Contrary to most Theists the best argument against the existence of God or gods is not the oh so famous problem of evil, made famous by Epicurus. Personally my favorite argument (and I think the best one Atheism has) is the problem of Divine Hiddenness or as it is also known, the problem of nonbelief. It can be considered a variant of the problem of evil but it has a different element to it. I wrote about it previously in This entry .
In today’s post I want to address some objections theists typically give when confronted with the problem.
Most frequently they say something along the lines of the following:
“God is under no obligation to reveal himself in the manner you demand!”
Now that is completely true but it is also totally besides the point. My point is not, that God is obligated to do something. According to the standard established by Christianity, Islam etc. it is clear, that God wants us to be saved from hell and he wants us to spend eternity with him in heaven. I don’t think there is any way, which is more effective than coming right out and revealing himself. And yet he doesn’t do that, which is why a majority of the people on Earth will not be saved, no matter what religion is true. A God who wants us to be saved, yet doesn’t bother to make his existence be known, acts contradictory to his desired outcome. This needs to be resolved.
“God stays purposefully hidden because revealing himself in this manner would result in us worshipping out of fear. He wants a genuine relationship with us, he doesn’t want us to worship him out of self preservation. He wants us to seek him out of genuine love and wants a relationship based on love.”
That answer would make sense if God didn’t create heaven and hell. If God did want that, he would either A) not have created those places to begin with or B) not have revealed the existence of these places to us. If he wants us to have a genuine relationship with him, why introduce this concept? He must’ve realized, that we as humans would be afraid of this idea and that at least some worship him out of fear because of it. Even if you as Christian or Muslim don’t believe in hell, then there’s still heaven, that acts as a reward for a relationship with God.
” God knows exactly, that all nonbelievers will reject him so he doesn’t bother.”
Really? WTF? Now, for me as an Antitheist it may be true, that I probably wouldn’t worship him. I am not fond of the God of the Bible, because of the things he did to the Firstborns of Egypt or to Job. The same goes for the other gods I’m aware of as well. The Earth however, is not just populated by Atheists and Christians or Atheists and Muslims, there are many people of faith in Hinduism, in Mor(m)onism, in Judaism etc.. To think, that none of these devout believers would accept and worship your God, if he showed himself to all of us is ridiculous.
These are all the objections I’ve encountered so far. In my mind none of them hold up, which is why this argument is, in my opinion, the strongest Atheism has in his favor.
Goodbye from yours truly,
Rene von Boenninghausen @Renevelation
Tarsier Renevelations 