Day 255: Test God's Existence

"Whether god exists or not is a pretty fundamental questions, and one that could make a big difference to your life. If you're not yet convinced either way, find out for sure with questions which are especially designed to make him manifest himself. It's best to address them from a mount or hill of some sort, as that's how he's used to humans communicating with him."

As many of you may know, I am firmly on the side of "not buying it". But I also realize that it's impossible to prove that something doesn't exist, that makes just as little sense. But I do know where I can point to for evidence that drops the probability to microscopic levels.

Today, I found God Is Imaginary.com which lists 50 simple, logical reasons that god probably doesn't exist. While the author of the site makes the not-so-far leap to saying that god is definitely imaginary, it still doesn't prove nonexistence. 

I've also always had major problems with the bible. The way I see it, there are two ways that you can think of it: either as the literal word of god and therefore containing no room for interpretation, or it is not the literal word of god and any interpretation is a fabrication of the reader. If it is the literal word of god, everything contained is an absolute truth and must be obeyed. Lacking human desires, god would have no need or want to lie, meaning that all of his words must be taken as undeniable fact. With a single factual inaccuracy, the legitimacy of the bible must be brought into question. In 1 Kings 7:23, the value of Pi is stated to be 3, which we know today isn't true. Among the list of other inaccuracies are Leviticus 11:13-19 (bats are not birds), Leviticus 11:6 (rabbits do not chew cud), Leviticus 11:20-22 (insects have 6 legs, not 4), and Deuteronomy 14:7 (camels have split hooves), Psalms 104:5 (the earth is neither stationary in space, nor on the surface). With this amount of factual errors, an omniscient god could not have written the bible. 

I won't go into great detail, but there are many compelling arguments against the existence of a god:

The Problem of Evil states that a benevolent, all-powerful god would not allow the existence of evil, yet evil still exists.

The Argument from Poor Design states that life generally exhibits poor design, which an all-powerful god would not have intended or allow to happen.

The Argument from Nonbelief basically states that if god truly existed, that he would have done a better job of letting people know.

The Omnipotence Paradox: "Could god create a stone so heavy that he himself could not lift it?"

The Problem Problem of Hell demonstrates that the existence of hell is in direct contradiction to god's attributed omnibenevolance.

The Argument from Free Will states that an omniscient god could not possibly give free will to humans, as they are bound to follow what he already knows would happen.

Basically what I'm trying to say here is that I have never been given a good reason to believe in a god, or any god for that matter. In fact, everything that I've experienced goes against the idea that one or any god exists. A lack of evidence already puts the probability of existence below the threshold of reasonable belief (50-50), and the logical thought behind the arguments of nonexistence weighs that scale astronomically against it. The Atheist's Wager is a philosophical concept that I try to embrace in my life and it states the following:

You should live your life and try to make the world a better place for your being in it, whether or not you believe in god. If there is no god, you have lost nothing and will be remember fondly by those you left behind. If there is a benevolent god, he will judge you on your merits and not just on whether or not you believed in him.

That's all. Don't be a dick. Play nice with others. Share your toys. You shouldn't need a god to tell you that that's what you're supposed to do in life.