What would it take to prove god exists?

Christians constantly tell us we must believe in god on faith. Those of us who do not believe in god are told that no amount of proof would be good enough for us even if god were to try to give us some. We would reject god even if he showed us his face and stood before us. We would still be able to say: That’s not god, it’s an alien.

Wow. We must be pretty dumb or god must be pretty weak. This doesn’t wash for the Christian version of god. It is omnipotent, so what’s the deal?

People tell stories about non-believers having free will so we choose not to see god and god won’t stand in our way. He doesn’t condescend to do miracles and besides, even if he did we wouldn’t recognize it as a miracle because we don’t want to.

Why would a god have to perform a miracle? Just showing up would be good enough. I can't buy the idea that a god would need any device to prove it exists. It sounds like an excuse for the fact that a god does not exist but people want to believe it does, not the other way around.

Were there a real god I am sure it would have no problem convincing anyone and everyone it exists if that is what it wanted to do. So there are very few possibilities.

1: A god exists but it is not all powerful and can't make us see it exists without question. Hence faith is required.

2: A god exists but it will not force us to believe in it so we have to come to it with our cap in hand and hope it is there. In fact unless we have unquestioning faith that it is there without any proof at all, it will wash its hands of us.

3: A god exists but does not want to show itself. We believe or we don’t. Kind of like number 2 but without the aspect of it not wanting to interfere with free will.

4: No god exists.

Number one is possible but no Christian likes that idea. Not many would anyway. There are so many varieties of Christians that you can probably get support for the idea from somewhere. Number 2 is interesting because it is the one most fundamentalists believe. You have a choice whether to believe in god or not. You will or you will not. Some even tell me god knows which you will decide before you do.

The problem with that idea is that unless you know something actually exists you really are not being given a choice. Are we given a choice as to whether a mountain exists or not? No. It exists or it does not. A thousand people can write about it but if it does not exist it would be absurd to believe it does.

The idea is farther made absurd by the insistence that if you are not a believer in god then you are on the devil’s side or the devil has fooled you. So non-belief is suddenly a rejection of god and an acceptance of the devil.

That idea is absolutely irrational. If I do not know a god exists then I cannot freely accept it or reject it. To make a choice you have to know there is a choice to be made. Forgive me for not taking the Christian’s word for it. It is Christianity I reject. At least I know it exists and what it stands for. I can make an informed decision about that.

But I cannot make an informed decision or choice when I don’t know that a god actually exists or what it actually stands for if it does. It’s like asking me to vote for an official without knowing the man or woman actually exists or what they stand for. If someone told me to vote for a candidate that never showed up, no one actually knew anything about except through a book a team of writers wrote though they had never seen the candidate either, what do you think my reaction would be? What would any sane person’s reaction be?

How can I accept or reject something that I do not know even exists? I can’t. It is as simple as that. I may be able to speculate and say: If it exists and stands for this or that I would choose it or I wouldn’t. But what is that worth? Nothing at all.

Yes, according to the bible we have to believe or we go to hell. Well, there is a lot of controversy among Christians as to whether or not that’s true. In fact you can’t get all Christians agreeing with any interpretation of the bible. There are as many views of what this god may be as there are people who believe it exists.

Each one of those views can be found in the bible. Pick your answer and there it is, verified for you. Of course most Christians will argue about that as well. They all have the right answer and there are millions of answers. Can they all be right? Of course not.

So even a god cannot be stupid enough to think that if we do not know it exists we are making a free will choice to reject it or accept it based on nothing.

To me it is like the story of the Emperor’s New Clothes. The cloth was so fine it appeared the Emperor was naked. But only the wise could see the clothes, so everyone said they saw it so they could appear wise to the wise. What a bunch of fools. What a bunch of swindlers the supposed clothiers were. What a bunch of swindlers those that tell us to believe without knowing the facts are.

Number 2 is an absurd choice of reasoning.

Number three is only slightly better. God simply does not want to show itself or give any evidence of itself but demands worship by faith or we will suffer the consequences. Nice guy. This is the tyrant egomaniac that demands faith and threatens torture and pain if we do not comply.

Or it just doesn’t care one way or the other.

There are those who say it doesn’t care about whether we believe in it or not as long as we live moral lives. That’s better. I can actually choose to live a moral life or not.

A god that demands worship on the threat of eternal torture is not in my estimation a god worthy of love or adoration any more than Adolf Hitler or any other tyrant dictator was. It astounds me that people, particularly in the USA who worship freedom so much choose to believe their god is a tyrant and thinks it’s just the greatest thing ever. It’s really astounding.

Then there is number 4. No god exists but people wish one did so they make one up or take on one that has already been manufactured for them no matter how flawed. Of course the flaws in their god are not seen as flaws. Like the popular corporate logic goes after a defect has been found: don’t tell them it’s a flaw, make it sound like a feature. It’s reprehensible.

The bottom line is that if a god were omnipotent then nothing would be impossible for it. It could very easily let us know about itself and prove to all of us it exists without compromising our freedom of choice. After all, just knowing for a fact that it does exist would actually give us freedom of choice, not hinder it. Does the fact that you know your father exists take away your freedom of choice as to whether you love him or not? Just the opposite. The fact that you know your father exists with certainty gives you the choice to love him or not. Not knowing your father or mother actually exist and who they are takes that away from you. The idea that god does not want robots so he does not force us to love him by the mere fact that we know he exists without question is ludicrous. It isn’t an argument. It’s a joke.

If a god can’t make us see it exists then it is not omnipotent. What more is to be said about it? That scenario and number 4, that it does not exist, are the only two scenarios that make any sense whatsoever $6. If god is actually nature, for instance, then it doesn’t care one way or the other. It doesn’t think. It is not omnipotent and it doesn’t matter. If it does not exist it would not be advantages to think it does, any more than it would be to believe in the invisible pink squirrels I am convinced live in my attic.

So the fact that we do not all know the Christian version of god exists indicates plainly that it does not. It really is as simple as that.