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- Sep 14, 2023
- 15
Today, I will present a final exposé on the existence of God. I imagine that many of you here do not believe in the existence of God; otherwise, you wouldn't be here. All the references in this text come from the books The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, and 50 Philosophy Ideas You Really Need to Know. I highly recommend reading them, especially the first one. You can read them here (https://archive.org/details/B-001-001-709) and here (https://archive.org/details/50philosophyidea0000dupr), respectively.
INTRODUCTION
Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are 'scientifically illiterate'.
Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered
2,500 years later for the Hippocratic Oath. In a typical passage Hippocrates wrote: 'Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.'
In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He urged careful and meticulous observation: 'Leave nothing to chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.'
While medicine in the Islamic world flourished, what followed in Europe was truly a dark age. Much knowledge of anatomy and surgery was lost. Reliance on prayer and miraculous healing abounded. Secular physicians became extinct. Chants, potions, horoscopes and amulets were widely used. Dissections of cadavers were restricted or outlawed, so those who practised medicine were prevented from acquiring first-hand knowledge of the human body. Medical research came to a standstill.
. . . where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise
wrote the poet Thomas Gray. Edmund Way Teale in his 1950 book Circle of the Seasons understood the dilemma better:
It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
Pseudoscience claims to use the methods and findings of science, but in reality, it is unfaithful to its nature—often because it is based on insufficient evidence or because it ignores clues that point the other way.
Religions are often the state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role.
HALLUCINATIONS
According to the Bible itself, no one has seen God personally:
No human being has literally seen God. (Exodus 33:20; John 1:18; 1 John 4:12) The Bible says that "God is Spirit," a form of life invisible to human eyes. — John 4:24; 1 Timothy 1:17.
So there aren't many stories of people who have seen God. But there are stories of people who have seen angels. These are the stories we are going to analyze.
Sherry Simister told me about a miraculous experience she had with angels in the hospital after falling from the second-floor balcony of her home.
As she fell, she had a silent seizure (which caused her to become paralyzed) and began to fall headfirst toward the ground. Her husband tried, unsuccessfully, to save her by attempting to grab her shoulders as she fell.
This ended up slightly changing her position so that she fell on her back instead of her head, which likely saved her life, but she broke many bones and had to endure severe pain.
While she was in the hospital, feeling helpless and praying for help, her pain intensified, becoming unbearable. She wondered if there was only pain and suffering in her future. At that moment, she had a magnificent experience. She said:
"I was in such intense pain and was wondering if I would ever walk again or be free from pain. I looked to the side of my bed and suddenly realized that all the past generations of my family were around my bed. During the six weeks I spent in the hospital, I was surrounded daily by these ancestors. Without their love and support, I don't think I would have been able to handle that unbearable pain. The pain medication was strong, but not enough. My angels were so comforting and extremely important. They did not leave until I was well. I was very blessed to have them there."
This story is highly questionable. Firstly, because she was taking very strong medication, so this case could be an hallucination. Just like most of these stories.
Such hallucinations may occur to perfectly normal people under perfectly ordinary circumstances. Hallucinations can also be elicited: by a campfire at night, or under emotional stress, or during epileptic seizures or migraine headaches or high fever, or by prolonged fasting or sleeplessness or sensory deprivation (for example, in solitary confinement), or through hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, or hashish. (Delirium tremens, the dreaded alcohol-induced DTs, is one well-known manifestation of a withdrawal syndrome from alcoholism.) There are also molecules, such as the phenothiazines (thorazine, for example), that make hallucinations go away. It is very likely that the normal human body generates substances - perhaps including the morphine-like small brain proteins called endorphins - that cause hallucinations, and others that suppress them. There are countless instances in the world's religions where patriarchs, prophets or
saviours repair themselves to desert or mountain and, assisted by hunger and sensory deprivation, encounter gods or demons. Psychedelic-induced religious experiences were a hallmark of the western youth culture of the 1960s. Hallucinations are common. If you have one, it doesn't mean you're crazy. The anthropological literature is replete with hallucination ethnopsychiatry, REM dreams and possession trances, which have many common elements transculturally and across the ages. The hallucinations are routinely interpreted as possession by good or evil spirits. The Yale anthropologist Weston La Barre
goes so far as to argue that 'a surprisingly good case could be made that much of culture is hallucination'.
Let's move on to the second story:
Stephanie Arnold, an American, is best known for her experiences involving premonitory visions about her own death during childbirth. However, in one of her sleep experiences, she reported seeing what she interpreted as an angel. Stephanie woke up in the middle of the night, unable to move her body. She described a feeling of terror. However, amidst this sensation, she saw a radiant and luminous figure beside her bed. The figure seemed to be looking at her with an expression of peace and serenity. Stephanie felt as if this presence was there to comfort and protect her.
This is essentially a psychological condition known as sleep paralysis. Many people experience it. It occurs in that moment between being fully awake and fully asleep. For a few minutes, the person remains motionless and intensely anxious. They may experience auditory or visual hallucinations.
THE DRAGON IN MY GARAGE
A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.' Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
'Show me,' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle - but no dragon.
'Where's the dragon?' you ask.
'Oh, she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.'
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
'Good idea,' I say, 'but this dragon floats in the air.'
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.'
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint
won't stick.'
An so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
Let's apply this logic to the idea of a god. The dragon analogy is useful because it highlights how unverifiable claims are essentially useless in the debate about the existence of transcendental entities. The existence of God is often discussed in terms of claims that are so broadly defined and protected against any form of refutation that they become irrelevant. If we cannot detect God with any physical test, then what is the difference between a being that does not exist?
CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE
There are several other absurd passages and contradictions that can be found on the internet.
There are 463 more contradictions in the Bible (according to graphic designer Andy Marlow in 2009), but I won't list them here to keep the text concise. BibViz (https://github.com/bibviz/bibviz) is a website that shows the contradictions in detail and provides shortcuts to the verses. But, in addition to the contradictions, the chart also highlights passages and references related to issues of cruelty, violence, misogyny, scientific contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and discrimination against women and homosexuals.
COMMON FALLACIES
1. There is something considered morality – we have a code of laws/ethical commands.
2. God is the only candidate for the role of lawgiver/commander.
3. Therefore – God must exist.
However, it is unlikely that this line of reasoning will convince anyone. The first premise, which implies that morality is essentially something that exists independently of humans, already raises questions on its own. And even if we admit that morality exists independently of us, the second premise can be challenged by the Euthyphro dilemma. Socrates (Plato's spokesperson in his dialogues) begins a conversation with a young man named Euthyphro about the nature of piety. They agree that piety is "loved by the gods," but then Socrates asks the crucial question: are the pious ones pious because they are loved by the gods, or are they loved by the gods because they are pious?
Thus, is what is good considered good because of God's commands, or does God command something because it is good? Analyzing the first part first: killing (let's say) is wrong because God says so, but things could have been otherwise. God could have said that killing is right or even obligatory, and it would be right – because God said so.
"Imagine we believe that the evidence for the existence of God is inconclusive. What should we do? We may or may not believe in God. If we choose to believe and we are right (that is, God exists), we gain eternal bliss; if we are wrong, we lose little. On the other hand, if we choose not to believe and we are right (that is, God does not exist), we lose nothing, but we also gain little; but if we are wrong, our loss is colossal – at best, we lose eternal salvation; at worst, we suffer eternal damnation. So much to gain, so little to lose: you'd be a fool not to bet on the existence of God."
This ingenious argument for believing in God, known as Pascal's wager, was presented by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal in his work Pensées (Thoughts), published in 1670. Ingenious, yes, but flawed. An obvious problem is that the argument requires us to decide what to believe, and belief doesn't work that way. Worse yet, the impulse that leads us to make the wager in the first place is our lack of sufficient information about God to proceed; however, making the right wager depends on knowing what pleases or displeases God. What if God is not displeased by being worshipped but detests calculating people who make bets solely with their self-interest in mind?
"Look at the world around you, contemplate the whole and each of its parts: you will see that it is nothing more than a great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of smaller machines that, in turn, admit further subdivisions to a degree that surpasses what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their smallest parts, fit together with a precision that amazes all who have ever contemplated them. The curious adaptation of means to ends throughout nature closely resembles, though greatly exceeds, the products of human ingenuity, design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence; and as the effects resemble one another, we are led to infer, according to all the rules of analogy, that the causes are also similar and that the Author of Nature is in some way similar to the human mind, though possessing faculties far more vast, proportional to the greatness of the work he has executed. By this a posteriori argument, and by this argument alone, we prove both the existence of a Deity and its resemblance to the human mind and intelligence."
This succinct statement of the design argument for the existence of God is placed in the mouth of Cleanthes by David Hume in his work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779. The enduring strength of the design argument lies in the powerful and widely shared intuition that the beauty, order, complexity, and apparent purpose found in the world around us cannot be merely the products of random, meaningless natural processes. There must be, it is imagined, some agent with an inconceivably vast intellect and the necessary skill to plan and create all the wonders of nature, so exquisitely designed and shaped to fulfill their various roles. Consider the human eye, for example: it is so intricately sophisticated, so well equipped for its purpose, that it must have been designed to be that way.
The design argument seems vulnerable to an infinite regress. If the wondrous beauty and organization of the universe require a designer, doesn't this universe of wonders plus the architect behind it all require an even greater designer? If we need a designer, it seems we also need a super-designer, then a super-super-designer, and so on.
The main recommendation of the design argument is that it explains how these wonders of nature – for example, the human eye – exist and function so well. But precisely these wonders and their fitness for purpose are explainable with reference to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, without any supernatural intervention by an intelligent designer.
There are also the cosmological argument and the ontological argument, but they are so absurd that they are not worth mentioning.
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Finally, according to the traditional theistic account:
1. God is omniscient: He knows everything that is logically possible to know.
2. God is omnipotent: He is capable of doing anything that is logically possible to do.
3. God is omnibenevolent: He is universally benevolent and desires to do all the good that can be done.
With special attention to the problem of evil, the following inferences can plausibly be made based on these three basic properties:
4. If God is omniscient, He is fully aware of all the pain and suffering that occur.
5. If God is omnipotent, He is capable of preventing all pain and suffering.
6. If God is omnibenevolent, He desires to prevent all pain and suffering.
If propositions 4 through 6 are true and if God (as defined by propositions 1 through 3) exists, then there will be no pain and suffering in the world because God will have followed His inclinations and prevented them from occurring. But there is pain and suffering in the world, so we must conclude either that God does not exist or that He lacks one or more of the properties established in propositions 1 through 3. In sum, the problem of evil seems to carry the extremely unpleasant implication for the theist that either God does not know what is happening, does not care, or cannot do anything about it; or that He does not exist.
Historically, the most popular and influential suggestion is the so-called "free will defense." Our freedom to make genuine choices allows us to live a life of true moral value. Despite this, the free will defense faces some formidable problems.
Perhaps the most obvious difficulty that the free will defense confronts is the existence of natural evil in the world. Even if we accept that free will is such a precious good that it is worth the cost of moral evil—the bad and hateful things that occur when people use their freedom to make wrong choices—what possible sense can we make of natural evil? How would God have harmed or diminished our free will if He had suddenly eradicated the HIV virus, hemorrhoids, mosquitoes, floods, and earthquakes? The gravity of this difficulty is illustrated by some of the theistic responses to it: natural disasters, diseases, plagues, etc., are (literally) the work of the devil and a host of other fallen angels and demons; or such afflictions are "merely" divine punishment for Adam and Eve's original sin in the Garden of Eden. The latter solution traces all natural evil back to the first instance of moral evil and thus seeks to exonerate God from any blame. This explanation does not seem convincing. Wouldn't it be a monstrous injustice for God to punish the great-great-great-great (and so on) grandchildren of the original offenders?
And how would those who have already been judged by the actions of their (distant) ancestors benefit from receiving free will?
Another difficulty faced by free will is whether we are truly free?
INTRODUCTION
Surveys suggest that some 95 percent of Americans are 'scientifically illiterate'.
Hippocrates of Cos is the father of medicine. He is still remembered
2,500 years later for the Hippocratic Oath. In a typical passage Hippocrates wrote: 'Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything divine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of divine things.'
In the diagnosis of disease, Hippocrates introduced elements of the scientific method. He urged careful and meticulous observation: 'Leave nothing to chance. Overlook nothing. Combine contradictory observations. Allow yourself enough time.'
While medicine in the Islamic world flourished, what followed in Europe was truly a dark age. Much knowledge of anatomy and surgery was lost. Reliance on prayer and miraculous healing abounded. Secular physicians became extinct. Chants, potions, horoscopes and amulets were widely used. Dissections of cadavers were restricted or outlawed, so those who practised medicine were prevented from acquiring first-hand knowledge of the human body. Medical research came to a standstill.
. . . where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise
wrote the poet Thomas Gray. Edmund Way Teale in his 1950 book Circle of the Seasons understood the dilemma better:
It is morally as bad not to care whether a thing is true or not, so long as it makes you feel good, as it is not to care how you got your money as long as you have got it.
Pseudoscience claims to use the methods and findings of science, but in reality, it is unfaithful to its nature—often because it is based on insufficient evidence or because it ignores clues that point the other way.
Religions are often the state-protected nurseries of pseudoscience, although there's no reason why religions have to play that role.
HALLUCINATIONS
According to the Bible itself, no one has seen God personally:
No human being has literally seen God. (Exodus 33:20; John 1:18; 1 John 4:12) The Bible says that "God is Spirit," a form of life invisible to human eyes. — John 4:24; 1 Timothy 1:17.
So there aren't many stories of people who have seen God. But there are stories of people who have seen angels. These are the stories we are going to analyze.
Sherry Simister told me about a miraculous experience she had with angels in the hospital after falling from the second-floor balcony of her home.
As she fell, she had a silent seizure (which caused her to become paralyzed) and began to fall headfirst toward the ground. Her husband tried, unsuccessfully, to save her by attempting to grab her shoulders as she fell.
This ended up slightly changing her position so that she fell on her back instead of her head, which likely saved her life, but she broke many bones and had to endure severe pain.
While she was in the hospital, feeling helpless and praying for help, her pain intensified, becoming unbearable. She wondered if there was only pain and suffering in her future. At that moment, she had a magnificent experience. She said:
"I was in such intense pain and was wondering if I would ever walk again or be free from pain. I looked to the side of my bed and suddenly realized that all the past generations of my family were around my bed. During the six weeks I spent in the hospital, I was surrounded daily by these ancestors. Without their love and support, I don't think I would have been able to handle that unbearable pain. The pain medication was strong, but not enough. My angels were so comforting and extremely important. They did not leave until I was well. I was very blessed to have them there."
This story is highly questionable. Firstly, because she was taking very strong medication, so this case could be an hallucination. Just like most of these stories.
Such hallucinations may occur to perfectly normal people under perfectly ordinary circumstances. Hallucinations can also be elicited: by a campfire at night, or under emotional stress, or during epileptic seizures or migraine headaches or high fever, or by prolonged fasting or sleeplessness or sensory deprivation (for example, in solitary confinement), or through hallucinogens such as LSD, psilocybin, mescaline, or hashish. (Delirium tremens, the dreaded alcohol-induced DTs, is one well-known manifestation of a withdrawal syndrome from alcoholism.) There are also molecules, such as the phenothiazines (thorazine, for example), that make hallucinations go away. It is very likely that the normal human body generates substances - perhaps including the morphine-like small brain proteins called endorphins - that cause hallucinations, and others that suppress them. There are countless instances in the world's religions where patriarchs, prophets or
saviours repair themselves to desert or mountain and, assisted by hunger and sensory deprivation, encounter gods or demons. Psychedelic-induced religious experiences were a hallmark of the western youth culture of the 1960s. Hallucinations are common. If you have one, it doesn't mean you're crazy. The anthropological literature is replete with hallucination ethnopsychiatry, REM dreams and possession trances, which have many common elements transculturally and across the ages. The hallucinations are routinely interpreted as possession by good or evil spirits. The Yale anthropologist Weston La Barre
goes so far as to argue that 'a surprisingly good case could be made that much of culture is hallucination'.
Let's move on to the second story:
Stephanie Arnold, an American, is best known for her experiences involving premonitory visions about her own death during childbirth. However, in one of her sleep experiences, she reported seeing what she interpreted as an angel. Stephanie woke up in the middle of the night, unable to move her body. She described a feeling of terror. However, amidst this sensation, she saw a radiant and luminous figure beside her bed. The figure seemed to be looking at her with an expression of peace and serenity. Stephanie felt as if this presence was there to comfort and protect her.
This is essentially a psychological condition known as sleep paralysis. Many people experience it. It occurs in that moment between being fully awake and fully asleep. For a few minutes, the person remains motionless and intensely anxious. They may experience auditory or visual hallucinations.
THE DRAGON IN MY GARAGE
A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.' Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
'Show me,' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle - but no dragon.
'Where's the dragon?' you ask.
'Oh, she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.'
You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints.
'Good idea,' I say, 'but this dragon floats in the air.'
Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire.
'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.'
You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible.
'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint
won't stick.'
An so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so.
Let's apply this logic to the idea of a god. The dragon analogy is useful because it highlights how unverifiable claims are essentially useless in the debate about the existence of transcendental entities. The existence of God is often discussed in terms of claims that are so broadly defined and protected against any form of refutation that they become irrelevant. If we cannot detect God with any physical test, then what is the difference between a being that does not exist?
CONTRADICTIONS IN THE BIBLE
There are several other absurd passages and contradictions that can be found on the internet.
There are 463 more contradictions in the Bible (according to graphic designer Andy Marlow in 2009), but I won't list them here to keep the text concise. BibViz (https://github.com/bibviz/bibviz) is a website that shows the contradictions in detail and provides shortcuts to the verses. But, in addition to the contradictions, the chart also highlights passages and references related to issues of cruelty, violence, misogyny, scientific contradictions, historical inaccuracies, and discrimination against women and homosexuals.
COMMON FALLACIES
1. There is something considered morality – we have a code of laws/ethical commands.
2. God is the only candidate for the role of lawgiver/commander.
3. Therefore – God must exist.
However, it is unlikely that this line of reasoning will convince anyone. The first premise, which implies that morality is essentially something that exists independently of humans, already raises questions on its own. And even if we admit that morality exists independently of us, the second premise can be challenged by the Euthyphro dilemma. Socrates (Plato's spokesperson in his dialogues) begins a conversation with a young man named Euthyphro about the nature of piety. They agree that piety is "loved by the gods," but then Socrates asks the crucial question: are the pious ones pious because they are loved by the gods, or are they loved by the gods because they are pious?
Thus, is what is good considered good because of God's commands, or does God command something because it is good? Analyzing the first part first: killing (let's say) is wrong because God says so, but things could have been otherwise. God could have said that killing is right or even obligatory, and it would be right – because God said so.
"Imagine we believe that the evidence for the existence of God is inconclusive. What should we do? We may or may not believe in God. If we choose to believe and we are right (that is, God exists), we gain eternal bliss; if we are wrong, we lose little. On the other hand, if we choose not to believe and we are right (that is, God does not exist), we lose nothing, but we also gain little; but if we are wrong, our loss is colossal – at best, we lose eternal salvation; at worst, we suffer eternal damnation. So much to gain, so little to lose: you'd be a fool not to bet on the existence of God."
This ingenious argument for believing in God, known as Pascal's wager, was presented by the French mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal in his work Pensées (Thoughts), published in 1670. Ingenious, yes, but flawed. An obvious problem is that the argument requires us to decide what to believe, and belief doesn't work that way. Worse yet, the impulse that leads us to make the wager in the first place is our lack of sufficient information about God to proceed; however, making the right wager depends on knowing what pleases or displeases God. What if God is not displeased by being worshipped but detests calculating people who make bets solely with their self-interest in mind?
"Look at the world around you, contemplate the whole and each of its parts: you will see that it is nothing more than a great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of smaller machines that, in turn, admit further subdivisions to a degree that surpasses what human senses and faculties can trace and explain. All these various machines, and even their smallest parts, fit together with a precision that amazes all who have ever contemplated them. The curious adaptation of means to ends throughout nature closely resembles, though greatly exceeds, the products of human ingenuity, design, thought, wisdom, and intelligence; and as the effects resemble one another, we are led to infer, according to all the rules of analogy, that the causes are also similar and that the Author of Nature is in some way similar to the human mind, though possessing faculties far more vast, proportional to the greatness of the work he has executed. By this a posteriori argument, and by this argument alone, we prove both the existence of a Deity and its resemblance to the human mind and intelligence."
This succinct statement of the design argument for the existence of God is placed in the mouth of Cleanthes by David Hume in his work Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779. The enduring strength of the design argument lies in the powerful and widely shared intuition that the beauty, order, complexity, and apparent purpose found in the world around us cannot be merely the products of random, meaningless natural processes. There must be, it is imagined, some agent with an inconceivably vast intellect and the necessary skill to plan and create all the wonders of nature, so exquisitely designed and shaped to fulfill their various roles. Consider the human eye, for example: it is so intricately sophisticated, so well equipped for its purpose, that it must have been designed to be that way.
The design argument seems vulnerable to an infinite regress. If the wondrous beauty and organization of the universe require a designer, doesn't this universe of wonders plus the architect behind it all require an even greater designer? If we need a designer, it seems we also need a super-designer, then a super-super-designer, and so on.
The main recommendation of the design argument is that it explains how these wonders of nature – for example, the human eye – exist and function so well. But precisely these wonders and their fitness for purpose are explainable with reference to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, without any supernatural intervention by an intelligent designer.
There are also the cosmological argument and the ontological argument, but they are so absurd that they are not worth mentioning.
THE PROBLEM OF EVIL
Finally, according to the traditional theistic account:
1. God is omniscient: He knows everything that is logically possible to know.
2. God is omnipotent: He is capable of doing anything that is logically possible to do.
3. God is omnibenevolent: He is universally benevolent and desires to do all the good that can be done.
With special attention to the problem of evil, the following inferences can plausibly be made based on these three basic properties:
4. If God is omniscient, He is fully aware of all the pain and suffering that occur.
5. If God is omnipotent, He is capable of preventing all pain and suffering.
6. If God is omnibenevolent, He desires to prevent all pain and suffering.
If propositions 4 through 6 are true and if God (as defined by propositions 1 through 3) exists, then there will be no pain and suffering in the world because God will have followed His inclinations and prevented them from occurring. But there is pain and suffering in the world, so we must conclude either that God does not exist or that He lacks one or more of the properties established in propositions 1 through 3. In sum, the problem of evil seems to carry the extremely unpleasant implication for the theist that either God does not know what is happening, does not care, or cannot do anything about it; or that He does not exist.
Historically, the most popular and influential suggestion is the so-called "free will defense." Our freedom to make genuine choices allows us to live a life of true moral value. Despite this, the free will defense faces some formidable problems.
Perhaps the most obvious difficulty that the free will defense confronts is the existence of natural evil in the world. Even if we accept that free will is such a precious good that it is worth the cost of moral evil—the bad and hateful things that occur when people use their freedom to make wrong choices—what possible sense can we make of natural evil? How would God have harmed or diminished our free will if He had suddenly eradicated the HIV virus, hemorrhoids, mosquitoes, floods, and earthquakes? The gravity of this difficulty is illustrated by some of the theistic responses to it: natural disasters, diseases, plagues, etc., are (literally) the work of the devil and a host of other fallen angels and demons; or such afflictions are "merely" divine punishment for Adam and Eve's original sin in the Garden of Eden. The latter solution traces all natural evil back to the first instance of moral evil and thus seeks to exonerate God from any blame. This explanation does not seem convincing. Wouldn't it be a monstrous injustice for God to punish the great-great-great-great (and so on) grandchildren of the original offenders?
And how would those who have already been judged by the actions of their (distant) ancestors benefit from receiving free will?
Another difficulty faced by free will is whether we are truly free?
. Also I think some dead philosopher beat you to it
