Do You Believe In God?

Seeing as Thom asked so politely and eloquently, here is the essay, entitled, 'Does God Exist?', that I wrote for my class on the philosophy of religion. It's rather brief and aggressive, and you may notice a couple of occasions where I paraphrase Hitchens. I couldn't help it.

In my experience, to ask someone who believes in God what exactly they mean by ‘God’ is to hear of a concept, a notion, or an entity that one had not previously entertained. Indeed, because the principles and bases underlying the potential for God’s existence are so dynamic, one individual’s perception of God is regularly removed from another’s, not to mention one’s own. This quality, as I have described, lends the potential for God’s existence its great strength, but also its great weakness.

Personally, I am almost sure that God does not exist. Regardless of the garb with which I could dress the notion of God; as the metaphysical embodiment of the laws of the universe, for example, I cannot bring myself to concede that such an embodiment should, or may even exist. This assessment is based upon three fundamental principles that underpin my thought processes, and have done for some time. These principles are logic, reason, and, simply, evidence. It is through this last principle that all of my beliefs, opinions, and perspectives must pass before I feel wholly comfortable expressing them.

My prolonged struggle and regular forays with science have demonstrated to me that no convincing evidence for God’s existence has been, or could be established. Of course, science can rarely, if at all, confirm a theory, but it is certainly effective at disproving a theory. The universe, as it is documented and observed, need not rely upon the assumption that it is controlled, or was set in motion by a divine creator. Needless to say, it works perfectly well without this hypothesis.

As I have come to terms with this question, for it is an extremely important question, I have surmised that which may appear obvious, but is, nevertheless, worth addressing. Although I do not believe in God, I accept that this is a belief, and, though I wish to distance myself as far from the faith position as possible, I cannot conclude with acceptable finality that God does not exist. However, this is not symptomatic of some form of doubt; rather, this is, almost by definition, true for everyone. In this sense, we are all agnostics, because we cannot possibly know whether God exists.

Further to my reasoning and processing of evidence, I have grown suspicious of organized religion in all of its forms. I concede that I am, technically agnostic, but this is only true for the conflict between deism and, shall we say, a-deism. I have, therefore, an inherent sympathy for the deist position because I consider it a position that is very difficult to contest successfully. However, to transcend the gap that spans between the deist position and the theist position is something that I have no sympathy for. For me, this presents an irreconcilable non-sequitur. To claim, as the adherents to one of the three primary monotheisms do, that not only does God exist, but also that they know the will of God, is wholly and outrageously fatuous. In other words, they claim to know God’s intentions, motives, preferences, and plans, along with a host of information that is impossible, in the strictest sense, to know.

Further to this assertion, I am personally glad that no historical or scientific evidence has arisen that would infer the existence of God. For me, the very notion of a divine creator, an entity that made me, has dominion over me, knows my thoughts, along with my actions, and has a plan for me even after my death, represents the perfect encapsulation of a totalitarian nightmare. Again, the fact that I cannot reconcile the evidence with the suggestion of a divine creator is the source of tremendous personal comfort. And so, if I were to define myself based on these premises, I am an anti-theist.

Here, I note that the prompt for this piece contained the requirement that God be defined as “an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly good being”. I hope that my above paragraphs go some way towards explaining why I consider this premise rather shaky. Indeed, this definition leans heavily on the side of theism, and my overarching beliefs are divorced from the description that is given; I wish mainly to express my position as an agnostic anti-theist without addressing the nomenclature of the Judeo-Christian God.

Finally, I conclude with an oft repeated question, though it is one that I have never heard satisfactorily answered. If we are to believe that God exists as an all-knowing creator, who, then, created the creator? We are posed with an infinite regress. I do not accept the response that this is beyond the realms of Human understanding. Of course, in applying our understanding to this question we, once again, inspect the great, yet fragile dynamism of the notion of God.