Why There Is No God: Simple Responses to 20 Common Arguments for the Existence of God

by Armin Navabi

way.The mere fact that one has faith in a belief system cannot possibly be considered reason enough for another to adopt that belief system as well.

Once faith enters the equation, the argument can quickly dissolve into absurdity, as absolutely any claim could be “supported” by faith.

An ad hoc argument is one that makes excuses to rationalize away the valid criticisms of an argument without any evidence to support it (5).

AtheismVsAgnosticism.com

Lacking belief in something does not mean that you believe it to be false; it just means that you have no conviction that it’s true.

Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of over 300 Logical Fallacies.

Questions about the origin of the universe – or, indeed, the origin of reality in general – are more challenging for science to tackle head-on. The simple answer is: we don’t know.

not knowing the answer does not give us free range to make something up.

It’s human nature to be uncomfortable with the unknown. Historically, humans have filled these uncertain areas with a deity

“god of the...

We have identified many of the natural causes behind these gaps throughout our history and have yet to come across God in any of them.

“special pleading” fallacy, a specific type of hypocrisy that arises when someone realizes that the solution he’s offering fails to live up to the rules he’s already established (1). In this type of fallacy, the rules apply to everything but the arguer’s solution, which gets a special exception for the rule despite there being no clear reason why that exception should exist in the first place.

Bennett, Bo. “Special Pleading.” Logically Fallacious: The Ultimate Collection of over 300 Logical Fallacies. EBookIt.com, 2012.

In some places, culture and religion are so tightly entwined that they become inseparable,

the benefits of religious communities do not prove the existence of a deity.

There is no evidence to suggest that God helps people. There is, however, ample evidence that people can help themselves and each other.

A person’s experiences within a particular religious community may be positive, but those experiences are by no means guaranteed or serve as proof of the existence of God.

it’s possible to make a positive impact without God;

These religious messages teach people – especially young people – that they are not in control of their own lives and do not have the power to shape their own destinies. The psychological consequences of this can become devastating. Psychologist Dr. Marlene Winell refers to such problems as Religious Trauma Syndrome, a cluster of symptoms including anxiety, depression and social functioning troubles caused or exacerbated by religious indoctrination (2).

2) Winell, Marlene. “Religious Trauma Syndrome.” British Association for Behavioural & Cognitive Psychotherapies. Accessed September 16, 2014.

the word “god” can mean anything to anyone, then it essentially carries no meaning.The

One relatively new counterargument to atheism is the so-called transcendental argument for God, or TAG, as popularized by Matt Slick of Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM) (1).

Immanuel Kant

From a philosophical standpoint, there are three logical absolutes:

Law of Identity:

Law of Non-contradiction:

Law of Excluded Middle:

The TAG argument builds on these laws of logic to provide the following “proof” of God:

1. Logical absolutes exist. 2. These laws of logic are conceptual in nature, not physical. They do not exist anywhere in the physical world. 3. Because these absolutes are conceptual, they must have been conceived in a mind. 4. However, these laws are perfect and absolute. Human minds are not perfect or absolute. 5. Logical absolutes are true everywhere and are not dependent on human minds. 6. Therefore, these laws of logic must exist in a perfect, absolute, transcendental mind. 7. That mind is called God.

In order for a logical proof to work, two conditions must be met: The premises must be true, and the structure must support the premises to their logical conclusion.

The problem with the TAG is that the laws of logic are descriptive, not prescriptive. In other words, the laws are simply a description of things we know to be true.

Gravity is a descriptive law.

The traffic speed limit is a prescriptive law.

In the same way, the laws of logic are descriptive. No one made them up or wrote them in a handbook somewhere for them to exist. They were simply observed as always being true (rocks are always rocks because if a rock were anything else, it would cease to be a rock).

Kant, Immanuel and David Walford. “The Only Possible Argument in Support of a Demonstration of the Existence of God.” Theoretical Philosophy, 1755-1770. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.

In reality, religion itself does not assign meaning to an individual’s life. Instead, individuals choose to give their lives meaning through the activities they pursue and the convictions they hold.

There’s a common thread running throughout many of the claims in this book: believing in something does not make it true.

When a person says, “Without God, life has no meaning,” what he’s really saying is: “I want to believe that life has meaning, and I can’t imagine how that’s possible without God, so I want to believe that God is real.”

When you seek validation and meaning from outside sources, you risk being failed by the same institution that previously gave meaning to your life. Moreover, the culture of religion can lead to identical group thinking and loss of objectivity. When actions are informed by beliefs, false beliefs can give rise to dangerous or harmful actions.

In order to indoctrinate their followers and secure obedience, religions frequently tear people down, creating an emptiness that must then be filled with Jesus, Allah or any other deity. People are told that they are inherently bad or sinful and that the only way to become good is by giving over control of their lives to faith. As there is no evidence that any of that is true, religion, in effect, is creating an imaginary problem simply so that it can sell an imaginary solution.

As Bertrand Russell once said, “No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and, however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.”

The fact is that certain people are always willing to sacrifice themselves for something they believe in, regardless of whether those beliefs are religious in nature or not. Dying in the name of a religion is tragic and lamentable, but it does not prove that such actions are justified by the will of an existing deity.

One theory offers an explanation for this common practice of assigning a greater meaning or notion of non-permanence to death: terror management theory (1).

Essentially, the theory states that because humans are uniquely aware of their mortality, they create coping mechanisms to overcome the anxiety associated with it. Otherwise, people could live in constant, paralyzing fear of death.

best to examine your views about God or other religious beliefs by evaluating the evidence provided for such claims, not based on the behavior of people who do or do not accept it as truth.

As Sam Harris put it, “The problem with fascism and communism, however, is not that they are too critical of religion; the problem is that they are too much like religions.”

many free, irreligious nations, such as Denmark and Sweden (4), are among the most peaceful and prosperous countries in the world (5).

Atheism cannot be held accountable for the activities of atheists in the same way that religion can be judged by its doctrine because atheism has no doctrines.

1) Hitchens, Christopher. God is not great: How religion poisons everything. Random House LLC, 2008.

2) Ellens, J. Harold. The Destructive Power of Religion: Violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003.