Atheism.
1. Something (substance) must have always been, or anything could not now be.
2. Then this something was eternal, and hence self-existent.
3. Since self-existent and eternal, it must have been infinite, and hence was everything existing everywhere.
4. Therefore, all that is, has always been; that is, everything has eternally existed everywhere.
But will you say that this something, this self-existent, eternal everything, is God? Very well. Then nothing but God could be. Then he must be the all of everything existing everywhere. Then where is your universe? You see you cannot have a universe if you have a God. We have the universe; hence you cannot have a God. “But he created the universe,” you say. Very well; from what did he create it? Nothing? Omnipresent God alone extending on, and on, and forever on through all the everywheres, cramming all the immensities full of his essential self. He could not have created the universe beyond himself, since there was no beyond. There could have been no place in which to put it outside of himself when created, since there was no outside. If created, it must have been from his own essence; and then it would not have been a creation of anything, but a changing of himself into something different; and that was not possible, since he was self-existent, and must necessarily exist the same forever, since he was eternal, and must exist unchangeable. So the universe could not have been made from nothing, since all the spaces everywhere were crammed completely full of everything, and hence there was no unoccupied premises where the raw material could have been stored away. It could not have been created from God-substance, since that already was; it could not have been formed from God’s pre-existing self, since that would have been to change the eternally unchangeable into something else—to annihilate himself as God by working himself over into the universe. You see that there can be but one Eternal All. You cannot have both—a God and the universe. And since we have the universe, that is, everything eternally existing everywhere, we need no God, there is no room for a God, and there has never been anything for a God to do. Therefore, there is no God.
As an infinite God must necessarily fill the entirety of space, there could be no room for aught else. God and man could not live together in the same universe. God would necessarily be everything; then the universe must be nothing. But we have the universe, and that is everything; therefore God is nothing—existing nowhere. A mote that is, is better than a God that is not. If we part with God and obtain a universe, we make a magnificent exchange. The issue has always been God versus matter. When people come to understand that matter has always been, that it eternally had the start of everything else, and hence needed no creation, it will be seen that there never has been any necessity for a God, and as the universe is ever governed by law, there is nothing for a God to do. Men must believe in matter, because it is everything, and does everything. Something is always better than nothing. If God is not matter he is not anything; and the idea of God is destined to become obsolete, and gradually pass into utter forgetfulness. The God-idea has been the center and foundation of all the superstitions of the world. When men have learned to dispense with it, their emancipation will be great indeed.—Sam Preston.