Endless Paradigm

“By believing passionately in something that still does not exist, wee create it. The nonexistent is whatever wee have not sufficiently desired.” Those are the words of Franz Kafka, a fiction writer from the twentieth century, and although he is long gone from this world, his work and the words he spoke will not be forgotten. His statement may not be referring to God, but the idea of such a being can surely relate to what he claims. Even if by some miracle the existence of God was truly and completely disproven, the strong beliefs of some may keep His image alive in their hearts, and He will continue to be for eternity. As of now, there is no genuine indication of a God or gods that can prove or disprove their existence, and the focal arguments wane down to those who believe that God does undeniably exist, and those of us who don’t. Individuals in the neutral area aren’t so sure what to have faith in, and this is because they either take no interest in the case or just don’t want to proven incorrect if they do resolve to choose a side. In the circumstance of my personal beliefs, I will not believe in something I haven’t seen, heard, or felt—but the unknown is always waiting, and I wouldn’t be astonished if something unanticipated transpires when I die. I may not believe in God or Heaven, but who’s to say that it doesn’t exist for those who do? The afterlife and the indefinite are only available to those who believe in it, and when they die—depending on their personal beliefs—they will either rot for eternity six feet underground, or they will transcend the illusion, breaking the barrier of infinite cognizance that there is nothingness after death and will, in their own imagination, walk through those prodigious, pearly gates and meet their one and only Maker. The rest of us will merely cease to have any senses, and our afterlife will consist of nothingness; but is such a state not an aspect of God?
First you may want to ask yourself, “What is God?” This may seem like a simple question, but if you think about the word and its meaning, such a being doesn’t seem likely to exist; what is God made of, is God male or female (or both), where does God reside? These are all simply-put questions that can usually be answered effectively and with reason, but when pointed towards what wee believe to be “God”, how can wee know if the answers given are factual or merely dead-ended premises? One can only have two choices in the matter—whether to believe in the words they are hearing or to refute the impossible that is jumping off the page at them, brandishing their sharpened arguments above their heads. Factual and illusory situations can only be used in the literal sense, as only someone as omnipotent and knowledgeable as a god could ever see the difference and truth between the two. But if God doesn’t exist, could wee as humans ever know the certainty between fiction and non-fiction? It all comes down to belief, and that is the only factor that can establish the dissimilarities between real and imaginary.
Where are the facts (or imagined theories) that could ever even come close to disproving something so widely believed in, so vastly powerful and eternally existent that would change the beliefs in anyone? There are simple claims about God that can’t actually disprove or even prove of any such existence, but it can surely cause that little spark in those who are unsure what to accept as the truth. Take for example, the allegation that God lives outside of time. This notion seems moderately unpretentious to grasp, but if contemplated correctly, such a statement cannot be true. Saying that God lives and exists outside of time is almost affirming that He does not exist at all. The accurate definition of time is this: there are two hands, consisting of the second and the hour (the minute hand is not effective in this case). The second hand implies that there are an unending amount of hands that keep turning, faster and faster until the rate of speed is one and apart, giving it the perception of being infinite. On the other hand is the perspective of the hour, and this hand works quite similarly, although in an opposite manner—the hand that represents an infinite number of similar hands revolves, and over time it starts moving slower and slower until it seems to be stopped and unmoving for eternity, giving the idea that there is no time; no creation, and no termination. This implies that there is no escape from time, and also that there is no entrance or exit from it. If God were to live outside of such a thing, He would be quite inane and superfluous. Entry to and from our existence in time would be denied to Him since He is outside of it, and wee would be inaccessible. So surely if God did exist it would not be outside of time, and saying that He is timeless also articulates that He does not exist.

Now, if God does live outside of time, then what proof is there that He was not self-created, as they are analogous concepts and ultimately go hand in hand; this conception is also widely believed by those who hold religion close to their hearts, as there is no other human justification for God’s abrupt appearance and creation of the universe. One extensive stereotype about God is that He created Himself from nothing. Even if you stop to ruminate about such a phenomenon, self-creation may indeed seem possible, although if it were true it would refute the fact that God is omnipotent. God’s self-creation implies that nothingness is more powerful than God, and this goes against the claim that God is omnipotent. In other words, God cannot be the most powerful being in the universe as He is thought to be, as He was created from nothingness, and if nothingness comes before God and makes God who and what He is, then the most powerful thing in the universe is nothing, making God powerless against it. If this were true, humans could consider themselves gods in their own light, seeing as how nothingness is a cycle which consists of everything and everyone—nothingness, in some sense, consists of everything. With this argument comes the ever-popular question “Can God create a rock that He cannot lift?” The answer, whether yes and no, contradicts the other; if He can lift the rock, this indicates He is not all-powerful and cannot create a rock He cannot lift. If He cannot lift the rock, then, once again, He is not as omnipotent as it should seem (Pederson 1). The answer cannot be that He can both lift the rock and not lift it simultaneously, as that just isn’t sound and can never be conceivable (at least for humans). “But God can do everything ever imaginable,” you may be saying, and you may not be wrong. Seeing as how wee don’t know what anything ever imaginable consists of, wee will never be able to discern if anything that can and cannot be done concurrently could ever be possible, or, on the other hand, if anything ever unimaginable belongs to this very same theory. If God could and couldn’t lift a boulder at the same time, that would be just as effective as not doing anything at all, once again giving a reason for God to not exist, as he would be futile and ineffectual.
  

But just because God seems worthless and unnecessary doesn’t justify his nonexistence; He could be as meek and powerless as dust and still be real. Omnipotent or not, wee have to assume that he still exists to make sense of this next dispute: God, in his infinite wisdom and knowledge, is omniscient. If someone were to tell me that was so, I would laugh and tell them otherwise, sharing with them my rebuttal. The first problem with such a claim is the part where free will comes into effect. If God was all-knowing and all-seeing as He is thought to be, that would interfere with our free will; God would be able to see and alter every possible outcome to every human’s choices in life. If omniscience were to stay wee would literally have to murder the freedom to make lucid—or irrational—decisions, those that which God has given to us humans. But if that were to ever happen, the existence of God would make sin completely irrelevant (Pederson 1). People would hurt, 'borrow', and murder one another, and the one excuse they would ever need is that God has foreseen their choices and has set a path for them to follow. He cannot judge them fairly when their time has come, as He had foreseen their mistakes and could have stopped it from ever happening. Wee humans would merely have to walk down it and not feel guilty, gaining a free ticket to the party in Heaven. This plausibly makes omniscience impossible; therefore an omniscient (and omnipotent) God is just as likely to exist as a Flying Spaghetti Monster.

While wee’re on the subject of the impossible and the unending questions and answers that always seem to contradict one another, let’s take a look at some interesting avowals from the Bible itself, the Holy Scripture that is said to be the word and will of God Himself. To begin, according to Gen 2:18-19, God created man before the animals. In Gen 1:25-26, it tells us that it was quite the opposite (Pederson 1). This seems like an uncouth error that someone as powerful and immeasurably erudite as God would ever make. He knows and sees all; I would think that He’d be able to catch his own mistakes, especially ones as ordinary as these. Next, the Bible states that Jesus is said to be born while Herod the Great was alive (Mat 2:1-2), and while Quirinius was Governor of Syria (Luk 2:1-7). What I believe to be written as a confused informant, this is simply wrong, as Quirinius became governor ten years after Herod died (Pederson 1). Someplace along the line, either someone got their facts jumbled, or the Bible was completely made up and is full of careless errors by the religious fanatics who wrote it to have something to help them explain the mysteriousness of life and the universe. Another one of those errors would be the Bible’s claim that the Earth is flat (Pederson 1). Before any innovative technology was created, wee did so believe the Bible to be telling the truth, but now that wee have the means necessary to look and see for our self—that being if the Earth is indeed flat or not—wee have disproven and refuted the Bible’s words. Either God is trying to hint at something with all these errors and conflicts that wee cannot foresee, or He has and never will exist, the Bible being merely a tool for persuasion. It seems to have done a splendid job so far.
Not only are there errors in the Bible, but the Koran, for example, states that Heaven was created before Earth (2:29) and that the Earth was created before Heaven (79:27-30), and such a claim is enigmatic (Pederson 1). Once more, it is impossible for both claims to be true—Heaven and Earth couldn’t have been both created before the other. Therefore, again, it is impossible for Heaven to have or ever exist. Hindu scripture claims that the bottom of the universe is filled with water (Pederson 1), which seems highly unlikely, as water cannot exist without air, and it is common knowledge that there is no air in space; the only possible explanation to prove this would be that the bottom of the universe is a planet of sorts that is similar to our own, one comprised completely of oceans and minimal landmasses. So far, wee haven’t had much luck finding it. Another point has to do with the Tenth Commandment, which declares “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk” (Exo 23:19). God, in his infinite wisdom, has come to tell us that it’s not a good idea to cook a goat in its mother’s milk? Is it just me, or do all these unlikely mistakes and the “word of God” not seem to fit appropriately? None of the above claims do anything to prove or disprove the idea of God, but it does surely help sway those who are stuck between believing and refuting the unknown.

God has and always will be existent in the human mind, and that may be the only place He truly does exist. People will believe what they want to believe, and if that includes God, then so be it. Richard Dawkins, the Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University wrote, “One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect, over the centuries, has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises” (188). In other words, people have needed from the beginning of time—and most likely will until the end—an explanation of the unknown, a definition of something that is too far for them to reach and cradle in their arms with reason and knowledge. If there is something wee cannot explain, wee believe it to be the work or will of God. It scares humanity in its entirety how much wee do not understand about the universe and its creator, be it a being of timeless, self-created energy, or simply a coincidental accident that means no more to the cosmos than these very words do. God may or may not exist, but there is no scientific way for Him to be proven or disproven, although the idea of a God can be refuted by many theories, some of which I have just shared with you. God may exist for you, but He doesn’t for me, and He will forever be something of the mind that can only be imagined. To recapitulate Franz Kafka’s words, if someone strongly believes in God they will create one in their minds to satisfy themselves, but for those who don’t desire a higher being in their life, He will not be created for us, and will simply be a whisper in the wind, nonexistent and powerless to our stubborn beliefs that will forever create what wee consider to be the answer to existence and everything in between.