For this to work, we have to agree on the following two statements, and accept that Christians believe them to the true: -
God is infallible
The Bible is the true word of God
These aren’t outrageous statements, and in fact, have been echoed on this very blog numerous times in the comments.
The two statements above are clearly interdependent. The Bible tells Christians that God is infallible, and Christians believe the Bible because they believe it was written by an infallible deity. Almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, almost. So the start of our logical deduction must be the Bible, so let’s concentrate on that.
Let’s take the Christian God’s greatest act, creating the world and all who live on it (indirectly). The start of all this, on God’s own words: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day”. Using genealogy, we can roughly estimate the age of the earth, as stated by the Bible, to be 6500 years. The very top estimate would be close to 10,000 years, but that’s a stretch. Science has proven that the earth is closer to 4.5 billion years old. Radiometric dating has shown us this, and has remained consistent with lunar and terrestrial samples. In other words, we haven’t just tested this once in one situation, it’s been extensively tested. This isn’t a guess, or a hunch, there’s a substantial amount of evidence to back this up.
And that’s the geological age of the earth. What about the creatures on the earth? We, as human beings, were created 6500 years ago, according to the Bible, starting with Adam and then Eve. The oldest discovered human fossil is approximately 1,300,000 (1.3 million) years old. That would have meant that humans lived on earth before God created either humans or the earth. In fact, depending on how much evidence you consider to be acceptable, and how you define us as a species, you could place humans at between 1.8 million and 130,000 years old. No one could sensibly claim that humans are less than 130,000 years old. There is simply too much evidence available for our inspection. Either way, much older than the Bible’s claims.
Let’s take another example. God decided that the earth needed cleansing, so he instructed Noah to gather up two of ever species to save. Everything other than Noah, his family (or part of his family) and the animals he chose to save would be killed. There are around 10 MILLION known species of animal on our planet. Male and female, that would be 20 million animals Noah saved. I’ve never seen a boat that big, even with modern engineering techniques. Noah also would have had to travel to different parts of the earth to collect the various animals. You rarely see a penguin and a scorpion living in the same location (zoos don’t count). He then, after the waters had receded, would have had to return them to their original locations. You also have to question to environment on board Noah’s Ark, an environment that could sustain animals that require intense heat and animals that require intense cold, as well as Noah and his family that required a more moderate climate. Impossible.
Just so we’re clear, I’m establishing that that the Bible is inaccurate. Not just inaccurate, but massively inaccurate. There are more examples of course, some which make it clear that the author of the Bible thinks the world is flat, some which make it clear that the author thought the world did not move and then there are more considered examples, such as the value of pi being unknown at the time (surely God would have known it!?!).
So this is my statement, logically derived from the above.
“The Bible is inaccurate – therefore God is fallible – therefore the definition of God is incorrect – therefore God does not exist.”
To add a touch of justification to this, let’s break it down. We know the Bible is inaccurate, in fact the Bible is contradictory within its own pages. The Bible is the only place that defines God, and God is defined as being infallible. The Bible is also stated as being of God’s word (albeit written by man, see below). Seeing as we know the only source that defines the Christian God is inaccurate, and at least part of the definition is inaccurate (infallible), we can not trust the remainder of the definition. Therefore the definition of God in invalid and God does not exist.
There will come arguments from Christians that while God is infallible, and the Bible is the true word of God, the Bible was in fact written by man, who is fallible. This does not hold up when you examine the scale and volume of inaccuracies held within the Bible. I can understand man rounding down the value of pi, for example, but to get the entire creation story wrong is a bit of a stretch. Likewise, given that God is all powerful, he surely would not have left an obviously inaccurate account of his greatest work go to press, or was that just another sign of his fallibility?
I think I’ve made a stronger argument, based on Christian beliefs, for the non existence of God than there ever has been for the existence of such a deity.
