What’s the Strongest Atheistic Argument?

No, it’s not the argument from evil

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If you’re reading this, you probably think the problem of evil makes for the best atheistic argument.

The world is imperfect and full of unnecessary suffering, so how could the God we’d prefer to worship have created this world? There’s plainly a conflict between the lovable God that theistic religions tend to present, and the world this God is supposed to have made. So, if the evil and imperfections are real, God can’t be.

That argument goes back not just to David Hume but to Epicurus from the fourth century BCE, so it’s one of the oldest atheistic arguments. But it’s also perhaps the most intuitive. No complicated logic is needed to perceive the apparent conflict. Indeed, the argument itself is almost beside the point since the experience of gross unfairness can discredit popular conceptions of God.

As important as the problem of evil may be, I don’t think it’s the best that atheism can offer.

Why the problem of evil is only a runner-up

For one thing, the argument from evil is easily countered by appealing to God’s mysterious nature and to his hidden motives. While religions may reassure their members with comforting conceptions of God, they also scare them…