God Exists.

I accept the burden of proof, because I think there needs to be a good case presented for why certainty in non-existence is sometimes a more reasonable position than uncertainty. My positionMy position is that the gods do not objectively exist, but the gods exists merely in the subjective environment of human minds as thought patterns transmitted among people through verbal communication in evolving and branching succession. This model of the gods does not necessarily replace the position that gods objectively exist, but, at the very least, it would accompany the position that gods objectively exist. It is already obvious that beliefs concerning the gods evolve according to what is most likely to be believed and evangelized, much like viruses evolve by natural selection. But, my contention is indeed that this model of the gods serves in large part to effectively replace the position that the gods objectively exist, and I am willing to make my case. Criterion of plausibilityTo help my case, I stand behind the criterion of plausibility. Using this well-accepted criterion, I assert that it is possible to prove a negative. The academic C. Behan McCullagh [1] defines the criterion of plausibility like so:"The hypothesis must be more plausible than any other incompatible hypothesis about the same subject; that is, it must be implied to some degree by a greater variety of accepted truths than any other, and be implied more strongly than any other; and its probable negation must be implied by fewer beliefs, and implied less strongly than any other. "To illustrate this criterion, suppose Bertrand Russell claims, without any other special evidence, that a teapot is orbiting the Sun between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Since this claim is not implied to any significant degree by accepted truths, the claim is practically impossible. There is no known reason for fragile kitchen utensils to be launched into such an orbit, and no such fragile kitchen utensils have been observed in outer space, so the claim is not simply uncertain. Because of the criterion of plausibility, the claim is improbable enough to be rejected as false. If, on the other hand, Bertrand Russell claimed that an asteroid were orbiting between Earth and Mars, the conclusion is opposite, again because of the criterion of plausibility. Even without direct evidence of a specific asteroid in such an orbit, there have been many asteroids observed orbiting the Sun, and there is a known cosmological mechanism for such an orbit to come about. Challenging the authority of the BibleI will illustrate the criterion again by fulfilling Pro's request that I challenge the authority of the Bible. The Gospel of Luke 2:1-4 (NRSV) states:"In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered. This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. All went to their own towns to be registered. Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. "The claim of this passage is that Augustus required all inhabitants of the empire to register for the census in their ancestral towns. This is a very strong problem of plausibility, because (1) it would require that millions of people embark on a chaotic pilgrimage to their ancestral home towns, including all of the Jews of the Hellenistic diaspora about the Mediterranean Sea [2], but (2) there is no other ancient record of such pilgrimages having taken place, not even other Christian gospels, (3) the competing explanation, that the Christian community of the gospel of Luke uncritically accepted and asserted the false belief in such a requirement for a historical census, has far more plausibility, because Christians contemporary to Luke had an explicit bias toward the belief that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, though Jesus was otherwise identified as being from the town of Nazareth--that is how they interpreted a messianic prophecy, and they believed Jesus to the messiah [3]. Therefore, it is for more probable that the gospel of Luke told a falsehood than to believe that the emperor required every constituent to return to his hometown for a census. The Bible has many more severe problems of plausibility, and I will present them upon Pro's request. The impluasibilty of God: ghostly intelligenceThe Bible is implausible, but the Bible is not God, so why is God implausible? The implausibility of the objective existence of God follows from the incompatibility of the proposed nature of God with the nature of the known universe. God is hypothesized to be both omniscient [4] and omnipresent [5], or existing as both supremely intelligent and in an ethereal (non-material) form. However, every known example of intelligence requires a complex system of physical matter and energy. Greater levels of intelligence require more complexity of such a system. Insects possess minor levels of intelligence, and their intelligence follows from a relatively-low level of complexity. Marine mammals possess more intelligence, and their nervous systems are of a higher complexity. The most intelligent minds in the known universe--human minds--are based on the most complex systems of matter and energy in the known universe. The claim--that God is both maximally intelligent and requires no complex system of matter and energy--requires this strong pattern to be broken, and there is no known mechanism for this pattern to be broken. We cannot hypothesize a good reason that God can be intelligent without a complex system of matter and energy. The problem of plausibility is much more severe when the competing explanation has much more plausibility. Getting back to my own explanation for the gods as evolving ideas, I can plausibly explain the widespread belief that God is both supremely intelligent and non-material. Both attributes seem to maximize God's reputed power, and a powerful God appeals to religious people's innate psychological tendency toward authoritarianism [6]. Therefore, the claim of the objective existence of God is severely implausible. Therefore, like Russell's teapot, God does not objectively exist. I conclude this round, and I await Pro's arguments. References[1] CB McCullagh, Justifying Historical Descriptions, via . http://en.wikipedia.org...[2] DR Schwartz, "How at Home Were the Jews of the Hellenistic Diaspora? " via . http://www.jstor.org...[3] Matthew 2:6[4] . http://www.biblestudyproject.org...[5] . http://www.biblestudyproject.org...[6] GK Leak and BA Randall, "Clarification of the Link Between Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Religiousness: The Role of Religious Maturity" via . http://www.jstor.org...