Harvey asks us:
This is easy for me to answer; I see too much Irony and Pathos in the world for it to be under the direction of the entity worshipped by the faithful. Their very faith is testimony to the unequivocal existence of such a being who's existence is thoroughly ambiguous when all attempts to reason his existence are carefully considered. Now I agree that this much might indeed lead us to agnosticism but then there is plenty to tip this extremely fine balance in my view.harvey1 wrote:What else is left once we've looked at every known possibility and we see this deep prejudice against a God solution? Folks, it's not as if everyone on earth is saying you must believe God exists. Rather, the issue is why be an atheist if you can be an agnostic?
Principally I understand evolution by natural selection to be the force for the apparent design of all known life. Within this mechanism there is no latitude for divine whim or fancy, the "products" will be restricted to what is practical in the widest possible context taking into account a near infinite number of contingent events spanning billions of years. While some might suggest that God enjoys a challenge, it strikes me as absurd to imagine that everything could be rigged so as to eventually result in a nice race of people who perfectly reflect God's image. The methods and imperatives for reaching this exalted state are just too bloody for the ends to be justified by the means in my opinion.
This is why I mention Irony and Pathos because the ungodly ordeals faced by all living things including man are often too awful to permit the kind of God commonly posited. After all, if I were looking for somewhere peaceful to go on holiday shouldn't I be safe going to the "Holy Lands"? If we look at the predictions of a universe under God's direction versus those of a universe which is self-extracting then I can see a clear indication that it is of the latter in nature.
= Atheism.
