“Some people do not believe in God because they say there is no proof

of his existence, while others say that evidence for God is all around
us.”

Before we start asking what is more convincing, we first need to decide what god is. There are
two ways in which people describe God. There’s the man in the clouds which is good because it
gives theists something conceivable and almost tangible that we find easier to comprehend.
But, this type of God can be conflicting. Aristotle, among others, metaphysically describes God
as ‘the final cause towards which everything moves’. In this essay, we will discuss God, as the
creator and as something, beyond human, that everything revolves around. Now to answer the
question. In this essay, I will argue that the evidence against God’s existence is more convincing
than the evidence for God.

The first piece of evidence that is convincing is Feuerbach’s argument. His argument states that
rather than God creating man, man created God. He thinks that God is wish-fulfillment and that
we have projected god from our wishes and desires. This makes a lot of sense when you look at
some of the main points of God. For example, we fear death and so we have created a being
that leads us to eternal life (heaven, hell, etc ). Also, Feuerbach says that three attributes make
us human; reason, will, and love. Therefore, we have created an omniscient, omnipotent, and
omnibenevolent being that encapsulates all of this. This is why this argument is the most
convincing.

The second piece of evidence that is quite convincing is Marx’s theory. Marx famously said,
“religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of the heartless world, and the soul of
the soulless. It is the opium of the people.” In this quote, I think Marx is explaining that religion
is almost a drug that is used to keep people happy and in some cases oppressed. This idea does
seem quite similar to Feuerbach’s argument however the key difference is the idea of
oppression. This idea is quite convincing. Certain aspects of religion are inherently conservative
as they require traditions to survive, they need to stay the same in some ways. Also, religion is
often used as power management, most obviously in the divine right of kings. It is also used as
a means of social control in some circumstances when people use ‘it is against God’s will’ as an
excuse for hate crimes and/or discrimination, although this is less common in today’s society.
The reason this argument isn’t as convincing, though, is due to the many examples where
religion isn’t oppressive and is used as a catalyst for change as shown in the civil rights
movement when Martin Luther King used religion as a driving force. Also, religion and science
are very complex and therefore it cant be down purely to religion.
One piece of evidence that is often used in support of God’s existence is the design or
teleological argument, originally described by William Payley’s in the watchmaker analogy. In
this analogy, Paley describes a scene where you are walking through a field with your friends
when you come across a watch. You are impressed by its clever machinery and intricate design
and you say ‘I wonder who made that’. If your friend was to turn around to you and claim that
it had always been there you would think that that is nonsensical. Paley argues that this is the
same with nature and that there must be a designer for it to work this perfectly. This argument
was largely refuted in the scientific community. When Darwin discovered his theory of
evolution, we were given an alternate explanation to the intricate design of nature. Richard
Dawkins is an atheist who agrees. He says that what we think is design, is millions of years of
evolution. When we see an eye we see how complex it is and jump to the conclusion that there
was a designer when in fact, if we rewind, we see how it was a result of millions of years of
chance iteration. Another idea where the teleological argument comes into play is in the
anthropic principle. This principle states that the universe is finely balanced and that if even the
slightest change were to occur, everything would cease to live. The chances of this are
astronomically small. Professor Hawkins has a different view on the matter though. He argues
that we are here completely by chance stating “we are chance survivors in an unforgiving
universe.” In addition, there are most likely millions of universes without the right condition
however we can’t know about them ​because t​ hey have the wrong conditions. This is why the
teleological argument is unconvincing.

To conclude, I think that this question is too extremist and that there is not no evidence for God
but that the evidence presented for God is not convincing enough and there isn’t enough of it.
Also, ​it may be possible to prove non-existence in special situations, such as showing that there
is nothing in a box, you cannot definitively prove the non-existence of something as
metaphysical and universal as a god. So to an extent, both sides are unconvincing, however, I
would lean more to the side that there is no evidence for god.