I am an agnostic because, first and foremost, I cannot categorically deny that a god of some kind exists, somewhere out there. As anyone who is familiar with the Measurement Problem will know, for something to exist, it must be observed - and yet when I am not observing things, they do not go away in the space of time that I am not observing them. I do not leave the room only to come back a few moments later and discover that it has been replaced by blank, empty space - the room will still be there (in all probability). These things being true, I can only assume that (a) the room continued to exist even when I wasn't observing it or (b) it was packed away in some storage area until its recall was required by my return to the area, kinda like when you visit an area in a videogame (only with no loading times).

Therefore, who am I, a being who is clearly not omniscient, to say that there is not some godlike being somewhere in the vastness that is everything? I think it was Bertrand Russell who came up with the idea of a china teapot revolving around the moon - if said teapot is too small to be detected by any measuring equipment we humans possess, who can then say that the teapot does not exist? It's the problem I have outlined before in my 'blog: namely, it is impossible to prove that something, which does not exist, does not exist. It's astoundingly easy to prove the positive existence of something which does exist: just observe it. However, observation of nothing is incredibly difficult, for obvious reasons - one might say impossible. To clarify further: it is the difference between nothing and 'not-being' (i.e.: nothing never existed anyway, but not-being is the negative existence of something which is meant to exist).

So, for the reasons outlined above, I cannot say with any certainty that a god does not exist. However, what I can say, with absolute certainty, is that a god could not possibly exist in the way in which several well-known and popular religions claim it to.

You probably already know the three virtues that this god is supposed to have: omniscience, omnipotence and omnibenevolence. That's all well and good, until you realise that such things cannot possibly exist.

For a start: omnipotence. This would allow a god to create a rock, yes? Would the god be able to create a rock so heavy that he/she/it could not lift it?

And that's pretty much where it all falls down. Would the god be able to create knowledge so incredibly difficult to comprehend that the god itself could not know it? Would the god be able to create for itself a trial of its own goodness so trying that it would not be able to pass it?

Obviously, something is wrong with this classical idea of god. It can't be all-powerful, for the very simple reason that reality (at least, the one logical people live in) does not like absolutes. In the same way that one cannot fill any given space entirely with matter (a plenum), there is no way in which one can take all the matter out of a space (fact: perfect vacuums do not exist, no matter what your Physics teacher might have told you). Possibly the only absolute that is at all true is the following: no absolute is true in real space - and I'm even going out on a limb with that one.

So, no, I am not an atheist - rather an agnostic. But, for those of you wishing me to take that one step closer to actually taking a side on the issue, I am starting to think of myself as antireligious. As I have said before, I have no problem with the idea of a deity. It's the crazy acts that strangely alogical people in ridiculously powerful organisations perpetrate in the name of said deity that get me riled.

I sometimes like to think of the god that all theists believe in as an individual who's just trying to do their best with the insane amount of power they have, scared to death of making mistakes that could kill millions of people and constantly annoyed and depressed by the many stupid misinterpretations of its will that must be made everyday. There are all these commandments and rules and edicts and so on - but what if this god just wants us all to get along?