, and ask him to heal her and make her better. She was diagnosed with Cancer which I don’t believe, and was placed on Hospice. What really happened was she was given tainted blood, at a crappy hospital in Puerto Rico, then placed on Hospice to be finished off. The nurse overdosed her with constant IV injections of 1000ml bags of (Sodium Chloride 0.9% Injection USP) for every “100 ml” there is 900mg of sodium. Now imagine a “1000ml” bag, that equals to 900,000mg of (salt). Once on hospice, things started happening one after another, a small tumor she had for years in her stomach, began to grow at an accelerated rate, from the blood transfusion and emf radiation coming out of tye electric position bed, and became the size of a cushion you place on top of your couch, for decoration. She then suddenly became bedridden, with what looked like an HIV rash, and began to lose exessive weight (wasting) then got dry gangrene on one of her smaller toes. This poor 5′ 2″ 77 year old woman, couldn’t get a break, with one new ailment appearing one after another, a person that was happy, healthy, and walking, months before that stupid blood transfusion, and had just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary with my father on September of 2019. Was now a bedridden, sad, and depressed person. I prayed so hard, crying, and begging, for months, to heal my mother, and for God to make her walk again. Everyday, this 50 year old man would jump out of bed to check on her, like some happy 12 year old kid, checking to see if his wish came true. And, “everyday” I’d see that she was the same, or getting worse. She passed away on September 18th, 2021. 16 months after the blood transfusion, with flu like symptims, and shortness of breath, caused by the overdose of salt and edema that the hospice nurse gave her, and 2 days before her “52nd wedding anniversary”. I found her the next morning motionless, with her eyes opened and her blue eyes, looking straight ahead. Traumatized, and disturbed, I screamed, and cried, as this was the first thing I saw when I woke up. I ran to the bureau to get the eyedrops I’d usually put in her eyes when they were dry, and this time, she didn’t blink. I went to my room crying and went to lay down from the overwhelming grief. Not even an hour later, I went to check on her, and she was gone, I asked my father where she was, and he said they took her and put her in a fridge to cremate her in 4 days. I never got to say goodbye, we never got to mourn her, and this wonderful person that I was holding, kissing, and talking to, a few days before, was now gone, and without a body, turned into ashes. I still hear her laughter, and still crying wishing I could have a conversation with her. She still had at least 20 years left in her. Before she was murdered by these bastards. Where was God? To protect her as I prayed for? To heal her as she wanted God to do? Nothing. I completely lost faith right there, and became an athiest.
That’s an incredibly sad story, Carlos. Thank you for sharing that. Allow me to offer you my sincere condolences on such a tragic loss.
Sadly, your own experience isn’t that far from mine. I’ve also had a loved one die, despite many people praying for her, for quite a long time too. Like your mother, this person also only got worse and eventually died. Personally, I find it hard to understand why unanswered prayers aren’t more of a problem for the religious.
That being said, I’m sorry you had to come to atheism through such a tragic experience.
https://youtu.be/MvnK0KQzrko
Comments with just a link in them will usually end up in spam, as did this one. I fished it out and approved it anyway.
I’ve seen the video this is linked to and while I think it’s well-spoken, it’s also in somewhat poor taste after Carlos just told us he lost his faith (and why) and he became an atheist. And no matter how well-spoken you are, it doesn’t mean you are speaking truth.
Ok, I fully understand your point, and I get it.. but there’s one thing I’ve noticed. God sometimes allows bad things in our life to happen to us so we can see what sin is really like. If nothing bad ever happened to us and we lived in a world pain free, we would think we never needed God, who loves us and wants to be with us. We would be like ignorant teenagers who think we know everything and think we’re fully independent, but we’re not. God is basically a Father to us, and HATES it when His children die, and He wants to keep this from happening. But it’s not a good idea all the time, because then they will think they can do anything they want to, ask Him for anything, etc. and get it. Sin is a serious thing, and the devil has his ways. Not being disrespectful, not hating on anybody. And, the bright side… if we stay strong, and show Him we can be good followers, He will reward us eternally. Just sharing my beliefs. Have a great day 💕
Hi Lianna, thanks for your comment but I have a few issues with it.
First of all, you say you get the point Carlos makes yet everything you say after that, shows that you haven’t. Your entire argument after that, is sanctimonious, preachy and completely ignorant. You completely ignore the original article (Top 10 reasons God does not exist) and start spouting utter nonsense about the motivations of the god you happen to believe in. The god that Carlos and I used to believe in but don’t any more because the very idea of that god is unbelievable. The god that lacks any proof for its existence even. Do you have any idea how arrogant and hurtful it is to tell someone who has lost a loved one that “God wants us to see what sin is like”?
We live in a world that has pain and suffering in it. Life itself is pain, suffering and overcoming those. We don’t need a god for that and we have never needed a god for that. There is no sin and no devil either. Sin is just an imaginary disease, used to scare us into accepting an equally imaginary cure so that an imaginary god accepts us into an imaginary afterlife. The sooner we repudiate this kind of nonsense, we can face pain, suffering and death as grown-ups.
Have a great day.
I’m so sorry for your loss.
I don’t know if you will allow me to, but I wish to pray for you, your mother and family to get over the grief.
Hi, Would request you to provide some clarity on my dilemma…Just wanna discuss…
I am a Hindu by family religion.. Never ever thought much about GOD like a normal Hindu..Some time in 1998 I read that all enlightment happened while the concerned person was in state of starvation ( Buddha, Moses, Mahavira, Mohd & multiple other saints) & scientist proved that during starvation certain nuerons get activated which cause human to feel like seeing God & other associated events.. They proved it thru activating those neurons in Lab, in artificial state of experimentation and all the subjects reported seeing God like figure and were quite estatic.. So in a major way I was a person with thought process of an atheist, However my wife is staunch believer so I always accepted God as neutrally as possible..
However, I lost Job early in Pandemic era and financial situation got quite tough…And as my wife is strong believer on God and horoscope hence she asked for my exact birth time and date and some other information and got a horoscope made.. While I always laughed on that concept stating that thosands must have been born at the same time but have different career and life course, her argument was that its never ” Exact same time & Exact same place, even Twins have variation in Time”
So the Horoscope was made and I was quite startled to see How much it truly reflected my character and my Past despite the horoscope maker (even computerized one) having Zero idea about my past.. It said that you wd live yr childhood far from yr parents and thats exactly happened ( one example).. It said certain thing about my characterstics which on a hindside was clearly very True too. It said about my career path and its obstacles and I have to accept that even that was bordering to near right reflection..
How is it Possible ??? I am caught between my True Being as Atheist But Frieghtened to see the horoscope as something Which can accurately show my past.. Does it mean that It can also predict Furure and IF YES, then How??
Wd suggest you to give me exact date and time and place of your birth.. Will take out your horoscope to check and see if only works for Indian or I was delusional due to recent Hardships..
Thanks & Regards
Alok Verma
Hi Alok,
While not exactly relevant to a post about the existence of god, I’ll answer your query anyway. Firstly though, I’m sorry to hear about your recent struggles due to the pandemic. I hope things will improve for you and your family!
As far as astrology is concerned, I may need to address that in a complete post some time. I can’t address your case entirely because I don’t have all the specifics. I don’t know if your wife gave more details apart from your time and place of birth, for instance. I also don’t know how specific this particular horoscope is and how closely it matches your life and circumstances, so I can’t address that either. What I can do, is give you my opinion about astrology in general.
So, to my opinion on astrology. Are you ready for it? Astrology is bunk. It’s nonsense. Why do I say that? Well, without going into too much detail, I’ll give you a few points to consider.
You can find more in this Wikipedia article. Hopefully this puts your mind at ease a little.
I’ve read your article and all the comments boy, there are a lot!. What you’re saying sounds so logical and plain but still, if there is no God, what’s the point of it all? We are born, we die and that’s just it? I can’t believe in something like that.
I understand that such a position may be challenging to accept. However, your ability or inability to believe in something, has no bearing on the actual existence of something. If I find it impossible to believe that we’ve been to the moon, does that mean the moon landing never happened? If I am entirely convinced about the existence of vampires, does that make vampires real? In both instances, the answer must be “no”. The only thing that matters is what we can show to be demonstrably true.
practice what you preach, you believing the words that you write, yes I said believing, not knowing, does not make them a reality. Argument destroyed.
You dismissing this will not change anything. nor will your acceptance of it. Just your perception of things. a perception which is unique to you and you alone.
James, normally I’d try to be charitable and try to distill a point from your exceedingly poorly worded comment. But it’s been a long day and I am not feeling charitable.
Of course I know the words that I write because I am writing them. I could hardly write words I didn’t know. I believe them too, based on evidence, experience, reason and logic.
It sounds like you’re trying to say “you have belief too so gotcha, haha” or a similar childish response. I would normally explain that the word “belief” is ambiguous and believing in something based on evidence, experience, reason and logic is something else entirely than believing in something on faith but you’d probably not grasp the distinction.
If you want to engage, at least try to formulate something coherent next time.
So I’m curious, do you think we live and we die, and why so for either answer?
I’m not sure I understand the question. Yes, I think we live. And at the end of our life, we die. This is an observed fact.
If you’re asking if I think death is the end, then yes. I don’t think there is anything after this life.
Hi, I am from different set of religious belief ( Hindu) but definitely same with common logical understanding that God is just figment of our imagination, borne out of our fear and insecurities and our desire to get things miraculously without working for it or hoping to get something which is improbable..
All religious book speaks bout something which happened in past.. In Hindu religious texts, Gods are “Amar” ” Cannot Die”… So where r they Now..
All so called Avatars, like Buddha & Mohd & even Moses and multiple other in Hindu religion attain their enlightenment after prolonged fasting… proven Scientific explanation is that prolonged fasting activate certain neuron cells in mind which gives u feel of seeing light and u hallucinate as u r getting enlightened…. Scientists when activated it artificially in a healthy human being through some kind of electric impulses, All such subject experienced the same feeling of enlightenment.. They all thought that they saw Godly things and rays of light.. So all in all u stay hungry for prolonged period and u become a god incarnation, No matter how many good deeds and sins u had been through in your past.. And with luck, like in past when hardly any science was available, u preach and word of mouth about enlightened soul being in the middle spreads.. And You Are The Next God Incarnation….U preach little nonsense and Die but subsequent generation of eloquent speakers and talented Writers would add so many miracle stories that u wd be baffled to hear them if by any miracle u come back to life and hear bout yourself.. and so ashamed u wd be with such blatant imaginative stories that u wd promptly want to die again 🙂 🙂
God is Us.. Wait for a hundred years and Science would make us God.. There are evolved Aliens who probably are a million years ahead in evolution cycle and they r what we can say God like…
God exist cos we fear of dying.. The day this fear is not there, that day we would be God ourselves.
Hello Alok,
Thanks a lot for your comment and good to hear from someone with a background of a different belief system. I don’t have a lot to add to what you say, to be honest. You mention that science will make us gods eventually. I think to someone coming from a primitive background such as those alive during the time of Mozes or even Jesus, we would already appear god-like. I am reminded of that famous quote from author Arthur C. Clarke: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”
We fly through the air, we conjure up images on handheld devices, we speak to people over vast distances, we create explosions, etc. I think these capabilities would be enough to convince people who have no understanding of such technology, that we are gods. And by the same principle, if an alien civilization has surpassed us by a similar margin as we have surpassed the technology of people of Moses’ time, they would appear like gods to us.
I like the point you make about fasting. I will have to look into this research that explains how prolonged fasting can cause what is basically a vivid hallucination. Interesting what that might say about people claiming to have religious or enlightenment experiences. If you have a link, I’d love to see it. If not, I’ll search for it.
You define atheism as a lack of belief in god or gods, as there is no evidence for the existence of god. You also admit you have no proof god doesn’t exist either.
It’s absolutely true that no one knows for sure, but that’s where the problem is for me. I consider myself an agnostic, since that’s the only category I seem to fit into. I’ve tried to make myself believe, but I just can’t. At the same time, because I have no proof the god of the Bible doesn’t exist, that leaves open the possibility (at least in my mind) that maybe he does exist.
I was brought up as a Christian (no surprise here), and it has been so ingrained in me that I can’t just dismiss it. As for other gods and religions, they are nothing more than myths to me.
The only reason I worry about it is because if it is real, then I’m going to hell.
While I’m here, there’s something else about Christianity that really bothers me. According to the Bible, Jesus came to save us from hell, but did a never-ending burning hell even exist before Jesus came along? It seems that it didn’t. So Jesus’ appearance made it possible for a small fraction of humanity to go to heaven, while the majority of people, who otherwise would’ve just ceased to exist after death, would now get to spend eternity in hell.
Thank you for your comment, Elle. I appreciate your feedback.
Yes, that’s right. Atheism is defined as a lack of belief in a god or gods. Personally, I have come to this position because I see no evidence for the existence of god. At least, nothing that I would consider sufficient to support the belief. I fully admit that I don’t have definitive proof of the non-existence of god either.
It’s my opinion that in life, it is smart to proportion our beliefs to the available evidence in relation to the claim being made. For instance, if someone tells me that they got a new pet goldfish, I would be willing to believe that claim without any evidence if I trusted the person. After all, it’s not an outlandish proposition. However, if that same person announced to me they purchased a new pet tiger, I don’t think I’d readily accept that. It’s still technically possible they did but it’s a lot less likely. Going a step further, if they announced that they bought a new pet dragon, I would reject that claim outright even if I trusted the person completely. Unless they could prove that the dragon existed, I would imagine they were making a joke or be the victim of some kind of delusion.
Why the difference? In the first example, we know goldfish exist, we know that many people keep them as pets and they are readily available at the pet store. In other words, there’s a lot of evidence that the claim could be true. In the second example, skepticism is warranted. Of course we know that tigers exist and also, some people do keep them as pets but they’re not for sale at the pet store and even protected in many countries. It’s a dubious claim. Finally, in the last claim, we can safely say that we know that dragons don’t exist. No one has ever seen one, there are no fossils of dragons, they don’t fit anywhere in the known taxonomy. No one keeps dragons as pets on the basis of them being mythical and they are certainly not available in any pet store, legal or otherwise. While we don’t have definitive evidence that dragons do not exist, assuming they exist is not a reasonable position based on the absence of sufficient evidence for their existence.
In the last example, substitute the word god for the word dragon, and you’ll have my position on the existence of gods. I don’t have definitive evidence a god of some kind doesn’t exist but based on the available evidence, the existence of god isn’t a reasonable proposition without at least some good quality evidence in its favor.
The position you describe, is actually the same as mine: I am an agnostic atheist. That means I lack belief in a god (just like you) but I am willing to be persuaded if the existence could be made at least reasonably plausible (again, just like you). I describe this in greater detail here.
You’re not the first person to tell me about this. Many former Christians or even people who never had any faith at all, are still worried about going to hell. The concepts of hell and sin are a religious control mechanism. Christianity first invents the disease (sin), tries to sell you the cure (Jesus) and if you don’t take your medicine, certain death and an eternity of torture await you. It’s as immoral as it is ridiculous. Eternal torture as punishment for a temporary crime is a disgusting thing to scare people with. Fortunately, there is even less reason to assume hell is real than there is for a god.
In the Old Testament, so before Jesus, the concept of a hell doesn’t really exist. There is mention of Sheol but as far as I understand it, that’s simply the world of the (wicked) dead. There doesn’t seem to be torture by fire or eternal roasting though. So in that sense, yes I think you are right. Only with the appearance of Christianity do we see the famous depictions of hell emerging. What the condemnation to eternal torture means for the idea of a loving god, I’ll leave as an exercise for the reader.
I hope I’ve been able to ease your mind a little and also helped to clarify some things for you. Let me know if you need more!
Thank you so much for your reply. I enjoyed reading your articles and all of your comments. I’m a work in progress, but you have helped ease my mind some and have indeed helped me see some things more clearly.
You’re very welcome! Thank you for letting me know.
I want to debate against this, since a lot of your premises are false. I promise that I will listen to you with an open mind, so I’ll ask you this: Would you like to engage in a debate with me and listen with an open mind? If you don’t want to, it would be a waste of time to debate, so I won’t.
First of all, I have no idea who you are or what your background is. Secondly, I have no idea what form this debate should take. Are we talking here on the blog, email, chat, podcast, is there an audience, etc? Thirdly, your statement that a lot of my premises are false, is to me just that: a statement. If you’d present your position and I’d find your position compelling and it hadn’t been addressed here on the blog or in the comments yet, that might be reason for me to consider engaging in some form of debate.
As it stands though, I have no incentive to engage because you’ve not presented me with something I can engage with.
Dang, you actually replied. I wanted to see if you are willing to listen, since you only have a surface-level idea of what the theology is. I didn’t provide any details since I expected you to ignore this, but this platform is fine with me.
Before we can talk about the existence of God and his character, we have to agree on the existence of a deity. You are correct; we don’t really know whether a deity exists or not. However, what we do know is that a deity existing has a higher probability than not existing: https://youtu.be/aT-Rdplb9A4
Here’s the full talk:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe2_-rdg84am9_GFg2U8MoRHQuGFPI755
Sure, I replied. I was curious to see what your argument is. So I only have a surface-level understanding of what the theology is? Well, that’s certainly rich from someone who comes to present the old fine-tuning argument. To give you an understanding of how I see theology, I like to refer to the definition given by Sam Harris: “Theology is ignorance with wings.”
Yes, agreed.
With you so far…
Despite all the assertions of J. Warner Wallace to the contrary, no. We don’t “know” anything of the kind. He’s basically presenting a teleological argument for a god, also known as the argument from design. He presents the analogy of a crime scene investigation which I find unconvincing. The examples he gives, show signs of deliberate action by an intelligence. But the examples he gives aren’t highly improbable. We know humans exist and that they sometimes murder other humans, we know humans can manipulate objects and circumstances, we know humans can make plans, etc. However, as you’ve already conceded, we know nothing about gods, not even if they exist or not. So, assuming that a human caused the death of another human is not improbable at all. Assuming that a designer is responsible for designing our universe, is. We have no examples of designers designing universes in nature.
My main objection to proposing a god as the explanation for the supposed fine-tuning of the universe, is that the introduction of that god doesn’t really explain anything. All it does, is move the goalpost back one step and introduce a whole new layer of complexity which needs to be addressed. If the proposed god is responsible for the fine-tuning or design of the universe, we have to find out where this god comes from. What is its nature? How is it able to do the things we assume it did? What forces are at work? Where did it get all the matter/energy for the universe from? What is its motive? This god doesn’t have any explanatory power, it just raises more questions.
So that’s J. Warner Wallace’s argument. But you said you wanted to debate me. What is your argument?
My argument is that it is highly improbable, to the point where it’s almost impossible, for atoms to somehow create such a delicate and complex universe based on random chance. A big explosion, like the Big Bang theory cannot create the sun and the planets with such detail, since explosions are what scatters things everywhere. Earth is delicate; just 5% closer or farther away from the sun can make all the difference for life on Earth. Tampering with food chains just a little can affect the environment of the whole planet. There are many other examples that I can’t list here. The point is that there has to be a supernatural being who controls the creation of the universe from the beginning, because none of it could exist from random chance. How does a deity exist from nothing? It doesn’t. If it exists outside of time, space, and the universe as a whole, it was just there, and it will always be there. It was the beginning of everything.
Thank you for presenting your argument. Okay, I am familiar with this type of reasoning. So let’s unpack the statement you start out with. There’s a great deal to address here and I won’t go into every minor detail but I’ll briefly explain why this is a bad argument for a deity.
To begin with, it’s a false dichotomy to say that either the universe and everything in it came about by random chance or by the actions of a deity. You’ve eliminated any other possible explanations without giving a reason for that. There may be a completely natural explanation for the existence of the universe. Also, processes like evolution from natural selection don’t operate on random chance. In addition, the Big Bang wasn’t an explosion.
Secondly, in a complex universe, highly improbable, seemingly impossible events happen every second. For instance, if you count up all the events that culminate in me sitting in this chair, typing this sentence at this very moment, you’d arrive at odds that are so infinitesimal that it would seem highly improbable or even impossible. Yet here I am, typing this sentence. You’re arbitrarily assigning significance to improbable phenomena that suit your argument but you ignore all the other highly improbable phenomena.
Thirdly, and as I touched upon in my previous comment, if you introduce a god to explain the complexity of our universe, you’re creating an even more complicated situation whilst explaining nothing. In your argument, a god that created this complex, improbable universe would logically need to be even more complex and therefore even more improbable than its creation. So where did this even more complex, more improbable deity come from? If the answer to that is (as you seem to hint at) that the deity simply exists, you’re committing a special pleading fallacy: you’re implying that highly improbable phenomena require an intelligent designer yet you make an unsubstantiated exception for the designer itself.
Fourth, your statement is in essence an argument from personal incredulity: “I can’t believe the universe could arise naturally/from random chance, therefore god.” That’s a non sequitur, meaning your conclusion doesn’t follow naturally from its premise.
Really? Why not? Also, you’re contradicting your opening statement here.
Wrapping up, your argument is flawed and in your very first sentence you concede that random chance may be a sufficient explanation anyway:
If it’s almost impossible, it’s not actually impossible, is it? So if this is your best argument for the existence of a god, I’d say we’re done here.
God has talked to me that’s all the proof I need.
That might be enough for you. Just remember that all throughout history, people have claimed all kinds of gods, angels, demons and spirits spoke to them. People claim past life experiences. People claim to have been abducted by aliens. People claim to be able to predict the future, to move objects with the power of their mind. People claim to have seen ghosts, fairies, vampires, etc.
Can you tell me what all those things have in common?
Hi Joop,
I’ve also run across people who have said God has talked to them. My typical question is: what did God say to you, and how did God talk to you. Most just don’t answer my question at all, and the few who have replied, they beat around the bush and really don’t directly answer what I asked – pretty simple question – what did God say to you, and how did God converse with you?
I think once though, someone told me God came to them in dreams. I replied with, seriously? You expect me or anyone to believe that God talks to you in your dreams? How do you know a dream that God is talking to you in versus one that is just a dream? Can’t God do better than that? Can’t God at least whisper in your ear? You can imagine how that conversation ended – I’m an unbeliever, so I wouldn’t understand anything about God talking to him in his dreams. I’m evil. I’m the antichrist, seriously. At that point – end of discussion.
And often I have probed even further, especially with those that haven’t answered my first question: How do you know it wasn’t Satan talking to you under the guise of being God? How do you know that Satan isn’t deceiving you into believing he is God? Do you think you could recognize Satan in a crowd? Satan is the master of deceit – he/she would never be able to achieve his/her goals if Satan came to you with a flashing read light on his/her forehead – “It’s me, Satan!”
And the usual response is – “I know it isn’t Satan,” without any evidence to back it up.
So I would reply something like this – how do you know that God hasn’t talked to me, that God talks to me all the time? God tells me that he is tired of the fools that he created that blindly follow him without any evidence at all. He often tells me, “I wonder why I gave humans brains because so many of them never seem to use them.” And God tells me, “if these people think they are ever going to see Heaven, they are going to be in for a big surprise. I made humans to be creative, think on their own, make sound judgements – but it seems I seriously overestimated their abilities. If I wanted zombies, I would have created zombies.”
And some common responses to the above are: “God doesn’t talk to you, God would never talk to you, God would never say such things, God would never talk to someone evil like you . . .” with of course, as always, no evidence again to back up their statements.
And my final reply is (and I know it is going to be my final reply in the discussion because by that time I am completely fed up with their irrational statements) –
– “You say God doesn’t talk to me, well prove it.”
The usual response to that – dead silence.
I wonder why.
Jim
Yes, I’ve had similar experiences! The question of “how do you know it’s not Satan deceiving you”, seems to be really unsettling for some people. Almost like that thought never crossed their mind. They always just assume it’s god. I’ve even been accused of being Satan for suggesting that. 😉
Ok,imma say it ” Jesus sound like Santa aka st Nicholas. He was a person but doesn’t mean he a god and st Nicholas was born near the Mediterranean sea and that kinda close to Egypt so piece it together and who know Jesus might just be Santa😗 and like they maybe born around the same time??
Also it my opinion Please don’t roast me
Also I agree with you joop 😊
But I believe in KIRA …don’t roast me….yea basically he was a Person who met a shinagmi because the death god was bored and he gave his power to light because he was bored and that another way I see it maybe God was bored and yea he has a good sense of justice (KIRA)and reduced crime rates by 70% and almost became the god of the new world,even tho he died I still believe what he did was right. But if you come after me(not joop) at least he didn’t kill billions of people but when after the people who like did bad stuff and yea I believe in KIRA …….I got this from a show called DEATH NOTE…..yeah…here have a flower🌻
Yeah, I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not there, Bailey.
Finally, someone who uses logic and common sense! I am gathering facts for a paper to try and explain to my family why I just can’t blindly serve a God who has no proof of existence. And it’s not that I DON’T want God to exist, it’s just the fact that there is no proof!! Thank you for this information. It is very helpful!
That’s the problem with common sense: it’s actually not that common. 😉
I’m happy to read that you find this article useful and I appreciate you letting me know. Good luck talking to your family!
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You have some excellent points here, from an impressive point of reason and logic. You will not be persuaded to become a Christian in a million years, but here is a simple way I look at it: imagine yourself, living forever and creating infinite worlds with infinite time, except time doesn’t exist so you do it all simultaneously. Eventually, you get bored and create earth and heaven, and you allow people to do whatever they want while you watch them. You place a few temptations in the mix (because why not,) but then you begin to love them so much that you want them to have eternal life, but only if they chose to love one another and their neighbor as themselves, maybe to increase the quality of life, I don’t know. Those who don’t chose rightly are sent to a place, just a place, to exist for eternity that is not quite heaven. Because of the nature of people here, imagine Hitlers and Satan himself, they turn it into a literal hellhole of misery, so people react similarly. Why didn’t he just make it a space they couldn’t alter? Great question, and neither of us can answer it.
It also makes sense that God uses the Butterfly affect to a great advantage. Imagine that, in a very simple analogical form, because you wrote this article an atheist was formed, that atheist later found God and now has an excellent story of his or her conversion, and three people are saved. The complexity of His ways are beyond us, but we can get a glimpse of it if we think a step up above the logic of atheism. I would be an atheist if I had not been personally shown God doing impossible things, such as healing my grandmother’s terminal cancer with only prayer (the very thing you called impossible.) Me and you are somewhat alike in that we are see-it-to-believe-it, except I have seen enough to know that I don’t have to in order for it to be true. This leads me to my final argument against atheism: Do you really believe that everything there is can be measured by instruments of your invention or the logic of your own infinitesimally small mind compared to something greater? I have seen, heard, and believed, and while you may not be as fortunate as I have, you will be if you only open your eyes. If there is a God, one who decides your fate for eternity, ETERNITY, then I wouldn’t think it would hurt to maybe believe in him, or at least some God. That is your choice though, but you will live with it forever.
Hi Streamer,
Thanks for your comment. I have a few objections, though.
Thank you, but I sense a “but” coming…
Well, that’s the problem right there, isn’t it? We can imagine anything we want. That’s why we have so many gods, so many creation stories, etc. What we imagine has little bearing on what’s actually true.
Except that’s not the way to get eternal life according to Christian beliefs, is it? Because if that was the way, it wouldn’t matter if you believe in a god or not. You could just be a good person and that would be enough. But no, we have to believe in god, accept Jesus as our savior or we face eternal damnation. Whether you are a good person doesn’t matter, only if you believe. If we believe, all sins can be forgiven. So on that criterion, even Hitler could go to heaven if only he believed.
No, the Butterfly effect is an element of chaos theory, a branch of mathematics that deals with the question of how slight variations in conditions greatly affect outcomes in complex systems. It has nothing to do with a god, it’s pure mathematics.
Again, we can imagine all we want. It’s not relevant to anything that’s real.
There is no “logic of atheism”. There’s only logic. And logic works in all areas where we care to use it (with the possible exception of quantum physics). Religious people simply don’t like what logic says about beliefs. Logic is to religion what kryptonite is to Superman.
First of all, let me say that I’m happy to hear your grandmother survived cancer. However, we know that cancer sometimes goes into remission. How do you know that a god had anything to do with it? You can choose to believe that, of course. But how do you know? Also, if you claim that a god cured your grandmother, what about all the other people with cancer who get prayed for, yet they die? If you credit god for the survivors, that means that god is also responsible for all those who don’t survive but die in sometimes sheer agony.
Let me put it this way: wherever we have pointed our instruments and where we have used our minds to follow the available facts and evidence to where they lead, rather than presuppose an answer, we have found better answers than the ones coming from religion. Does that mean we can measure everything? Perhaps not. But everywhere we have measured, we have found that even complex and puzzling problems have naturalistic answers and no supernatural answers. You’re basically making an argument from incredulity here.
You make it sounds as if believing is a choice, but it isn’t. You can not choose to believe something, you either become convinced or you do not become convinced. What matters is if you have sufficient facts to support your conclusion. I am entirely unconvinced of the arguments for a god, so I can not believe in it, even if I wanted to. I have tried.
You’re basically arguing Pascal’s wager here, where it’s safer to live as if a god exists, just in case there is a god. But how would I know which of the many thousands of possible gods to bet on? That’s assuming that a god-like being would be fooled by someone pretending to believe at all. Choosing to believe something (if that were possible) because that belief possibly had a beneficial outcome, says nothing about the reality of the belief. I could choose to believe I will win the lottery tomorrow on the chance that I might.
Hi Joop,
Like your responses. I am in agreement with them. Funny that he says “Do you really believe that everything there is can be measured by instruments of your invention or the logic of your own infinitesimally small mind compared to something greater?”
I can come back with, “Do you really believe that your own infinitesimally small mind can understand God?” Humans have made scores of statements about God, written books about what God is, what God thinks, what God does, etc, but seriously, the creator of the universe and all – and some puny mortal human thinks they have even the slightest chance of understanding such a being, let alone discussing God (and God’s thoughts, plans, etc) with any semblance of certainty? I suppose that might be my “final” argument against theism.
The counter could be – we understand God from what the bible says, but as we both know, if one actually reads the bible – I mean, really reads it – not just look at some passages here and there, the book is so full of inconsistencies, contradictions, paradoxes, passages that can only be understood through interpretation and guesses – why would God inspire a book that has sections that cannot be clearly understood by the people he claims to have created – seems self-defeating, doesn’t it?
So this counter clearly falls flat, not to mention there are scores of different versions of the bible – so how can anyone even determine which is the right bible to use?
Through the bible, God didn’t create order – it is just the opposite – confusion and chaos, but then, God does work in “mysterious ways,” right? More like, incomprehensible ways.
Then the prayer thing – you answered it aptly. Once an amputee prays to god and their limbs regrow, then perhaps I would consider prayer has value. I think I mentioned this previously – those jumping or falling from the World Trade Center towers – many had to be praying to god to save them – but in not even one case did any of those people survive. If there was any time for god to perform some miracles to save thousands of innocent people – that might have been the time to give a “yes” answer to some prayers. Nope. Didn’t happen
On the other hand (just one of millions of possible examples), I suppose Ted Bundy did have his prayers answered because that heinous murderer was able to jump from a police station 2nd floor window without getting any broken bones, just to be captured again a number of days later, and apparently while in custody prayed to escape a second time, which he did – and because of that, several more innocent women were ultimately murdered by him. Thanks, god. Good job there. Help the monster but don’t help some precious young women from meeting a horrible demise at the hands of the monster. Prayer – blech.
And with that, as the sarcasm begins to scream now, I will close. Thanks, Joop! Your posts are always excellent and thought-provoking. Jim
Hi Jim,
As always, thank you for your comment and words of praise!
Your points are good and fair, in my opinion. It’s always people who tell us what they think their god wants. But if there was an omnipotent being, it would be trivial for such a being to make its wishes known to all of humanity in a clear, unambiguous way. Imagine the amount of bloodshed that could have been prevented if there was one single and unambiguous revelation from a divine being. Instead we see differing texts, from (supposedly) different gods, with endless quibbles about interpretation this way or that. That’s a very strong argument against a single, divine and loving creator. To me anyway.
Times of great distress or upheaval would be excellent ways for a divine being to reveal itself. There are countless prayers said every day, for food, for safety, for survival, for health, etc. The majority of those don’t seem to make any difference. Just like the people in the World Trade Center buildings, the passengers in the planes that crashed into the Twin Towers must have said prayers too. How many? We’ll never know. At the same time the hijackers were also praying to essentially the same deity and they got what they wanted. Except in one plane that didn’t make it to its destination and that’s because the crew and passengers acted. Knowing that they would probably not survive, they attempted to wrest control over United Airlines Flight 93 from the hijackers. Their heroic actions prevented further casualties that day. Prayer had nothing to do with that.
That’s how we get weak excuses like “God helps those who help themselves”. It’s not prayer that works, it’s human effort. And yes, sometimes people pray for something and it does happen, even highly improbable things or things that aren’t readily explained. The answer in those cases shouldn’t be “god did it” but simply “we’re not sure”. Unless you have evidence that is positively indicative of and exclusively concordant with divine intervention. That, to my knowledge, has never yet been the case.
Hello again Joop.
I must say I find a challenge amusing, and I thank you for that. I am not here to make you a Christian, simply change your viewpoint of Christians as buffoons who believe whatever they want to because their mind is too small to comprehend actual reasoning that is clearly correct. First of all, you say I have no proof of God aside from mere coincidences of life and fortune, most basically. Well, you are looking at it. No, don’t scroll up, or read the words, just look around at matter. Did it spontaneously appear from the Big Bang? The first thing in our universe defies one of the most well-known laws, The Law of Conservation of Mass. Unless you of course believe the discoveries that matter can form in vacuums, but even then there is no perfect vacuum. Now I shall not go on to say that all physics is wrong, but the very first thing in the universe goes against man’s logic, and while correct logic may never be wrong our perception of it may be (yes, I know logic is what we perceive it as, but you get the point.) We have also seen time and time again, although not necessarily with 100% accuracy, that the simplest answer is usually the correct one. You will find an equation for this or that, but there will still be a hole somewhere in it, which you make another equation for and so on. Maybe old models of geocentrism (this is only an inaccurate example) would have worked, but they were not simple and thus incorrect. Logic finds holes in both atheism and religion, which both of us are eager to cover up with theories, facts, and philosophies. Do you know black holes exist? It makes sense, so you believe it, God makes sense, because I have been proven it over and over and over every time I doubted, which leads me to the next thing you will want to oppose: if God is willing to save me, why won’t he try harder to save you? Again, the simplest answer, for which there are a multitude of more complex answers, is that his ways are beyond either of us. Among the reasons is the Butterfly effect, which I thought was a bit confusing that you negated as a purely mathematical, as if God does not know or utilize complex relationships. Lastly, I shall patch up some holes you found in my last presentation. The first of these is perhaps my use of “imagine” to describe why God did what he did. I say this because it seems the most likely of reasons, but whatever reasons, it lead to this outcome. Another flaw was my idea that God made us love our neighbor as ourselves as the way to heaven, which is half true, but in order to fully do that one must come to him for knowledge as to how, which is only through Christianity. You jumped at this opportunity, albeit deliberately obtusely as to prove your point, and I know you are smart enough to see the basic idea beyond every facet you test to be faulty. I am sincerely grateful for your viewpoint as it gives me more respect for your beliefs, a respect I hope is returned in part to others who civilly agree to disagree. I would be glad to listen to your continuation of the debate, with points I will deeply consider, but we both know neither of us is going to budge in the end, so I shall decline from further written response. Have a lovely day and God bless you!
Hi again Streamer,
Thanks for leaving a comment. Let’s dive right into it, shall we?
Except you’ve not taken up the challenge, you’ve ignored it. I asked you specific questions such as: how do you know a god had anything to do with your grandmother recovering from cancer? Or how do I choose which god to worship among the many thousands available? You’ve chosen not to answer those questions.
I never said that Christians were buffoons or even implied that, so you’ve apparently wasted your time. I know there are intelligent believers. Someone who is a theist is not by definition stupid and atheists can be buffoons. However, when someone is a theist and wishes to remain a theist, they can not examine evidence honestly or use logic when it pertains to their beliefs. Doing so would force a choice: either remain theist and ignore or rationalize evidence away, or follow them to the logical conclusion and thus see their beliefs for what they are: merely beliefs which are not supported by sufficient evidence.
Matter exists, therefor God? That is a non sequitur if I’ve ever seen one. Also, which god? I know you’d like it to be the Christian god but there’s nothing to indicate that it was your god, is there? Why not Zeus? Ra? Quetzalcoatl? In fact, there’s nothing to indicate a god at all. This is either an argument from ignorance (we don’t know where matter came from so a god must have poofed it into existence by magic) or an argument from personal incredulity (I can’t believe all of this came into existence by natural processes, a god must have poofed it into existence by magic). Saying a god did it, doesn’t solve anything, it only makes matters worse. We still need to explain how such a god would have made matter and now we also have to explain where this god comes from. So instead of one problem, we have two. The concept of god has no explanatory power.
The Law of Conservation of Mass works for closed systems and classical mechanics. We don’t know if the universe is an open system or a closed system or an isolated system. And even if it were, the Law of Conservation of Mass doesn’t work the same when it comes to quantum mechanics or highly energetic systems, both of which would be applicable to the Big Bang.
Good, because that would be the end of this conversation.
All other things being equal, yes, that is correct. The introduction of a god that poofs things into existence by magic (something which defies all natural laws) makes matters massively more complicated. So that neatly rules out a god as a workable hypothesis or explanation.
No, logic finds holes in religion. There can be no holes in atheism because it is only a single tenet: I don’t believe god(s) exists. Someone not being convinced of something is not illogical, unless you can demonstrate that the position is clearly illogical. So far, that’s never been done and you’re not doing it now. You are simply asserting things.
That is the simplest answer for you? Again, which god? Yours? Why is yours real and none of the others are? Why would anyone need saving? You haven’t even demonstrated a god exists yet, let alone your god and now you are making assumptions about how it thinks and acts.
First demonstrate your god exists, then maybe we can see if it even understands mathematics.
Why? Demonstrate that a) a god exists, b) that it is the god you believe in c) a heaven exists, d) that Christianity is the only way to gain knowledge of god and e) that knowledge will allow you access to a blissful afterlife.
No, I wanted you to present more than just assertions and arguments that do not work. I wanted you and people who are reading this to think. Don’t make empty assertions, provide compelling reasons and arguments.
That’s where you are wrong. I will budge, given sufficient evidence and arguments that show that my position is erroneous or somehow flawed. If I am presented with evidence that contradicts my position, I will be forced to change my mind and will change my mind. Can you say the same?
Have a good day and may The Force be with you!
Just wanted to add that Hitler was indeed a staunch christian so one must assume god has taken Hitler to heaven!
Hey Joop. I have a few questions for you. According to the Bible, God is good, while Satan is bad. It is known according to the Bible that Satan´s mission is. Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?¨— Genesis 3:1 (NIV). Here it is shown in the text of the Bible, that the enemy is clever and deceiving. Sin was not created by God but instead it was the opposite. It was created by the devil. The devil was an angel named Lucifer, and defied God, because wanted to be like Him. He thought he could be better than God. That is when sin first came about. He then became Satan, and the many other angels that agreed with him became demons. Ever since that point in time which was in between the first two verses of the Bible. The first verse in the Bible states that ¨God created the heaven and the earth¨. The second verse states, And the earth was without form and void¨. Try to pretend the Bible is 100% true in your eyes. In-between those two verses would have been when the devil defied God. Right? This means that Sin was created not by God, but by the enemy and that God allows even His angels to have free will. He does not force anyone to love Him. Instead He allows us to choose Him, or choose Satan. He even gives us this option before we die, ensuring that nobody unjustly goes to hell. Going back to what I said about Satan. Since he is all hate and God is all love. Satan wants people in hell, God does not. Satan wants people deceived. He chose to turn from God which resulted in him and the many other demons to be sent to hell. He hates the idea of people living in heaven for eternity. That is where he wish he could return, but he cannot, because he chose to defy God. Since he has tons of bitterness and hatred towards God. He wants everyone that he can to live with him for eternity. That is why he deceives people, he makes people believe that the bad things that happen are because of God. But there are really because of him, and because of us. The first humans chose to sin against God and eat from the one tree that God told them not to eat from. Causing the world to become good and evil. That is in the bible. So now, time for my questions. If the bible is true, and the devil is bad. Don´t you think he would want to trick people and make them believe that God is bad? Yes, and this is what he does. Don´t you think that he would want to attack Christianity, since it is the truth, rather than any other religion? Yes, as a matter of fact he is the influence for those religions, because he wants people to choose him. Finally my last question. If Other religions could be true, then why would your entire article be an argument against Christianity? Why would you make arguments to try to prove the God of Abraham and Isaac to be non existent. Then even say something supporting other religions like, Why can´t their god´s be the true god? The only possible reason for this is that Christianity is the truth. The devil wants to trick and persuade people into believing that God is not real, or make people believe that he is real, but he is evil. Why do you think people use Jesus´s name as a swear word, and not Buddhas or Confucius’s. The reason is simply because the devil hates God, and his number one plan is to get in the way of God´s plan. Some people ask: ¨If God is perfect, Why would he allow mankind to fall?¨. Or like you say, why would God create Sin. He didn’t. as I said previously in this message, The devil chose to defy God. God did not mean for that to happen. But he is so loving that he does not force his love onto anyone, He gives everyone including the angels the option to choose him. I am not trying to persuade you into believing in God. But I am asking you to think about what I have said. And try to imagine that, if the enemy only wants to deceive people and steer them away from God. Why would so many different things point towards this fact. Lets face it. If other religions like Buddhism or Islam were true. Don´t you think your article would have been written to argue against them than Christianity. Because I know it would have been, but the reason it was not is because the enemy’s goal is to turn peoples minds anywhere except for towards the one true God, because He is the only way to heaven. Any other way leads to hell. This is the truth, and Jesus´s perfect blood is what paid what we could not. It is a free gift my friend. All it takes is for you to believe in God, know that you are a sinner, and ask him to change your life. If you give God this chance, as I have. He will do way more than you could ever think of or ask for. But that is why it is by faith and not by sight. Even though you can´t see something doesn’t mean it isn’t there. That is the same with God. All I ask is that you think about everything I have said. And let me know what you think. Have a good rest of your day Jeep. I have faith that your eyes will see God in a different way than ever before. And I know that God loves you. The bad things that take place in our life do not happen because of God, but because of the enemy. And even though it may feel the opposite. God is always with you and He is the reason for all the good in your life. His patience for us is never ending. He wants you, but he will not force you to want him. Once again, have a good rest of your day.
Hi Austin,
Thanks for the reply. That’s a wall of text you produced there! Next time, try hitting the enter key every now and then please. I’ll try and tackle your points below.
Why should I care what the bible has to say about anything? There is very little “known according to the bible” because the bible is pretty much wrong about every testable claim that it contains. It’s a book full of stories written by people who knew a lot less about the world than even schoolchildren know today.
Wait, first you say that it is known according to the bible and now you say it’s between verse 1 and 2 of the Book of Genesis? Doesn’t that mean it’s not actually in the bible?
Which the omnipotent and all-knowing god placed in the garden of Eden anyway, knowing full well what would happen if he did. Because he’s all-knowing, right?
Oh good, I thought there weren’t going to be any anymore.
Hey, wait a second. You said you had questions for me. Instead, you’re answering your own question. Are you actually interested in my opinion on this or are you looking for a podium to preach?
That’s a pretty big if, especially considering all the points where we know the bible got things wrong. Besides, I don’t think that your god needs the devil to make him look bad. He does a perfectly good job of that by himself. People a little wicked? Let’s drown the lot. People building a tower? Let’s confuse their speech so they can’t cooperate. Pharaoh wants to let the Jews go? Better harden his heart so I can ruin Egypt and kill thousands of people. And you think Satan is the bad guy here? Really? How many people does Satan kill again?
Really? How do you know? Because the other religions claim that you’re wrong. So how do we find out who got it right? You can’t all be right…but you could all be wrong.
If you had bothered to read a bit more instead of preach, you’d have seen that I begin the article by saying: “I think it is beyond any reasonable doubt that the God of the Bible (or Torah and Koran for that matter) doesn’t exist.” Because that god is actually the same god. It’s simply that I am most familiar with Christianity, so that’s what I’m addressing primarily. But to make it clear for you: I don’t think any of the other gods people have invented are real either. They’re all equally imaginary.
Wrong. See my comment just above.
He doesn’t because the devil isn’t real either. He’s just as made up as god.
Nope. As I explained above.
It’s not free and it’s not a gift. It’s not free because it comes at the price of your reasoning faculties, your self-respect and your freedom to live standing on your own two feet instead of leaning on religion like a crutch or grovelling on your knees because you are supposedly never good enough for god and you continually need his forgiveness and grace. Sin is a meaningless concept to the non-religious. You can’t break the law of a non-existent god. Free your mind of these self-imposed shackles. It’s also not a gift, more like an offer you refuse at your own peril. Kind of like in The Godfather.
Besides, I was a Christian and god did precisely nothing. But that’s not surprising for a non-existent entity.
I did. I considered everything very carefully and concluded that there’s no truth to any of it.
Is there anything you can’t believe on faith? You don’t know that god loves me, you pretend to know that god loves me. If god really loves me, he can come here and tell me so himself.
So let me ask you a question: how do you know the bible wasn’t written by Satan to cause confusion among people, making them fight over who got the right interpretation?
The reason why we believe in gods, is that we are scared of dying. We need some place to go and exist forever. That has existed since the beginning of time.
That may very well be the case, Peter.
This thread is so cool and interesting!
If the Biblical God was Holy and sin cannot exist in his presence, then logically the Biblical God is either not Holy or that God is man-made to ensure the evil we do is considered sin. The Bible says God created everything, so therefore he would have had to create sin or at least a concept of sin and sin is against His nature as a Holy God. He hates sin you know, so how could he have allow it. You cannot create a sinful race of people without first creating the concept of sin which logically would be against his own Holiness nature. How could the concept of sin have ever crossed his mind if He was so holy and perfect? As creator, God would have to be responsible for sin and not man. Is not the Biblical God in full control of everything? Can a Creator truly blame the creation for his design of sin or was it a design flaw? A flaw is not possible with a perfect God, right?
Now, as Joop said, we can believe anything we like. I still believe in a god based on what I see as a magnificent universe that appears to have design, but certainly not the Biblical god whose very nature seem to reflect madness not love. Can I truly say for sure a god exists? No, I cannot, I only hope a trustworthy, just and loving god somehow exists in the background of this crazy and unpredictable life. Shaky at best, I know, but still I hope and always will hope. Thanks for your discussions.
Hey Peter, thanks for your comment.
Basically, you’re describing the Problem of Evil. How do you reconcile the existence of sin, evil and suffering if there’s an omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient god? To my knowledge, no apologist has ever formulated a satisfactory answer to this problem. They either point at free will, saying that humans must have it and therefor can choose to do evil or they offer that god uses evil in ways we do not understand. Neither addresses the problem completely. Even if god wants us to have free will, there’s no reason for him to allow natural disasters, disease or famine. Those cause a lot of death and suffering and doing away with them would not affect our free will in the least.
Saying that god uses evil in ways we do not understand, is basically playing the “god works in mysterious ways” card, which is the apologist equivalent of Monopoly’s “get out of jail free” card. It doesn’t explain anything.
Some apologists say that the way out of evil is the forgiveness for sin through Jesus. This ignores the occurrence of natural disasters, disease and famine again. Also it completely ignores and which you correctly observe that god is still to blame for the concept of sin to exist in the first place. Not to mention that god supposedly allowed the fall from grace to happen (as if an omniscient being wouldn’t know what that serpent was up to) so you would be correct in assuming the whole thing must have been a setup to begin with. God wanted the fall to happen or at least did nothing while it happened. So he’s still to blame. Those poor omniscient and omnipotent beings, they can’t catch a break, can they? 🙂
Hi Joop,
Glad you brought up the “evil” & god issues. Agree with you completely on your analysis. The omniscient God of the Bible and evil seem entirely contradictory. The way I view it is either god is Evil or god is not omniscient. I don’t see it being any other way. Does that make sense? Your thoughts on this? Thanks.
Jim
Hi Jim!
There are, in my opinion, a couple of possible answers. There is the answer that god is evil or that god is not omniscient (or both, of course). You could also conclude that god is simply indifferent at times, being away and then returns to his “project” to meddle with affairs.
The theory that I find the most plausible is that the Christian god grew over time, his capabilities enhanced and embellished as happens with myths. You still see this in the old testament, where Yahweh seems much more limited in his potential. He is apparently unaware that the serpent tempts Adam and Eve in the garden, is unaware what Adam and Eve are up to and becomes angry when he eventually finds out. Clearly, he wasn’t omniscient and omnipresent in the story. Similarly, he is apparently unable to defeat enemies with iron chariots. There is also the strange admonition to the Israelites not to worship other gods. Why bother, if you’re the only one?
Yahweh also seems quite incompetent. In the entire old testament, everything goes wrong for god. Things never turn out the way he wants, so he continually has to punish people for not doing what he wants. Why become angry when an omniscient being would have known all of these events beforehand and would have had an eternity preparing for disappointment? The flood myth is just god’s way of “rage-quitting”, like a teenager throwing away the controller when he/she loses at Call of Duty. Those aren’t the actions of a loving, omnipotent being but of a petty, unjust being of limited power and limited empathy.
This is understandable when you look at the history of the Yahweh character. Yahweh was initially a Bronze Age war god, one among others such as El and Baal. Over time this figure gained prominence in the minds of the people who worshiped him until there was only one god and the first monotheism was born. But the old stories weren’t updated to reflect this “power grab” by Yahweh so we still find elements of an older polytheism in them.
By the time Christianity comes along, there’s only one god and his abilities are now so embellished and expanded that the Christian god becomes a logical impossibility.
Can you also explain this?
All of our best scientific evidence, from the expansion of the universe to the second law of thermodynamics, tells us that the universe had an absolutely beginning a finite time ago. According to modern science, roughly 13.4 billion years ago all of space-time reality popped into existence in a single instant.
According to Stephen Hawking, “almost everyone now believes that the universe, and time itself, had a beginning at the big bang” (1). Physics professor and Director of the Institute of Cosmology at Tufts University Alexander Vilenkin explains that scientists
“CAN NO LONGER HIDE BEHIND A PAST-ETERNAL UNIVERSE. THERE IS NO ESCAPE, THEY HAVE TO FACE THE PROBLEM OF A COSMIC BEGINNING” (2).
This is uncontroversial and can be found in any textbook on cosmology and astronomy.
The “Big Bang”, while typically thought to be an objection to Theism, is actually the best argument we have for the existence of God. If the universe (space itself, time itself, matter, and energy) had an absolute beginning, what caused the universe itself to come into being? What made the Big Bang go “BANG” in the first place?
Whatever caused space to come into being couldn’t have already been operating from within space, and whatever caused matter to come into being must be immaterial. This is quite obvious, seeing as there would be no space-time reality to operate within if the universe did not exist. And there would be no matter from which the cause could have been made, since matter did not exist. This means the cause must be “transcendent“, outside of the universe.
All multiverse theories fail to escape an absolute beginning, for the multiverses themselves must also have a beginning as it an established scientific fact that any universe that is expanding must have had a moment of initial singularity, a beginning. The multiverses themselves would also need a transcendent explanation as their cause as they cannot be extrapolated into infinity past.
So what caused everything to happen in the first place?
The argument goes as follows:
1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. If the universe began to exist, the universe has a transcendent cause.
3. The universe began to exist.
Conclusion: Therefore the universe has a transcendent cause.
If these three premises are true, the conclusion is unavoidable. These premises are, at the very least, more probably true than not, giving us an extremely good reason to believe in a transcendent cause of the universe.
This cause must be spaceless, timeless, immaterial powerful, eternal and uncaused (since it is outside of time). This cause also must be a personal agent, which we will look at in future articles. These are properties normally attributed to God. Here is a video explaining this more thoroughly:
This is a phrasing of the cosmological argument for the existence of god. Unfortunately for apologists using it, it’s not an argument that supports the existence of any specific deity. Even if we grant all the premises you give, we still can’t arrive at the conclusion that a god is the cause. You could reasonably argue for a deistic position but that is a far cry from a personal god.
The way you phrase the cosmological argument here, you assume a transcendent cause for the universe. That premise is not based on anything. For one, we know of nothing that is “transcendent” or how something transcendent could interact with our universe. Secondly, the introduction of a transcendent cause raises a lot more questions than it answers, making it a less preferable explanation. What is the nature of this transcendent cause? Where did it come from? How did it cause the universe to begin? In other words: postulating a transcendent cause solves nothing, it merely moves the problem one step further back and actually makes matters worse. We now have more problems, more questions than we started out with.
There is also the matter of why this transcendental cause is itself uncaused. If you can accept a transcendental cause without a cause, isn’t it much simpler and more elegant to say that the universe doesn’t require a cause? If you can accept a transcendental cause without a cause, you can accept a universe without a cause, thereby avoiding the problems I outlined above.
If you place your cause outside of time, you create a logical problem. How does something outside of time cause something to happen? For something to happen, time has to pass. Causality only makes sense in the framework of space-time. An action provokes a reaction, cause and effect. You can only have a cause with an effect if there is a spatial and temporal connection between the two. If there is no time to pass, there can be no cause and effect.
Finally, if you are not yourself Steven Bancarz, you should stop copying clever stuff from other people: https://reasonsforjesus.com/3-big-reasons-believe-god-exists/. Or were you trying to sound clever by copying someone else’s argument here, thinking I wouldn’t notice? Otherwise, a link to the site would have been sufficient.
Oh i wasn’t really trying to act smart by pretending this was my comment. I just said this made a lot of sense to me so thats why i typed it. You removed my doubt though. Also about the Earth being in the right place. I realised that comment is very stupid as any planet could have been in the place where earth was and we would rule over that planet as with the correct temperature any planet could contain life if it was in Earths place.
I see, thanks for clearing that up. Next time, better include a link to the original, because then I’d have been able to see the video as well. Not that it would make the argument stronger, most likely.
As for the Earth being in the right place, it seems you have missed my point. It’s not about where the planet is, what it’s called or how hot or cold it is. The argument is backwards because life adapts to the existing circumstances (and it’s not the circumstances that were designed to suit life). We have living beings on Earth that thrive in oxygen free environments that would kill us, but they’re perfectly happen there. There is life at the bottom of the sea surviving in pressure that again would kill us. If life can exist there, it may be in lots of places in the universe. There may be life in other inhospitable places in our own solar system even. As you can see, the idea that the Earth is any kind of ideal location to support life, is a very anthropocentric viewpoint. For those creatures that are killed by oxygen, the Earth is a very dangerous place because oxygen is almost everywhere. The bottom-dwelling creatures in the sea might be a lot happier if Earth was covered entirely by deep oceans.
A lot of places on Earth aren’t even hospitable to humans. Go to the desert, anywhere on the ocean, the North or South pole, tropical rain forests, mangroves, swamps, mountain ranges…all of these places are hard to survive for people without specialist gear. 70% of the surface of the Earth is covered by water, which makes at least 70% inhospitable to humans. So the idea that Earth is ideal for humans is quite a strange idea in itself.
Hey joop, I don’t believe in God but this comment makes a lot of sense to me. If God does not exist explain how nature and how the earth is perfectly in the position here it is not to hot or cold. Can you make me remove this doubt..
I’d rather not remove doubt. Doubt is a sign of intelligence.
In this case however, there’s no reason to doubt. You’re just looking at the situation backwards. Rather like a puddle lying in a hole thinking: “Wow, this hole must have been created for me, it fits me perfectly.” It’s life on Earth that evolved to survive in conditions that exist on Earth. It’s life that adapted to fit the existing circumstances. Had the Earth been hotter or colder or had there been no oxygen on Earth, we would not be here today to marvel at how well the Earth seems to suit us.
No God required to explain this one, you just need to look at it from a different perspective.
The following is the truth and the only Hope we will ever have.
The top ten above seems to reflect some of the complaints those closest to God (of the Bible) struggled with at times. The truth be told we all still struggle with them. It seems that our desires are faithless vanity to God and His reactions to mankind are unrighteous. According to God:
1. Faithfulness springs forth from the Earth and Righteousness looks down from Heaven.
2. The Spirit gives life the flesh counts for nothing.
Translated, God is righteous and all men are to walk in the Spirit (in faith) first and not soley after earthly pursuits. This is why we have no relationship with God. Moreover, our focus in this world must be on Jesus Christ while we cope with the dichotomy of life through reverent prayer through His Holy Spirit.
This life is a test that hinges on whether we will ultimately choose to believe in our truth or God’s Word (Jesus). He’s created the perfect world to test us and released a Satan to make the plan inscrutable from our viewpoint. If your angry about this or on your knees praying it seems He has your attention. Remember it’s His plan, life sucks for a reason and it’s up to you how it all ends. Moreover, it’s up to you to bow to His truth and receive eternal life.
Sorry, but no. What you have is a baseless assertion. You are claiming it is the truth but you have no evidence for this. And before you point to the Bible, that is not evidence for your claim.
So what you have left is some scary sounding words, nothing more.
I believe in Christ because I desire the relationship He offers (eternal life, peace, power, love, self discipline…). It takes time to get there and I never wanted it on His terms; as a matter of fact nobody wants Grace on His terms. The Bible calls it foolishness to those who are perishing. However, after a lifetime of stumbling blocks and being sifted like wheat; raising my fist to God one day and praying the next, I realized that this world-system offers no peace just dull reward and punishment and even that a fickle thing in the hands of man.
In the past men lamented the harsh reality of life and revelled in its rewards. Those folks better able to navigate this world come to rule it but their hearts were not and continue not to be enlightened to the same level of their minds. That is why the Bible says: “… the compassion of the wicked is cruel.” In the context of this verse the righteous heart is compared with the unrighteous heart. Note, a so-called good person may do many good deeds but his/her heart is not obedient to God and thus not kind just a worldly version of it. This is the true source of our suffering today.
Regarding my “baseless assertions” the Church has survived 2000 years and its manual is filled with history and prophecy for a thousand years before that. The veracity of the Bible is continually being affirmed. Once Hittites never existed, now theres a museum dedicated to them…and so on. The biblical truths are not accepted by many because God, who transcends our continuum, who’s mind created our rational thought, pitted it against faith and many hate Him for doing so. Life has many aspects but comes down to a decision. Do we choose this life or eternal life?
Now I don’t understand all the complexities of the Bible or some of the so-called translation errors. However, His message is pretty clear. God revealed His plan of reconcilliation to man through His Son, His Christ Jesus. This requires faith to accept, it doesn’t require you to throw away basic reasoning. The Bible speaks about how to receive this eternal life, His gift right now. This is the thrust of the Bible it’s not a trig book.
Eventually this world-society, random chance or your body will betray you. At that time, and hopefully you still have time, when you come to the end of yourself, reach out to God in Jesus name! Afterwards, learn to live to please God and not yourself. Our time on this planet passes quicker than you think and it’s not that good even for the rich pagan. The greatest power working against you is your own disbelief fed by demons and circumstances. Look, your salvation stems not from rigorous mathematical proofs or even answered prayers, it’s about faith. But even that faith rests on the proof of His Word and His Creation.
“I believe in Santa because I desire the presents he brings.” See how a statement like that works? Choosing to believe something because you desire something as a reward for that belief has no bearing on the reality of that belief being true or even plausible. I can choose to believe I will win the lottery because I desire the grand prize but does that make the belief realistic? No, of course not.
Appeal to tradition, logical fallacy if not developed further. Just because something is old, doesn’t mean it is true or useful. The age of something has no relation to the reality of something. If that were true, you should become a Hindu because the Hindu faith predates Christianity by at least 1.500 years so it has survived a lot longer.
You make these two statements and I am to take your word on the “veracity of the bible”? I think not. Fact is, the bible is full of internal inconsistencies, failed predictions, factual errors and downright forgery. You should read up on the history of the bible before you make claims about its veracity.
Is that why there are thousands of Christian denominations, each with differing interpretations about the pretty clear message from god?
Ah yes, the age-old rhetoric of Christians urging people to “repent while you still have time”. It doesn’t work on me. It’s about as scary as a kid saying to an adult “you won’t get presents from Santa if you’re bad”. See, I don’t believe in your god, your holy book, your hell or any other myth that’s been proclaimed from the pulpit for the last 2000 years by people who were no better (and many arguably much worse) than me. Why? Because there’s no evidence for any of it. Not even something to suggest that it might be plausible. All you have is a book that’s been cobbled together by humans but claims divine origin. That’s a circular argument: the bible is the word of god because the bible says it is. Such a claim is worthy of all the derision it gets because it’s laughable.
Enjoyed your 10 reasons. Agree with all of them. I’ve read much of the Bible, and the sad fact is every believer I’ve ever run across, hasn’t read even a small percentage of what I’ve read. I’m always pointing out things they had no clue about. Then they usually get quiet or change the subject when I point out some of the glaring inconsistencies- and there are a ton of them. There are so many things wrong with the Bible it could never be called the direct word of God or even inspired by God. So how can it be God’s guiding principle to follow when it is so fraught with error? God must have really screwed up somewhere – or more likely it’s just some book pieced together by different individuals that was used for power over others and was imbibed with a ton of human thoughts on what this God might actually be. The God of the Bible sounds much too human and not enough God. The God that is so powerful to design the entire Universe, and we think we have the slightest inkling of what He/She/It is? A tad arrogant, aren’t we? God gets angry – gee, so do we. God has to ask Adam what he had done – as if he shouldn’t have known already since He knows everything anyway. Again – all human – nada God. It’s more like people are some kind of toys for God to play around with than an all loving God. Most parents would never treat their children as badly as God treats his children in the Bible. I mean, really, you are going to slaughter your kids because they transgressed, and even their children as well. Forgiving God all right – sounds too much human again. And besides, He would have known this was going to happen anyway, so why not just wipe out all of humanity and start over with squids or something like that. This God of the Bible is just way too human – and why, because the God of the Bible is nothing more than a human construct. Too many faults, too many bad choices, too much anger, too many just plain stupid laws. Too much like the humans he is supposed to have created. No one is ever going to know the God of the Bible because it really isn’t God. Just some human interpretation of a god. But one has to “really” read the book to see that. And study a bunch of ancient history too. That wouldn’t hurt as well.
Hi JIm,
Thanks for the kind words, glad to hear you enjoyed the post!
I have to agree with you there, the bible shows all the signs of being man made (not even human made but made by men). While there are some inspiring stories in there, a lot of it is just boring, some of it seems insane and a lot of it is borrowed from older myths. An honest and thorough read of the bible can’t help but produce disbelievers, in my opinion. The word of a god it is not.
Like you, I have read the bible cover to cover (okay, skipped some of the begats and a lot of Numbers). My conclusion is the same as yours.
Too bad many Christians never bother to read the entire thing cover to cover.
Agree with this article and all you’ve pointed out. I’d like to add that, in addition to its many issues, the Bible wasn’t even written by anyone who was alive at the time Jesus supposedly walked the earth. It was written hundreds of years later based on stories handed down. It’s like playing “telephone”. Anyone who wrote the Bible wasn’t even around to verify if any of these supposed events actually took place. Don’t get me started on the “loving God” rant. You expect me to believe that even if my mother or father beats me I’m supposed to honor them, simply because some fictional book tells me so? What kind of messed up logic is that?
This is part of what I find to be the most compelling reason to not believe that the bible is nothing but a collection of fairy tales. If miracles were happening that news would have spread like wildfire and people would have documented it. Archeologists have uncovered records of all sorts of things but not one timely account of any miracle that happened during the life of Christ.