Understanding the Evidence


There is a mountain of obvious, empirical evidence showing all of us that God is imaginary. Let's step back and look at this evidence for a moment.

First of all, we have this concrete fact: there is no scientific evidence indicating that God exists. We all know that. For example, God has never left behind any physical evidence that shows that he is real. None of Jesus' miracles left behind any physical evidence either. God has never taken over all the TV and radio stations and broadcast a message to mankind. There is the Bible, but as we will see in Section 2 the Bible has problems of its own. And so on. So let's agree that there is no empirical evidence showing that God exists:

  • If we had scientific proof of God's existence, we would talk about the "science of God" rather than "faith in God".
  • If we had scientific proof of God's existence, the study of God would be a scientific endeavor rather than a theological one.
  • If we had scientific proof of God's existence, all religious people would be aligning on the God that had been scientifically proven to exist.
  • Etc.

Second, we have the fact that there is no statistical evidence that God exists. For example, no non-fradulent scientific study has found any evidence that prayer works. For example, if we have a prayer group pray for certain people in a hospital but not for others, the people who were prayed for don't get better any faster or live any longer. The prayers have zero statistical effect. We discuss this fact in much more detail in Chapters 6 and 7.

Simply think about the world around you. First, if there were conclusive statistical evidence that God answers prayers, that would provide scientific evidence that God exists. However, we know that there is no scientific evidence of God's existence for the reasons cited above. Second, we can see that there are not two laws of probability -- one for Chistians who pray and one for everyone else. There is a single law of probability that applies equally to everyone. Prayers have zero effect in any statistical study.

Key Point

There are not two laws of probability -- one for people who pray and one for everyone else. There is a single law of probability that applies equally to everyone. Prayers have zero effect in any statistical study.
Third, we have quite a bit of daily evidence that also suggests that God is imaginary. For example, there is the paradox of Neva Rogers from Chapter 1. In this case Neva prays openly to God and then gets shot in the head four times. There is the paradox of Steve Homel's house, where Steve prays and his house is saved. Unfortunately, the 39 other houses on his street are cursed and burn to the ground (see Chapter 2). That 97.5% failure rate for prayer makes it feel like the survival of Steve's house is pure coincidence rather than a miracle. We see paradoxes like that constantly, and they all point to the fact that God is imaginary.

Fourth, we have the fact that all of the gods of the past truly were imaginary. We all know with certainty that the Egyptian gods, the Roman gods and the Aztec gods were completely fictitious. Otherwise we would not have started to worship Jesus. We would be worshiping Ra or Zeus rather than Jesus if Ra or Zeus were real.

Fifth, we have the fact that the Bible is completely nonsensical. This fact is obvious to anyone who takes the time to actually read the Bible. See Section 2 for details.

Sixth, we have the powerful contradictions that the definition of God automatically create. According to Christians, God is perfect, God is all-powerful and God answers prayers. Yet there are millions of children starving to death on our planet every year. See Chapter 8 for details. Why would a perfect God answer the prayers of a Christian to find her lost dog, while at the same time allowing millions of children to starve? The thousands of obvious contradictions like this one in our world show us that God is imaginary.

Now we can start adding pieces of new evidence showing us that God does not exist. For example, we have the case of amputees as described in chapter 5. If God is real, it is apparent that there is something very odd about amputees. God is supposedly answering millions of prayers on earth every day, but he completely ignores amputated limbs and refuses to restore them. That makes no sense according to the Standard Model of God and Jesus' statements in the Bible. God's treatment of amputees is inexplicable if God exists, but makes a lot of sense if God is imaginary.

We have all of this evidence to show that God is imaginary. If we were in a court of law looking at this question, the judge would quickly rule that God is imaginary. There is no concrete evidence that God is real and lots of evidence that he is imaginary.

With all of this evidence showing us that God is imaginary, it makes you wonder... why might Christians insist that God is real? See Understanding Christian Motivations for answers to this question.


by Marshall Brain


New York Times Coverage
WWGHA was
discussed in a
New York Times piece
by N. D. Kristof.
For a counter-point to Mr. Kristof, please see
Chapter 26.

Recommendation by Sam Harris
Sam Harris recommends WWGHA in his book Letter to a Christian Nation.

Endorsement by Richard Dawkins
In a New York Times Letter, Richard Dawkins calls WWGHA a "splendid Web site."


Table of contents

Executive Summary

Introduction

Section 1 - prayer Section 2 - The Bible Section 3 - Jesus What it means


Highlights


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