Emotional pleas against the existence of God

Belief and non-belief are largely motivated by the emotional appeal of the belief. Friedrich Nietzsche, who was not overly fond of reasoned and dialectic arguments, satirized logical arguments for and against God in Thus Spake Zarathura, while also acknowledging that belief is motived by emotions:

But that I may reveal my heart entirely unto you, my friends: IF there were gods, how could I endure it to be no God! THEREFORE there are no Gods.

Yea, I have drawn the conclusion; now, however, doth it draw me.—

God is a conjecture: but who could drink all the bitterness of this conjecture without dying?

This argument is an inversion of emotional pleas to argue for God's existence.

"It isn't just that I don't believe in God and, naturally, hope that I'm right in my belief. It's that I hope there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that."

Counter Arguments

This argument is a non sequitur but may be intentional in some cases. The argument's point could alternatively be understood as a descriptive explanation of unbelief: "belief in God is uncomfortable".

See also

• Non sequitur
• Appeal to emotion
• Morality
• Emotional pleas

v · d Arguments against the existence of god Existential arguments   Argument from nonbelief · Problem of Evil (logical) . Who created God? · Turtles all the way down · Problem of non-God objects · Argument from incompatible attributes · No-reason argument · Santa Claus argument · Can God create a rock so heavy that he can't lift it? · Outsider test Arguments from the Bible   Failed prophecy in the Bible · Biblical contradictions Evidentiary arguments   Problem of evil (evidential) · Inefficacy of prayer Reasonableness arguments   Occam's Razor · Outsider test · Argument from locality · Argument from inconsistent revelations Other arguments   Emotional pleas