read this first. i want to talk about the nature of things. everything has a specific nature. something cant do anything that would violate its nature. furthermore, something that comes from or is the result of something else cannot violate the nature of the thing it came from or was the result of. for example, it is in the nature of the universe to have physical laws and matter. if it were not in the nature of the universe to have those things then it could not have them. the universe does have them so it must be in its nature. it is in the nature of gravity to pull things together. if this were not the nature of gravity then things would not pull on each other and things like planets would not be in orbit or even exist. therefore it must be in the nature of gravity to pull things together.
note: i will sometimes speak hypothetically as if god exists for arguments sake.
the general attributes that a god is given are as follows: omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresent, eternal, perfect, and infinitely merciful. you could just call this perfect omnimax with infinite love.
1. the problem with eternal perfection.
the concept of perfection is hard to imagine, it is even harder to fully grasp, whats even harder is to imagine and grasp the concept of a perfect being.. the pinnacle of existence, eternal and unchanging. a perfect being could not desire, do, or need anything else. we will call this conceptual perfect being "god". if one were to assert that god could desire, there are only to ways that desire could be had. either it one day started to have this desired, or the desire is intrinsic, both of these are impossible. if the god one day developed this desire then this is a change and therefore the god wouldnt be perfect. if the gods desire was intrinsic this would be nonsensical because if it existed before anything else, then it could not desire it. these same principles apply to god being unable to do or need anything else. to do something is a change and change means imperfection. the same goes for necessity. every religion and claimed god is asserted as having created the universe or created something, most of these gods are also claimed to be eternal and perfect. not only is this almost always an argument from ignorance, (which is a logical fallacy) but they are also claimed to know everything (which we will get to in the next argument). obviously you can see that a god such as this would be incapable of creating something because to make a decision requires thought and action, both of which are changes and therefore imply imperfection.
here is the summary of the above.
p1.perfection is unchanging.
p2.decision, action, emotion, and necessity imply a lacking or change. lacking and change both imply imperfection.
p3.perfection and imperfection cannot coexist simultaneously.
theistic gods are claimed to have created and to be perfect.
given p1, 2, and 3, no perfect creator god exists.
the other problem with god being perfect is that him creating us violates the nature of perfection because we are imperfect. imperfection cannot result from perfection.
2. the problem with omniscience and free will.
if a god knows the future then it means that there is a set timeline. if he knows everything that will happen then everything has already been predetermined. time exists as a result of the expansion of the universe. if god knew everything, then he must have known the timeline of the universe before he created it. so either time exists outside the universe too, or god didnt know shit before the universe was expanding. since god knows everything then this means there is a set timeline of everything and therefore everything will happen in a certain way/everything is predetermined. if everything is predetermined then we dont have any free will and free will cannot exist. so if god created the universe, then he created time by itself or as part of the universe. if god created the time then he also created the timeline and therefore he decided all our actions for us. if religious gods exist, then they knew everything that everybody would ever do before people even existed so for a god to punish us or reward us infinitely for finite actions that were necessarily predetermined as a result of gods knowledge of the future which necessarily follows omniscience, then he is cruel for making things like this, which leads me to my next argument. an expansion on this argument is here http://ablogofmar.blogspot.com/2011/08/elaboration-on-argument-2-some-things.html its quite long tthough.
3. the problem with love and omniscience.
firstly, a being with infinite love would not experience anger because that would not be loving and an infinitely loving beings love would override any anger. an infinitely loving being would not create an eternal torture chamber because creating a thing of eternal suffering would not be in the nature of an infinitely loving being. i am not infinitely loving and i would never create a place like that, so i can infer that one more loving than i wouldnt create a hell either. even if an infinitely loving being would create a place of eternal suffering aka hell, an omniscient infinitely loving being would not create beings like us which are able to go to hell through the actions and thoughts we have resulting from our free will. that would be cruel to create beings knowing every thought and action that all of them will ever do and knowing that many of them will go to a place of eternal suffering as a result of the free will you gave them. essentially god sent many of the humans that will ever live that he created to the hell he created because of the way he created humans. simplified, god created hell and created imperfect beings with free will and made them able to go to hell because of the way he created them. simplified and essentially, god sent much of his prized creation to hell the moment he decided to create humans and hell. this is cruel and cruelty is not in the nature of an infinitely loving and merciful being. therefore the idea that a loving being created a hell and then created sentient free willed beings, many of which will go to hell as a result of the way they were created, is a stupid and extremely improbable idea.
(SIDENOTE OF ARGUEMENT 3)
people (mainly christians) say "god doesnt send you to hell, you send yourself to hell." but this is clearly not the case. if god made hell and god made us the way we are then he must also have made our decision making processes. if he made our decision making processes then he essentially made what decisions we make. our decisions were also made for us when he created the universe (see argument 2) since he made hell knowing how he would make us and since he designed the criteria by which souls are judged then he is ultimately responsible for people going to hell. its like the law. i am responsible for my actions, but the judicial branch of the government is responsible for the consequences of my actions because they made the criteria by which my actions are judged and therefore they are ultimately responsible for whatever punishment i get.
4. the problem with objective morality and a "good god".
i often hear theists ask "where do you get your morality from if not from god?" and to that i say "where do you think your god gets his morality from?". here is the problem. either god decides whats moral or morality exists outside of god and god is just the messenger boy. if god is just the messenger boy then that means morality is objective and if morality is objective then it is just part of some reality. therefore, everything in this universe must have come into existence due to the nature of that reality including god. therefore we would just naturally have morality if that were the case with no need for a god. i'll get back to that in a minute. the two other arguments one could make for objective morality are that either god decides what is moral, or good flows directly from his nature and is the basis for morality. a possible variation of the latter is also feasile, some objective morality could flow from his nature that enables everybody able to be judged. both options can be possible at once too. i will shatter all of these using a few arguments. if good flows directly from gods nature then everything he does must be good. if god created a place of infinite torment and a place of infinite happiness, then everything in between must be considered good. this would mean there is no objective morality because morality is what is right and wrong. if everything is considered good then there is no wrong and therefore there would be no such thing as morality. if god decides what is right and wrong then he can make anything he wants moral. one would argue that he wouldnt because of the good flowing from his nature thing but just see the above and we can discard that assertion. another argument that can be made against the good flowing from his nature is creating people. men have the capability to do good and bad. therefore we have good and bad in us. since good and evil are in us, if god created us then we shouldnt be punished for anything because everything we do is good. or good does not flow from gods nature. back to the morality outside of god, if that were true then we would all necessarily innately know what is right from wrong, we dont though. children do something they are not supposed to and the parents tell the children that its wrong. even if that objective moraity did somehow exist, it would only mean that god either did evil or that there is nothing considered evil. if god is pure good and that objective morality outside him is the case, then given the two infinite extremes as mentioned earlier, it would only mean that there is no evil and that there is only good. if that objective morality exists and god isnt only good, then he did something evil. it may be argued that the only evil thing is directly causing infinite torment because god didnt do that, he only made a place inteded for infinite torment and then let millions of people go there. if this were the only evil thing then it would also mean god is unjust for punishing us for doing good things. if not believing in him and believing in him are both good, then neither should result in infinite torment. if people go to hell then god is unjust. but unjustice wouldnt be evil either rofl. although valid and logically sound, it would make the idea of a theistic god far more laughably absurd. so either god is evil and good, there is no objective morality, or the only evil thing is infinite torment. it could be that all good is evil or anything that causes infinite happiness directly is also evil but im not gonna get into that bullshit because those are childish nitpicky sort of arguments.
the problem with a stupid god.
5.an omniscient god wouldnt rely on textual and anecdotal evidence to show that he exists and to give an important message to humanity. langauges die out and are mistranslated and misinterpreted, dictating a book to a desert tribe in the middle east written in a language that would eventually die is a stupid and horribly inefficient way of showing you exist and any omniscient god would have known that so it would be inefficient and stupid to rely on texts to inspire belief, especially when the texts being relied upon are self contradictory and wrong about many of the things we currently know about reality, such as the world being flat. god wouldnt design people so rationally and then expect them to believe something seemingly nonsensical.
i can easily think of better ways that he could demonstrate his existence and so could you and yet an omniscient and omnipotent being chose one of the most inefficient and unreliable ways possible? and he expects people today to believe in a book thats been translated countless times as a credible piece of evidence that he exists? if he expects people to believe that then he is stupid for designing people with strong reasoning abilities. none of it makes sense. he could have used lighting to turn sand in the sahara desert into glass and written the whole bible that way in little glass letters in every language. he could have eroded the mountains in such a way as to convey a message. those would be absolute proofs and they would be too astronomically improbable and impossible to deny. there are plenty of other ways he could have done it but instead he chose an incredibly inefficient way of doing it.
this next part is a refutation of common arguments i have come across that people use to prove god.
the argument from complexity.
the argument is laid out similarly to the following.
things are complex.
complexity requires intelligence.
therefore a god did it.
the first problem is that this argument is logically invalid because its an argument from ignorance. the second problem is that complexity cant be demonstrated to be objective.we define things as complex and give them different levels of complexity. in order to claim that complexity requires intelligence is to say that complexity is not only subjective, but then also say that it objectively implies subjective cause. my mind cannot change or decide what reality is because reality is objective which means it is outside of mind or not dependent upon a mind. something not dependent upon mind cannot also have been caused by a mind. so they cannot demonstrate that complexity is anything more than a label we make and yet they also obviously unwittingly imply it is subjectively caused. the only way this would even be possible is if our universe was just part of gods mind, but even then, they cannot demonstrate that god labels anything as complex. the third problem is that even if complexity isnt just a label, if the creation is complex then the creator is arguably more complex and therefore also in need of a creator. this is affirmed by them then saying that the creator is eternal and not in need of another creator which would need another creator ad infinitum, this is where they are trapped and their argument becomes invalid because its a logical fallacy called special pleading.
another argument i hear for religions, christianity especially is the sudden explosion in the number of people that believed in in history. for every religion, there is an explosion of numbers in believers after it was made. after mohammed came out of his cave with his dream after 100 years there was plenty of believers. the mormons became numerous fairly recently. the same goes for hindus, jews, and others as well. this is also an argument from numbers which is a logical fallacy.
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