Throughout the world, billions of people share a singular belief: outside of the Universe, an entity by the label of “God” exists in a place where the laws of space-time laws have no effect. This being, which will be referred to by the name of God for the rest of this post (and for writing purposes, will be incorrectly referred to through the gender pronoun “he”), has an immense story of creation and destruction, and is thought to be central to explaining the origins of life on Earth. When discussing God with my parents, friends, colleagues, or classmates, their opinions seem roughly separated into two main camps: God exists, or God doesn’t exist. You may have noticed I opted to leave out the Agnostic camp, those that have no care in choosing between the former two options or are simply indecisive (because they cannot be wrong, you know who you are). Usually, when pressed on committing to one of two options, they will fall into one of the two categories mentioned earlier.
The topic of God is the discussion of many dates, dinners, and debates. If one point is made to solidify the existence of God, another point is made to refute it. If a miracle occurs that has no scientific explanation, God is praised. If a disaster occurs that could and should have been divinely intervened, God is blamed. The argument surrounding God has little to no foundation. God, along with the Simulation Theory, is the only topic of modern discussion that can be both unfalsifiable and falsifiable.
An unfalsifiable argument for God can start like this: Since you cannot prove God is not real, he could exist in a dimension or space incomprehensible to humankind. Thus, God is real. While this argument may succumb to the Causal Fallacy, God is an excellent explanation for various things. Specifically when humans didn’t know what was going on way back when.
Think about it like this: You are a human living five thousand years before today. You see a tornado forming (obviously, you have no clue what this is called or what will happen. All you see are clouds coming down in a swirly motion). You think to yourself, “The above place (the sky) is coming down to where I stand (the ground) in a terrifying and seemingly dangerous manner.” This event would confuse, frighten, and intimidate you to your very core. This has never happened before in your life, so why is it happening now? What does it mean, and how can it be stopped? If you survive to tell the story of the tornado, how do you explain to your tribe what just happened? You aren’t a scientist, and you didn’t stay long enough to figure out that winds form a tornado. In this case, when explaining to your tribe, a plausible answer could be God or the heavens. After all, the tornado was coming down from above, so it must be caused by something above. God created this swirly tower of wind because he was angry at us for something (namely, you could have taken someone else’s partner or stolen a piece of food). Otherwise, why would God put our lives in danger? This may be a flimsy argument on paper, so let’s look at some “miracles.”
During the same time five thousand years ago, you have witnessed many of your tribesmen suffer injury and death due to a poisonous plant. Whenever you encounter that plant, you immediately think “danger,” because of your tribe’s history with the plant. If, for some odd reason, you find yourself infected with the poison from the plant, you would think yourself a goner, and rightly so. Everyone who you have seen infected by this plant has died. But for some reason, you don’t die. Your tribe went through the same medical procedure and applied the same ointments and herbs that led to others’ deaths, but not yours.
Modern technology could blame this on genetics or some other physiological reason. But you don’t know what just happened, so you praise God. You don’t understand what just happened, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t provide thanks. You give an unknowable and invisible force praise for saving your life. This is akin to religious patients needing medical treatment, and thanking God before thanking the doctors (Thank God for saving my life, oh, and also you, doctor and all the nurses that took care of me for the past five years, you guys did great too!)
Similarly, an argument against God can be equally pointless, flimsy, and falsifiable. The COVID-19 pandemic is a great example. If God were real, why didn’t he stop the virus from spreading in Wuhan (or, if you believe the rumors and reports, leaking from the lab)? Is it because this virus was determined to happen? Was it because God doesn’t care about us? Why would God allow such a thing?
Moreover, why does God allow death and terrorism? Why does God allow rape, murder, kidnapping, molestation, and all forms of suffering? If God is the all-powerful, omniscient being he is said to be, why is he letting all of these acts occur? Thus, the argument begs that God is not real since God does not intervene.
These arguments can go on for ages. The point is not to question the existence of God. Rather, a new point can emerge. Asking, “What purpose does God serve on our planet?” could be a better solution than a primitive binary argument. As an infamous former UofT psychologist says, “if believing in God makes you a better human being, then believe.”
It obviously cannot hurt anyone if you believe in higher powers and are a better person to your family, your community, and the world at large. This makes sense. If the mere idea of God can result in better human actions and output, everyone should believe in God. But this is where things get interesting. God has baggage.
Religion is coupled to God in myriad ways. First of all, if you believe in God, you must believe in a religion that supports a particular God or variation(s) of God. While religion is trivial in relation to God, this is where beliefs, values, morals, and decisions start changing from person to person. This is why wars are fought, and terrorist attacks occur. It is not because of God that people are animalistic to each other; it is because of religion. The emphasis of the “I’m right, you’re wrong” can be expanded into “My religion is right, yours is wrong, so I’m going to slaughter your entire village for my God, to prove that your God is phony.” What kind of nonsensical ideology is this, and how did it sprout? Unstoppable, uninterrupted religious dogma. Incredibly, these values reign free and live deep inside a majority of the worlds’ political figures, influencers, celebrities, etc. Anyone with power. And scarily enough, they believe in God and religion in similar ways to these religious conquerors of the past. Of course, not all that believe in God behave in this manner. Most religious people are benevolent individuals. However, for those that aren’t, their evil is a result of their religion. Can religion be decoupled from God? Probably. Consciousness and intelligence were decoupled, so it is only a matter of time until religion falls through altogether. But, if not for religion and its values, why care about God? What good does God still serve in the 21st century?
A final point: God doesn’t care about you, me, or any of us. My reason for saying this is quite simple. Picture, outside of the massive infinity of the Universe (incomprehensible but bear with me), a being. Let’s call this being “God.” God can control, create, and destroy anything and everything. God can know the activities of everything in the Universe, from particle to plant to person to planet and beyond. Do you think God is worried about you or me? Do you think God cares about our prayers, acts of violence, or peace in his name? Do you think God worries about the people who believe, don’t believe or are on the fence about believing? It seems rather absurd to even bring God up in any argument when put in this context. God doesn’t care about us if he is real. If he is not, why are we still talking about God? (Although, to play devil’s advocate, why wouldn’t God care about every being in the universe? After all, he put them there.)
These challenging questions will remain challenging. People don’t like talking about points that will radically alter how they look at the world. People like being stuck in their ways, floating in their pool of beliefs that they don’t understand daily. Why? Is it God? Is it religion? Is it the Universe? No one knows. God will remain in the hot seat until science can explain everything in, around, and outside the Universe. And even then, someone will still bring up God, saying that if we believe hard enough and pray long enough, he’ll show up and deliver paradise in a bottle.