A faulty atheist argument

Many atheists and agnostics argue that there is no god, because a god capable of creating the earth and humanity could not possibly also create all of the suffering and destruction that we see here. This is a flawed argument, and I mention it purely to point out that I disagree with fellow atheists, as well as religious folk, for fundamentally the same reasons- lack of logic.

If God (hypothetically of course) created us, and the world, and the universe, and everything about it; and if God was omnipotent, and knew the fate of everything and everyone, then God would know what would become of his Earth. If God played a role in the early creation of life (as most intelligent religious people will argue), but has since allowed evolution to run its course, then God's hand on the Earth hasn't been felt since its inception (unless you believe the bible, in which case he also had a hand in that little genocidic flood). If all of this were true, then the Earth as we see it now is the result of God's early intentions. The Earth, along with all of the tsunamis, cholera, HIV, car accidents and miscarriages. If God created human beings, and the laws of physics, and the earth on which this all takes place, then he also intended for life to be uncertain, and unfair. It is horribly naive to argue that God cannot exist based on the unfairness of life.

If that still doesn't ring true, then take a peak at the bible (similarly, the appropriate sections of the Torah and Qu'ran). The God of the Old Testament is not the benevolent, prayer-answering, miracle-creating god that the majority of middle America believes in. This god asked a man (Abraham) to murder his only son (Isaac) after years of infertility, then prevents the sacrifice at the last minute, leaving Isaac a broken man. This God smited the towns of Sodom, Gomoarah, Admah and Zeboim, where was his love and forgiveness then? This God sent the deluge to wipe out humanity...

So what can we take from this? If the Bible/Torah/Qu'ran are divine in origin, then from them we can gain insight into the nature of God. And it isn't pretty. This in part may explain the horrors of daily life on Earth.

This post is not about why there is a god rather I am trying to point out incorrect methods of reasoning against the existence of one (although I am also equally irked by the somewhat blinkered religious groups who see their god as a loving father figure, despite evidence to the contrary). With that over with, we can get onto the nitty gritty logical reasons as to why there probably isn't a god... More to come.

Obvious truth?

There are so many things wrong with this, I don't quite know where to start. When I showed this to two of my religious friends, they thought it was a joke. It's not. These people are serious. This scares me.

Now, the theory of evolution is not difficult to grasp. So that first of all tells you something about the people in this video. The guy seems to be suggesting that a jar of peanut butter is a comparable model to the earth. Note the language and music- all used to imply that this is a scientific video based on fact- this is delusion at its best!
-The Earth has been around for billions of years, the peanut butter has not.
-The Earth is subject to immense gravitational pulls, tectonic shifts, meteorite impacts and global fluctuations in climate. The peanut butter is not (or at least hasn't been, in its short lifetime).
-Carrying on from this, the Earth is massive (in the scientific sense, as in it has a LOT of mass), the peanut butter is not. As a consequence, the Earth has a relatively large gravitational field and a satellite (the moon). The peanut butter has nothing orbiting it :(.
-The Earth has been in flux, molecules and their relative proportions have changed. The peanut butter jar is sealed, and during its short time on the shelf the contents have hardly changed at all. I guess that's why we buy it...
-The Earth is subject to intense lighting storms, volcanic eruptions and solar flares. Peanut butter, for the large part, is not, unless it is quite unlucky.
-The peanut butter contains preservatives to keep it constant. The Earth does not.
-A man going into a supermarket, opening a jar of peanut butter, looking inside it and seeing only peanut butter would declare "no life" (or at least, a man like the one in the video). The same man going back in time to the origin of life would have looked around, squinted down at the primordial soup, and similarly declared "no life". Short sequences of nucleic acids are not visible to the naked eye... let alone the more advanced viruses, bacteria, protoctists...
-I could go on, but hopefully I shouldn't have to.

Now, it is possible that new life could spontaneously form in a jar of peanut butter. I mean, if bacteria can grow on deep sea vents, or oil, or arsenic, then I'm sure peanut butter is doable. But this man has also shown his keen lack of understanding of statistics. The universe is apparently infinite, and even if it's not, there are billions upon billions of other galaxies like ours, containing billions of similar planets to Earth. What are the chances that over billions of years (or perhaps over successive big bangs, making it infinite years...) that a few molecules would correctly bond together to give rise to early "life" (though I think it is important to take into account that it is possible that the first "life" was viral, in which case it wasn't alive at all)? I don't know, but what I DO know is that this is not the same chance as going into a supermarket, opening a jar and looking inside to see no evidence of life. To even the odds out a bit, you would need to open millions upon millions of jars over billions of years....

Discussions with believers

Why can I never have a proper discussion with someone "of faith", about their faith? They are more than happy to elaborate at length about their point of view, but more often than not, they are not willing to hear about mine. Or they will comment on it as though I need pity, as though I am unenlightened, bless me. For instance, discussing what happens after death. Obviously this is the key debate and the reason, as I see it, why most people believe in a god in the first place. Ask a believer what they think happens, and they will describe something about your soul, how it detaches from your body and joins your loved ones' souls up in heaven. You can challenge that; by pointing out scientific discoveries regarding how the various cells and structures of the brain determine your personality and your mind, and that once these die what makes you YOU is lost forever. You can challenge it by saying that the physiology of other animals is virtually the same, and some even have a basic sense of self, yet why don't they go to heaven when they die? You can challenge it by saying that where is heaven, where is god, where do all the souls go and how is there room? But you will always be met with the same answers. Woolly ones. Describing god as on another level, heaven is in a different dimension, your soul isn't physical yada yada. The default argument for all religion. The religious trump card of "god is so almighty you cannot sense him, or comprehend him, so you cannot say he doesn't exist based on lack of evidence". What a cop out. I would really love for a believer to stop spouting this, and try reasoning with me on the same level. I don't use magic to explain gravity. I don't use aliens to explain disappearances. I don't need to. As a scientist, I am happy to say I don't know things, but I want to find out. I do not make up explanations for things I do not understand, just to make myself feel better. I do not need to appease myself that my family and eventually myself will all be reunited in heaven, so that dying doesn't seem so traumatic. This is termed "sad" by my religious friends. How sad, they say, when I tell them I think I will just rot after I die. What is more sad is that they haven't faced up to the fact that there may not be something afterwards, because these people from day zero have been indoctrinated into religions based on heaven, hell and a creator. How sad, if they turn out to be deluded. How sad thst they never faced up to death, or their lives, properly, because they thought on some level they would carry on.