Does a god exist? Concept Cartoons
Show students the concept cartoon – Do you believe in ghosts?
 I’ve seen a ghost
 I‘ve read about ghosts in books
 My friend told me there are ghosts and I believe him
 Lots of people believe there are ghosts so they must exist
 I just know ghosts exist
 Ghosts help us to explain lots of things we don’t understand
Ask the students:
1) Are any of the reasons good reasons to believe in ghosts?
2) Do any of these reasons persuade you to believe in ghosts?
3) Do any of the reasons count as evidence or proof?
Extension: Students could be asked to work in partners or groups to come up with their own reasons people
might give for believing in ghosts, then challenged to categorise these beliefs (e.g. seen it, heard it, reasoned
about it). Ask them to explain how they have categorised their groups.
Show students the concept cartoon – Do you believe in a god or gods?
 I hear god’s voice talk to me
 My holy book tells me god exists
 My friend told me god exists and I believe her
 Lots of people believe in a god so one must exist
 I just know god exists
 There are too many things we can’t explain without a god
Ask the students:
1) Are any of reasons are good reasons to believe in a god?
2) Do any of these reasons persuade you to believe in a god?
3) Do any of the reasons count as evidence or proof?
4) What reasons might you have for believing in god if you do?
5) What reasons might you have for not believing in a god if you don’t?
Ask: Is there a difference between the two questions on the two concept cartoons?
Explain: Most religious people believe in a god or god (Buddhists are probably the most obvious exception).
Humanists believe that the world is a natural place. They try to use reason and evidence to help them decide
what to believe and they don’t see any persuasive evidence for anything supernatural. Therefore they don’t
believe in a god or gods (atheists) or at least believe we can never know if there is a god or not (agnostics).
They don’t believe that any of the arguments put forward for the existence of a god constitute good
evidence.
British Humanist Association ©2016
Does a god exist? Concept Cartoons
Ask students how a humanist might respond to each of the arguments put forward in the concept cartoon.
Show the slide of humanist responses to the reasons for believing in a god.
1) Hearing god’s voice could be a hallucination or just our conscience. This could be something
perfectly natural that psychology and neuroscience can explain.
2) Humanists ask why should we trust one holy book over the others? There are many contradictions
between them and even within them. They are wrong about many other things.
3) We can learn from other people, but they can be mistaken. People can also lie to us.
4) Lots of people believe in different gods. They can’t all be right. And many people don’t believe in a
god at all. Most people used to think the Sun moved across the sky rather than the Earth rotating,
but we now know they were wrong.
5) For humanists, faith is not good evidence. Simply believing or wanting something to true does not
make it true. Humanists would ask for evidence.
6) Just because we can’t answer questions now, does not mean that we won’t ever be able to answer
them in the future. There were many things we did not used to be able to explain but now can
thanks to the development of our scientific understanding. There may also be questions we can
never explain, but that is not a reason to suppose the explanation is something supernatural.
Ask the students what do you think about the humanist responses?
Humanists accept that these are not the only reasons people believe in a god or gods but they do not think
that any of the arguments put forward for the existence of a god or gods provides good enough evidence to
persuade them to believe. You could go on to consider other arguments for the existence of god and discuss
humanist responses to these.
See the Humanist Perspectives: Atheism, agnosticism, and Humanism; Gods; Arguments for gods; and The
problem of evil for more information.
British Humanist Association ©2016