Now, one very common argument against the existence of God is the argument from evil. And it goes like this– if God exists, God is both all powerful and perfectly good. If God is all powerful, God is able to prevent any evil he wishes to prevent.
Arguments for atheism range from philosophical to social and historical approaches. Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of evidence, the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified, and the argument from nonbelief.
One problem posed by the question of the existence of God is that traditional beliefs usually ascribe to God various supernatural powers. Supernatural beings may be able to conceal and reveal themselves for their own purposes, as for example in the tale of Baucis and Philemon.
The Pew Research Center poll of scientists also found that levels of religious faith vary according to scientific specialty and age. For instance, chemists are more likely to believe in God (41%) than those who work in the other major scientific fields.
Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.
Relative to its own populations, Zuckerman ranks the top 5 countries with the highest possible ranges of agnostics and atheists: Sweden (46-85%), Vietnam (81%), Denmark (43-80%), Norway (31-72%), and Japan (64-65%).
Critics of religion in general may view religion as one or more of: outdated, harmful to the individual, harmful to society, an impediment to the progress of science or humanity, a source of immoral acts or customs, a political tool for social control.
Therefore atheists might argue that since the entire universe, and all of creation can be explained by evolution and scientific cosmology, we don't need the existence of another entity called God. Therefore God doesn't exist.
“To be honest, most of philosophy isn't concerned in any direct sense with God or God's existence,” Jensen said. “It is one part of philosophy that we study, but we're not obsessed with it.
Evidence for the existence of God is seen in several ways in what have traditionally been called the Classical Arguments for God's existence. The four Classical arguments are simply called: The Ontological argument, The Cosmological argument, The Teleological argument, and The Moral argument.
The arguments are often named as follows: (1) argument from motion, (2) argument from efficient cause, (3) argument from necessary being, (4) argument from gradations of goodness, and (5) argument from design.
There are also motivational reasons for religious belief. People who are socially isolated tend to have more religious faith, perhaps allowing them to feel they're not truly alone. Likewise, people facing death are more likely to express faith in God and an afterlife.
In philosophy, however, and more specifically in the philosophy of religion, the term “atheism” is standardly used to refer to the proposition that God does not exist (or, more broadly, to the proposition that there are no gods).
Its preface states: "the distinctive Hebrew name for God (usually transliterated Jehovah or Yahweh) is in this translation represented by 'The Lord'." A footnote to Exodus 3:14 states: "I am sounds like the Hebrew name Yahweh traditionally transliterated as Jehovah." The New International Version (1978, revised 2011).
The arguments against Christianity include the suppositions that it is a faith of violence, corruption, superstition, polytheism, homophobia, bigotry, pontification, abuses of women's rights and sectarianism.
Humanists reject the claim that the Bible is the word of God. They are convinced the book was written solely by humans in an ignorant, superstitious, and cruel age. They believe that because the writers of the Bible lived in an unenlightened era, the book contains many errors and harmful teachings.
The 2021 census found that 38.9% of Australian-born Australians claim no religion. In 2011 adults aged 18–34 were more than twice as likely as those in 1976 to have no religion (29% compared with 12%). The highest proportion of people who had no religion were young adults.
China. Officially, the People's Republic of China is an atheist state. According to World Population Review 2023, 91 per cent of the nation's population does not follow any religion.
Who can get to heaven? No consensus on whether belief in God, being Christian is required. While most U.S. adults believe in heaven, there is disagreement about who can go there.
The term ietsism is becoming more widely used in Europe, as opposed to the phrase 'spiritual but not religious' which prevails in North America.
All of this culminates in the final 67% probability of God's existence using Unwin's calculations. This book makes for a wonderful thought experiment and provides fodder for some great discussions.