Yeah yeah, haven't written for ages, been busy, thinking about possible changes to this site . . . . . anyway, this post is to answer some general questions from the comments and other places.
I get several responses to the
Christianity Questionnaire each week - most of which never get added to this site as it seems that the vast majority of Christians have problems in giving straightforward answers to straightforward questions. I recently received three responses (possibly all from the same person?) which at some point all said a similar thing: "Why is the burden of proof with God, not that He can't handle it? Why don't you prove to us all that He does NOT exist, hm? Prove to me with your abundant wisdom there is no God."
It is rather absurd to expect me to ask a being I don't believe exists to prove his existence - I am asking the people who
do believe in him to prove his existence. The burden of proof is with them - they are making the claim that there is a God. Obviously no one would have claimed that God
doesn't exist before someone else had made the claim that he
does exist - in other words, I shouldn't have to
disprove something that
has never been proven.
But I'll have a go anyway.
The various different gods from specific religions are all based on ancient, self contradicting books of legends that are littered with absurdities and obvious errors - therefore these gods almost definitely do not exist.
The concept of a "universal creator" is logically impossible (see
here and
here).
As for any other definitions of the term God, well, I suppose I'd have to accept the possibility that there could be some kind of "higher being" overlooking the fate of the universe, but only in the same way that I'd have to accept that it's theoretically possible that Santa Claus is real - after all I can't disprove his existence ...
Various people I've spoken to recently (one actually an atheist!) keep insisting that atheism itself requires faith. Please try and imagine me smacking my head against a wall with each word as I recite once again that
ATHEISM! IS! NOT! A! BELIEF!a (without) - theism (belief in the existence of a god or gods) - atheism is the
lack of a belief. The fact that I do not believe in any gods does not mean that I "believe that they do not exist" - any more than the fact that I don't believe in Santa Claus means that I
believe that he doesn't exist (I just have no reason to believe he does exist).
To the person who asked "an [sic] you realy [sic] beleve [sic] that was all growed [sic] randomly?" - I would like to point out that evolution is not "random" - at least not in the sense that most people think (although this is a subject for another day).