If you can’t prove God doesn’t exist, why not believe?
By David Annis
Article ID: 1237
If you can’t disprove the existence of God, why not believe in Him? This is a question often posed to atheists by believers. The basic answer is that there are a lot of improbable things that I can’t disprove, but believing in them leads to a distorted view of the world. These range from things that nobody else believes, such as the belief that there is an invisible snorg
Bertrand Russell gave a rather famous example of an idea that can not be disproved which nobody would seriously ask an atheist to believe called Russell’s Teapot or the Celestial Teapot. Here’s his original description:
“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
Many believers counter Russell’s argument with a list of good things that religion encourages: charity, forgiveness, and social order to name a few. So, unlike the teapot or the snorg, they argue that religious belief is a positive and therefore should be encouraged. There is an element of truth to that argument, but religion has also been used to justify war, the Inquisition, the suppression of ideas (think of Galileo), and slavery. Who can ever really know if religion does more harm than good?
Expanding on Russell’s idea, Richard Dawkins used the teapot analogy and listed a host of problems caused by religious belief in his book A Devil’s Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love
I believe that both Dawkins and most believers neglect the most fundamental problem with belief in religious tenets that can’t be disproved; the loss of intellectual curiosity and honesty. Faith - which is belief even in the face of evidence that your belief may be wrong - is used as a crutch for those who do not want to do the hard work of thinking through tough moral and intellectual issues. This includes opposing scientific inquiry from heliocentrism to stem cell research.
I recently experienced an example of the closed-minded approach to the world engendered by religion. A fundamentalist Christian friend wore a pro-life t-shirt to our house and I challenged her to tell me just how much she did to protect human life. The list was impressive. She had protested for Terri Schiavo and at clinics, sent money to various groups, and so on. I then asked her how many people died because of inadequate health insurance, smoking, and pollution. She didn’t know. “Why,” I asked, “do you only protest for those who can no longer think or have never been able to think - the quality that makes us most human - when the same level of effort could save many more who are living, thinking human beings?”
Her response: “I never thought about it.”
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Riley:
I’ve put together a logical proof for the non-existence of god that I think is pretty good, so I’m sharing it around:
To prove or disprove the existence of something, you must first define what that something is. “God” is not simply an intelligent creator of the universe, “God” is purported by Christians (at least) to be so much more.
Proof that “God”, by Christian definition, does not exist.
————————————————-
Premise 1) “God” desires salvation for Mankind.
Premise 2) “God” wishes to send a directive message crucial to the salvation of Mankind.
Premise 3) “God” is capable of sending counterfeit-proof messages to Mankind.
Premise 4) A precondition for salvation is that Mankind receive and understand “God’s” directive message.
Premise 5) There are many messages in the world that falsely purport to be of “God”.
From P 4 and 5: The salvation of Mankind depends on our ability to differentiate between genuine messages of “God” and phony messages.
To do this in a world full of false messages (P5), it’s necessary for “God” to send a message uniquely attributable to “God” (i.e a message in a form immune to human counterfeit).
The fact that Mankind has not received a coherent directive message uniquely attributable to a non-human source, much less uniquely attributable to “God” is positive evidence that “God”, by definition (P1-4), does not exist.
———
The only first message and commandment that we could logically expect a competent and non-mischeivous god to make is: “I will never send a messenger, only believe and follow what I tell you directly”.
In a world full of false prophets who with words and writings claim falsely to speak for “God”, the idea that “God” exists, is capable, but chooses to send commandments through human intermediaries (holy books and prophets) anyway, makes about as much sense as the idea of a treasury department which can print counterfeit-proof money, but chooses to print money that is susceptible to counterfeit anyway; even worse, a treasury that continues to print copies of bills known to have already been counterfeit! If a treasury had the means, we would expect it to exclusively print counterfeit-proof money. To do otherwise would be mischievous and/or stupid.
Essential to the preservation of authority, is the principle that subjects of authority MUST reject commandments not provided in certified form, and as such, a lack of obvious and irrefutable evidence that a directive originates from “God” is actually proof positive evidence that the directive could not possibly originate from “God”.
10 July 2008, 4:05 pmHP:
I believe the idea of mutual respect should be preached then the annihilation of either ideology. I find atheists can be as hostile as the evangelical.
11 July 2008, 7:14 pmJayna:
I totally agree with HP. Unless there is a possibility of harm to other we should all have the freedom of choice what to believe in. Religion, fact or not, can inspire great moments of love and empathy. But also being a person who thoroughly enjoys having one foot in the world of science and the other in the world of the mystical…. I feel empowered by this authors reasoning and find it sheer genius.
13 July 2008, 9:54 amDavid Annis:
I do not disagree with HP that belief should be tolerated. In while raising my kids as atheists, I send them to religious schools and have no problem with them when they want to believe in God. Nonetheless, like the dragons that they also sometimes choose to believe in, it is an idea that when examined logically makes no sense and I hope that by the time they are adults they do not believe in either.
Jayna, thanks for the compliment. Like you I do have a problem with religion when it starts to cause harm to others. I believe that in our society it has caused harm, restraining the teaching of evolution, restricting scientific research, justifying mistreatment of those that do not believe in the dominant religion, etc.
30 July 2008, 12:48 pm