Evaluating Theism, Atheism and Advaita

One of the greatest theists and apologists in the world, William Lane Craig, flags five arguments for believing in a Semitic God. I evaluate both the theistic and atheistic arguments to show that both these arguments are weak and that theologians must develop better arguments. I will also raise the Advaita perspective, which is superior to both theistic and atheistic representations. The five arguments are as follows:

1) The Cosmological argument:

The theistic argument:

This argument has 5 parts:

i) Everything that exists has an explanation of its existence, either in the necessity of its own nature or in an external cause.

ii) If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.

iii) The universe exists.

iv) Therefore, the universe has an explanation of its existence.

v) Therefore, the explanation of the universe's existence is God

The atheistic argument:

Part ii is a perplexing inference. Why God? Why not Satan, a flying spaghetti monster, Zeus, or a billion other reasons? Part v is also confusing as there is no reason why one assumes that only God created the world. Every religion says that their God created the world. There is no reason to believe one over the other. Most gods have no relation with other gods and even vociferously slam each other. There is no reason to believe one account over another. Hence, in an atheistic world, all of them are not true.

The Advaita argument:

Buddhism generally avoids answers about the ultimate reality. It states that humans do not have the capacity to understand the complexity of creation, and all answers humans provide are simplistic and, therefore, wrong. There is no reason why humans should grasp the ultimate reality.

Advaita approaches creation differently. In Advaita, there is no God. There is only the self (Atman or consciousness) and the universal self (Brahman). Nobody knows anything about this universe except that their consciousness exists. Science is an excellent tool for studying the outside world. However, there is a problem with the verifiability of science, the universe, and the objective world. All perceptions are electrical signals fed to your mind, and the mind recreates the universe from the electrical signals.

All these ideas of an objective universe and a creator God are ultimately illusory constructs of the mind. They could well be part of a giant simulation like the Matrix and not know the world outside. In Advaita, you create your personal universe. Hence, forget the talk of the external universe. Your mind creates the inner universe from scratch. To understand why the universe is the way it is, you need to ask questions about why you perceive the world the way you do. Direct inwards rather than outwards, and understand why your brain interprets the world in a specific manner.

2) The Kalam Cosmological argument:

The theistic argument:

Whatever begins to exist has a cause of its existence.

The universe began to exist.

Therefore, the universe has a cause of its existence.

The atheistic argument:

This is an infinite regress argument because the cause (God) should also have a creator. This does not bring us closer to the truth. There is no way to break the infinite regress and stop it at the first stage.

For all we know, the universe could have created itself without a creator.

The Advaita argument:

There are illusory levels of existence in this world. At the ultimate level of understanding, there has never been creation. There is just pure unity. This is the world that emerges from the perspective of a photon travelling at the speed of light. Photons perceive no space or time, even though humans see it travel through space and time. If there is no creation, why should there be a cause? For an Advaitin, both the theistic and atheistic arguments are pointless.

The idea of cause and effect is an illusory reality. It is a story made up by your human mind. Similarly, you create your personal universe inside your mind as a simulation. The truth of the outside universe is unknowable to a human mind, though Advaita says that the world reflects the Brahman. Buddhism and Advaita say the only question is who creates the inner world, not what is in the outside world. The inner simulated world is the only world you will ever know. The being who creates the inner world is your consciousness, the Atman. You know that you exist. The Atman needs no further proof.

3) The Moral argument:

The theistic argument:

There are three parts.

i) If God does not exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.

ii) Objective moral values and duties do exist.

iii) Therefore, God exists.

The atheistic argument:

Firstly, the term God can be replaced with Satan, aliens, simulation, etc. There is no reason for God to be the only object which can fill the gap here.

Secondly, morals have changed for thousands of years. The morals of the Code of Hammurabi cannot be considered morals today. Many Biblical sayings about diet or wealth creation cannot be followed today because the world has changed.

From a genetic perspective, we have descended from primate-like ancestors, rat-like ancestors, bacteria-like ancestors, and so on. Our morals are very different from their morals. If there is a God for us, was there a God for primates or bacteria? Hence, these conversations make no sense.

The Advaita argument:

This world has no right or wrong in the realm of ultimate reality. There are multiple levels of existence. Near the bottom-most levels, our consciousness is derived from our unicellular ancestors like bacteria. At higher levels, our mind works in a tiered manner, representing steps in the evolutionary ladder. For example, we have both a reptilian brain and a human brain. All these levels of consciousness lie atop each other. Ideas of life and reproduction arise before the time of bacteria into the deepest layers of our consciousness, representing the ancestor of all life. Ideas of society, virtue and morality are more recent constructs. What is wrong for us now may have worked for us in the evolutionary past. So, the combined consciousness evaluates the mind, looking at all the pros and cons across multiple levels to make a combined call.

Both Buddhism and Advaita discuss the multiple levels of reality we inhabit. They agree that all talk of morality, objectivity, and God is a part of the Maya (illusory reality) in which we live.

As per Advaita, there is only one ultimate reality, that of the Atman. The Atman is passed on like a baton from one generation to the other. Our consciousness is partly derived from our parents, and they got their consciousness from their parents. All living beings derive life from the first and only living ancestor that ever lived. All subsequent living beings borrow their consciousness from this ancient progenitor of all life. We are all the children of this one being that never died but lives inside all of us today. This one being is the Atman.

As representations of the Atman, the idea that we individuals come into existence during conception is a lie. Our life and consciousness have passed from one living body to another in an unbroken chain for more than 4 billion years. This unity of life is a concept that only Advaita appreciates, and no other belief system does. Even Science does not understand the meaning of its discoveries. For meaning, Science has to turn to Advaita.

There is a more complex argument about what and who lives, but that is for later.

4) The Teleologial argument:

The theistic argument:

There are three parts.

i) The fine-tuning of the universe is due to either physical necessity, chance or design.

ii) It is not due to physical necessity or chance.

iii) Therefore, it is due to design.

Atheistic argument:

In whichever universe humans originated in, there would have been some combination of physical constants. Therefore, saying chance had no role to play makes no sense. After finding that an event had occurred, the chances of the event happening are 100%, not one in a gazillion. Not understanding Bayes's rules of conditional probability creates these mistaken arguments.

Even if one agrees that there is design, does that mean there is a designer? Could not the universe design itself? How do we know that is impossible? Even if one agrees that there is a designer, how do we know the name of the designer? It could be a billion options other than God. We will never know.

The Advaita argument:

The big question is not how the Big Bang happened or why the world is fine-tuned. Any answer can only be a part of illusory reality. Illusory reality (Maya) can look extremely real, and one has to transcend to a higher understanding of reality to realize that Maya is a lower form of reality.

The difficult question is why our mind perceives that the Big Bang happened or that the world is fine-tuned. To understand the answer, one must understand how the brain stores information. The answer is not that Science says so. Whatever Science says, the mind has to understand and make sense. What does understanding and making sense mean? To get some answers, we need to understand how the mind works and not just how the brain works.

Understanding the mind has been a disaster for scientists and philosophers. Most philosophers think there is a world of the mind where the world is independent of matter. This is represented by the Cartesian dualist and Functionalist schools of thought. The Materialist school of thought states that there is only a world of matter and no world of the mind. All serious philosophers have junked that perspective.

Scientists have made almost no progress in the last century through research into consciousness. The world of Quantum Physics posits that Newtonian physics should never be deterministic. Where, then, does determinism emerge? Is it in the mind? Is it in our consciousness? Advaita brings up many hypotheses, and hopefully, Science can develop the tools to explore them in the future. After all, Quantum Physics was created by German and American scientists who were deeply inspired by the Upanishads and Advaita.