Atheist Ireland Forum

Can we put together a list of logical fallacies, scientific theories, anthropological evidence and historical events/happenings that together, prove that the very concept of divine beings are manmade, and disprove their existence...

What I have so far...
Correct me if I'm wrong.

Logical:
- Deities always in a recognisable form
(i.e. always human, animal, a natural occurrence, or a mix of them)
- Deities always in a familiar form
(i.e. you wouldn't see a horse deity in Mesoamerican civilisation pre-Cortez)
- Rules set by deities are always a reflection of the times and geographical location in which they originated.
(i.e. Sexism in Abrahamic religions)
- Arguments for non-interventionalist deities are hypocritical.
(i.e. if deities don't do anything to our world, then how could we possibly know about them?)
- All religions postulating a deity prohibit critical analysis of both the religion and its god. Its a fairly effective maintaining control / power.
(ie no rational thought tolerated, leading to heresy or apostacy charges)
- Gender of deities
(i.e. divine beings having genders)
- Deities never present any new information that the people at the time couldn't have known. (i.e. the deities' level of knowledge/technology is always on par with the time in which it was first worshipped)
- Deities presenting themselves as apparitions never appear before people who have never known of them before.
(The Abrahamic God never appeared before an Aztec..)
- Deities never write their holy books themselves, they leave them to be written by human "witnesses".

Historical:
- Diversity of deities and the number of deities (per religion) throughout history and prehistory.
- The "dying out" of the worship of some deities.
(i.e. surely a god would be able to maintain their worshippers!)
- Rules set by deities inconsequential to actions of humans in real terms.
(i.e. Theists have killed people without divine upheaval.)
- Holy books written by humans, filled with human concepts and morals.
(i.e. 10 commandments, why would a deity be interested in your property?)
- Despite always representing "good", religion has caused many "bad" events across history. (i.e. Irish stagnation, religious warfare.)

Anthropological/Scientific:
- Laws of Physics
- Homo sapiens not the first species on the planet to practice religion.
(Substantial evidence for Middle Paleolithic species).
- Non-homo genus species do not heed deities.
(As evolution effectively proves we are all made of the same "stuff", why would we pay heed to deities?)
- Evolutionary theory
- Chemical/Atomic theory
- The Big Bang theory
- Panspermia/exogenesis
- Genetics

Anything else?

I think this falls under your Logical heading

All religions postulating a deity prohibit critical analysis of both the religion and its god. Its a fairly effective maintaining control / power.
(ie no rational thought tolerated, leading to heresy or apostacy charges)

Very nice.

1. No supposedely all knowing diety has ever imparted any information that the people that believe in it could not possibly have know themselves. Therefore man invented god in his image not the other way around.

2. All gods are local. No god ever appeared to anyone else in another part of the world to the area where it was invented.

3. Apparitions. No one ever had an apparition which was not consistent with their own indoctrination. In other words no muslim child ever sees the virgin mary and no catholic child ever saw mohammed.

4. all gods are illiterate. No god, no matter how powerful, has ever mastered the art of handwriting. All religions claim to have heard a god talking but the god itself has never written anything down apparently having to rely on half baked goat herders as secretarties.

5. All gods have been completely lacking in foresight. A god trying to communicate with its earthlings should at least have the foresight to see how a badly drawn set of instructions would lead to its creatures killing each other.

1. Good.
2. Already stated.
3. Very good.
4. Even better.
5. Funny 'cause it's true.

1. Glad you think so but I think the rating is on the low side.
2. It's an echo
3. Better than 1.
4. An improvement on 3.
5. Obviously....buuut.. I wiped out the quote and now I can't remember it!

(This is fun ain't it)