There is No God

I should preface this by stating that much of what I’m about to say is conjectural, as I have no more means of obtaining real certainty in this matter than anyone else.

Religion is, to me, a very strange and bizarrely abstract notion. Fundamentally, most religions center around a belief in one or more supreme beings, known as “Gods.” Some religions take the view that everything is of an all-encompassing immanent abstract God, this view being classified as “pantheism.”

I am an atheist, meaning I hold the belief that there is no God – no Krishna, Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, or Cthulu. In my view, a theistic belief, in its often-totally credulous state, can be and is very frequently dangerous; to support this conclusion I would cite the following instance:

An 11-year-old Wisconsin girl, afflicted with a simple and commonly curable illness, died after her loving parents, following the unadulterated teachings of Christianity, chose regimental prayer over actual medical treatment.  This incident clearly demonstrates both the disgusting archaism pure religion is rife with, and its unmatched ability to warp the minds of well-meaning people.

I am not suggesting a ban on the practice of religion, as such a ban would be horribly wrong and a contravention of basic human rights. I am suggesting that we as a society would be much better off if religion had never been conceived. I understand that the notion of a warm and nurturing deity is a comforting one, and that the alternative – cold and empty meaninglessness – is ostensibly unappealing, but it is inarguably preferable to barefaced self-delusion.

Inevitably, my atheistic stance also leads me to the conclusion that the earth and its encircling universe were not, at any point, “created,” but rather occurred naturally, and by means that I cannot and do not fully understand, but that can best be explained by saying that the universe has expanded from a primordial hot and dense initial condition at some finite time in the past, and continues to expand to this day – this explanation, for the record, is supported by all lines of scientific evidence and observation. There are several outwardly sound arguments that gainsay this conclusion; those arguments can, without exception, be shattered by the employ of basic logical principals.

The most prolific and widely cited one would probably be William Paley’s “watchmaker” argument, which can be summed up thusly:

If you were to find a painting nailed to a tree in the middle of the forest, would you assume that the colours of a palate combined – completely at random – to produce it? Of course not. This teleological argument is refuted easily enough. First, it’s a logical fallacy. An argument from personal incredulity is being employed in the following way: “I can’t imagine how evolution could have produced such complexity, therefore it didn’t.” Just because we can’t imagine how something is possible, doesn’t mean it isn’t.

Further, everyone agrees that life is complicated, but complexity is not the same as design, and complexity arises by self-regulating processes in nature all the time. What kind of “designer” would give you a vestigial organ that serves absolutely no purpose except to possibly kill you? The existence of the appendix alone should be enough to show how ridiculous this notion is on its face.

In conclusion, I’d say that for those of you who have a powerful, rigid belief in God almighty, none of this probably means much to you, so continue to enjoy your lives; I do hope that you can derive enrichment from your beliefs.

For those of you who are perhaps teetering in your conviction, I would ask that you investigate further the secular viewpoint, as it makes lots more sense, and contains its own rewards.