Saturday, September 17, 2011

An Atheist Case For The Existence of God(s)

I know this sounds pretty strange, particularly coming from me … a lifelong atheist who was never indoctrinated into any religious belief.

You’re probably asking yourself why I, an atheist would make a case for the existence of gods instead of against the existence of gods given the fact that an atheist by definition has an absence of god beliefs.

Well, I’m just exploring a hypothesis. One that I’ve played with over the years and have decided to put to paper and see where it flies (or crashes and burns). Open-mouthed smile

It came to mind recently as a result of a discussion I’m currently having with a friend who makes the claim that “gods are fictional”.

I don’t entirely disagree with the claim. It really is quite a good explanation for the concept of gods, however, one of the points that I’ve been making to my friend is that it’s probably not a good idea to make such statements absolute.

That is, a better statement or claim would be, “it’s probable or highly likely that gods are fictional”. The reason for this is that there are other good potential reasons why humanity adopted the god concept. In addition, not all of them are based on the non-existence of gods.

So, while this is a good explanation, it isn’t the only good explanation.

Since my friend offered up the challenge that I should falsify his claim which he defended and supported, I took up the challenge.

For the sake of argument, here it is:

Background:
It is known that in ancient times, human beings often considered their leaders (kings) gods. In some cases, they considered them representatives of gods but in many cases they were considered actual gods. This is evidenced in cultures like the ancient Egyptians who considered their rulers actual gods.


Given the above background:
  1. Ancient Egyptians considered their leaders gods.
  2. There is evidence these leaders existed both through historical documentation and objective evidence (mummies of the kings).
  3. Therefore gods exist and are not fictional.
The claim that “gods are fictional” has now been falsified.

Gods exist.

Holy Fuck. Am I still an atheist???? ;-D

Note to theists reading this blog (I know you're there lol). Please note that this argument cannot and does not support the existence of your preferred sky fairies which do not claim to be human. It also does not support the existence of the Abrahamic God who is claimed to have magically come to earth in the form of a human named Jesus. The reasons for this are obvious. If you don't understand why please feel free to ask.

1 comment:

atypican said...

Gods exist as imaginative constructs.

God exists as a term that refers to human issues of authority that do exist.

An imaginary problem is a real problem

In my view, the problem of theism is an excessive trust (worship) problem not a "believing in non-existent entity" problem.

My logical defense of my atheism is based on my tendency to leave even my strongest beliefs open to challenge.

My logic is something like:

theism = worship
worship = placing of complete trust

*note one cannot place trust in a non-existent entity

Since I have no belief that I don't leave room for doubt about, my trust is never complete. Therefore I do not worship. Hence I identify as atheist