Discussions about why the lack of evidence alone is already a valid reason to reject the idea of the existence of a deity
The existence of God is undeniably one of the most perplexing and mind-numbing problems among philosophers, and the issue seems to never get old. We even have a whole elaborate apologetic tradition from the side of the theists just to defend the proposition that God, particularly their god, exists. But what does it mean for an atheist to say that a being like God does not exist? Is that a proposition or a rejection of a proposition? Well, if you ask many of the apologists out there, they would likely choose the former, and they often say that the only way to prove that God does not exist is to dig up every single corner of the objective external reality itself only to turn up that God is not there. Except that no one can do that, it's philosophically impossible thing to do. I can prove to you that my cup has no coffee on it by showing to you my empty cup, but when it comes to unfalsifiable claims like God, it is impossible to prove a negative synthetic claim. Remember that we cannot just pop open a can of physical reality and see if God is there, that's just not in the cards. But if it's true, how can we say that anything at all is not real? How can we know that beings like the Bigfoot, Invisible Pink Unicorn, Zeus, Thor, Yahweh, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster do not exist in objective external reality?
The Parable of the DeLorean
Consider a thought experiment from YouTuber AntiCitizenX which he called as The Parable of the DeLorean, which is an obvious reference to the movie Back to the Future Part 2. Suppose that you are shopping for a new car, then one of the dealers is the mad scientist Dr. Emmett Brown and he persuades you to buy his DeLorean car. He shows you the features of the car and it looks amazing to you. But here's the catch: he claims that his DeLorean can actually fly, its fuel comes from garbage, and it can travel through time if it reaches the 88 miles per hour speed limit. Because it's the most awesome thing that you've ever seen, you therefore take his word and buy the car, right? Of course not, you declared that Doc Brown's claim is extraordinary, so you demand an evidence from him to make sure that your money is worth it. Since as far as you know, nothing like this exists in your experience. It's a perfectly reasonable request, but Doc Brown seem to be insulted. He said that he just "know in his heart" that his car can fly and travel through time, and he even brings out his staff to testify for his claims. Now, are you persuaded?
Let's change the scenario a bit and took things a little further: what if the DeLorean can only fly and travel through time if you believe it to be true hard enough, and if it doesn't fly, then you must not believing hard enough and need to keep the faith strong until it actually flies? Is that a good enough reason for you to accept Doc Brown's claims?
How about this: suppose that if you don't buy the car, Doc Brown threatens to sue you in the court, or to put you in jail or to torture you mercilessly? Is that enough for you to be convinced?
Or how about if Doc Brown said that you would only be able to fly and time travel with the DeLorean, only after you die, so for the mean time, you are required to start giving every 10% of your income as down payment, and there would be meetings every Sunday at the dealership where you and other buyers will gather and study the owner's manual for the car. Is that enough justification for you?
Or what about this: what if he grabs a piece of paper and he lectures you about the fundamental principles of cold fusion and the temporal physics behind how his car works? His mathematical proofs are simple and his logical reasoning seems reasonable enough, so is that already convincing for you?
And finally, how about just demonstrate to you if the goddamn car actually flies and travels through time? You saw with your own eyes that he filled his car with nothing but garbage as fuel, you sit beside him inside the car, and you actually experienced flight and you even traveled back to the Ancient Rome to take pictures of Julius Caesar with his legions crossing the Rubicon. So now, are you convinced enough?
Why extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence?
Compare that now to the claims of religious apologists. Let's have a hypothetical situation where you grow up utilizing logic and reason throughout your whole life and never heard of any religious and supernatural claims ever, so you are an atheist your whole life. One day while you are at home, minding your own business, three evangelizing Christians named Peter, Paul, and John knocked on your door and tries to convert you to their religion. Being a good and polite neighbor that treats everyone with respect, you then just invited the three evangelizers to your house and give them something to drink. Then they said that there is an all-powerful, all-knowing entity called God that created the universe out of nothing. You are surprised and said that their claim is outlandish, but you listen to them anyway. They also claimed many oddly specific properties and traits of this entity; that not only that this entity created the universe, he also created the universe with you in mind, and he loves you, and wants to have a personal relationship with you. They also claimed that this deity is a HE, not a SHE, and definitely not a THEY. Not only that, they also said that this entity created a book that was written by ancient ignorant desert dwellers that became prophets after they had a divine revelation from this entity and this book has all the answers to everything; they also claimed that they know what this entity wants to all of us, what this entity prohibits, and they also claim to know where all of us will go after we die. They also claimed that you are born with a curse from our ancient ancestors that needs to be cured so this entity sends his own begotten son through virgin birth and saved you via vicarious redemption through human sacrifice just to cleanse your curse, but only if you accept to your heart that the entity's son is your savior.
With all of that extraordinary claims, you already have a hard time believing all of it, so you asked them if they have any evidence to all of these. John said, "No, you don't need all of that, all you have to be is to have faith that God is real, and that his son died for your sins. Just believe and he will eventually reveal himself to you." Paul then lectured you about the various arguments that he claimed proves that this entity really exists in objective reality, and you noticed that every single arguments that Paul said was mostly fallacious and untrue, so you rebut all of it. The three seemed to be offended to you, and being a nice person, you said that you're sorry if you offended them, but you are still not convinced. So, you ask them what if you reject their offer. Peter said another extraordinary claim to you, "If you believe us, you will go to a very beautiful and blissful place called heaven where you will meet all of your deceased loved ones, will experience no suffering whatsoever, and, will worship and glorify God for all eternity. However, if you don't believe us, you will go to a place after you die called hell where you will be tortured, burned, and punished for eternity together with other wicked people, so you better believe us, if you don't want that. But don't worry, we are not forcing you to believe us, God gave all of us free will to have a choice whether you choose to believe in him or not, so it's entirely up to you if you choose to go to heaven or hell." Given all of their claims, is their any high chance for you to accept all of it? I will not blame you if you don't. Your very soul is what at stake here, so do you believe their claim or do you reject them? This is the reason why we say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
Introducing the null hypothesis
The following thought experiments shows the importance of the principle called as the null hypothesis (1). All that it says is that always assume that a claim is not true, or there is no causal relationship between variables, or a thing does not exist, until a positive evidence is presented. This is usually applied in inferential statistics, but also applicable as a scientific and philosophical principle as well. It is one thing to make a synthetic claim, and entirely different thing to physically demonstrate it. Keep in mind that synthetic propositions (propositions that describe the external reality outside our senses) should have the capacity to predict events with a measurable consequence in our sensory perception. So if someone tries to persuade you to believe his synthetic claim, like a time machine car, then you should be able to ride his car and sooner or later, actually travel through time; and if you can't, then his claim is justifiably false. You can define that a being like God is an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good entity but the only thing that you've done is to assert an analytic proposition (propositions that are true by mere definitions). However, the moment you assert that this very same being exists in actual objective reality, you are now making a synthetic one.
Now see how there's a very big epistemic difference between a positive claim and the negative (or null) claim. Because the claim that a car can travel through time has a series of empirical predictions about our actions and their ultimate consequences in our sensory perception, while the claim that a car cannot travel through time has no empirical predictions at all, except for the constant absence of any specific manifestations. A positive claim has something to offer while a negative claim has nothing. Therefore the physical expectations of the null hypothesis are instantly fulfilled automatically, by default, and in order to disprove the null position, a positive evidence must be shown. It is the reason why the burden of proof always lies on someone making the positive claim, not on the one who rejects the claim.
Concerning about the nature of the burden of proof
For starters, the burden of proof simply means the obligation of someone who makes an assumption to provide an evidence to support it. It is really that simple, but apologists seem to not get the point. To see why theists have the burden of proof, consider the Celestial Teapot Analogy from the British philosopher Bertrand Russell in his essay Is There a God?:
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of the sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between Earth and Mars, there is a China teapot revolving around the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." - Bertrand Russell (Is There a God?)
Russell's point in his analogy is that the burden of proof rests with the believers, and not in the non-believers, especially if it's an unfalsifiable claim that cannot be disproven in any sense. Atheists have therefore no obligation to disprove the existence of God, because it is not even proven in the first place. Unless the burden of proof on the apologists fulfilled, the null hypothesis automatically applies. The mere inability of someone to disprove your claim, doesn't, at all, make your claim to be proven. That is to say, just because atheists cannot disprove your claim that your deity exists, doesn't mean that you claim that your deity exists is now validated. It doesn't necessarily mean that there really is no God in objective external reality, but what I mean is that non-believers are perfectly justified to say that they will not believe on its existence, until a positive evidence has been presented.
It is crucial to realize that this is not just some subtle philosophical idea, but a very useful, real, practical principle that rules all of our daily lives. The null hypothesis is the reason why suspects in every criminal court of law are always legally innocent until proven guilty. It is the reason why China still doesn't attack the Philippines by a preemptive airstrike because of our secret nuclear weapons. It is the reason why nobody has ever attempted to worship the giant space apes in the planet Jupiter. Because the absence of evidence THAT SHOULD BE THERE is the evidence of absence. Anything that is claimed without any justification or evidence may be immediately rejected without the need of an argument. It is also similar to what is unofficially called as the Hitchens' Razor which goes like this:
"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens
The razor is also similar to the Latin proverb "Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur" (What is asserted gratuitously may be denied gratuitously).
Why apologists are wrong about the nature of burden of proof?
Keep in mind that there are infinite number of ways that the universe might be, but there's only one way that the universe actually is. That's why pure human says-so that is blathered out on the ether is far more likely to be wrong about the actual state of affairs that it is to be right, and is not necessarily enough justification for certain propositions. But despite of its universal simplicity, many apologists would still fight this idea and simply try to shift the burden of proof to atheists to disprove the existence of their god anyway, like the one of their favorites "You can't prove God does NOT exists!" As if this automatically means that he does exists? They may also say something like "there are no arguments that atheism is true," or they demand "evidence and proof that atheism is correct," or they assume that atheism is something that should be proven, even though it's not.
"If atheism is true, then life is really objectively valueless, and purposeless, despite our subjective beliefs to the contrary." - William Lane Craig (On Guard)
"To sustain the belief that there is no God, atheism has to demonstrate infinite knowledge. Because their declaration is tantamount to saying, I have infinite knowledge that there is no being in existence with infinite knowledge." - Ravi Zacharias
"Atheists can't make a positive case for their materialistic worldview without stealing immaterial realities from the theistic God in the process." - Frank Turek (Stealing From God)
On the other hand, there are some apologists that will even go so far as to redefine knowledge itself just to rationalize their belief in God without the need of any justification at all whatsoever. One example is a branch of Christian apologetics called as the reformed epistemology, which was popularized by Alvin Plantinga which means that religious and God beliefs can be rational even if without evidence or argument at all (2).
"It is entirely right, rational, reasonable, and proper to believe in God without any evidence or argument at all." - Alvin Plantinga (Faith and Rationality: Reason and Belief in God)
Another one is a school of apologetics called as presuppositionalism that was promoted by apologists like Cornelius Van Til, Gordon Clark, Sye Ten Bruggencate, and Eric Hovind. Basically, it states that the belief in God and Christian faith is the only basis of reason, and they claim that the Christian god is the source of all knowledge, logic, evidence, science, inductions, and consciousness itself; and presupposes that the Bible is the only true divine revelation and others are false (3). They would even go so far as to say that everybody already knows in their hearts that God exists, and asking for evidence is redundant. This is kind of similar to French Protestant theologian John Calvin's idea of sensus divinitatis (the idea that God already give humans the knowledge about his existence, and to not believe in him is to deny his existence in their hearts because of sin) (4).
"The only proof for the existence of God is that without God, you couldn't prove anything." - Cornelius Van Til
Remember that the god that they're talking about is not just a deistic god but specifically, the Judeo-Christian God of the Bible. It's an obvious admission that their belief has no demonstrable impact on external reality, therefore they have to invent a whole new set of epistemic rules in order for them to have a reason to keep believing.
Why unfalsifiable claims are meaningless and useless?
Speaking of rationalizing God for them to keep believing anyway, apologists have historically done excuses on why God cannot be empirically demonstrated or cannot be falsified by any counter evidence, whether one must only take it on faith, or science is doing it wrong, or simply, God is outside of space and time, etc. To see the problem there, let's have another thought experiment known as the Parable of Invisible Gardener, which originally told by John Wisdom and later refined by Antony Flew, and it goes like this: Suppose that there are two explorers walking inside a jungle, and they saw a bunch of plots with growing flowers on them. The one explorer said, "This garden is so beautiful, there must be a gardener that designed these plots." The other explorer disagreed and said, "There is no gardener." They built a tent, sat down, and watch until a gardener comes in, but no gardener is ever seen. The believer said, "Perhaps it's an invisible gardener," so they built an electric fence, and put K9 patrol dogs to guard the fence. Yet no shock from the electric fence has observed and no barks came out from the patrol dogs. But the believer still not convinced and he said, "But there is a gardener, an invisible, intangible, and insensible to electric shock; a gardener who has no scent and makes no sound; a gardener who comes secretly to look after the garden that he loves." The skeptic asked with despair, "How does an invisible, intangible, eternally elusive gardener, differ from an imaginary gardener or even from no gardener at all?"
In the book The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan, he told another version of this parable which he called as The Dragon in My Garage, which goes like this:
"'A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage.' Suppose I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity! 'Show me,' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, and old tricycle - but no dragon. 'Where's the dragon?' you ask. 'Oh, she's right there,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.' You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragon's footprints. 'Good idea,' I say, 'but the dragon floats in the air.' Then you'll use an infrared sensor to detect the invisible fire. 'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.' You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. 'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick.' And so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work. Now what's the difference between an invisible, incorporeal, floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions immune to disproof are verdically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the absence of evidence, on my say-so." - Carl Sagan (The Demon-Haunted World)
Notice that Sagan's Dragon in My Garage, Wisdom's Invisible Gardener, and Russell's Celestial Teapot have one in common: they are all immune to physical experiment. There's literally no way for them to be demonstrated by physical evidence. Let me ask you this, believers: how does an immaterial god outside of space and time differ from an imaginary god or no god at all? No matter how consoling, helpful, or meaningful you think your god is to your life, if there is no way for it to be demonstrated with physical evidence and to produce predictable outcomes, then your claim is simply worthless. I literally don't care anymore. I could say the same thing about the existence of the Invisible Pink Unicorn and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and nothing would change in my life as a result.
The problem with contradictions
But hey, perhaps, I'm just talking so soon here. Maybe there really is a cosmic creator out there waiting to be discovered, and we are yet to figure out in the future. In that case, we all must be an agnostic about the existence of some higher power and wait until the evidence show us the answer. But the funny thing is that it's the religious believers themselves who are trying to square the circle and pushing their god into the realm of nonexistence. Because it is one thing to assert that a cosmic higher power who created the universe might be real, and entirely another thing to assert an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, omnipresent, uncaused, immaterial, and personal deity that necessarily exists outside of space and time, a thing that absolutely cannot be real. How could we even find a positive evidence for God if God himself is defined incoherently?
Whenever we are making propositions, whether it's analytic or synthetic, coherence is important to formulate them in a rigorous and meaningful way. Like for example, what does it mean to say "colorless pink sleeps violently"? The individual words themselves have a meaning unto themselves, but when they're combined, the sentence became just a meaningless gibberish that describes nothing. Another thing to keep in mind is that contradictory ideas and things don't exist in reality, because they are incoherent. Any synthetic proposition that generates contradictions absolutely cannot be real in objective sense. Like for example, a married bachelor or a square circle. We define bachelor as "unmarried man," we define square as a "plane figure with 4 sides," and circle as "plane figure with no sides." So to assert that a married bachelor or a square circle exists is to assert that an unmarried man that is married exists or a plane figure that has both 4 sides and no sides exists. They produce contradictions. The reason why contradictory things don't exist in external reality is just because they are simply words that put together wrongly and don't describe anything.
The incoherence and impossibility of an omni-God's existence in objective reality
With that in mind, the thing that we're talking about here is the Abrahamic God of the Bible, the omni-God that Jews, Christians, and Muslims worship. Apologists and religious laypeople assign attributes to their omni-God that are self-contradictory and mutually incompatible. Heck, we cannot even verify his existence with a positive evidence in the first place, so how the hell can we know its attributes? Remember that our sensory perception is finite, so how can we detect with our limited senses that a being exists in objective external reality with unlimited qualities? Going back to the divine attributes, take the example of omnipotence (the ability to do everything). Well, if God can do anything, what happens when I subject him to the Paradox of the Stone? Can God create a finite pile of rocks so heavy that even God himself cannot lift it? If yes, then that means he cannot lift such pile of rocks, which means he's not omnipotent. If no, then that means he cannot create such pile of rocks, which means he's not omnipotent. If I can personally perform this task myself, then it logically follows that an all-powerful being can do it too, but for strange reason, no, it creates a paradox. Or how about this, can God created another omnipotent being and beat him in an arm wrestle challenge? Or can God stand in a podium and truthfully shout "I am not omnipotent!"? No matter what answers you can give, there will always be something that an all-powerful being cannot do (For further discussion about omni-attributes, read Expanding the Problems of an Omni-God). Omnipotence already seems to be problematic unto itself, but what if we combined it with another omni-quality like omniscience (the ability to know everything that is to know)? If God is omniscient, then it necessarily follows that he knows what will happen in the future. If he knows what will happen in the future, then he must already know how he is going to intervene to change the course of history using his omnipotence. If he already knows how he is going to intervene to change the course of history, then he cannot change his mind. If he cannot change his mind, then he cannot do everything, which means he's not omnipotent. If he can change his mind, then it means that he cannot know his future actions in the first place, which means he's not omniscient. Bam, contradiction!
Now, let's take it even further and consider the quality of omnibenevolence, which means the infinite capacity for perfect goodness, mercy, love, compassion, justice, etc. Beings that are benevolent therefore act in such a way as to reduce suffering in the our world. Let's now combine omnipotence and omnibenevolence, what will happen if we expose them through the Epicurean Paradox? That's right. contradiction.
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not all-powerful. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?" - Epicurus
The existence of an omnibenevolent being is so too good to be true, but the problem is our world is obviously full of pointless, unnecessary suffering. Things like mass genocide, cancer, birth defects, AIDS, starvation, polio, smallpox, and mental retardation are just a tiny fraction of the dreadful agonies that humans are trying to eliminate by spending a lot of resources. If an omnipotent god is real, then he is just there watching humanity experiencing needless suffering. Therefore, no being can be omnipotent and omnibenevolent at the same time. You might hear some ad hoc excuses from the subscribers of the Abrahamic faith whenever they encounter this problem like "God works in mysterious ways," or "You should not question God," or "God's divine plan sometimes requires suffering but in the end, it's for the greater good." Well, how do you know that's true? Did you observed it? And what's the greater good behind Holocaust and African children starving to death? This illustrates a well-known theological problem which is the Problem of Evil and it's actually one of the long-lasting argument against the existence of an omni-God.
Let's now consider the qualities of omnipresence (the state of being everywhere at the same time) and spacelessness/timelessness (the state of being outside of space and time). These characteristics cannot also be true at the same time. In order for a being to be omnipresent, it must be simultaneously everywhere every time and that includes within space and time, and yet God somehow transcends space and time? What does it even mean to say that something exists beyond space and time? Words like "beyond" and "outside" are spatial orientations, and to say that something exists "beyond" space itself is to say that it occupies a non-spatial space. That doesn't make any sense at all. And to be a spaceless being also means that it is immaterial, which means it has no physical substance. If this being is also omniscient (knows everything), how can it have a capacity to hold an infinite gigabyte memory to know everything if there's no material processor (i.e. brain) to contain it? And to say that a being is timeless (outside of time) also implies that it is changeless. In order for a being to cause an event, there must be a time for it to happen. But theists assert that a being outside of time (aka God) created the universe out of nothing (i.e. before the existence of time). How can a timeless being cause a universe to exist if there is literally no "time" to speak of, to make it happen? How can a being that is outside of time make a decision if every decision requires at least two distinct temporal states, i.e. a change must occur? A being that is in a state outside of time literally cannot do anything. But hey, remember that this is same being is also omnipotent (i.e. can do anything and everything). Timeless + omnipotent = contradiction! Going back to omnipresence, a being that is omnipresent and spaceless (i.e. without substance) and timeless (i.e. cannot act) is to say that this being exists everywhere every time, and at the same time, exists in no space and no time. Bear in mind that believers also say that this supposed deity that is beyond of any scientific discovery (because it's outside of space and time, aka external reality) also wants to have an interaction and personal relationship with its creations. This is madness! If God does not have any location and/or extension in space and time, then what does it even mean to say that God exists in objective external reality? To say that something exists in objective external reality is to say that it has some location in space and time. A being that exists outside of space and time is therefore indistinguishable from a being that exists nowhere and never. If God is outside of external reality itself, then by definition, this God is not real.
Introducing theological noncognitivism
This is the reason why we say that a being like God is a supernatural entity, because the supernatural is, by definition, cannot be proven. It cannot be falsified by any contrary evidence, it cannot be tested by any physical experiment, and it cannot be distinguished from something that doesn't exist. If something can be proven, verified, and falsified, it's not supernatural anymore. The supernatural is not bound by anything in reality because by definition, it is outside of reality itself. That's why there's a difference between something that is actually true and something that someone just desperately wants to be true. So with all of these incoherent and paradoxical attributes, we have this idea of theological noncognitivism or one can call it as igtheism or ignosticism (5). That is to say, the idea of God and other religious language are cognitively meaningless because the word "God" is ill-defined. How can I even call someone "God" if the properties of this entity is at best, ambiguous, and at worst, self-contradictory? Igtheism does not necessarily say that God, in general deistic sense, does not exists, it only applies to deities with incoherent and contradictory definitions and properties, in this case, Yahweh, the omni-God of the Bible. However, since incoherent and contradictory things cannot exists in objective external reality, we can be certain to say that the omni-God does not exist. But hey, let's just pretend for a moment that these contradictions do not exist and assume that God is real anyway, and by God, I mean the God of the Bible. How can we verify the existence of this being? Where are those empirical evidences? What are his real properties and how can we know it when we see it?
Let's go back on talking about the scientific method
Keep in mind that our only connection to the real world is through our sensory perception, and our sensory perceptions are fundamentally disconnected from knowing the absolute true state of the universe. Since deduction requires certainty in its premises to achieve a certain conclusion, we cannot therefore "deduce" reality in the strictest sense. The best that we can do is to make inferences through logical induction, or inductive reasoning, which is the process of formulating generalizations about sets through a limited sampling of subsets (6). Or in other words, making general conclusions out of specific examples.
Unlike deduction, induction requires empirical evidence. If the incomplete samplings of a specific subset indeed represent the behavior of the whole set, then induction will lead to a correct belief in form of predictable consequences. For example, I observe nature, then I saw a raven, I always observe that they are all black, and then I included all the ravens in the whole set called "Things that are black." Therefore, I form a generalization "All ravens are black." If my conclusion is true, then I must consistently observe only black ravens.
However, if my specific subset (set of ravens) does not represent the whole set (set of all things black), then induction will lead to a belief that fails to actualize desired outcomes. That is to say, if I ever see a raven that is not black, say, a white raven, then my conclusion "All ravens are black" is false, and I need to correct it.
To put it in another way, when inductive method works, it works, and when it does not work, it eventually lets you know, sooner or later. That's why logical induction (and by extension, the scientific method) is, by its own nature, self-correcting. If you want to do science, then you should always follow the evidence wherever it leads. In order for us to change our wrong conclusions in the face of new and better information, all we need is to have intellectual honesty (seeking the truth regardless of whether or not it agrees with someone's own personal beliefs) and admit that we are wrong. That's exactly the reason why the principles of fallibility and falsifiability are a very crucial part of the scientific method (See the article The Wonders of Pragmatic Empirical Rationalism). It's alright to do mistakes, we do it all the time, and we always learn from committing it. Science is always wrong. But the great thing about science is it admits that it's wrong and change them with better information. We are using the principle of falsifiability to beliefs and theories to find out which among them would fail to reliably predict the outcomes of our actions and decisions. Both true and false beliefs can have the potential to inform decisions and actions toward desirable consequences, but only false beliefs have the potential to lead actions to undesirable outcomes. Intellectually honest people accept these principles, which is why they have no problem and more than happy to change their minds and alter their beliefs whenever they encounter facts and evidence to the contrary. But intellectual honesty seems to be not a thing for religious apologists because when it comes to their religious beliefs, they are in a position of absolute certainty. That is to say, they claim that they can never be wrong, nothing will ever change their minds, or just take it on faith no matter what. It is therefore no surprise why so many of them constantly bash science, because science has so many rules and principles that they cannot allow to apply in their theology.
"God exists in reality" is a synthetic proposition
Bear in mind that whenever someone says a proposition like "God exists" or specifically "My very specific god from my very specific religion exists," we are making synthetic propositions. These propositions describe something in the external reality, and the only way to measure the truthiness of a synthetic proposition is by making empirical observations and predictions for a certain sense-experience that we perceive in the external world. With that in mind, let's be generous and accept the proposition "God exists" without contention. Now what? Where's the empirical manifestation that ultimately proves the existence of this being? Suppose that this God also wants us to know about his existence, wants to build a personal relationship with him, and will mercilessly send you to a place where he will burn and torture you forever and ever if you don't believe in his existence, like the God of the Bible. What could he do to effectively demonstrate his existence? Well, this would be trivially easy for his part, since he is all-powerful (let's assume for a moment that omnipotence has no internal and external paradoxes). We could even make a list of empirical predictions that we would expect to manifest and would be achieved if ever this Biblical God actually exists in the actual external reality, like:
Quantitative analysis of the sudden drastic decrease of all needless suffering in the world (like dramatic decline of number of cancer patients, etc.)
Revelation of profound insights in the Bible while examining it, that is beyond the capacity of human authors
The exercise of prayer that will demonstrably result to beneficial events that cannot in any way explained by available natural explanations and random chance (through double-blind, controlled intercessory prayer experiments)
Experimental testing of surface soil in the Earth that reveals the indications of a world-wide flood that happened thousands of years ago
Genetic testing of all human beings that will indicate that we all came from the first two humans
And many many more. Or most simply: he could simply just physically appear to everyone of us and disprove all of the atheists, and demonstrate his existence with ease, so evident that it is impossible to deny by literally everyone and cannot be explained with any natural explanations. But where are they? Where are these supposed empirical evidences? Nothing!
"A reasonably competent god, could have made absolutely clear-cut evidence of its existence." - Christopher Hitchens
You can't test God?
A Christian might say that "Hey, you can't test God!" If you look at the Bible, that true in some extent (Deuteronomy 6:16, Matthew 4:7, and Luke 4:12). But there are also verses that indicate that God (Yahweh) can be tested (it's as if the Bible contradicts itself, which is true). There is a story in the Bible in 1 Kings 18:16-39, where the prophet Elijah and 450 prophets of Baal had a contest by proving which of their gods (Ba'al and Yahweh) are the real one that actually exists. They all go at the top of Mount Carmel and chopped two castrated bulls (one for each other) into pieces, lay it on woods, and asked their respective deities to strike their offering with lightning for it to burn. The prophets of Ba'al failed while Elijah successfully made Yahweh to appear and he struck lightning to his offering, proving him to be the one true God. There are other better and more reliable ways for this god to prove himself, but let's assume for a moment that this event actually happened in history (even though it likely didn't actually happen). If the God of the Bible did it to Elijah (if it really happened), then why can't he do it also for us to disprove the people that don't believe in him? Heck, even Jesus also did it to the Christian-hating Saul of Tarsus, and later became Paul, on his way to Damascus (a story according to Acts 9) that made him believe in the divinity of Jesus. Such a thing would not be a hard task to do for him, right? This god has no right to complain about people who disbelieve in his existence and burn them in hell, if he cannot provide any clear-cut evidence of empirical manifestation whatsoever.
"If God exists, why do we need books to explain it? Or preachers? The fact that he can't do it himself is good evidence [that] he does not exist." - Dan Barker
But let's face it, rather than empirical evidences, what do we actually have? A compilation of stories written by multiple authors from different places and times, and written decades and even centuries after the fact, that is riddled with known corruptions and obvious inconsistencies; dogmatic assertions and extraordinary claims from hack philosophers, theologians, and apologists, together with mental gymnastics and blatant sophistry and with the total refusal of admitting any single error from their beliefs; and a bunch of belief systems, denominations, sects, cults, and religions with mutually incompatible beliefs, that all claims to be the absolute truth, and yet continuously separate further as time goes by. This is exactly what we would expect from something that is entirely man-made and a purely human cultural phenomenon. Religion is nothing but a bunch of fallacious and false superstitions invented by ancient ignorant people to explain the unknown, to cope with the fear of death and uncertainty, and to control the gullible. Despite of us having a very limited sensory perception and our impossibility to know the absolute state of external reality with absolute perfect certainty, the dogmatists still have the audacity to claim that they know that an all-powerful supernatural personal cosmic creator of the universe from their specific religion, exists, and they claim to know it with absolute certainty.
"Religion is man-made. Even the men who made it cannot agree on what their prophets and redeemers or gurus actually said or did. Still less can they hope to tell us the 'meaning' of later discoveries and developments which were, when they began, either obstructed by their religions or denounced by them. And yet - the believers still claim to know!" - Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything)
We are all atheists about other gods, but some of us just go one god further
Speaking of world religions, if it turns out that one of the gods from a very specific religion is actually the real one, then it necessarily follows that the rest of thousand other gods are absolutely false (or it could have been polytheism, but let's just assume for a moment that monotheism is true). So to assert a specific god is already an implicit rejection of others. What the Christians don;t realize is that they are just as atheists as me when it comes to other gods. They don't believe in Vishnu, Allah, Quetzalcoatl, Amun-Ra, Poseidon, Odin, Marduk, Amaterasu Omikami, Ahura Mazda, and Jupiter? Well, me neither. The only meaningful difference between an atheist like me and a Christian is that I just simply go one step further and included the Judeo-Christian god Yahweh/Jesus in the long list of gods that I don't think exists in the actual objective external reality.
"We are all atheists about most of the other gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." - Richard Dawkins
"Since it's inconceivable that all religions can be right, the most reasonable conclusion is that they are all wrong." - Christopher Hitchens
"I contend that we are both atheist. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." - Stephen Roberts
So what would it take for me to be convince that the omni-God of the Bible exists in reality? I have three criteria: (1) a coherent, non-contradictory, concrete, sensible, and good definition of what does the word "God" mean, with actual referents in everyone's sensory perception; (2) a clear-cut quantifiable empirical evidence for its existence in actual objective external reality, and after we verify its actual existence, that's when we can only measure its attributes; and (3) a set of empirical predictions under controlled, objective conditions, that manifest under the expectation of that deity being real. These are the only things that I need in order to change my mind. I don't know about the other atheists if what would convince them to believe it, but this is at least my demand. Is that too much to ask? If Christians really are so confident that this deity actually exists, then it would be trivially easy for them to fulfill all of these criteria. If they are so sure that their faith can indeed "move mountains," then it would be reasonable to say that their faith would withstand any rigorous and vehement scrutiny. If they fail all of these, then there really is no reason to accept the synthetic proposition that the God of the Bible is real. Any other meaningless and unfalsifiable attempt to make me convince will be rejected. That does not however mean that I'm close minded, only that these criteria are the only objectively meaningful way to substantiate any synthetic truth claim.
Conclusion
So, to finally conclude the whole point of the essay, the mere lack of evidence alone is already a more than enough justification that such God does not exist in external reality. Anything that don't exist on objective external reality is by definition don't manifest in our sense experience. The burden of proof always lie on the believers to verify the existence of God with testable, replicable, and falsifiable evidences and empirical predictions of future events on our sense experience under the expectation that their god exists, and since believers have consistently failed to meet that burden of proof, I have no reason to believe that such deity is objectively real. Until believers demonstrate such empirical evidence, the null hypothesis, by default, applies and complies with the physical expectations of a nonexistent God. Because anyone can assert that God, specifically their particular god, is real, and anyone can do rationalizations and mental gymnastics to support that claim with the use of convoluted rhetorical arguments, but only a true living God can exclusively and undeniably show himself through a predictable sensory manifestation. A thousand bad arguments for the existence of Judeo-Christian God does not magically translate into a one single good argument. Because a god that can only be concluded through convoluted arguments and word games rather than demonstrated through empirical evidence and testable empirical predictions is functionally and pragmatically equivalent to no god at all. Once Christian apologists understand this and actually fulfill this simple criteria, atheists and other non-Christian believers are more than happy to change their mind at start to convert to Christianity. But until this happens, atheists are all more than justified to say, for all practical purposes, that GOD DOES NOT EXISTS, and continue to live our lives assuming that such deity is not there.
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Date Published: June 30, 2020
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