Throughout the entirety of man’s existence, he has created for himself a myriad of gods, spirits, specters, and deities for which to support him. Hand-woven into his psyche, they are a spiritual crutch for his pride and a hierarchy for his ideals. It is little wonder that just about every significant culture from antiquity onto the present day has conjured up for himself some brand of religious adherence. From the feathered-serpent Quetzalcoatl, to the illustrious Jesus Christ, son of David, all these various deities carry essentially the same likelihood of existence. Although many intricate and needlessly complex, albeit entirely pseudointellectual cases have been pieced together in order to prove for certain the physical existence of these deities, religious sympathizers have attempted to carry about their hefty burdens of proof with mere speculation, gut-feelings, God-of-the-gaps reasoning, and numerous logical fallacies. Considering these arguments from a completely objective standpoint however, one might wonder why they are rarely contrived upon nothing more than various interpretations of bronze-age manuscripts. Ancient texts and gut feelings alone have never been enough evidence to account for anything tangible. Why then, should the claims of these theologians be considered when dealing with gods? If the same speculation alone was used in an attempt to justify any other sort of radical declarative statement, one would be hard-pressed to take their proposition seriously. Take for example, if one were to use the same nonsensical logic utilized to support the existence of God in order to conjecture that an entire country, for instance-- Bulgaria, did not exist. Such a proposition would be dismissed outright, and with good reason. It is however the premise of this proposition, the central-point alone which one would find completely absurd, and not merely the supporting arguments for it. Despite that both of the aforementioned propositions must rely heavily on leaps of faith in order to give due consideration, is it not odd that people would be much less likely to discount the premise of religious arguments on account of their absurdity than a case against the existence of Bulgaria?
From hours of reading through atlases as a child, I can point out with ease, Bulgaria’s supposed location on any map of Europe, which lies between Turkey and the rest of the Balkan states. I also know that they were one the constituents of the axis powers, who fought with Germany against the allies in the First World War. However, it is rather an odd little fact indeed that I (and perhaps you as well) have never heard of or known anything or anyone remotely associated with this obscure South-Eastern European country (at least prior to writing this). Furthermore, it’s size and geographical location contribute even more to this mystery, seeing as it shares common borders with more than a few fairly-known eastern states (Romania, Serbia, Turkey, and Greece to name but 4) and with a grand population of over 8 million people, it leaves one perplexed as to significance of this supposed land mass. For an intricate case has been made to prove the existence of god, I shall construct an equally dubious case for the non-existence of Bulgaria in order to prove once and for all that the road to Bulgaria has been paved for centuries upon a twisted heap of malicious lies and deceit, and we (the good, unsuspecting people of North America) have been fooled by this great Bulgarian conspiracy for far too long. For if the gut feelings and logical fallacies used to prove the existence of God are given serious philosophical consideration, than the same logic which shall account for the non-existence of this ghostly Warsaw pact-country stands just as valid. Bulgaria does not exist, and any man who believes the shifty case for a supernatural grandfather should then adhere to this logic as well.
Saint Anselm of Canterbury, the Christian apologist of the eleventh century once proposed what is today known as the Ontological argument. Essentially, Anselm felt that because things have observable characteristics, that is to say they are either smooth or rough, sharp or dull, bright or dark, pleasurable or painful, than there must exist something to which we judge the standard of all these various characteristics. For example, if a knife that we can observe is sharp, then it must only be sharp relative to the sharpest possible thing in existence, which Saint Anselm concluded, was God (the Catholic god of course). Because his God encompassed all of these perfect qualities, then he must certainly have possessed the quality of existing, which admittedly, is better than not existing. Now consider the logic of the ontological argument in relation to Bulgaria.
Bulgaria has one of the lowest human development indexes of any European state, second only to Ukraine and Belarus. Relative to its income per person, the country is also the saddest nation in the world according to a recent study done by the University of Pennsylvania. Bulgaria has a lack of mineral wealth and possesses the dusty, infertile soil of Anatolia, which only yields meager fruit, roses, and tobacco as the nation’s main exports. It is evident that Bulgaria, from these aforementioned observable characteristics coupled with its relative obscurity, would deem it among the worst possible European nations. However, in accordance with the ontological argument, which theologians and apologists hold so very dear, the country could not be the worst possible European state if it were to exist, which it therefore must not.
The majority of arguments for a god’s existence are based purely on anecdotal evidence. One of the most prominent theologians of the twenty-first century, the American Preacher Fred Phelps, argues that the evidence for god is all written in the bible. This is a perfect example of anecdotal reasoning, as the scientific, historical, metaphysical, and philosophical claims presented in the bible have been falsified time and time again, and any faith one places in the factual validity of such scripture is doing so based entirely on personal feeling. For instance, the world is not a flat plane, as the Old Testament claims, and contrary to the book of Exodus, which describes Moses’ flight from Egypt and God’s subsequent dictation of the Ten Commandments, it is a confirmed historical fact that the Egyptians never kept Jewish slaves. Phelps, along with many other religious adherents holds the bible as the literal truth which infallibly affirms all his personal conjectures. Likewise, because my subjective opinion has just as much an impact on fundamental physical laws than those people who lived two thousand years ago, I conjecture that the country of Bulgaria is only but a ghost upon the world stage. It is a figment of geography; an object of pure fantasy. Any other religious adherent whose worldview is dictated by the same speculative reasoning and anecdotal logic should be compelled to believe this claim as well.
(Disclaimer: I love the nation of Bulgaria. Even though I've never been there I'm sure its a very beautiful country and its citizens are very proud. The negative references to the country are for satirical purposes only! If you are offended by this post's content then I insist you buy a dictionary and look up the word humor. Cheers)
