I have said, “Gods don’t exist”. No qualifications, end of story.
This is the so-called “strong atheist” position – not merely a position reflecting the absence of a belief in gods, but rather a position which positively affirms that no such things exist.
And I’ve been asked how I can make such a statement.
Well, here’s why....
In summary:
1. Gods are mythological.
2. Centuries of progress have now debunked the mythological worldview which not only produced but supported the notion that gods exist, even if relatively few people are sufficiently informed of this situation.
3. As all substantive claims about gods have been disproven, claims about god which do not merely contradict fact have either been removed from space and time (which makes the terms “real” and “exist” when used in relation to God absurd) and/or God itself has been de-defined (which makes any statement about God absurd).
4. The current tested-and-confirmed non-mythological worldview explains why people should continue to believe in gods, even though they are not real.
Taken as a whole, the only conclusion I can reach is that gods aren’t real.
Now, that’s an overly neat synopsis that creates false distinctions among interrelated ideas, so I won’t take them point-by-point in order, but to expand....
Belief in what we call supernatural beings dates from a time when humankind had no inkling of what we now know to be true about the universe. And while a few made some insightful guesses (e.g., that everything is made up of atoms) there was no actual knowledge of astronomy and cosmology, relativity, quantum mechanics, most of physics in fact or geology or biology, certainly not genetics or neuroscience or evolution.
So it made sense to attribute the weather, the motion and existence of heavenly bodies, the creation of the earth and its creatures, diseases, reproduction, even emotions to the activities of any number of beings who lived in the celestial realm, or in the underworld, or in the wild places, or in animals, or in dreamworlds or parallel realms.
Why did this make sense? For the same reasons that it makes sense to so many people today – because the human brain is built to seek out human intentions and agencies, to generate notions of meaning and purpose, to conceive of other people in terms of unified souls dwelling within bodies, and to think in narratives.
The combination of circumstance and natural mental inclination was (and is) bound to produce belief in gods, demons, angels, spirits, ghosts, and other such things which we now call supernatural.
But the reason we now classify such things as supernatural is because we have explored the natural world to such an extent that we can debunk all of the necessary planks that once supported those beliefs.
This is no small thing, and not to be taken lightly.
There is no realm of celestial beings in the sky, just more stars like our sun (well, not exactly like it, but of a type), more planets revolving around them, various rocks and gas, a lot of nearly empty space, matter exploding and colliding... stuff like that.
There are no souls, just the activity of the brain. We know this because we can manipulate conscious awareness through drugs and probes and magnetic fields, and we can identify the physical processes associated with various mental states (although not yet with anything like the precision we’d prefer).
Archaeology, paleontology, and astronomy and cosmology have debunked the old creation myths and origin myths. Except in some cases where the myths coincidentally got things right, such as Hindu beliefs in astronomical timeframes.
Biology and genetics explain reproduction, inheritance, mutation, disease, and death.
And on it goes. In every case in which the old mythological, god-populated world has come up against the current scientific view, it has lost. Which is why we had to create a separate category, the “supernatural”, for all these now homeless ideas.
Now, for your average rational (and informed) person, this should be enough. But the psychological and cultural hold of some of the old ideas can be hard to shake off, so it’s no wonder that many intelligent, educated folks don’t look into it too deeply, and simply accept the supernatural. Not surprising at all.
But their belief doesn’t change the fact that it’s been debunked.
So here’s where we are....
If we define God in terms of what is known to be true – in other words, if we say that God is any sort of originating force, for example, or the mere matter and energy of the universe itself – then God ceases to be what anyone ever thought God was, and becomes simply the mechanistic forces of insensate nature. Which means God has at the same time become not-God and become a mere redundancy. And either of these situations is sufficient to send it off to the realm of the unreal, along with phlogiston, the cosmic ether, and Santa Claus.
Some have attempted to salvage God by the so-called “deistic” solution, which explains God’s indetectability – and resulting lack of any qualities, features, behaviors, and characteristics – by claiming that God merely created the universe and then stopped meddling with it.
The problem here becomes evident if we try the same trick with something new and unfamiliar, because ideas we hear about all our lives tend to take on a certain thingyness in our brains, which can blind us to the error of claims which sneakily leave them undefined. Our brains unconsciously fill in the void.
For example, let’s say I have this conversation with my friend Amicus....
Piggy: “I was reading up on flurb the other day, when—”
Amicus: “Flurb?”
Piggy: “Yeah, I was reading this website about flurb and—”
Amicus: “What’s flurb?”
Piggy: “Oh, it’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another. Anyway—”
Amicus: “You mean gravity and inertia and universal expansion, all that?”
Piggy: “No, no, flurb. Flurb isn’t just the laws of nature.”
Amicus: “Okay, what is it then?”
Piggy: “I just told you. It’s what causes the various bodies in the cosmos to move in relation to one another.”
Now, have I really told Amicus what flurb is? No. I’ve simply claimed that it’s responsible for something that is already understood naturalistically. Amicus can have no idea what flurb is supposed to be. For all intents and purposes, I’ve left flurb undefined.
By the same token, the deistic excuse is an equally empty argument. We’re left to ask, “What, exactly, are you saying created the universe then stopped meddling with it?”
It’s a non-claim. And to ask anyone to accept a non-claim as a claim is unreasonable and absurd.
We cannot simply non-define God as an I-don’t-know-what, residing I-can’t-tell-you-where, doing I-couldn’t-say-which.
But in fact, in light of the debunking of the mythic worldview, that’s all that’s left for God. All that could possibly be left for God.
So if God is something that does have features, qualities, behaviors, and characteristics (which it must, if the claim “God exists” is to be anything but an absurdity) and God is also not simply redundant with the natural world described by science (because to define it that way is to make God equivalent to not-God) then God is a thing which is contrary to fact.
Which, in a nutshell, means it doesn’t exist.
In other words, in the current climate, any claim for the existence of God must either be non-sensical, or contrary to fact.
But wait... how can I say God doesn’t exist if I haven’t explored the entire universe?
Well, that’s simple. It’s because God never has been the kind of thing that hides away off somewhere in the deep and has no contact with us. And if we decide to develop a novel definition of our own, we’re guilty of Humpty-Dumptyism, a fallacy named after the character from “Alice Through the Looking Glass” who declared that “when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean”.
But of course, if we go that route, suddenly it becomes acceptable to say that Richard Nixon was prime minister of Great Britain, or that people normally wash themselves by bathing in razor blades.
But how do I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of God which does correspond to something we can accept as real?
You might as well ask how I know that someone will not someday invent a definition of a “galaxy” which allows it to climb trees.
All sorts of dodges can be dreamed up, but none of them can get around the simple fact that gods have been looked for in every place we would expect to find them doing the sorts of things that gods do, and they have not been there... instead, we find other very non-godlike things doing all of the stuff which the gods were supposed to be responsible for.
But what if God is simply beyond our comprehension?
If that were so, then there would be nothing to talk about, because no one would have ever thought of a god.
But what if I’m wrong? I do have to admit that I might be wrong, don’t I? I mean, we could always be wrong, couldn’t we? About anything.
This is the final refuge of the anti-atheist, whether theist or agnostic. But it’s no refuge at all.
Some things, after all, are certain.
The earth is round like an orange, not flat like a pancake. Even the ancient Greeks were able to figure this out with their crude tools and methods. And we have put men on the moon. I’ve flown around in airplanes, and seen the lovely curve of the earth myself first-hand. I buy my gasoline with a credit card at pumps that don’t work if an orbiting satellite is knocked out of commission.
There can be no doubt about it. The earth is round, not flat.
But what if some “new evidence” is presented? Surely, I have to remain open to new evidence.
Actually no, because all evidence must be evaluated on the basis of observations which confirm or disconfirm it. So whatever “new evidence” anyone comes up with, it will be sized up against our direct observation of a round earth – everything I’ve just mentioned and more – and disconfirmed. New evidence for a flat earth that will be confirmed by observation is not possible.
The same is true for the existence of God, because it’s already been debunked.
But doesn’t that violate the premise that we must always be open to new evidence?
I suppose so, but that is not a fact established by evidence and reason... it is mere dogma. What’s more, it’s dogma contradicted by direct experience.
If I were to accept this dogma, then I would have to accept that Chuck E. Cheese might be a real live anthropomorphic mouse, that I might one day catch a unicorn and be granted a wish in exchange for letting it go free, that leprechauns might roam the hills of Ireland, and that Tolkien’s Middle Earth might be history rather than fiction.
And I would be lying to you if I were to say that I accept any chance whatsoever that these things might be real. What’s more, aside from the dogma, there’s no reason for me to accept that they might be real. And since the dogma is not supported by evidence and/or reason, I have no need to.
But isn’t this arrogance?
Well, humility is certainly a virtue, but it’s a strange view of humility to insist that it include accepting any chance of Tolkien having accidentally written history, when archaeology and paleontology show us plainly that he did not.
The human brain has certainly evolved some strange quirks and illusions. But it could not have evolved, because individuals could not have survived, if it were prone to error about everything.
But can't we accept intellectually that there's some chance that gods exists despite everything, while behaving as if it were true that they don't?
This is a meaningless Nicean compromise, in which, to preserve the accepted orthodoxy, two contradictory assertions are merely tossed in bed together and told to sleep tight. We either accept that there's some real chance of God existing, or we don't. This business of thinking one way and behaving another is... well, it's just what it sounds like.
But what if we’re in a Matrix? What if we’re brains in vats?
If so, then the Matrix or vat-world in which we live doesn’t have gods in it.
What if the controllers add gods?
If they do in the future, that will not change the fact that gods do not exist now.
And in any case, once we get to the Matrix arguments – aside from using them as mere thought experiments – we’ve descended from reasonable discussion into the morass of dorm-room smoke sessions. It’s the kind of pseudo-philosophical cud that gets ruminated endlessly in tail-chasing philosophy threads, doomed to go nowhere.
No one ever made any progress pursuing pointless discussions like that.
What has made demonstrable progress is the very scientific worldview that overturned irrevocably the old, incorrect mythic view of the world.
The very presence of this forum, depending as it does on computers and electronic infrastructure and synthetic materials, is itself part of the proof that not only are there no gods, but there can be no gods.
And I have not one shred, not one iota, not one quark of doubt about that. Just as I have no doubt that the earth is round, that Tolkien wrote fiction, and that unicorns don’t grant wishes.
Nor should I.
