What follows is a critical examination. It’s fairly long and probably not suitable for everyone. I’ve incorporated cites where appropriate and in some cases I’ve quoted a sizable amount of text because I feel the author has done a far more admirable job of explaining the concept then I would have been able to. So I hope you’ll bear through the quotes.
Okay, I want to state up front that I’m by no means an expert on atheism or atheistic argumentation. If you want what I consider the best tomb on atheistic argumentation, then I suggest you pick up the book “Atheism: The Case Against God” by George H. Smith. Additionally, I’m not seeking to convert or sway anyone towards atheism. I do not denigrate religious belief nor do I find it ‘wrong’ in any sense. What I’m attempting to do is provide a reasonable justification for atheism.
I think this is a particularly relevant and interesting issue, no matter which side of the ‘pew’ you line yourself up with. Religiosity and church attendance are at an all time high, in fact, belief has never been so common place in America-this is why the topic of God belief is an important issue. According to Michael Shermer:
“For the past two centuries American church membership rates have risen from a paltry 17 percent at the time of the Revolution, to 34 percent by the middle of the nineteenth century, to over 60 percent today.”
With that said, I will introduce some of the arguments either against specific arguments in favor of God or in favor of the non-existence of God. I will be addressing the arguments one at a time, and with proper reference links/cites when appropriate. I’m not going to rattle off a litany of arguments because I feel that more will be gained if we explore them one at a time and in greater detail.
Before I begin, I’m going to define some terms for the purpose of this discussion. These are by no means concrete and we can define them further if need be.
Atheist: Someone without the belief in God. It is not necessarily a position where the person says affirmatively that God does not exist. Atheist is a general statement about a non belief in any God concept.
Hard Atheist: This is the person who says that God does not exist, affirmatively.
Weak Atheist: This is a person who does not feel that there is any quality evidence for the existence of God. They do not rule the concept of God out definitely, but they see no reason to believe in any of the Gods they know of.
Agnostic: Agnosticism is not a position on whether one believes in God or not, it is a position on whether one believes that it is possible to know positively whether God exists or not. Additionally it’s a position on whether God can be known through experience.
I’m fairly certain that everyone will agree with the above-at least to some extent. The next definition, that of God, begins the discussion and the first argument for the non-existence of God.
Before I begin examining the concept of God, I feel justified in asking the following question: Does God require faith? From what I’ve read, most incarnations of God want their believers to believe based off of faith, instead of based off of empirical evidence. If this is true, then atheism is justified-because without doubt there is no faith-only certainty. Now then, onto a bigger problem.
Defining God and the problems therein.
The very first question that should be asked before we can either affirm or deny the belief in an entity is what is the entity in question?
I think we can all agree that if the entity in question is ill defined to the point of utter arbitrariness that it doesn’t make much sense to affirm a belief in the entity; after all, what would we be actually affirming a belief in? A mystery? An abstract concept that has no basis in reality?