God doesn't exist.

Atheism is the Default Position When I say atheism is the default position, I mean the burden of proof lies on the person making the claim that God exist, and that if the burden of proof can’t be met by the person making the claim, then atheism wins by default. If there is no evidence for the existence of God, then it is reasonable to assume that God does not exist. The reason why I think this is because if you take into account other supernatural things like Santa Clause, the Easter bunny, the tooth fairy, the flying spaghetti monster, ect. you will realize that we have no evidence against the existence of these beings. However, we still believe they don’t exist. In the same way, if there is no evidence for the existence of God, we should believe he doesn’t exist. My second argument as to why atheism is the default position is this: consider the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving God, and the existence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly evil God, and lastly an all-powerful, all-knowing, morally indifferent God. I would argue that these three Gods that I have just presented are all equally likely to exist, which would mean that the all-loving God whose existence we are debating over today can be reduced to 1/3rd the likelihood. Therefore since all three of these Gods are equally likely to exist, atheism should be the default position and theism should have the burden of proof showing that it’s their God in particular that exist. Atheist Argument from Suffering Premise 1) If God exists, then there is no suffering in the world. Premise 2) There is suffering in the world. Conclusion) Therefore God does not exist. If I successfully defend both premise 1 and 2, then the conclusion God does not exist will logically follow. Defense of Premise 1) Premise 1 is true given the definition of God. Firstly, God is all-powerful, he has the ability to destroy or prevent suffering. Secondly, God is all-knowing, so he would know how to create a world with no suffering. Lastly, God is all-loving, which means he would have the strongest desire to stop suffering. However, there are two popular objections to this argument, so I would like to bring them up and respond to them briefly. The first objection theist make is: “It’s possible that God allows suffering to bring about good the world.” If God is omnipotent, then he wouldn’t need to use suffering as a way to bring about good in the world. It would be completely unnecessary. God could have created the world in a way where there was only good and no suffering. If the theist still says no, that would not be possible, then we must accept that God is not omnipotent. The second objection I have heard is: “Suffering exists because God gave human beings free will.” As a child growing up in church, this was the reason I was given for why there is suffering in the world. I was very young, so I didn’t know how to critically examine it. However, now I do. The problem with this defense is that it thinks in order for there to be free will, there must also be suffering. But this is false, because God could have given us both free will and moral perfection, thus resulting in us choosing the good in every situation. (1). So as you can see, the free will defense doesn’t hold water. Defense of Premise 2) This premise is also true, given the suffering there is in the world such as genocide, rape, slavery, child abuse, animal cruelty, torture, racism, sexism, totalitarianism, poverty, world hunger, hurricanes, tsunamis, earthquakes, and so on. We observe all this immense amount of suffering around us and we wonder why, if God exists, he created the world like this. Clearly, this suffering I have mentioned is unnecessary and the world would be better without it. Why God’s Omnipotence is Meaningless Theists define God’s omnipotence as the ability to do all that is logically possible. That which is not logically possible like creating a square circle is not something God can do. This definition of the term tries to get around the rock paradox put forth by skeptics. However, even this definition of omnipotence is insufficient. Because there are certain actions that are logically possible that God can’t do. For example: lying, dying, being born, and forgetting are all things that are logically possible but are believed to be impossible for God to do. So when looking at God’s omnipotence, we see that what it actually means is: God has the ability to do all that is logically possible, as long as it doesn’t conflict with his other properties. But if this is really the definition of omnipotence, then that would make me and everybody else omnipotent. Because I myself and everybody else can do all that is logically possible as long as it doesn’t conflict with our other properties. This proves that saying God is omnipotent informs us of nothing special and that the word itself is meaningless. Conclusion In this essay I have demonstrated that the suffering there is in the world is incompatible with the existence of God, and that the term omnipotence is meaningless. On top of that, I have shown that even if my arguments are unsound, we will still be committed to atheism if my opponent cannot argue successfully that God exist. Source: http://en.wikipedia.org...