Proof of God’s Nonexistence

PSI Blog 20171108 Proof of God’s Nonexistence

Obviously, the existence of evil is proof of god’s nonexistence. Nonetheless, many believers have written books like this one, a “theodicy,” which is an attempt to resolve the unresolvable contradiction between the idea that god is good and that “he” invented evil along with everything else in the universe (all 2 trillion galaxies included). The contradiction is, of course, especially troubling from the Jewish perspective. Six million cruel deaths ought to be enough proof for anyone. Any god that would countenance that would have to be evil incarnate himself. Apparently that is not enough proof for David Birnbaum, lauded author of numerous theological books.

Occasionally, I am asked to review a religious book (from the atheistic perspective, I presume). I sometimes oblige just to see what the other half is doing. This tome, “God and Evil,” is Summa 1 in Birnbaum’s 3-part “Metaphysica” series.[1] It is sure to give metaphysics a bad name. You see, metaphysics converts unconscious presuppositions into explicit assumptions to be used in further analysis. In an Infinite Universe we have no other choice. I followed Collingwood’s criteria in asserting that fundamental assumptions always have opposites in which one is false if the other is true and neither can be completely proven.[2] That is what I did by formulating “The Ten Assumptions of Science.”[3] A particularly important assumption was the one that dismisses freewill: The Second Assumption of Science, causality (All effects have an infinite number of material causes). Religion is based on freewill—that is what the “Garden of Eden and the Salvation Myths” are all about. The book finally achieves its basic function of giving god a free pass with these deepities from the perspective of “sophisticated theology”:

 “Yet if we postulate a God of Israel wholly directed towards opening the gates to man’s infinite potential by granting him ascending levels of freedom as he ascends intellectually, and if we grant a God of Israel contracting His real-time consciousness to grant man this crucial freedom, then our outlook is clearer. A Deity exercising contraction of real-time consciousness for the greater good, man’s freedom and potential, clearly—not inscrutably— commits no crimes of breach of covenant or complicity of silence. He is guilty only of the crime of increasing man’s freedom—an option exercised by man at Eden” (p. 168)

Of course in the title of this Blog I was being facetious. In an infinite universe, there is no way to provide a complete proof that something does not exist. You can never prove that unicorns do not exist either, but I am not going to waste time trying to find one. I also am not going to make up stories defending the undefendable.

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[1] Birnbaum, David, 2012, God and evil : a unified theodicy/theology/philosophy: Manhattan, Harvard Matrix, 256 p.

[2] Collingwood, R.G., 1940, An essay on metaphysics: Oxford, Clarendon Press, 354 p.

[3] Borchardt, Glenn, 2004, The ten assumptions of science: Toward a new scientific worldview: Lincoln, NE, iUniverse, 125 p. [Free download a http://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.13320.21761].