Just one of these had me pulling an all-nighter with relative ease. With 300mg of caffeine packed into a 2.9oz container, it’s hard to imagine anything more awesome.

What would it take to convince you of God’s love?

To start, it would be useful to know that God actually existed. I feel that this is a fair prerequisite condition to be met before I could be convinced that God actually loves me.

Second, it would help if God talked to me on occasion. It’s really hard to know if somebody loves you when they’re never around, and don’t even bother to write or call.

Your move, God.

A simpler truth.

Courtesy of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

Courtesy of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal.

I describe myself as an atheist. This means that I do not believe in a god. The definition isn’t confusing to me, because I already know what my beliefs are. The problem arises when I try to explain my beliefs to others. My beliefs can be legitimately described as either atheism or agnosticism; however, these terms both have dual meanings. This leads to some confusion when I tell other people that I am an atheist.

Atheism

There are two common definitions of atheism:

1. Lack of belief in a god.
2. The belief that god does not exist.

As I stated above, I subscribe to the first of the two beliefs. Though it is not obvious at first, there is a subtle distinction between the two definitions[1. Note that the first definition is a lack of a certain commonly held belief, whereas the second definition is a belief that opposes another commonly held belief.]. Whereas definition number one refuses to accept the god hypothesis[2. The commonly held belief that there is a supernatural being (God) that interacts with our universe in some way, and is potentially the creator of either a) the universe, or b) (intelligent) life on Earth.], definition two actively claims that the god hypothesis is wrong. The second definition is problematic, because it leads to the problematic situation of trying to prove a negative.

When I say that I do not believe in a god, I mean that the hypothesis “there is a god” is at odds with all known evidence, and therefore I do not think that there is enough evidence to accept the hypothesis. I am not making an existential claim about a supernatural entity, just like I don’t claim that unicorns and faeries don’t exist. It is merely the case that I have yet to be presented with compelling evidence to cause me to believe in the existence of a god. It is true that there are certain logical inconsistencies with the idea of divine, benevolent, and omnipotent supernatural being, but I don’t usually worry about such things in my day-to-day beliefs.

The second definition is one that no self-respecting atheist subscribes to, but one that is often used to describe atheist beliefs. This definition tacitly accepts that there are grounds for believing in the hypothesis “there is a god”, and goes on to state that the atheist knows that God does not exist. This definition is doubly problematic; both in assuming that there is validity to the claim “there is a god”, and in asserting that atheists have some proof or evidence as to why the hypothesis is wrong.

This belief would be dogmatic, because the idea of proving a negative is inconsistent with the rules of empiricism. Empirical evidence, and inductive reasoning, only allows us to think in terms of probabilities — as opposed to absolutes. We know that there’s a very good chance that both the sun will rise tomorrow, and that when we drop something, it will fall to the ground. However, we can never know these things absolutely, as all it would take is one example contrary to the rule in order to disprove the rule. In reality, the probability of something falling upwards when we drop it are very low (almost indistinguishable from zero), and so we say: “I know that when I drop this pen, it will fall to the ground.” The same is true with our belief about a god; whereas we do not know with certainty that there is no god, we do know that given the evidence (i.e. none) it is incredibly unlikely. Thus leading to the legitimacy of the phrase “there is no God” — it might not literally represent what an atheist actually believes, but it is consistent with the colloquial usage of the phrase “there is no ___.”

Agnosticism

Like atheism, there are two common definitions of agnosticism:

1. The belief that God is not part of the realm of empirical evidence, and therefore unknowable.
2. The belief that we might discover a God, but we have yet to find any evidence.

I, like many other atheists, subscribe to the first of these two definitions. Recognizing that science and empirical inquiry can only ever reveal facts about our physical world, any supernatural hypothesis like a god will always be sliced away by Occam’s razor. We have found a natural explanation for everything so far, and there’s nothing to suggest that the trend won’t continue into the foreseeable future. Coupled with the historical fact that all things that have been attributed to one or more gods in the past, have since been shown to have natural explanations, the first type of agnostic realizes that God simply has no place in modern scientific thought.

Many people use the first definition of agnosticism as a stand-in for describing themselves as atheists in order to avoid the above-mentioned ambiguity in the definition of atheism. There’s nothing wrong with this; however, I find that it has the undesired side effect of substituting one ambiguity for another. This leads us to the second definition of agnosticism.

The second definition is entirely different from the first. Whereas the first definition is characteristic of atheism, the second definition is characteristic of somebody who wants to believe, and is just looking for an excuse to do so. The second type of agnostics are usually religious people in the middle of a crisis of faith, or people who were raised without strong religious beliefs, yet hunger to be told that there’s some greater power in the universe. Neither of these people are skeptics, though some of them might be headed in the right direction. By choosing agnostic over atheist, you risk being labeled as a person on a spiritual quest, as opposed to being a person who simply does not believe in a god.

What does this all mean? Probably that whenever I tell somebody that I’m an atheist, it will still have to be followed up with a 5-10 minute conversation as to what that really means. Not that I really mind.

So here’s my challenge to God: start answering prayers. More specifically, start answering the prayers of sick people. If everybody[1. I don't just want one or two "miracle" cures, everybody has to be cured. If an omnipotent God existed, surely they would have the power to do this.] with some sort of disease, who prays to God to be healed, is instantaneously healed of that disease (without medical intervention, of course), I would take this as pretty conclusive proof that there is some sort of really powerful, if not omnipotent, God (if not some other powerful intelligence watching us).

The ball is in your court, God.

Of course, there is a clear difference in taste between the two*, but this is barely adequate to describe the raw satisfaction one can get from the consumption of meat, which is absent in the consumption of plants.

Perhaps this sensation dates back to forgotten memories of an earlier time — the satisfaction of a bountiful hunt. Or, perhaps this is simply due to the fact that up until very recently, meat was a delicacy that we rarely had the privilege to consume. There could be several other explanations for why meat is so much more satisfying to consume, and I don’t pretend to know all of them, but even the most die-hard vegetarian will tell you that there is a difference (no matter how satisfying they find the consumption of plants to be).

Perhaps the only way to adequately describe the sensation of eating meat is by comparing it to a religious experience, or divine revelation. Having never experienced anything spiritual or vaguely supernatural, I don’t know if this is an adequate analogy. However, I imagine this is as close as I can come to truly defining what the experience is like to somebody who is spiritual but who does not eat meat.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Though I’m a big proponent of eating meat, I’m also a fan of all types of foods; especially fruits and vegetables. Each type of food has a different taste, texture and feel associated with it. It’s impossible to get the same sensation from eating fruit as it is from eating meat; and each type of food provides a unique, yet truly wonderful flavour sensation (except for maybe your run-of-the-mill supermarket tomato — vine-ripened is the only way to go). By eliminating any one part of the diet, you condemn yourself to missing out on a whole world of flavour and culinary delight. This is one of the reasons why I find the vegetarian diet so tragic.

I recognize the importance of balance; I wouldn’t want to eat a cheeseburger every day. In a way, meat is special because of its continued status as a delicacy, despite its abundance in the modern diet.

I really don’t care whether you choose to abstain from eating meat. My beef** with vegetarians is not in their choice of food, but the arguments that some employ to justify them. If you derive pleasure from the fact that an animal is still alive because you passed over that hamburger for a veggie-burger, then who am I to correct you? Just keep in mind that the experience of eating meat is both fantastic, and one that cannot be emulated.

*As good as we’ve become at mimicking the taste of real meat, it is never quite the same.

**Pun intended.

A revolutionary discovery of the theory is that the whole universe should have nine or ten dimensions of space, instead of three dimensions (length, width and height). Then, why do we see only three dimensions? In the earlier version of the string theory, it was assumed that those extra dimensions were too small to be observed. Thus, the whole universe is essentially the same as the 3D world. If this were true, there would be no place for God.

A universe with no place for God?! Who could imagine such a place? This theory seems to take the concept of a god of the gaps to a new extreme. The obvious question that comes to my mind is why an all-powerful god would be relegated to exist in only the dimensions that humans cannot directly observe. This doesn’t reek of post-hoc justification at all. What’s worse is that it isn’t even compelling justification — it’s just wrong; and you don’t need an advanced degree in physics to recognize that the conclusions drawn from the ‘facts’ in the article are not scientific at all.

It astounds me what lengths people will go to in order to justify belief in an irrational preconceived notion.