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When it comes to God, my beliefs on can be classified as strong agnosticism and weak atheism. I’ve already written one essay, plus a couple of addenda, on this topic. It was mostly arguing the idea that “God probably doesn’t exist” (the atheist side). This essay focuses on the agnostic side of things: the idea that “we will never be able know whether God does or does not exist”.

The relevant Wikipedia article, which I linked to above, has a good definition of strong atheism:

Strong atheism is a term generally used to describe atheists who accept as true the proposition, “gods do not exist”.

To put that more clumsily, strong atheism is the belief that “there are no gods”. Weak atheism (which is what I believe in) is simply the lack of belief in god(s).

Once again, Wikipedia has better words than I for strong agnosticism:

Strong agnosticism or positive agnosticism is the belief that it is impossible for humans to know whether or not any deities exist.

This is different to weak agnosticism, which is the belief that the existence or nonexistence of deities is currently unknown, but not necessarily unknowable. I’m a strong agnostic, because I believe no-one will ever be able to know whether or not there is a God.

I now offer a pseudo-argument for strong agnosticism, which is meant to demonstrate that the whole issue of the creation of the universe is fundamentally illogical (to us) regardless of whether you’ve got a creator God, and that you can’t explain things away so simply (or explain them at all, in fact).

There is no satisfying answer to the question of creation. Either the universe has always existed or it was created out of nothing; neither option is logical. Adding God to the equation doesn’t give you a third option to choose from—either God has always existed (which would be the theist’s normal response), or God was created out of nothing.

If you can say “God has always existed”, and consider that a perfectly logical explanation, why can’t the same be said for the universe? The fact is, when you think about it, it’s not a logical explanation. The possibility of something always existing, without a starting point, is fundamentally illogical. With or without God, the same dissatisfying dichotomy applies.

Let’s say there is a God. He’s outside of our universe, our reality, the limits of what we can understand, but if there is a God, he certainly exists.

So, God exists. If something exists, but was never created, then it has always existed. By definition, if nothing created God, he has always existed. This has nothing to do with God being able to make his own rules. My argument is about our logic. This logic is the only kind we have, it’s the only thing we can use to assess and discuss the situation, and it’s the only thing that matters here.

Logically, the idea that God has always existed doesn’t make sense. To us. It can’t be comprehended. It’s like perpetual motion or something—it goes against all the laws of nature and the universe that we have.

At this point, you may point out that “God is not bound by these laws”. And of course, that’s right. I’m not trying to say “science says God can’t exist therefore God does not exist, QED”. I’m saying God doesn’t make sense.

A creatorless universe doesn’t make sense either. The universe being created out of nothing? Totally illogical. The universe always existing, having no starting point? Also uncomprehendable.

Obviously, I’m not now trying to say “science says the universe can’t exist therefore it does not exist, QED”. My argument, if you could call it that, is that, no matter the scenario, the creation of anything and everything, in the universe and beyond, is illogical.

And that’s the long-winded explanation for my strong agnosticism. Here’s some simpler reasoning:

If God exists, and he’s omnipotent, he will always be able to make it seem like he does not exist. This means we can never prove God does not exist. There is also no way for God to prove to me that he does exist: every sign could be explained with something else, since there’s the possibility that I’m mentally ill and imagining things.

As for the weak atheism, that’s essentially the default, faithless position to take. I can’t be a strong atheist (believing that “gods do not exist”) because strong agnosticm is the belief that we can never know whether that’s true. I could be a theist, but that requires the faith that, although we can never know whether it’s true, God does exist. I don’t have any reason to have that faith, and to me the idea of God just complicates things without offering any solutions. So, I’m a weak atheist with no specific belief in God.

In conclusion, I have no idea what my point is (perhaps “it’s just too much to comprehend so I might as go with the simplest explanation”), except that writing is so much more fun when I’m not being forced to do it.

The third part in what is apparently an ongoing series. Don’t worry, this one is short.

First, let’s accept that free will is worth all the suffering it has caused (or, all the suffering that has occurred that would not have occurred if it weren’t be for free will), and so it really is the best gift from an all-loving god. Despite this free will thing, God—once again, the God of Christianity—has no problem indirectly influencing people through the Bible (and the people he spoke to in the Bible). The Bible tells us everything we need to do and believe and accept to be deemed worthy by God and so ascend to Heaven (we’re assuming it’s true, of course). Our all-loving god both gives us free will and nudges us in the direction he wants, helping us live the proper life. That sounds fair, right?

I don’t think so. We’ve established he wants the best for us and that he’s prepared to influence us (without breaking free will and forcing us to do his bidding). So, why is this influence confined to some events recorded in a book of, as I said in an earlier piece, doubtful veracity (some of the events would have been quite impressive, but all the evidence we have are the writings), some miracles, and some personal revelations. No magic billboards or words etched in the moon or sky-writing pelicans or anything particularly compelling. In fact, the opposite is the case—we get compelling scientific evidence against the truth of God’s word (with regards to creation).

To put it simply: has God really done enough (noting that he is all-loving) to stop us from ruining our lives and suffering eternal damnation? Surely not.

I’ve finished school and don’t have a lot I have to do, so I figured I’d keep my writing abilities sharp with an essay on my personal opinions about God and religion. I encourage intelligent comments and rebuttals.

I have often described myself as an ‘agnostic atheist’, which at first glance may seem contradictory. I am fundamentally agnostic, and here’s my reasoning: if an all-powerful god did exist, he would have the power to make it appear as if he didn’t. Because of this, there can neither be conclusive proof of the existence of God, nor conclusive proof against it. The atheist term is used in the sense of ‘not believing in God’, rather than the strong atheism of ‘believing there is no God’.

That said, when considering the concept of God in traditional theologies (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, et cetera), I am effectively a strong atheist (”believing there is no God”). While there will always be the possibility that such a god does exist, I am prepared to rule it out just like I am prepared to say that a 747 piloted by Thom Yorke won’t land outside my house, and Radiohead won’t get out, greet me by name, and perform an impromptu concert which includes a performance of Let Down. Even though they aren’t touring (at time of writing), they consider air transport environmentally unsound, Thom Yorke isn’t a pilot (and even if he was he wouldn’t be able to get a 747 and land it on a small suburban street, which would no doubt cause much property damage), they don’t know me, and they rarely play Let Down live, there’s nothing fundamentally impossible about this scenario. Still, you can comfortably say that it’s not going to happen.

I’ve never felt that the idea of God helps us understand the world in any way. Using God as an explanation for things we cannot understand serves only to complicate matters. I do not think we could ever fully understand the circumstances of our existence: consider the universe—and by ‘the universe’ I mean absolutely everything. Either the universe has always existed, or the universe was at some point created from nothing. Those are the only two options, and both are completely illogical. Introducing the concept of God creating the universe doesn’t help: now we must explain how God came into being. Note that God cannot exist outside of the ‘universe’ that I am referring to. Regardless of the form, asserting that God exists means that, in some way, God actually does exist, and so the aforementioned dichotomy (either always existed or was created) applies.

Now, onto religion. Most religions are contradictory; you can’t adhere to both Christianity and Islam, for example. If, theoretically, one of these religions was completely true, the rest (or, vast majority) wouldn’t be. You can’t weigh up all the religions and logically pick the one that’s likely to be right, and few people try; most inherit their religion through their family or their (geographically) local community.

This might be a good time to mention Pascal’s Wager: to paraphrase, since you don’t lose anything if you’re wrong about believing in God, but you do lose everything (you miss out on or get the bad version of the afterlife) if you’re wrong about not believing in God, you should believe in God. This is argument is flawed in many ways: for example, God would notice if you were just hedging your bets rather than being a whole-hearted believer. The flaw that ties in with the above paragraph is that you have no idea which religion to subscribe to, and you might even incur more of God’s wrath by being an active member of the wrong religion as opposed to remaining neutral.

I have never been able to understand how the concept of an all-loving God is so widely accepted. Death and suffering exists all around us, yet most religions believe God can and does intervene in affairs on Earth and perform miracles. Yet, all recorded interventions are very minor things—turning water into wine is neat, sure, but what about ending famine? There are so many things God could do to actually reduce suffering, but he seems more concerned with tricks and illusions.

Heaven, in religions that have such a place, is supposed to be absolute perfection—eternal bliss. Why does a benevolent God then insist on having humanity suffer on Earth beforehand? The standard explanation is that God gave us the free will to make our own choices, be they good or bad. But, by definition, there is no suffering in heaven. For this to be the case, our free will must have been curtailed. This doesn’t add up, because our benevolent god must value free will very highly; after all, he has been prepared to accept the intense suffering and deaths of a vast number of people throughout history.

One may argue that the short time we spend on Earth pales in comparison to an eternity in heaven. I’ll accept this (although my calculator broke while trying to make an exact comparison), but this doesn’t change the fact that people do suffer on Earth and it doesn’t explain why an all-loving God would want this to happen.

So, let’s consider that. One argument is that we suffer as a punishment for our sins. In some cases, though, it’s hard to imagine what the sins could be. There’s nothing stopping me (except my personal morals and fear of mob justice) from murdering a newborn baby (even one conceived in wedlock, et cetera) which couldn’t have had the chance to commit any sins.

And then there’s the suffering that can’t be explained away by free will: that which is the result of natural causes, like earthquakes. One explanation is that this is just a side-effect of the regular laws of nature, and that the benefits which come from these laws being applied evenly outweighs the suffering caused.

A few times I have mentioned explanations that involve something ‘outweighing’ the suffering. I think these explanations can all be dismissed because an all-powerful, all-loving god shouldn’t be doing things in half measures and making compromises which still result in some suffering. An all-powerful god should have be able to create solutions which completely eliminate suffering–he is, after all, all-powerful–and an all-loving god wouldn’t want anything less, so none of these compromise explanations make sense.

In conclusion, I don’t feel like writing any more.

Since writing this, I did feel like writing more: A Little More On God and Oh No! More God.