If God Exists

The Theory of Omnideism: An Atheistic Argument for the Existence of God

M. E. Stearn

• Publisher: Resource Publications
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781532614378, 9781532614392
• eBook ISBN: 9781532614385
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

When I was seven years old the nun teaching my Catechism class told us that Mary immaculately conceived Jesus. My mother immediately disabused me of this idea, stating, unequivocally, that Mary was just another fourteen-year-old who got pregnant, arguably and ironically planting the seed for this book. The theist belief that God exists as a conscious entity in some form other than that of matter or energy denies, by definition, the actual existence of God. Atheism denies the belief in God existing as a conscious entity. Neither theists nor atheists rely upon evidence to support their belief. This thesis proposes that God either exists or doesn't exist and belief does not change the ultimate fact. Syllogistically, if God exists, God exists as some form of matter or energy and God is infinite by definition, and since matter and energy can be neither created nor destroyed according to the Law of Conservation, God and matter and energy are identical and everything that exists in the cosmos is God. Omnideism proposes a logical explanation for the actual existence of God consistent with the laws of physics and theistic purpose for human existence . . . if God exists.

1

The Case Against Faith

The Apostles’ Creed, which was once necessary for one to memorize in order to be confirmed in the Catholic church, states:

“I believe in God,

the Father almighty,

Creator of heaven and earth

And in Jesus Christ

His only son, our Lord . . .

Born of the Virgin Mary . . . ”

Faith is the belief that something is true without requiring any facts to support that belief. Therefore “faith”, by definition, questions the actual existence of that which one professes to believe because there is, and can be, nothing to support the belief.

If one believes and God doesn’t exist then belief is irrelevant.

If one believes and God exists then belief is irrelevant because the fact of the existence renders the belief moot.

If one doesn’t believe and God doesn’t exist belief is irrelevant.

If one doesn’t believe and God exists belief is irrelevant because the fact renders the belief moot.

Nobody has faith that 1 + 1 = 2 because it is an absolute fact. The belief in an irrefutable fact is irrelevant to one’s faith. Whether one has faith or not in a certain belief does not alter a fact. If nobody in the world believed 1 + 1 = 2 this would not change the fact. Just as believing that the Sun revolved around the Earth did not change the fact. People don’t profess faith that the earth is round, or that the heart pumps blood through the body, or in atomic particles. They are all facts. A fact exists independent and with no relationship to one’s faith. Faith and fact cannot logically co-exist regarding the same belief. Faith can only exist absent facts. Faith cannot exist where facts exist because a fact extinguishes the belief upon which faith is based. Faith requires the absence of fact.

God either exists or He doesn’t exist. For theists the idea or concept of God is necessary. The actual existence of God is irrelevant. But if God exists then the idea or concept of God is irrelevant. Omnideistically only the actual existence of God is necessary.

Theists need to believe there is a creator. Theists need to believe that there is a higher power to whom they are beholden. Theists need to believe there is a God to whom they can speak. Theists need to believe. Belief is the core of all religions because belief is proof of one’s faith and loyalty. Belief is proof of one’s faith absent evidence of fact. Each religion has its own peculiar set of beliefs based on a particular concept or idea of God. The quantity of gods equals the quantity of concepts.

The vast majority of people have faith in the existence of some kind of supreme spiritual being which they also insist is a fact. Yet if God is accepted as fact, or even a provable theory, then there would be no need or purpose to profess faith in the belief. No religion organized or otherwise, puts any significant emphasis on the actual existence of God other than to say His existence is evident from what we experience in daily life. Religion is about belief and faith. Proof of one’s faith is the foundation of every religion. Acts of faith are demonstrations that one truly believes in a Supreme Being for which there are no supporting facts which prove the existence of the Supreme Being. Acts of faith would be purposeless if the Supreme Being actually existed.

Conversely faith as used by humans provides the freedom for any action. The faith of the 9-11 jihadists, the faith of the thirteenth and fourteenth century crusaders, the faith of Christians, Jews, and Muslims has given them all the freedom to use force against each other as well as countless intra-sectarian affairs.

Yet faith, because it can only exist absent facts, calls into question the actual existence of the thing that the faithful call on to support their actions. The most fundamental Christians use faith to deny the age of the universe, the evolution of humans, and the process of climate change because facts are anathema to the faithful. Faith is both a barricade and a weapon to those who hide behind it and wield it indiscriminately in their attacks.

Whether it is a Muslim, Jew, Christian, Hindu or animist speaking each will say something to the effect of “That is not the God that I believe in” when asked about the God which is the object of faith in another religion. Taken literally, this is confirmation that there is a different God for each theology. But every theist will quickly stress there is only one God (or Gods), theirs. What should be originally stated is, “That is not the idea or concept of God that I believe in.”

Faith and fact are irreconcilable. Facts negate the necessity for faith. The faithful claim that God must exist because one can see the results of God’s existence, i.e., the stars, Earth, life, beauty etc. Nobody can see the speed of light or sub-atomic particles yet everybody can see the results of their existence. Scientists never suggest that he or she has faith in the existence in the speed of light or in sub-atomic particles. Yet irrefutable proof that God actually exists would utterly undermine the necessity for faith. So theologically/philosophically the question is: Can God exist absent faith?

A true believer will always resort to fending off any attack, which questions the existence of God with, “I don’t care what the facts show (or “what you say”, “what your rationale is” etc.), because this is what I believe, I have faith”. The passion displayed in defending a belief unsupported by fact, is far beyond anything that might be shown in defending a fact, because there is no need to defend a fact. Children are taught early to fight for what they believe. Children are never taught to fight for a fact. At their most fundamental level wars are not fought in order to defend a fact they are fought to defend a belief. Belief in the moral superiority of one’s politics, religion, and ethnicity are the rationalities for war. Fighting over land is done because one group or tribe, or religious sect, or ethnicity believes it is superior to the other and therefore deserves the land. We have only fought wars to defend positions for which there are no supporting facts. Even World War One, the Hapsburg Family Feud, was instigated upon the false belief that the Austria-Hungarian Empire had the right to subjugate a minority Serbian population because of its moral superiority. The eventual involvement of Russia, France and England as the result of treaties, may be the exception that proverbially proves the rule.

The depth or sincerity of faith in the existence of God cannot change the fact of God’s existence or non-existence. Conversely, the actual existence (the fact) of God, by definition, extinguishes faith based upon belief in God. Belief in God’s existence or belief in God’s non-existence is not an issue. God either exists or not. But if God exists then he can only exist consistent with either a theory supported by some set of facts which prove His existence or because of an absence of facts denying His existence and satisfactorily explain the existence of the Cosmos.

The cornerstone of every religion is the absolute unquestioning faith of its followers in that religion’s concept of God. Every religious sect is founded on the faith, rather than the actual existence of God (or Gods). Faith in God’s existence is based upon the need to explain the existence of, and the purpose for, the existence of the Cosmos. Faith by its very nature puts into question the existence of God. If faith is taken out of the equation how does that effect God’s existence? Faith in Mary’s virgin pregnancy was the basis for a war within the Christian faith for centuries. The Islamic world is in an intra-sectarian war today because of faith.

Whether or not God actually exists, the Cosmos does exist. Billions of galaxies, each with billions of stars exist. Energy and matter in its infinite forms exist. Faith in God’s existence does not change the actual existence of the Cosmos. Faith exists only to satisfy the questions to which humans have so far been unable to answer with a logical or scientific explanation. Although science cannot directly provide an answer to the purpose of our existence, science and logic can provide us with a roadmap for our own existence. If we can logically or scientifically explain how we have come to exist we can pursue the reason for our existence based on the underlying facts. Faith will only be relevant to how we believe we should act consistent with the fact of God’s existence.

The argument that faith is necessary for people to know how to act in order to please God is misplaced. Faith in God does not satisfactorily explain why humans, generally, don’t kill, rob, rape, and pillage but rather that such acts are contrary to supporting the continuation of the species. If faith in God’s existence was the primary reason for people positively interacting then atheists, historically, would be the world’s leading perpetrators of war and terrorism instead of the most religiously “faithful” whether it was Jupiter, Zeus, Thor, Yahweh or an animistic god. Combatants, on both sides of any type of war, always have faith that their cause is the one supported by God. Faith is used as a license to perpetrate any act of violence or torture or abuse on another human being. And it is not just war that faith is used as a justification for abominable acts. The treatment of women throughout most of Africa, the Mid East and Southeast Asia including India is based upon theistic faith.

Faith in facts being false may require more faith than belief that a higher deity created the universe over 7 days sans dinosaurs. Accepting the speed of light as a fact and seeing stars in the sky that are 10,000 light years away and believing that the universe is only 6,000 years old requires an extraordinary type of faith.

A literal translation of the Bible infers a magical sort of God acting as a Houdini or David Copperfield. Taking mud and creating man and then taking a rib from the man and creating woman is nothing but abra-cadabra time. Creationists, by definition deny the laws of physics by denying that the galaxies that exist billions of light years away from earth actually don’t exist because the universe is only 6000 years old. So Creationists must have faith that the laws of physics are false. Well not all the laws. Not even the most ardent Creationist will question the fusion that produces heat and light from the sun. Nor will they question that it takes 8 minutes for that light to reach the Earth. Nor do Creationists question the existence of any of the elements or the sub-atomic particles. Nor do Creationists question the physics that explain the orbits of the planets around the sun. In fact Creationists will argue that it is God who created the laws of physics and chemistry that allow the sun to shine and the elements to be formed.

What Creationists can’t explain is why would the same God who created the laws of and chemistry have to resort to magic to create humans or the Earth or anything else when He had already created the mechanism? Why wouldn’t God be confident enough in the natural laws of science, which He created to allow those laws to work as the scientific community theorizes? Why would the God of Genesis, having already created all the animals, females and males, forget the very next day that in order to procreate Adam needed Eve? The fundamentalists’ literal God is a blasphemous interpretation of the Intelligent Designer who created the very laws that the fundamentalists disavow. Why do fundamentalists insist that the belief in laws created by God are of lesser value than belief in Creationism? Belief in creationism requires no facts, only faith. Belief in the laws of physics is based entirely on facts. Absent faith creationism cannot exist.

Although the form of creation varies from sect to sect, and even from person to person within each sect, the concept of God, as the creator in control of the beginning of the formation of the universe, is constant. Ironically, it is the creationists who, by definition of faith, put into question the actual existence of God as opposed to an atheist who puts into question the non-existence of God. Atheists of course are in the stronger logical position by stating that “absent evidence of His existence” they cannot believe in God.

As a reasonable and rational intelligent creator, God needed only to have created all the atomic or sub-atomic particles which would eventually form a black hole which, upon reaching the critical point, the Hawking singularity, resulting in the Big Bang. It certainly would fall within the perception of an omniscient God that He could initiate such a creation with full knowledge of the ultimate results caused by the laws of physics, chemistry and biology, which He created.

Some fundamentalists latch on to things like intelligent design in order to help bridge the gap between creationists and evolutionists because the creationists claim that the development of the nervous system is too complicated to be explained by evolution. This of course implies that evolution, consistent with the laws of biology, which He created, is too difficult a concept for God, as the omniscient and omnipotent creator, to have utilized because He wasn’t smart enough to understand the scientific laws of nature which resulted in the evolution of all species.

Creationism is more about faith that fact...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Preface
• Chapter 1: The Case Against Faith
• Chapter 2: The Case Against God as the Creator
• Chapter 3: The Case Against God the Father
• Chapter 4: The Case Against an Afterlife
• Chapter 5: Argument for the Actual Existence of God
• Chapter 6: The Cosmos as God
• Chapter 7: God in Human Form
• Chapter 8: Jesus, the Quintessential Messenger of Omnideism
• Chapter 9: Omnideism and Worship
• Chapter 10: Omnideism and Responsibility
• Chapter 11: Omnideism as an Umbrella
• Chapter 12: The Meaning of Omnideism