Does God Exist? A Perfect Creator Cannot Exist. Arguments against the existence of God

• published: 12 Feb 2015
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https://www.youtube.com/user/gabrielemartufi Arguments for and against the existence of God have been proposed by philosophers, theologians, scientists, and others for thousands of years. In philosophical terms, such arguments involve primarily the disciplines of epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge) and ontology (study of the nature of being, existence, or reality) and also the theory of value, since concepts of perfection are connected to notions of God. A wide variety of arguments exist which can be categorized as metaphysical, logical, empirical, or subjective. The existence of God is subject to lively debate in philosophy, the philosophy of religion, and popular culture. Arguments against the existence of God Each of the arguments below aims to show that a particular set of gods does not exist-by demonstrating them to be inherently meaningless, contradictory, or at odds with known scientific or historical facts)-or that there is insufficient proof to say that they do exist. Empirical arguments Empirical arguments depend on knowledge acquired by means of observation or experimentation to prove their conclusions. • The argument from inconsistent revelations contests the existence of the deity called God as described in scriptures-such as the Jewish Tanakh, the Christian Bible, the Muslim Qur'an, the Hindu Vedas, the Book of Mormon or the Baha'i Aqdas-by identifying apparent contradictions between different scriptures, within a single scripture, or between scripture and known facts. To be effective this argument requires the other side to hold that its scriptural record is inerrant, or at least to assert that a proper understanding of scripture gives rise to knowledge of God's existence. • The problem of evil contests the existence of a god who is both omnipotent and omnibenevolent by arguing that such a god should not permit the existence of evil or suffering. The theist responses are called theodicies. • The destiny of the unevangelized, by which persons who have never even heard of a particular revelation might be harshly punished for not following its dictates. • The argument from poor design contests the idea that God created life on the basis that lifeforms, including humans, seem to exhibit poor design. • The argument from nonbelief contests the existence of an omnipotent God who wants humans to believe in him by arguing that such a god would do a better job of gathering believers. • The argument from parsimony (using Occam's razor) contends that since natural (non-supernatural) theories adequately explain the development of religion and belief in gods, the actual existence of such supernatural agents is superfluous and may be dismissed unless otherwise proven to be required to explain the phenomenon. • The analogy of Russell's teapot argues that the burden of proof for the existence of God lies with the theist rather than the atheist. The Russell's teapot analogy can be considered an extension of Occam's Razor. • Stephen Hawking and co-author Leonard Mlodinow state in their book The Grand Design that it is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God. In this view, it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God. This is known as the first-cause argument for the existence of God. Both authors claim however, that it is possible to answer these questions purely within the realm of science, and without invoking any divine beings. Some Christian philosophers disagree. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which, in its most general form, is the belief that at least one deity exists. The term "atheism" originated from the Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s)", used as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger society. With the spread of freethought, skeptical inquiry, and subsequent increase in criticism of religion, application of the term narrowed in scope. The first individuals to identify themselves using the word "atheist" lived in the 18th century. Some ancient and modern religions are referred to as atheistic, as they either have no concepts of deities or deny a creator deity, yet still revere other god-like entities. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism