He's Ill-Defined

The first thing you need in or­der to ac­cept the ex­is­tence of an en­ti­ty is a def­i­ni­tion for it. If you lack that, how can you say it ex­ists at al­l? He could ring my door­bell and ask for a cup of sug­ar, and I still would­n't be sure, be­cause he could be re-de­fined at any time.

For ex­am­ple, is god om­ni­scien­t? Is he allmighty? Is he the guy with the ele­phant head? Is he im­ma­te­ri­al? Does he an­swer to prayer? Is he a he? Did he have a kid? Did he have his kid by turn­ing in­to a swan be­fore go­ing on a date?

Since de­pend­ing on what godist you ask he will an­swer at least one of those dif­fer­ent­ly, I have to de­clare his ex­is­tence im­pos­si­ble.

Of course we could try to ac­cept the def­i­ni­tion of one godist club and try to see if that spe­cif­ic en­ti­ty ex­ist­s, but that doesn re­al­ly work ei­ther, be­cause god fans have a ten­den­cy to move the goal­post­s. What's "the word of god" be­comes lat­er an al­le­go­ry, de­priv­ing us of any ev­i­dence on which to base our en­quiry.

Most­ly, godists say that the know god ex­ists be­cause they feel it in their hearts or some­thing sim­i­lar­ly hare­brained. Come on, if I told you I feel the east­er bun­ny in my kid­ney, it would make about as much sense.

The Excluded Middle and Popularity

Ei­ther some­thing is true or its op­po­site is. Ei­ther you ate some of that cake, or you did­n't. Ei­ther god ex­ists or he does­n't. Easy, right?

But why could­n't god ex­ist? Well, let me ask you, why don't the oth­er gods ex­ist? You are a zoroas­tri­an: why does­n't Zeus ex­ist? You are a mor­mon, why does­n't Quet­zal­coatl ex­ist?

Ev­ery godist is per­fect­ly hap­py with the oth­er gods not ex­ist­ing, so it's not ex­act­ly a ground-shak­ing no­tion. It's clear that when­ev­er you hear any­one talk about a re­li­gious ma­jor­i­ty, he is full of crap.

Re­peat af­ter me: you are not part of a re­li­gious ma­jor­i­ty, be­cause most peo­ple be­lieve your god does­n't ex­ist. We athe­ists are just smarter and more con­sis­ten­t.

And no, you can't re­treat in­to "o­h, mus­lims jews and all chris­tians be­lieve in the same god" be­cause that's nut­s. Jews be­lieve in a god that does­n't let them eat ham. Mor­mons be­lieve they are or­dered to use mag­i­cal un­der­wear. Catholics be­lieve they eat meat wafers each sun­day, it's just that it look­s, feels and tastes like a crack­er, but it's "re­al­ly" (su­per)hu­man beef. For each group, the oth­er's be­liefs are bar­bar­ic and (if they are hon­est) a lit­tle nut­s.

No, I am not say­ing you in­di­vid­u­al­ly are nut­s, you nut­cas­es, I am say­ing you are con­di­tioned to be­lieve your par­tic­u­lar idio­syn­cra­sies are less nuts than av­er­age, but they aren't, just like my dad's habit of putting may­on­naise in the soup was nuts and my be­lief that Unión de San­ta Fe will some­day win a tour­na­ment is nut­s.

IOW: most­ly harm­less, but nut­ty any­way. OTO­H, some peo­ple's be­liefs make them be­lieve that killing al­bi­no kids is a prop­er be­hav­iour so some of you godists are re­al­ly, re­al­ly nut­s, ok?. Not all of you, but those who aren't should take a good hard look at what be­liev­ing in in­vis­i­ble friends does to some peo­ple.

It's Unethical to Believe in Heaven and Hell

Con­sid­er my three year old kid. There is a rule that he has to eat a rea­son­able amount at din­ner, and if he does he can watch one TV show be­fore bed as a re­ward.

In uni­verse A: One night he's very tired, so he does­n't re­al­ly want to watch TV, he wants to go to bed, but he still eats his din­ner be­cause it's good for him.

In uni­verse B: One night he's very tired, so he does­n't re­al­ly want to watch TV, so he does­n't eat his din­ner be­cause there's no re­ward.

Be­liev­ers will tell you that hu­man na­ture is B. That if there was no prom­ise of car­rot (heav­en) and stick (hel­l) hu­mans would have no morals and would act like in­sane he­do­nist­s, hurt­ing each oth­er in a fren­zy, and that we on­ly avoid such a ter­ri­ble fate be­cause of the civ­i­liz­ing in­fuence of the church­es and the moral­i­ty in­duced on us by re­li­gion.

I say bull­crap. I say I pre­fer if my kid does what's good for him not be­cause he's ex­pect­ing a re­ward or (worse!) be­cause he's scared of pun­ish­men­t, but be­cause he un­der­stands that if he eats his din­ner he's go­ing to be strong and healthy, and that it makes me hap­py and that he wants me to be hap­py be­cause he likes me.

Of course, be­ing a three year old, he some­times does­n't want to eat his din­ner. So I try to con­vince him. But if he does­n't, he does­n't, and there's no TV, and there's no tantrum, and he gets a kiss good night.

The con­cept that there is a lot of peo­ple who hon­est­ly be­lieve that they are moral be­ings on­ly be­cause there's an in­vis­i­ble guy who will hurt them if they aren't scares me. I find it deeply re­pul­sive. I find re­li­gion's prom­ise of eter­nal (or even tem­po­rary) pun­ish­ment in the af­ter­life re­pul­sive and creep­y.

If you be­lieve in an af­ter­life, and you be­lieve in heav­en and hel­l, and you act nice be­cause of it, you are a creep. You are, like re­li­gious peo­ple like to say, a creep in your own heart. You are not good. You are evil but just think you can't get away with act­ing out your evil. You are a chick­en. If the de­ity you be­lieve in ac­tu­al­ly ex­ist­s, he knows it, so you are screwed any­way.

I pre­fer to be good for my fel­low men be­cause there's noth­ing else be­yond. If there was a heav­en, then we live in a crap­py wait­ing room. No! We live in the re­al world. What's be­yond is fic­tion or guess­work, you can't count on it, you can't throw away re­al life for it.

Conclusion

You are a bit nuts and your in­vis­ble friend does­n't ex­ist. You don't need to get a life be­cause you al­ready have one, you just need to stop ask­ing for sec­onds and eat your din­ner. Have fun.