Why agnostic-atheism is true and how to beat all arguments for God easily:
From my novel Reincarnation: Episode 1: Part 1 of 2:
"God existing was still a neutral topic in hard science, but in philosophy the case was practically/almost solved: How could an all-powerful (some do believe he is, others think he has limitations so we’ll tackle the second God next), higher intelligence that created the universe like God exist if something can almost certainly not come from nothing? God can turn himself into nothing and create something from nothing. God could allow you to take a six month vacation on the sun, he could create Santa Claus himself: God can do anything. This is why believing in God is worse than believing something could come from nothing, worse than believing in Santa Claus: If you’re told that someone could fly bodily, like Superman, that’s unbelievable. But if they then say this man who can fly can also shoot laser beams out of his eyes, breathe fire and fart lighting now that’s even more unbelievable, because you’ve added on things which are even more absurd to the original absurd thing. Something from nothing is absurd (and not what most atheists believe in like some theists say) but a God-that-can-do-anything is far, far more so because he can do many, many more ridiculous things on top of making something come from nothing.
*http://commonsenseatheism.com/?p=8854"
"God existing was still a neutral topic in hard science, but in philosophy the case was practically/almost solved: How could an all-powerful (some do believe he is, others think he has limitations so we’ll tackle the second God next), higher intelligence that created the universe like God exist if something can almost certainly not come from nothing? God can turn himself into nothing and create something from nothing. God could allow you to take a six month vacation on the sun, he could create Santa Claus himself: God can do anything. This is why believing in God is worse than believing something could come from nothing, worse than believing in Santa Claus: If you’re told that someone could fly bodily, like Superman, that’s unbelievable. But if they then say this man who can fly can also shoot laser beams out of his eyes, breathe fire and fart lighting now that’s even more unbelievable, because you’ve added on things which are even more absurd to the original absurd thing. Something from nothing is absurd (and not what most atheists believe in like some theists say) but a God-that-can-do-anything is far, far more so because he can do many, many more ridiculous things on top of making something come from nothing.
Secondly how could the second God, a God of limitations, exist when firstly we didn’t know if energy began to exist or not - energy may be eternal cosmologists didn’t know - so you can’t say God created the universe/created everything if we don’t even know if energy began to exist or not. No real cosmologist said that energy began to exist at the Big Bang like uninformed theists argued. Next even if energy did begin to exist and came from something immaterial - something not made of energy or matter - we have no idea about the immaterial to say whether it is or is not intelligent. This means that science is agnostic about God, and this easily beats all arguments for God, all the best arguments that is. Even if we assume the premises in arguments for God like William Lane Craig’s Kalam argument, the argument from contingency, the fine tuning argument, Jesus’s resurrection, that there is science in the Quran - all those arguments fail because we know nothing of the immaterial to say whether it is or is not intelligent. You cannot therefore conclude that an immaterial intelligence - God - created things. You cannot say God created the universe or God did the fine tuning or that God gave Mohammed the science shown in the Quran etc etc. What is this immaterial? Don’t know. What is the immaterial made of? Don’t know. How can the immaterial thing be intelligent or non-intelligent? Don’t know. But we do know that things in a universe made of math are created non-intelligently all of the time so that leaves for the possibility that the immaterial, eternal thing that created everything (assuming energy was created) is non-intelligent.
So why agnostic-atheism? We don’t even know how you can have advanced knowledge like science and math without an artificial intelligent computer “brain” or an actual biological brain like the human brain. God is not made of matter or energy so has neither an A.I. or biological brain. Whilst an immaterial intelligence may be possible how probable is it if it goes against our current best scientific background knowledge? Not being made of matter and/or energy - all intelligent things we know of are made of matter - how can a God have intelligence at all?
Next, if God loves us and wants things from us (as the Muslim and Christian Gods do) he'd prove that he exists to all of us by actually showing up to all of us in person at the same time then proving, somehow, that he exists. This has not happened. This is exactly what you’d expect to see if agnostic-atheism were true. If God loves us he’d prove that he exists to prove and show us that he loves us. If God wanted things from us he’d prove that he exists to show us and tell us what to do on a daily basis. This Has Not Happened. Hence agnostic-atheism. As soon as you say God loves us and wants things from us now you're talking Santa Claus.
Next was prayer and being testable. Yes you can pray to win the lottery and you might win but that was just a coincidence in all probability: People pray to win the lottery all the time and don’t. But if you pray for something that is more difficult to put down to coincidence like having God prove that he exists to all of us as well as proving that your prayer worked why does that never happen? How many millions of Christians and Muslims have prayed for this to happen? It hasn’t. Prayer Doesn’t Work. Thus a God that answers prayers “yes”/in the affirmative very likely doesn’t exist. God, at least the Muslim and Christian ones, fails the test. Hence agnostic-atheism.
It gets even worse: There is bad and evil design in the universe. We humans, for instance, feel excess amounts of pain. Far too much physical pain. We eat and breathe down the same tube - thousands of people (usually very painfully) choke to death per year. That’s two examples of terrible design. Why would a loving, very powerful but not all-powerful God design us this way? He wouldn’t. Then comes evil design: The wasp that lays its eggs inside its prey only to have its offspring eat the victim alive, slowly, methodically and painfully. A Muslim or Christian God wouldn’t likely allow this. God has poor “explanatory scope”.
Lastly in terms of inference to best explanation is Occam’s razor and how scientists think that simple explanations are best: God almost certainly was not simple. The human brain is the most complex thing we know of in the universe and it’s not simple. God is many times more intelligent and even, if this was possible, if he was immaterial without a brain A.I. or biological he very, very likely was not simple. God fails as a best explanation because God has all the qualities of a very poor explanation.
Lastly God creates the murderer knowing he’ll do the murder, doesn’t stop the murder then sends the murderer to hell: doesn’t sound very all-loving. Altogether this makes a very good philosophical case for atheism even though science is agnostic. Many thanks to Luke over at the blog Common Sense Atheism* and Gregory Dawes (a non-Christian theist!) for his book Theism and Explanation.
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