Existence of God for Years Essay

God vs Evil Forces

There is a major problem in the question of the existence of God as well as the presence of the evil forces. If God is almighty, loving and omnipresent how could there be suffering and evil forces in this world? With all the power God has, He could eliminate each and every evil making the world a peaceful and a beautiful place to live for the people. This argument raises the question that whether God exists in reality or not? The God and the evil can, however, be reconciled; God with all his goodness has the potential to bring out the good in evil as well, but when He does not use his power to bring out the good from evil He definitely has a better plan in store for his people (Hofer, 2011). With the suffering in the world, God has inculcated in us the fear which stops us from harming ourselves. The fear of pain helps us in not damaging ourselves and others as well, because we understand the suffering that shall be followed by our actions. Also with all the evil in the world, God has made us dependent on Him such that in any adverse circumstances we would turn to him for help and completely rely on him.

Science vs Religion

The major conflict between science and religion arises from the difference of perspectives on a certain problem with religious claims railing against the claims made by science (Sickler, 2009). Integrating both of these in resolving a problem can lead to more confusions and unresolved issues. A scientist, Tyson, holds the view that has Newton not accepted the religious perspective in solving the scientific dilemmas; he would have discovered more and had been more successful. Science works on the principle of empirically testing the data that is collected in this world which can be observed and then after being tested generalizing it where as religion gives explanations for phenomenon which are immaterial and are failed to be explained by human senses and are in accordance with the prescribed behavior, the rituals and the moral values. Religion follows the laws of nature that's the nature that is governed by the supernatural forces whereas science does not. As claimed by Sickler (2009) relationship between Science and Religion is a hostile one. The scientific claims consider the religious claims to be wrong and vice versa. The theory of evolution by Charles Darwin, shows a conflict between the two as according to religious claim like shall produce only like which however was refuted by Darwin in his theory by empirical research.Omniscience vs Free Will

Harper (2011) claims that omniscience is that God knows well in advance about what one's course of action is going to be, therefore, anything after this is just an illusion. The free will of an individual to make choices for himself is partly the result of omniscient consciousness. However, free will and omniscience can be reconciled as the argument is based on the assumption that God influences the decisions which are not true. God has all the knowledge of the outcome related to a specific decision but He does not influence the individual to make the choice at any point. Just because God can see what option is going to be chosen does not mean that one does not have the free will to choose the other option. It is completely up to the individual to decide the best option for himself.

Rational Argument for Atheism

The rational argument for atheism is the problem of the existence of evil. When the evil exists in the world and the suffering is beyond imaginations, the God's goodness is not playing its role so the existence of God becomes doubtful (Atheism, 2007). This argument however, has been explained already. Another argument is that the creator of this complex world must also be a complex creation which must also have a creator hence ad infinitum. Also, atheists claim that the characteristics associated with God such as omnipresent, omnipotent and omnibenevolence are not logically consistent and hence question the existence of God.

References

Atheism. (2007). Rational wiki. Retrieved from http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Atheism

Cosmology. (n.d.). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmology#Physical_cosmology

Existence of God. (2004). In Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence_of_God

Gracyk, T. (2004). Argument analysis of the five ways. Retrieved from http://web.mnstate.edu/gracyk/courses/web%20publishing/aquinasfiveways_argumentanalysis.htm

Hofer, a. (2011). How do we reconcile God's omnipresence with the existence and agency of the Devil and with the presence of sin and evil in general? The Irish Rover. Retrieved from http://www.irishrover.net/archives/1208

Kreeft, P. (1994). Twenty arguments for the existence of God. Retrieved from http://www.peterkreeft.com/topics-more/20_arguments-gods-existence.htm

Sickler, B. (2009). Conflicts between science and religion. Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from http://www.iep.utm.edu/s-rel/.....