A clear objection which I don’t hear enough of is the problem of eternal regress. You hear moral complaints about Hell, against suffering, predestination…all very valid, I must add but which can be side-stepped.
1- In Islam they have what Mr. Rushdie call “The Satanic Verses”, which aludes to a tradition within Islam that said that some, but not all of the time, the prophet was indeed being spoken to by Satan rather than Gabriel.
2- In early years of the Christian era many Gnostics considered the God of the old testament to be mistaken about his own identity as God. God was another above him. He was a mere second.
In the first instance we have the problem of divine revelation. How do you know, by reading a verse of scripture, whether it is the scribe who imagined these things or whether it was dictated by God or whether it was dictated by a devil or whether it was dictated by a smaller deity, a secondary angel or lackey? When I say “know”, I mean “How can you be sure?” How do you end the caroussel of possibility?
The writer of John we’re told, was inspired by God. Muhammed says that he too was inspired by God and we have seen wars developed because men take them at their word
Either the universe had a beginning or it did not and has existed forever in the past and will continue forever into the future. We are told that every creation requires a creator and that this creator is God. But why should I believe this? Is it possible that every being requires a parent? I think so, so who would be then the father of God? If God requires no parent, no creator, then why should we assume that the universe is in need of what God is proof is an arbitrary requirement? If God needed no creator then the universe itself could be another un-created, eternal thing.
God is clear, in print, that he is alone and that there are no gods beside himself. We have to take him at his word for there is no way we could corroborate this. But it is possible, and this is the only requirement in logic, that even a being that tells us this is mistaken. One can forgive the gnostics.
A man or what looks like a man might one day confront you saying:“I am your creator”. First you may think that he is mad but then you see him curing sick people and pulling fishes out of thin air to feed the homeless and even bring back to life a dead man. What then? Logic says that it does not follow that such man is your creator. It means simply that he is a very powerful entity. What about if he created a new universe for you to witness? You still are free to doubt his claim of being a creator because you have to rely, you choose to believe that what you see before your eyes is what the being says it is. He might have a sophisticated light array which gives the light show he calls creation in progress. You see something but you do not KNOW…you believe what someone is telling you that you’re seeing.
Let me tie this all up.
In Plato’s allegory you have a group of prisioners that are trapped in a pseudo-reality which is fake. Suddenly, and with no explanation, a amn comes and liberates them and takes them to see the light. In the Matrix movie we have Neo go through a similar experience.
Now this is but a matter of faith.
A man that doubts this reality can very well doubt every other reality that comes his way because once he admits to the possibility that he could be deceived without him knowing right away, he admits to the very possibility in the future. The man standing with the other guiy in the light of day has another man approach the two and this man says to the two that this sun-lit reality is also a fake and that a true reality stands further up. They go up and see an even better light and now they all believe that they have finally gone out of the cave, out of the fake…until another man approaches the trio with good news and bad news…and this process could go on forever or it could never happen because at any one of these stages the prisioner might just say:“I actually don’t agree. I think this is all there is.” Religion happens when people are unhappy with this conclusion.