On balance of probability, there is a God.

Thanks to Mr.Infidel for the topic. In this first outing, I am going to give three reasons why God (=df. an all powerful morally perfect being) does not exist. Divine hiddenness Many of us lack think no God exists. Some of these non-believers possess considerable epistemic virtue: their wrong belief is not a consequence of a strop with god, nor of irrational quirk. They may be careful and intelligent, have devoted lots of study to God’s existence, etc. In short, there are some inculpable non-believers: they did their best – ‘called it as they saw it’, but they saw it wrong. These people are good evidence God does not exist. For God is able to show these non-believers their error. Further, there are several reasons why a morally perfect God would do this: 1) In many religions, disbelief has vast eternal penalty. There is incalculable benefit in stopping people casting themselves into damnation by honest error – indeed, failing to do so seems negligent. 2) One might say that the correct relationship to God brings goods that a secular life – no matter how richly it flourishes – cannot provide. God would want to maximise access to these goods, and would not want people missing out through no fault of their own. 3) One of the adjectives commonly applied to God is ‘perfectly loving’. It is plausible a being would want to enter into a relationship with every one of us. This sort of relationship is stymied in those who fail to believe there is a God to relate with. We put it formally like this (modified from Schellenburg)[1]. 1) If God exists, inculpable non-belief does not exist 2) Inculpable non-belief does exist 3) God does not exist In support of [1] we have my foregoing case about why a morally perfect being would want to prevent inculpable non-belief on ground of eternal consequence, religious goods, and as a pre-requisite for a loving relationship. In support of [2] we have the data of vast numbers of seemingly epistemically virtuous atheists: consider philosophers like William Rowe or Graham Oppy, smart non-specialists working in science or medicine, or just non-believers you know who don’t seem irrational. The conclusion follows by modus tollens. Here’s a pretty map of this argument: The demographics of Theism There are many more Muslims than Christians than Saudi Arabia, many more Catholics in Ireland than Vietnam, and a very small ratio of Theists to pagans two and a half thousand years ago. This spatio-temporal pattern is very surprising on Theism. It is bizarre why God would let such important matters like faith hinge so strongly on the happenstance of the place and time of one’s birth, for similar reasons why it is bizarre why God would let there being inculpable non-believers. What makes this point stronger (and stops it being a repetition), is that atheism explains the demographics of theism better. If God does not exist, and religions are but elaborate social constructions, then we would expect their demographics to obey the contours of history and geography similar to other beliefs and ideologies: the conquestors’ religion should supercede the conquesteds’; a religious belief should start at a single point and spread outwards, and not from many geographically isolated regions at once; religious beliefs will generally be stable over time - the distribution should not change completely from one generation to the next; amongst many other things. This is what we observe. We put it formally like this (after Malitzen)[2] 4) The demographics of Theism are better explained by Atheism than Theism 5) [Prime principle of explanation]. If the demographics of theism are better explained by Atheism than Theism, then the demographics of Theism make Atheism more plausible than Theism. 6) Atheism is more plausible than Theism I aver that Theism is a very poor explanation of its own demographics so that they are highly surprising. In contrast, Atheism makes the demographics of theism unsurprising. So Atheism should be considered much more plausible than Theism. Here’s a pretty map of this argument: Evil The world is filled with evil. One could talk about the case of Neil and Kasumi Puttick, parents who committed suicide after their child contracted meningitis and died. Or the case of the Mutilation, where a young woman was raped and her arms cut off. Or the 25 million (and counting) who have died of AIDS.[3] And so on, and on, and on. To the litany of human suffering, one can add verses without end. Each and every one is an outrage to the human condition. In almost all cases, these awful events appear unjustified. Our moral faculties (the ones we rely upon in our daily lives) can find no reason why (for example) the Mutilation is necessary for some greater good, or to avert a greater evil. We should treat these appearances credulously: if the mutilation appears unjustified, it probably is unjustified. (And you can show when there are very large numbers of evils that appear unjustified, it is extremely probable at least one is unjustified).[4] Unjustified evil shouldn’t obtain in God’s creation. For if God existed, there should only be justified evil. For God to add to the justified evils unjustified ones seems closer to sadism than moral perfection. Yet it is extremely probable that there are such unjustified evils. So it is extremely probable God does not exist. More formally, after Rowe[5] 7) If God exists, unjustified evil does not exist 8) Unjustified evil does exist 9) God does not exist Here’s a pretty map of this argument: Conclusion Hiddenness, demographics and evil provide three decisive reasons for Atheism. I look forward to Pro’s response. Thrasymachus [1] See Schellenburg, J L (1993), Divine hiddenness and Human Reason. Cornell University Press, Ithaca. pp 5-10. See also Schellenburg J L (2006) ‘The hiddenness argument revisited (1)’ Religious studies vol. 42 no. 2 pp. 201-215. [2] See Malitzen, S (2006) ‘Divine Hiddenness and the Demographics of Theism’ Religious studies vol. 42 no. 2 pp. 177-191. [3] See Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (2006) Overview of the Global AIDS Epidemic. (available here: http://data.unaids.org...). As this report is six years out of date, the total death toll is likely to be substantially higher now. [4] Cf. Bass, R (2011) ‘Many Inscrutable evils’ Ars Disputandi vol. 11 pp.118-132. (Bass shows that one can use n appearances of unjustified evil to give a likelihood ratio of [P(Unjustevil|appearance)/P(Justevil|appearance)]n. So long as this fraction is marginally greater than unity and the events are independent it will climb rapidly as n increases. The independence assumption can be greatly weakened to preserve this result if n is very large, which it is.) [5] See Rowe, W L (1979) ‘The Problem of Evil and Some Varieities of Atheism.’ American Philosophical Quarterly vol. 16 no.4 pp. 335-341