Answers to "if god did not exist"

[Silver]

If God did not exist, how would you expect the world to be different than how it is now?

First, I would expect that mathematics would not work. Numbers exist (at least as ideas in the Mind of God) and if there was no Mind, then I would be very surprised that something as abstract and ideal as mathematics would be useful beyond the simplest calculations. (Instead, we find that mathematicians can discover ideas while doing abstract higher or alternative mathematics that are later useful to scientists!)

Second, mind would not exist, because matter and energy are inadequate to account for mind. We would have no sense of self: a collection of atoms known as “M*” could exist, but not the person M*. Since I think the person M does exist as a Cartesian self, this would be a very sad result!

Third, the cosmos would not exist as a cosmos. The Greek “cosmos” is for an ordered thing put together (like an army squad) using intelligence. The cosmos would not appear to be intelligently designed (overall), but as a kludgy hack. There is decay in the system, but overall the cosmos is a ordered, good, and beautiful.

Fourth, we would not find ubiquitous beauty. Humans go to the bottom of the sea and find: beauty, weird beauty. We peer to the outer reaches of space and we find: beauty. We go to new lands and find even more beauty. The universe is overwhelmingly, gratuitously beautiful. No person could have evolved awe for the world of the clouds that I see from an airplane, but beautiful that cloud world is.

Fifth, Jesus would not have been. Even if we assume some sort of humans whose brains had tricked them into believing they had minds, we would not have gotten the God-man Jesus. We would not have had Jesus raised from the dead or the beauty of His teaching. We would not have the marvel that is the Gospel of John. Andrei Rubelev would have painted no icons. Saint Paul’s would be a field and Bach silenced. Jesus inspired them all.

Finally, many other things would have gone awry, but we would have lost hope for eventual justice. Life does not always turn out as it should this side of Paradise, but if God is, then we know that He will make it better. He works slowly, but God is making all things justice, all pains worthy, and all rewards appropriate and merciful. If there is no God, then when stuff happens, that is the way it is.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/eidos/2017/...estions-m/

I always feel smarter when I read illogical drivel like this.