This is an
intellectual exercise to consider the possbility of
God's existance, and to show that although God may not be provable to
not exist in any form, the
Christian idea of a God can be proven to not exist, at least in theory, without even refering to the
contradictions and
impossible events of the
Bible.
In an otherwise
closed universe, there are three possiblities concerning the existance of a God/creator. Either
1. Such a God
interacts with the universe
or
2. It does not interact with the universe
or
3. It does not exist.
2 and 3 are
equivalent.
If something does not interact with the universe, it does not exist in any meaningful sense.
1 brings up another two (out of many) questions:
1. The Christian God exists and constantly
interferes with the universe on a petty and immediate level (eg answering some
prayers, "
I thank God for helping me win this award")
2. A
non-Christian God exists and interfers with the universe on a very
subtle scale.
If 1, then the effects should be
observable. For example, you can't provide
divine influence to someone without
changing their brain in a manner that should not normally have happened, and yet is ordered and not chaotic, and you can't help a kitten survive a fall without making
observable physical alterations on a fairly
massive scale. If this could be observed, it would prove the existance of a Christian-style God of some sort. However, despite the multitude of
claimed miracles of all sizes, there tends to be no
real evidence that anything out of the ordinary even occured, let alone that it was not explainable by normal means.
If 2, and God acts very subtly for more
obscure reasons, and over the very long term (thousands or millions of years to make changes), then God does not answer prayers, did not provide the
Bible writers with divine inspiration, etc. Its influence may be
dectectable if the
physical changes (presumably at the
sub-atomic level) are made just when someone is looking, or soon after, but this is unlikey. However, if a God of this type exists, organized religion is meaningless - the Bible would just be the work of
deluded humans and it would be impossible to predict what God would actually want, if he even wanted anything from humans.
Of course, this leaves out the possiblity that God does not behave in a
logical manner (as presented in the
Bible), but in that case we're all
screwed since we can't expect any particular behaviour to necessarily lead to any particular consequence when dealing with an
unreliable God.
In any case, if miracles are really occuring as according to
Christian doctrine, it should be relatively easy to
show the physical effects with a concerted search, as for miracles to actually do anything, they
must physically influence the
universe in some way. Until then, I'll continue to
not believe in God due to his
non-interaction with the universe.
Whoever soft-linked to "false dichotomy" please point it out, because I can't see one. As far as I can see it, the only time I listed a choice between two things was when they were
mutually exclusive.