To such questions I think the apostle Paul would answer something along the lines of Romans 9:20 "But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, 'Why did you make me like this?'"

The Biblical references others gave above, they appear to be using in an attempt to construct a somewhat contrived and–it seems to me–mistaken argument:

All things are for God and made by Him for His own pleasure: thus humans exist for God's pleasure. (Fair enough–it's in the Bible.) So in what way would it please God to make man, I understand John's question to ask. The argument seems to go: God made all things that have been made because they would increase His pleasure (wherein they err in assuming that it ever could have been anything less than the fully perfected), for whatsoever did not, that God would not have made since He made all things for his pleasure (which is, it seems to me, a bit of circular reasoning). Ergo God created humans for to bring him pleasure.

And is the nature of such laws, and the laws you (sometimes erroneously) employ in your logic, any less than divine? They even fit your own definitions of gods, it seems. They don't have any wants; they don't create; they aren't human; they never die; they contain no flaws; they don't punish. So if you're truly an atheist instead of a polytheist, then you aren't being completely honest with yourself about your concept of god. Perhaps you never really cared to, but simply dismissed religion because you had been hurt by it, perhaps being horribly misled and/or misinformed by it and even *about* it. If so, *that* spirit was not of Christ. (It is a major concern of mine that an antichrist-ian spirit seems so powerful in churches today. It forces people with sound minds and good heats to leave the church, making it easier for his malevolence to consolidate power within the church.)

(If you are using a different notion, then you've got even bigger problems, because then maybe God *didn't* create everything, but whatever created God could have, so the argument still doesn't hold water.)

There is in fact a problem with your idea of the standard of value. Sometimes one is willing to give up everything, even his/her own life, for the sake of those s/he loves or even for principles on which s/he is firmly convicted.

My suggestion is to seek a different definition then, whereby instead of God valuing nothing, God would value everything!

Your idea that someone should go away and read a few books and come back and have their life changed is so insulting and condescending I wouldn't have even said that to someone when I was a christian! You win people over with facts, not rhetoric.

As for the assertion that god is human, I must protest: humans are not supposed to be perfect immortal transcendent beings that predate time and created the entire universe. You want your cake and eat it. God is human, but also not. God is human and imperfect, but also perfect. He cannot die yet died. He cannot value and yet values. He punishes for non-existent crimes that people didn't commit. The concept is a contradiction. The only way to explain it with a contradiction. This fact is so startling I can only think you can't see the woods for the trees.

Contradictions don’t exist in reality, so if the concept of god is a contradiction, it cannot exist in reality. And if you think differently, maybe you should “toddle home” and learn some logic.

Nice way to avoid everything else I said though!

Oh and I happen to be an atheist because I don’t believe in the same sky fairy that you seem to believe in, but *yawn* on the “faith” comment; hey if it helps you sleep at night to believe that those who don’t share your fantasies are just as irrational as you then fine, but when you say this stuff on the internet it makes you look silly.

Not to put too fine a point on it – or be deliberately rude – but if you're going to try to use logic in your arguments you might want to toddle home and learn it first.

"The concept of god is a contradiction, and that is why it disproves his existence."

That is a ludicrously illogical and unwarranted statement. The only thing that the contradiction comes close to disproving is the framework for the understanding of a god and his possible motives.

If, as an atheist, you are going to proselytize your faith, learn its tenets first please. LOL