WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS PHILOSOPHY, DO NOT READ IF PHILOSOPHOBIC.

For those of you uninformed, I don’t believe in God. Some people have taken surprise and almost offence to hear such a conviction, and a while ago I’d be among them. However, I believe this is justified; it is not a stupid rebellious desire or any of that teenage bollocks, it’s a philosophical conclusion, and I would like to clear up why I hold this lack of belief. As kind of mentioned: this is a philosophical and slightly scientific sketch, where I intended to include religion as a major component as that’s where the idea of God is highly relevant, but fuck me, it’s long enough as it is.

Let me start by giving two propositions:
Proposition 1: I don’t believe in God.
Proposition 2: I believe there is no God.
Notice that I used proposition 1 in the opening paragraph (I referred to lack of belief as opposed to a belief in no God). I believe these two differ greatly, especially when debating, and can be explained as follows: a baby does not have a belief in God, but it does not have a belief that there is no God. This shows the importance of language, another importance of language is to define ‘God’. The range is immense, from la-di-la pantheistic nature concepts (i.e. ‘nature is my god’) to anthropomorphic religious supreme beings. For simplicity, let’s refer to ‘God’ as a higher intelligence, which should include deistic concepts as well as religious concepts (basically it should agree with most believers’ views).

With this definition of God, I uphold proposition 1, and to an extent proposition 2. The reason why is that, I think, to argue for a proposition’s truth, I believe you must supply positive evidence for that proposition to change the current status on the matter from ‘not knowing’ to ‘true’ (not necessarily 100% proof). A failure to provide evidence isn’t positive evidence against it, the status on the matter will remain as ‘not knowing’. For example, explaining matter using atomic theory requires positive evidence for atomic theory to be accepted as true and a failure to do so does not mean that matter is not made of atoms, you just simply don’t know yet. To summarise this really, really confusing paragraph by quoting Carl Sagan, ‘…absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.’ I stress the difference as I have to justify the propositions differently to justify my view.

Now, proposition 1. I have not seen positive evidence for the existence of God. I am well aware that there have been traditional arguments, and though tempting to tackle them one by one, I shall forward to you someone much greater than I am, and may even call him God. That man is Bertrand Russell, and this is his essay (the focus relevant to here is the existence of God part and following subtopics, as mentioned, this blog post is not really focused on religion).

Now, proposition 2. This is where evidence that there is no God has to be found. This is a more difficult task, especially if I am to be consistent with my previously stated method of acquiring knowledge. Say if God exists and is just a higher intelligence, without being specific, as this intelligence did not necessarily create the universe, isn’t the centre of morality, and so on, there is pretty much no evidence for this being. However, there isn’t evidence that this being does not exist, with a lack of evidence each way, we simply don’t know, but just don’t believe because there is no evidence for it. This is why I cannot fully be with proposition 2. However, if this is the sort of compassionate intelligence that created us intentionally, cares for us, and so on (give and take qualities), then the evidence for proposition 2 comes round. The sort of evidence I mean here, and to be brief, is the problem of evil, and applies to concepts of God that are meant to be all powerful and benevolent. Just to give one example, if this God is compassionate and cares for humanity, or life in general, why create us through the long, painful process of evolution? And an important point is, religious God generally come into play with such traits.

So my focus is on proposition 1, if my justification for it is accepted alone then that’s my justification for simply not believing in God. To be honest, I am slightly uncomfortable when asked about my position in a single term, as the terms surrounding it are rather inconsistent (for example, agnosticism refers to knowledge, atheism to belief, but are used on some sort of one-dimensional spectrum).

Well there you have it, I hope this makes a morsel of sense, and half a morsel of interest.

To summarise why I would like a deathray for my birthday, I made this:

EDIT: I actually made it to the front page on GraphJam.com, here.

As you may know, I am (unfortunately) a member of Facebook. It has brought me an addiction no drug will ever bring, destroyed friendships with primary school peers, and a stalking record that will probably come back to haunt me… One of the reasons why I’m probably going to die young is the fury that we have the right to freedom of speech (unless it insults Islam) when I see certain Pages that are breathing and growing. So, I’ll set up a constitution that hopefully will be upheld and employed with an iron fist…

1. Groups exist for a reason.
In the good old days of Facebook, when ‘men were men, women were men, and children were the FBI’, you had Groups for virtually anything and Pages for products and shit, hell, there was even a 200 group limit to prevent you from going crazy. I think I know why these people moved to Pages when they were inventing the name for the characteristic or action or any general point of agreement that we all share, which leads to my second point.

2. Statuses are for friends and for myself trying to be funny.
These Pages show a point of agreement, usually in the form of a sentence; sentences concerning a point of agreement are not looking forward to Christmas, they do not express empathy for Elton John, they are fucking sentences. But it isn’t even just that, ergo my next point.

3. This isn’t an election, stop caring about members.
As soon as I see that the Page was merely a cover up for the author’s desire to gain members, probably to start a Satanic cult, I just bask in cynicism. Cross that with the statuses and you have something more annoying than my voice with a hint of helium. This is made more obvious when the beginning words of the title is ‘join if’.

4. You’re ≠ your, go to primary school.
Jesus H. Blaspheming Christ, would it kill to wipe the dust off your comma key? Or complement your ‘sentence’ with a few fucking vowels? I mean, everyone makes a typo, which is why I have a Firefox spellchecker. I wish that paper clip Office Assistant would torture you the way it did to me when I had a Windows ME, and stretch itself out and stab you in the eyes.

Well, I’m glad to get that off my chest. Mind you, there are some good pages, but finding one is almost as challenging as finding me a ladyfriend by Valentine’s.

Oi, you. That’s right, I’m talking to you. Get your hands out of your trousers and do something remotely altruistic. I’ve been commanded to share this link for you to vote for this One Soap idea generated by people in my school to improve sanitation in Malawi. Login and vote, or I’ll have to shove more moral blackmail down your throat.

For all the Mac users out there that can relate to this:

Then, thanks to the kindness of a certain Mr Rodgers, there is a program that can disable your internet for a time up to 8 hours unless you restart, called Freedom. It has been seemingly helpful for me, nevertheless I still make silly mistakes in my homework:

    Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
    I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
    With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
    Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
    This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

These words are from a man, a great man, who entered this earth, along with our hearts, for a brief period. It has been forty years ago today since his departing. Some say the Jews killed him, I say the Welsh killed him, but what is known is that he died for our sins (at the mere age of 97).

People screamed, people cried, knowing that he had died, knowing that there was nothing they could do. To this day we try to hide our despair, but it is futile.

He has left us an 86 year old daughter, some old interviews, and the sum of wisdom. Someday, hopefully, he will return to earth and destroy those who challenge pacifism. I will leave you with this, and go mourn in private:

And to emphasise: