The Judeo/Christian god most likely exists

R1: Opening Argument R2 to R4: Rebuttal I’ll be arguing that: The Judeo/Christian god most likely does not exist. Proof for his existence is purely anecdotal, or else is faith-based, and therefore inherently lacks evidence. C1: There is no proof The biggest argument against the existence of god is that there is no way to prove he exists. That is why the ideology of Judaism/Christianity so treasures the idea of faith. Those who do not have faith are given the worst punishment of all… and yet faith, by definition, is simply ignorance of facts. It’s a system designed to scare people into not thinking too much about reality and the factual basis for god, but rather to trust - and it has worked well for thousands of years. Try and shout from the hilltops. Jesus will never appear for you – I’ve tried. There’s a reason Jesus compares his followers to sheep. If Pro can show one piece of evidence for the material existence of god, he will be the first in history to do so, and the nature of science and history will be forever changed. For example; take a scientific analysis of prayer, one of the few ways that god can supposedly interfere in our lives. A peer-reviewed study by the Indian Journal of Psychiatry (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...) found that the only time prayer had an effect on a health issue, it was when women who had been prayed were found to have had twice as high a pregnancy rate (no doubt influenced by religious convictions, not prayer). A study on two groups of elderly coronary care patients found that there was no difference between the ones who had been prayed for and the ones who had not been prayed for; that is, they both died in equal amounts. Interestingly enough, in another study, patients who were told they were being prayed for died slightly more often than patients who were told they were not being prayed for. If god existed, surely we could measure some kind of data! C2: The problem of Evil The problem of evil is a stumbling point for most J/C believers. How could god claim to be an omnipresent, omnibenevolent being and allow evil? If he is omnipresent and all-knowing, and, as it says in Jeremiah 1:5, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart…”, then he would logically know that some of us would go to hell the moment we were created. Thus, if he created us to go to hell, would that not directly contradict his message of omnibenevolence? Something has to give. Or consider the Tsetse fly, the bringer of the deadly sleeping sickness, whose sole purpose in life is to suck the blood of its victims. It is estimated to kill 250-300 Million people a year. The supposedly kind and fair god allows that fly to exist, and it kills countless unbelievers every day. Should we safely assume that a man like Jeffrey Dahmer is going to heaven because he said, “the lord Jesus Christ is the true creator of the heavens and the earth…I have accepted him as my lord and saviour” and who was baptized by Rev. Roy Ratcliff who said, “…a veil was lifted. He began to see order and design in the universe. He began to see the case for God.” After all, in Romans 10:9-10 it says, “That if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved.” C3: The J/C god/ideology is not unique or divine Many Christians cite the uniqueness or the divine wonder of the bible/the Torah as the primary motivation for believing in god. The bible is not unique and neither is the Torah. Not only is it not unique, it is often profoundly stupid. Take Deut. 25:11-12 for example, “If men get into a fight with one another, and the wife of one intervenes to rescue her husband from the grip of his opponent by reaching out and seizing his genitals, you shall cut off her hand; show no pity.” Or take Jesus in Luke 14:26, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.” I have often been told and taught that Jesus was simply saying that if it came down to it, one should follow him and not follow one’s family. That explanation doesn’t come close to excusing the harsh, radical, preposterous language that Jesus chose. Those who say the bible is ordained by god must reconcile numerous contradictions and mathematical and historical errors. For example, the existence of a firmament, as described in Gen. 1:6-7, which was an iron age belief that the heavens were separated by a kind of solid sky-dome in which stars were ‘fixed’ and which held back heavenly waters. From Genesis, “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so.” Or take the differing genealogies of Jesus as listed in Luke and in Matthew: Matthew's Genealogy: Jesus Joseph Jacob Matthan Eleazar Eliud Luke's Genealogy: Jesus Joseph Heli Matthat Levi Melchi True believers must also reconcile the historical progression of the biblical canon as it passed from scribe to scribe to scribe over thousands of years, many of which made alterations. For example, the discrepancies between the 1500 year old Codex Sinaiticus (http://www.codex-sinaiticus.net...), which lay undisturbed in a monastery, and the modern text. Seminal stories and texts are missing; like Jesus stopping the Pharisees from stoning the woman, or Jesus’ famous last words of forgiveness, “father forgive them for they no not what they do”. Anti-Semitism is also heightened in this version, as Barnabas has all the Jews repeat “his blood be upon us”. Jesus is described as a more human figure, being “angry” when healing a leper. (https://tothewire.wordpress.com...) The bible/torah had numerous changes over the centuries (like any ancient text), as certain Popes and monks would try to focus on certain words of Jesus, or on specific stories. These points are just a handful of countless other discrepancies and contradictions that show that the existence of the Judeo/Christian god is probably unlikely.