"God's the most perfect, existence is one of the perfections."
In 2005, Jonathan Miller wrote & presented "Atheism: A Rough History of Disbelief" for BBC Four. In this documentary he talks to Colin Mcginn, Richard Dawkins and others. By chance, I got my hands on the documentary. The discussions are great and gives you an insight into the minds of some of the most influential philosopher, biologist, theologian, etc. The documentary contains six interviews with six scholars. Here, I will try to present the interviewees thoughts on God, Religion, and Humanity.
Please note: I will only focus on the matter of God, Religion and such. I am not going to focus on how they became atheist.
With that said, the first person Jonathan Miller talks to is Colin Mcginn, a British philosopher. When Jonathan asked Mcginn about why believe in God? Mcginn talks about "No evidence argument." According to Mcginn, there's no reason to believe in one God than the other. To be more precise, there is no evidence to believe in Greek God than a Jew God. Also there is no theory that explains God that can't be explained in any other ways or with any other theories. His views on miracle is, there's no good evidence. There's no evidence of what someone observed.
"The belief that they were is usually based on a prior opinion that God exists, rather than being an independent source for believing that God exists."
Mcginn also talks about the ontological argument. The definition of God: the most powerful conceivable being. The definition of God also entails that God exists. So, if the most powerful didn't exist, then He would lack the attribute of existence. But the attribute of existence is one of the perfections. By definition, He is the most perfect being thus He must have the attribute of existence. Therefore God exists. We can try to compare this reasoning with the Unicorn, a horse with a horn growing out of its forehead. Nothing in the definition implies unicorn exist & they don't. One of the definition of God is, He is the most perfect being. The argument is, if God didn't exist, wouldn't he be less perfect. Because to exist is to be more perfect than not to exist.
Here the point is that the argument itself is strange. What does it mean to say "God's the most perfect, existence is one of the perfections." If we try to compare this statement to most tasty meal conceivable or the best football game conceivable. What does it mean to say those? Not a very clearly meaningful idea. So, if we define God as the most perfect being, we don't define what we mean by perfect. To say the most perfect being, what does it mean? He doesn't have the most perfect colors,cuz He is not color at all. Sometime statements such as these are not very well defined. However, that doesn't mean that there aren't any meaningful statements.
The psychologically more important argument is, people think that without God life is meaningless. The first reply to that is you don't need to seek the meaning of life outside of life. Then people would say, Human life would not have meaning without there being a being outside of human life. What gives meaning to that being's life?How does His life derive meaning? Either God's life has meaning intrinsically just by existence or not. If it does, then it's possible to have a meaningful life intrinsically. So why can't out life have the intrinsic meaning? They don't have to be conferred by another being...
Argument 1: the existence of values itself is an argument for the existence of God. His answer to that is there's no reason to think that existence of values in human society depends on the existence of God. Why should it? There's no clear logical argument for it.
Argument 2: morality can only have foundation, if it's based on God's commands/desire/wishes. His response to that is, He can't make something right, when it's not. In other words, it can't be a matter of God's free decision what's right & wrong.
People uses this arguments (1 & 2) to validate their belief. His validation only works on what is morally right or wrong. Human beings are weak. Guilt is a powerful negative force in people's mind. Thus, God gives you an extra motive to do the right thing.Mcginn thinks, people are not as morally depraved as religion says. It's wrong to think that you are doing something because God will reward you & think well of you. It's better to do something good because it's good & only because it's good.
Jonathan asked Mcginn to give Best reasons for NOT believing:
Mcginn talks about the problem of evil. Good is all knowing...so how come there's suffering in the world? Why does God allow it? Why doesn't God intervene to prevent the death of a child? This is a conflict between all-good & all-powerful and the existence of evil. The religious replies to that is God created human beings with free will. Why did He do that knowing the result will be horrific? Also most of the suffering comes from natural catastrophes/disease. That comes from nature - God's creation. So, God created a world in which it was inevitable of tremendous suffering by innocent human beings.
The last question Jonathan asked, Why so many people have the need to believe?
Mcginn thinks it is because of some sort of cosmic loneliness. God is a wonderful antidote to our feeling of metaphysical aloneness in universe. The belief that God knows us intimately in our minds, it satisfies a deep craving in human soul.
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