It is argued that evil is the absence of God. Evil is a moral concept and morality may be based on a rationally derived set of principles or it may be taken as a dogma based on faith. When faith is used as the source of a moral code, there is no room for rational argument, it must be taken on faith or imposed by force.

If a person is to approach the existence of God, he must honestly answer for himself the following questions:

1) Is God a passive entity, in the same realm as "Mother Nature", or is God an active consciousness?

2) If God is a conscious entity, does His consciousness arise from organized matter or is it a consciousness that exists without the organization of matter?

Clearly, a passive god is simply the nature of the universe as it exists and not a superior being.

A conscious god with a material body becomes nothing more than a member of an advanced civilization and no more worthy of reverence than we.

Finally, if you can honestly convince yourself that consciousness can exist without matter - that is, that consciousness can exist in an absolute void - then this concept of God has no rational basis, for consciousness is that which arises from the organization of matter and energy. Those who try to argue otherwise, must explain the effects of food, drugs, fatigue and the host of other influences on consciousness.

The believer has implicitly rejected at least three indisputable truths. The first of which is, that the universe is hierarchical. Hierarchical, in that complexity is built upon the foundations of simpler entities. Sub-atomic particles coallesce to form atoms, which join to create molecules, which mesh to build structure, which arrange to shape cells, which interact to ignite consciousness. Consciousness is an emergent property of organized matter, too complex to be first. The second rejection by the believer is that morality can be derived from the rational nature of a reasoning being. To the believer, moral law is handed down from God, which needs a "receiver" (i.e. pope, ayatollah) and the organization of religion. Each "receiver" of the "law" is justified in condemning those who do not abide by the "law". Justified to the extent of sanctioning the murder of those who do not believe as they. While believers may exercise skepticism in their professional field, (for example, Engineering, Science, Medicine) they accept the most outrageous claims that they would otherwise reject. The third rejection by the believer is that reason has limited scope (including skeptical inquiry). To the believer, reason can go only so far and that the further way to "knowledge" is faith. Here, faith means to suspend critical thought and accept unproven utterances of the supernatural to be true. The way to knowledge is reason; the way to truth is skeptical inquiry.

You may counter that you feel that there is an omnipotent being. But feelings are your mind's rapid calculation of thoughts it has already accepted. A person, who has decided they no longer want to live, may feel joy in death. So it is that a reliable tool for the acquisition of knowledge can not be found in emotions. When someone says they feel that God exists, they are exhibiting a circular phenomenon - they were taught to believe in God, they accepted it and now their emotions respond accordingly.

We see that from alchemy sprang the rational science of chemistry and from astrology sprang the rational science of astronomy. From religion, the repository of philosophy for millennia, springs a rational science for morality.

It is time for human beings to live up to their nature - a being capable of reason.