"I
had no need for that hypothesis" (Laplace to Napoleon
about god)
Contents
Introduction
Definition
of the word "god"
The
qualities of an omnipotent god
Reasons
not to believe in god
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
The ontological evidence
Nothing can be self-containing
Occam's razor
Some things are impossible to do
Omnipotence is impossible due to paradoxes
The void creator
We would never notice god
Nobody really believes in god
Theodicé
Epilogue
References
Additional
reading
Some people falsely believe
that it is impossible to prove the unexistence
of anything, but they are
wrong. It can, for example, be proved that there is
no even prime number greater
than two. Other people use to say that there is
no way to prove if there
is a god or not, or even that we cannot get any
knowledge of god (agnosticism).
My opinion as a strong atheist, is that we
can in fact prove that god
does not exist in the physical world. This
document is my attempt to
do so.
To prove the non-existence
of god we first need to define the word "god".
When christians talk about
god they mean an almighty being. This, I think, is
the only god that holds,
since it is the only god that can be logically
justified.
I think it makes most sense
if god is female, because only women can give
life. Something that even
people in the Stone Age understood. Later when
wars affected the cultural
evolution, and men took control of society, god
became male, but the female
god still lives on in the expression "Mother
earth". It should also be
pointed out that an omnipotent god must be either
androgyne or sexless. However,
in most religions god is male so I will
refer to god as 'he', 'him'
etc.
Some people (Einstein for
instance) believe in a god who is not a personal
god, but a Spinozan kind
of god. I claim that this god is not a god! To say
that god is universe - by
getting knowledge of the universe we get
knowledge of god - is to
redefine the meaning of the word god. This has
nothing to do with the word
god as it was defined by the "primitive"
cultures which preceded
our present civilization. He can be excluded with
Occam's razor, and most
important: Such a god does not hear prayers.
If god is not omnipotent
there is nothing that prevents him from being a
product of the universe.
If that is the case, what makes god divine? Then
god would only be an alien,
a being of matter; probably containing flesh,
blood and DNA like all life
we know of. Everything god is able to do
would be things that human
beings also will be able to do, all his
knowledge would be knowledge
we will also achieve. In fact humans
would be gods, which should
lead to some strange kind of humanism!
Many people justify their
faith with god as an explanation. What is the
meaning of life? Where does
time and space come from? Who created the
physical constants? et cetera.
Because we lack knowledge of these things -
and maybe never will, since
they are questions like "what is the color of a
second?" or "how does sound
taste?" - god is there as an explanation.
Let's say that god is the
meaning of life, what then is the meaning of god? If
god has a nature, who created
that nature? If god created time and space,
how can god exist without
it? Since creation is an event in time, how could
god create time? and who
created god? To answer these questions god must
be almighty, or else you
can't explain them. In fact you can if you say god
stands above time and space
and so on (which he indeed does if he is
almighty), but to be able
to prevent god from being tied to future
phenomena, you must give
him the quality of omnipotence so he can stand
above everything.
The qualities of an omnipotent god
If god is almighty there
are several qualities he must have. They are as
follows:
He
must know everything. Everything that is, everything that has been
and everything that will be. To be able to know everything that will be
he must know every position and every momentum of every particle in
cosmos (Laplace's "World Spirit").
He must be worth our worship. A being that is not worth worshipping
is no god.
He must be able to do anything. If there are things that god can't do,
he
certainly is not omnipotent.
He must be above time. Something that even St. Augustine deduced.
But not only that, god must stand above all possible dimensions.
He cannot be 'good' or 'evil' or, indeed, have any subjective
characteristica. If god is all good, he cannot do evil things and cannot
be almighty. Most people would object and say that good can do evil
but chooses not to do it. Well, if god is all good he can't choose to do
evil things, can he?
The theodicé problem
We
also have the theodice problem, stated by David Hume:
If the evil in the world is intended by god he is not good. If it violates
his intentions he is not almighty. God can't be both almighty and good.
There are many objections to this, but none that holds since god is
ultimately responsible for the existence of evil. Besides, if only god
can create he must have created evil. If somebody else (the devil)
created evil, how can one know that god, and not Satan created the
universe?
For
a good look at the Theodicé problem try The problem of natural
evil
Heisenberg's uncertainty principle
I have refuted this argument myself. See Refuted proofs for an explanation
The ontological evidence
Neccesary a god is a being
that is worth worshipping, so if there is no being
worth worshipping there
cannot be a god.
Not any of the existing religions
can provide such a god. How do we know
if there are no undiscovered
beings worthy our submission? Well if there is
a being that has either
failed or not tried to communicate with us that being
is not worth worshipping
either, so the ontological evidence against god
holds, even without complete
knowledge of the world.
There is a test, based on
the ontological evidence against god, that you can
do to try the existence
of god. Pray, and ask god to provide you with a clear
proof for his existence
within a week. After that week, if you have got a
proof that god exists, send
me the evidence. If not, there are only three
reasons I can think of that
are plausible: (1) God does not exist, (2) God
does not want to or (3)
God can't give you this evidence. Because of the
ontological evidence, alternative
(2) and (3) are not worth your worship
and thus they equal alternative
(1). So if you get no response there is no
god.
The meaning of the word existence
What do we mean by existence?
The very definition for existence is that a
thing is said to exist if
it relates in some way to some other thing. That is,
things exist in relation
to each other. For us, that means that something is
part of our system ('The
known world'). God is defined to be infinite, in
which case it is not possible
for there to be anything other than god because
"infinite" is all-inclusive.
But if there is nothing other than god then either
god cannot be said to exist
for the reason just explained, or god is the
known world, in which case,
by definition, god is not a god.
Occam's razor
Occam's razor was formulated
by William of Occam (1285-1349) and says:
"Non est ponenda pluralites
sive necessitate" or in english: "Do not
multiply entities unless
necessarily". It is a principle for scientific labour
which means that one should
use a simple explanation with a few
explanatory premises before
a more complex one.
Let's say that everything
must be created, and that was done by an
omnipotent god. A god which
stands above time, space, moral and
existence, which is self
containing and in it self has it's own cause. This
entity can surely be replaced
by the known world. The world stands above
time, space, moral, existence,
is self containing and in it has it's own
meaning. Most theists agree
that god has a nature. Then we must raise the
question, who created god's
nature? If we just accept that god has a nature
and exists without a cause,
why not say that the known world just is and that
the laws of physics are
what they are, without a cause?
God is not really an explanation,
only a non-explanation. It is impossible to
gain information from non-information
so God as an explanation is a dead
end. When we have said that
the reason for something is that 'god did it that
way' there is no way to
understand it any further. We just shrug our
shoulders and accept things
as they are. To explain the unknown by god is
only to explain how it happened,
not why. If we are to investigate the world
and build our views of life
from the world, we cannot assume a god.
Because adding god as an
explanation leaves as many, if not more questions
than it explains, god has
to be removed with Occam's razor if we are
serious in investigating
the world.
Some things are impossible to do
There are things that are
impossible to do. For example nobody can cover a
two-dimensional surface
with two-dimensional circles, without making
them overlap. It is impossible
to add the numbers two and two and get 666.
You can not go back in time
(without passing an infinite entropy barrier).
The number of things that
are impossible to do are almost infinite. If god
were to be almighty he would
be able to do them, but it's impossible to do
so.
Some people say that he can
only do things that are logically possible to do,
but what is? Is it logically
possible to walk on water? Is it logically
possible to rise from the
dead? Is it logically possible to stand above time,
space and all other dimensions
- and still exist? I'd say that everything
which violates the laws
of physics are logically impossible and thus
omnipotence is logically
impossible. Besides if omnipotence is a relative
quality there is no way
to tell omnipotence from non-omnipotence. For
omnipotence to be a valid
expression it must be absolute, but we have no
objective criteria to measure
omnipotence so the word itself is useless.
Omnipotence is impossible due to paradoxes
Another way to disprove the
almighty god is that omnipotence leads to
paradoxes. Can god make
a rock that is too heavy for him to carry? Can god
build a wall that even he
can't tear down?
Also, if god knows everything,
he knows what he will do in the "future" (in
any dimension, not necessary
the time dimension). He must have known that
from the very start of his
own existence. Thus god's actions are predestined.
God is tied by faith, he
has no free will. If god has no free will god is not
omnipotent. Another way
to put it is that to be able to make plans and
decisions one must act over
time. If god stands above time he can not do
that and has no free will.
Indeed, if god stands above all dimensions god is
dimensionless - a singularity,
nothing, void!
Besides there can exist no
free wills at all if god is almighty. If you had a
free will, god wouldn't
know what you would do tomorrow and wouldn't be
omnipotent.
The void creator
If everything must have been
created, then god must have been created as
well. If god is not created,
then everything mustn't have a creator, so why
should life or cosmos have
one?
Besides this argument has
another leap. If everything has a source and god
is that source, then god
must have existed without it before he created it. So
if god created time and
space, he must live outside of time and space. Thus
he is non-existent. If all
life must come from something and that is god, god
is not alive and hence non-existent.
If moral must come from god, god lacks
moral. If logic comes from
god, god is illogic. If nature comes from god,
god is unnatural. If existence
comes from god, god is non-existent. If god is
the cause of everything,
god is void
We would never notice god
This is not an evidence against
god, but rather describes the lack of sense in
praying to a god who stands
above time.
If god stands above time
and created time and space he can not be the first
link in a time dependent
chain of events. Rather he would affect every step
in all chains, and we would
only see god in the laws of physics (Davies,
1983, chapter 4). This god
is an unnecessary entity to describe the world
and should be removed with
Occam's razor
If somebody would pray to
god and god would listen, the laws would
change to achieve the desired
result. Thus the world would be different and
the prayer would never have
been said. Besides god would already (in an
"above time" sense of view)
know that you would pray, and already have
changed the world. Prayers
would be totally meaningless. We would
already live in the best
world possible, and any prayer would be to doubt
the wisdom of god.
Even worse: For every prayer
said, god has not acted, or else the prayer
had been undone. This means
that the more people have prayed, the more
bad things in the world
have persisted. Therefore, the more you pray, the
more evil persist (provided
god exists and stands above time).
A much better way to change
the world is to do it yourself. Then you would
know that it was you who
made the world better. The effect of prayers are
not scientific provable,
whilst the effect of actions are. Instead of praying
you should set to work at
improving your situation. This is what humanism
is about.
Nobody really believes in god
Schopenhauer once said something like:
"Man
can do anything he wants, but he can not want whatever he
wants."
My thesis is that people
who claim to believe in god do not really do so.
They just wish to believe
in god. They somehow feel that their lives are
meaningless without god,
so they choose to close their eyes to evidence
against the existence of
god. The christian view is well expressed by
Cardinal Ratzinger:
"Religious
liberty can not justify freedom for divergence. This
freedom does not aim at any freedom relative truth, but concerns
the free descicion for a person to, according to his moral
inclinations accept the truth." (The times, June 27 1990, p9)
[Translated to Swedish in the Swedish version of (Baigenth,
Leigh, 1991) and then translated back to english by me]
It's as clear as it can be!
For a christian you accept the "truth" according to
your moral, and then have
to be strong in your faith to keep your believes.
You decide a priori what
to believe and then try to convince yourself and
others that it is true.
But theists don't really believe, because to believe
something is to take it
for true, and just like in Nazareth's song Sold my soul
there is no sign of god
in the world. When you have the evidence for and
against something your sub-conscious
works on it and makes a conclusion.
The process can't be affected
by your will, only delayed or suppressed,
which will lead to psychoses,
and those are far more common among
(catholic) priests than
any other group..
I have personal experience
of this believing what you want to believe.
When I was a child I believed
in a lot of crazy things. I thought my stuffed
animals were intelligent.
I believed in Santa Claus. I thought there were
monsters under my bed at
night. I even believed in god after I heard some of
the tales from the old testament.
Then I became older and realized that these
things weren't true. When
I look back I don't understand how I could believe
in them, it must have been
that I wanted to do so. (Except for the monsters,
which had to do with fear
of the dark)
When many religious people
are confronted with criticism of their religion
they convert to atheism
or agnosticism. Examples of people who became
critical to the dogmas of
christianity are Charles Darwin (Darwin, 1958),
Dan Barker (Barker, 19??),
Ernest Renan plus many former "Catholic
modernists" in the 19th
century such as Alfred Loisy and Antonio Fogazzaro
(Baigenth, Leigh, 1991).
The Catholic modernism evolved in the late 19th
century and was banned in
1907 by the Vatican (Baigenth, Leigh, 1991).
These people are to me clear
evidence that an enlightened person will after
considering the facts, reject
christianity and other religions that contain
deities.
Note: This is not the "Plead
to authority" fallacy. I'm talking people here,
who were trying to prove
the existence of god and turned atheists. They did
not want to do this, but
had to after reading a lot of books and doing a lot of
thinking on the subject.
I have tried to define the
only god that can be philosophically justified and
show some examples why this
god cannot exist. After reading this document
you may object and say that
god is beyond human understanding and can't be
defined in scientific terms.
This is the view of agnosticism.
If god is so mysterious,
how can we know anything about him? Through the
Bible? How do we know that
the Bible and not the Koran or the Vedha
books, for example, are
the words of god? (or the bible if you believe in
any of the other two books).
Considering the cruelties that have been made
in the name of god, how
do we know that not all religions are made by
Satan?
If there is no way to know
this but to trust people who claim they have had
"divine experiences" there
is no way to tell true from false prophets. One
has to give up his free
mind and follow the authority of a dictator.
Remember also that it is
the person making a positive claim who has to
prove it.
"I
wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a
doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and
subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is
undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground
whatever for supposing it true." -- Bertrand Russell
"We
shall not believe anything unless there is reasonable
cause to believe that it is true" -- Ingemar Hedenius
1.Michael Baigent,
Richard Leigh, The Dead Sea Scrolls Deception
(1991)
2.Dan Barker,
Losing Faith in Faith - From preacher to atheist (19??)
3.Charles Darwin,
The Autobiography of Charles Darwin 1809-1882.
With original omissions restored. Edited with appendix and notes by
his grand-daughter Nora Barlow. The only complete edition. (1958)
4.Paul Davies,
God and the new physics (1983)
1.The Atheism
web
2.Bible contradictions
#1
3.Joseph C.
Sommer, Some reasons why Humanists reject the bible
4.Does God exist?
a debate between John P. Koster and Frank Zindler
5.The Internet
Infidels
6.Julian Huxley,
Religion without revelation (New York, NY: Mentor
Books, l957)
7.Michael Martin,
Atheism: A Philosophical Justification (Temple
University Press, 1984)
8.John Stuart
Mill, The Religion of Humanity (1874)
9.George Smith,
Atheism: The Case Against God