I think I've done it: a logical disproof of god!

[g-off]

This argument has been kicking around in my head for a while, but I think it's finally absolutely logically sound. I appreciate all input and any attempts to counter it that you can muster. I want to refine this argument as much as possible. here goes:

There are only two states in which god can exist: he must either be composed of matter or something other than matter. in other words, he is either material or immaterial:

If god is material, he is subject to the laws of physics that govern all matter.

this means a few things.

1. god could not have created matter

2. If god has existed forever he would have been broken down by entropy before creating the universe. unless of course his mass were infinite, in which case there would have been no room for the universe. the universe exists, therefore this type of god cannot.

3. If god himself spontaneously came into existence, this brings up bigger issues. For one thing, this posits the creation of something exceedingly complex from nothing with no input, which, while not necessarily impossible is certainly infinitely more improbable than the spontaneous existence of a singularity, which is both simple and tiny. You would obviously have to be very stupid to posit this kind of god above a universe without god.

As you can see, god must be immaterial and supernatural if he exists at all. I will now procede to prove that such a god cannot be our creator:

An immaterial god also brings up some interesting problems, namely

1. the immaterial cannot directly influence the material, or vice versa. Being made of an immaterial substance would mean that god would pass right through all matter without affecting it in any way whatsoever. we can conclude this because there is not a shred of evidence supporting the existence of the immaterial. If the immaterial exists and it can interact with the material, then it would have effects upon our universe that could not be explained otherwise. If it exists at all, it must not be able to influence the material universe.

2. Because it cannot interact with our matter, it also cannot interact with our energy, which is made of the same stuff. this includes light.

3. because such a god cannot distort or absorb light, it cannot detect it. Because sight is based on light, we must therefore conclude that the supernatural is as incapable of seeing us as we are of seeing it.

4. In addition to this, it must be incapable of hearing, smelling, feeling or tasting us, because all of those senses rely on physical stimuli.

5. Because the immaterial god cannot sense us in any way any more than we can sense it, it must be as unaware of our existence as we are of its own, and while it may also suppose that we exist out of fantasy, much the same way we do of it. it will never have any way to confirm it.

6. Additionally, as it is incapable of interacting with matter, it must be incapable of interacting with our universe in general. Because of this we must conclude that it can have no impact on our universe in any way.

What all of this means, in a nutshell, is that an immaterial god would be totally unaware of our universe and would pass right through it. They would have no effect on our universe and we would never be able to confirm their existence. For all intents and purposes they would not exist, and there would be no point in supposing that they did, as it would be a pointless pursuit.

What this means, essentially, is that a material god is impossible and an immaterial god is pointless. because being made of matter and not being made of matter are the only two states in which something can exist (if something can exist at all while not being made of matter at all) we can therefore conclude that god either cannot exist, or is totally irrelevant if it does.

You can try to rebut this, but your reply is automatically null and void if you

A) resort to using magic (or anything that is synonymous with magic) to explain anything or

B) say anything along the lines of "you just gotta have faith"

because both of those are intellectually lazy wimp out arguments.

and before you ask, you can't use magic because A) we don't know if it exists or not and B) if it does exist we have no way of knowing how it works. If you use magic in your argument you are essentially saying "well, I don't know anything, but I want to pretend like I do so I'm gonna say magic because that's the only way I could possibly be right"

some synonyms for magic:
Spiritual powers
spiritual abilities
spiritual force
divine powers
divine abilities
supernatural powers
supernatural abilities

if you use these or any other synonyms for magic in your arguments I will laugh and ignore you. Consider yourselves warned.

anyway, that's my argument in a nutshell. Theists and atheists alike are welcome to poke holes in it, as I'd like to make it as sound as possible

 

[borrofburi]

I will admit I did not read the whole post.

However there are a number of assumptions made here, the one christians will most quickly jump on is the assertion that an immaterial god can not influence the material world.

 

[g-off]

I will admit I did not read the whole post.

However there are a number of assumptions made here, the one christians will most quickly jump on is the assertion that an immaterial god can not influence the material world.

that's not an assumption. it is evidenced by the complete lack of evidence for the immaterial. If you use the "just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not there" argument, you are basically saying that the immaterial doesn't leave evidence ever. I just followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

If you think about it though, there is no mechanism for non matter to influence matter. Matter and energy interact with each other and we have never observed a disturbance in either that cannot be traced back to a matterial source. They interact as they would if there was nothing there other than the material, and thus we can conclude that anything immaterial that is there cannot influence matter in any way.

I could also come at it from the perspective of string theory, which would hold that anything not composed of strings would have to exist in a completely different set of dimensions from our own, and would not even be able to comprehend space and time, let alone interact with it. of course, that argument rests on an unproven theory, so I won't rely on it.

 

[Nogre]

unless of course his mass were infinite, in which case there would have been no room for the universe.

Mass is completely independant of volume, so this argument doesn't really follow.

You would obviously have to be very stupid to posit this kind of god above a universe without god.

This isn't an argument and only distracts from your logic.

If the immaterial exists and it can interact with the material, then it would have effects upon our universe that could not be explained otherwise.

I would contest this point. It's certainly possible that we explain what's really a super-natural phenomenon affecting us through a purely natural phenomenon, but still are able to reasonably capture the effect the supernatural has on the natural. It's also possible that there are both material and immaterial aspects to most things that happen in the universe. I'm not claiming to know anything about the super natural, since I think it's an unkown. But that also means that even whether it exists or not is an unkown.

Because sight is based on light, we must therefore conclude that the supernatural is as incapable of seeing us as we are of seeing it.

This assumes that you have to have light in order to sense anything, which isn't even true for us. Oxygen gas doesn't interfere with light, yet we can still know its existance. Sound has nothing to do with light, but we still know it's there. As far as the next basic premise goes (where you somewhat answer this argument), it's based on the inability to interact with our world, which is something I've already contested.

B) say anything along the lines of "you just gotta have faith"

Unless one of our occasional copypasta trolls finds this, you shouldn't hear this, as we all completely agree with you that this answer is intellectually bankrupt.

and before you ask, you can't use magic because A) we don't know if it exists or not and B) if it does exist we have no way of knowing how it works. If you use magic in your argument you are essentially saying "well, I don't know anything, but I want to pretend like I do so I'm gonna say magic because that's the only way I could possibly be right"

Well, you don't define magic, so I'm not sure what to make of this. You provide synonyms... But let me just point out that anything beyond the physical will most likely not be governed by the same laws, so they'd be considered "magic." This doesn't mean that it's not possible, though. This certainly doesn't do anything for the case of a god; it simply takes away from the case against a god. In any case, you admit "we don't know if it exists or not," so essentially, we can't know whether god exists or not. The same is true of B); we'd have no way of knowing how a god or anything else immaterial works.

Oh, and I'm not arguing for god. I just don't think a case can be made against the possibility of any god. Disprove specific gods? Yes. Disprove any possibility of the supernatural? No.

Of course, on a practical level, not believing in the supernatural is essential equivalent with believing there is no supernatural. So...take from that what you will.

If you think about it though, there is no mechanism for non matter to influence matter.

Once again, I don't think this is necessarily true. There are most definitely things going on in the universe we're completely unaware of we'll discover later, yet our theories still make a very accurate model of the world. I think it's possible that there are things going on that go beyond what we now view as the physical and are thus unknowable (at least at this point in time) and these things wouldn't necessarily make physical laws complete gibberish by their simple existence.

 

[g-off]

unless of course his mass were infinite, in which case there would have been no room for the universe.

Mass is completely independant of volume, so this argument doesn't really follow.

While a near infinite amount of mass can occupy a finite space, the smallest particles imaginable still occupy a negligible amout of volume. infinite matter would fill the entirety of the universe, or else be so dense as to create a gravitational field infinitely more powerful than that of a black hole.

If the immaterial exists and it can interact with the material, then it would have effects upon our universe that could not be explained otherwise.

I would contest this point. It's certainly possible that we explain what's really a super-natural phenomenon affecting us through a purely natural phenomenon, but still are able to reasonably capture the effect the supernatural has on the natural. It's also possible that there are both material and immaterial aspects to most things that happen in the universe. I'm not claiming to know anything about the super natural, since I think it's an unkown. But that also means that even whether it exists or not is an unkown.

If something were not made of matter, or any of the components of matter, it could not interact with matter. It would operate under different laws of physics (as you state below) and likely occupy completely different dimensions. This would render it incompatible with our own laws of physics and our matter.

Because sight is based on light, we must therefore conclude that the supernatural is as incapable of seeing us as we are of seeing it.

This assumes that you have to have light in order to sense anything, which isn't even true for us. Oxygen gas doesn't interfere with light, yet we can still know its existance. Sound has nothing to do with light, but we still know it's there. As far as the next basic premise goes (where you somewhat answer this argument), it's based on the inability to interact with our world, which is something I've already contested.

as I've said, all senses are based upon physical stimuli.

and before you ask, you can't use magic because A) we don't know if it exists or not and B) if it does exist we have no way of knowing how it works. If you use magic in your argument you are essentially saying "well, I don't know anything, but I want to pretend like I do so I'm gonna say magic because that's the only way I could possibly be right"

Well, you don't define magic, so I'm not sure what to make of this. You provide synonyms... But let me just point out that anything beyond the physical will most likely not be governed by the same laws, so they'd be considered "magic." This doesn't mean that it's not possible, though. This certainly doesn't do anything for the case of a god; it simply takes away from the case against a god. In any case, you admit "we don't know if it exists or not," so essentially, we can't know whether god exists or not. The same is true of B); we'd have no way of knowing how a god or anything else immaterial works.

Okay, let me clarify what I mean by magic: a mechanism that does not explain anything and has no purpose other than to allow something to happen. A force that is undefined, and which has no properties other than allowing something else to function or happen (like, say, god speaking the earth into existence.

Oh, and I'm not arguing for god. I just don't think a case can be made against the possibility of any god. Disprove specific gods? Yes. Disprove any possibility of the supernatural? No.

Of course, on a practical level, not believing in the supernatural is essential equivalent with believing there is no supernatural. So...take from that what you will.

If you think about it though, there is no mechanism for non matter to influence matter.

Once again, I don't think this is necessarily true. There are most definitely things going on in the universe we're completely unaware of we'll discover later, yet our theories still make a very accurate model of the world. I think it's possible that there are things going on that go beyond what we now view as the physical and are thus unknowable (at least at this point in time) and these things wouldn't necessarily make physical laws complete gibberish by their simple existence.

The problem is that there is no evidence for immaterial things existing. of course, you might say that "the absense of evidence is not the evidence of absense," but everything that interacts with the physical world does leave evidence. So anything that doesn't leave evidence either doesn't exist, or cannot leave evidence. If they exist, but cannot leave evidence, then there must be no mechanism by which they can interact with our world.

 

[borrofburi]

that's not an assumption. it is evidenced by the complete lack of evidence for the immaterial. If you use the "just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not there" argument, you are basically saying that the immaterial doesn't leave evidence ever. I just followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

If you think about it though, there is no mechanism for non matter to influence matter. Matter and energy interact with each other and we have never observed a disturbance in either that cannot be traced back to a matterial source. They interact as they would if there was nothing there other than the material, and thus we can conclude that anything immaterial that is there cannot influence matter in any way.

The problem with all this is that the immaterial in question is assigned intelligence. That we find no evidence of the immaterial just says we find no evidence of god. While I certainly agree with this statement, to then say that lack of evidence is proof of non-existence is flawed. Basically, I see no good reason to say that lack of evidence suffices as "disproof".

 

[g-off]

that's not an assumption. it is evidenced by the complete lack of evidence for the immaterial. If you use the "just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not there" argument, you are basically saying that the immaterial doesn't leave evidence ever. I just followed that train of thought to its logical conclusion.

If you think about it though, there is no mechanism for non matter to influence matter. Matter and energy interact with each other and we have never observed a disturbance in either that cannot be traced back to a matterial source. They interact as they would if there was nothing there other than the material, and thus we can conclude that anything immaterial that is there cannot influence matter in any way.

The problem with all this is that the immaterial in question is assigned intelligence. That we find no evidence of the immaterial just says we find no evidence of god. While I certainly agree with this statement, to then say that lack of evidence is proof of non-existence is flawed. Basically, I see no good reason to say that lack of evidence suffices as "disproof".

What I am saying is that a total lack of evidence indicates something about the nature of the immaterial, if it exists at all: it does not leave evidence. This being the case, we can conclude that it does not affect the material universe.

 

[Nogre]

gravitational field infinitely more powerful than that of a black hole.

Fair enough; I can buy this argument. So god can't be made of matter.

If something were not made of matter, or any of the components of matter, it could not interact with matter. It would operate under different laws of physics (as you state below) and likely occupy completely different dimensions. This would render it incompatible with our own laws of physics and our matter.

(emphasis added)

But this doesn't necessitate that their laws of physics prevent them from having an effect on ours. It could be that our physical laws are actually a result of non-physical forces, and we merely interpret them as purely physical phenomena because that's all we can observe. In the end, we can only speculate on the potential laws that govern the non-physical, so we can't know what effect it has on the physical. If it does interact with us, we'd simply interpret it as a physical phenomenon. It wouldn't seem like magic, because they'd still be governed by consistant laws, so the physical effects would have laws that we actually see and describe.

Okay, let me clarify what I mean by magic: a mechanism that does not explain anything and has no purpose other than to allow something to happen. A force that is undefined, and which has no properties other than allowing something else to function or happen (like, say, god speaking the earth into existence.

Very well. I agree that your definition of magic is as intellectually bankrupt as faith, at least in terms of proof. However, I do think that it's possible that there are non-physical, or even physical forces that we don't know the mechanism for how they work, or even perhaps can't understand how they work. The idea of magic doesn't prove anything, but neither does it disprove anything; it's ultimately simply an admission of ignorance of a process, which could be as close as we can get to the truth.

everything that interacts with the physical world does leave evidence. So anything that doesn't leave evidence either doesn't exist, or cannot leave evidence. If they exist, but cannot leave evidence, then there must be no mechanism by which they can interact with our world.

Well, semantically, this is true. Not on certain scales (quantum physics has no evidence on the macro scale of everyday life), but if you look at everything on every scale, all things that affect us should leave some kind of evidence. However, I think that we're always going to interpret our theories through purely physical causes. When we explain how general relativity or quantum mechanics work, it's all on the level of the physical and how the physical world can be interpreted to explain what the evidence tells us about reality. However, this is making the assumption that the only possible cause is on the physical level. This assumption is perfectly fine in terms of practically applying science. But you can't base truth, such as whether an imaterial god can exist, on this assumption. So I don't think we can rule out the possiblity. I don't think we should base any actions on it, but in terms of knowing truth, your logic simply doesn't follow.

To make it simple, it's circular, going like this: When scientists explain the world, they interpret all evidence through physical mechanisms. So all theories are explained through physical mechanisms. And because all theories are purely based on physical mechanims, the non-physical doesn't exist. Scientists assume that the non-physical doesn't exist at the very beginning.

Again, this is a sound assumption for practical applications, but not for establishing philosophical truth. But the practical implications of not believing in gods verses believing there are no gods are all but indistinguishable (in my opinion), so...there's not a whole lot of point to disagreeing here. It's mostly a matter of an irrelevant philosophical truth.

 

[xman]

Uhm, I think I can simplify that for you: Magical Thinking = logical fallacy, therefore no gods.

How'd I do?

 

[Netheralian]

Bit pointless if you ask me...

If a God is omnipotent then he can do whatever the fuck he wants - why would he be subject to the physical laws he created (although I guess he would have to be subject to the laws of the universe He finds himself in - in the context of our universe exists as a subset of his)? Shit, our entire universe could be like a simulation and a "God" is just the programmer. Why would you be able to see that you are part of a simulation if you are programmed not to? Can matter be monitored in such a way that is undetectable to us? It would be by definition undetectable by us so we couldn't possibly know.

You can't logic your way out of a God with a long list of arguments based on internal observation, although I think you can easily logic your way out of the Christian God (Free will and omniscience just doesn't go together and neither does so many other Christian concepts).

Of course none of this explains a Gods origins, but perhaps his universe is entirely natural but we are intentionally created. It just seems like a pointless argument to me and has similar merits to exogenesis - whilst interesting, it doesn't actually answer much of anything wrt to our origins.

Not that I believe any of that of course...

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Uhm, I think I can simplify that for you: Magical Thinking = logical fallacy, therefore no gods.

How'd I do?

Makes more sense than the OP.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

What this means, essentially, is that a material god is impossible and an immaterial god is pointless.

Yes, but what about a "spiritual god'?

You were wrong pretty close to the beginning, although you came so close to being right. You posted:

There are only two states in which god can exist: he must either be composed of matter or something other than matter. in other words, he is either material or immaterial

"Material/something other than material" is a true dichotomy. "Material/immaterial" for what seems to be your definition of "immaterial" is a false dichotomy. Theists will claim that their imaginary friend is made out of some substance that contains the exact properties they need it to, and you can't actually disprove it... trust me, we've been trying!

My advice is that you should set your sights on a slightly different target. If you take your argument, get rid of some of the absolute assertions you've made, and change the focus a bit, you could build a pretty strong case for "god" not being at all necessary, and therefore pointless from a practical standpoint. I don't have any patience for theistic attempts to define a "god" into existence, and I don't think it is useful to try to define it out of existence either.

 

[nasher168]

While a near infinite amount of mass can occupy a finite space, the smallest particles imaginable still occupy a negligible amout of volume. infinite matter would fill the entirety of the universe, or else be so dense as to create a gravitational field infinitely more powerful than that of a black hole.

Gravitational Singularity.
Physics is not my strongest area, but I think a singularity compresses matter into an infinitely small area. Therefore an object of infinite size could exist in a singularity.

Even if you disprove the existence of God through physics, theists will always say it is outside the realm of science therefore it doesn't have to abide by the laws of physics. What you are doing with your argument is showing how a Deity is highly improbable, but not that it is impossible. To say that anything is impossible would be unscientific.

 

[borrofburi]

What I am saying is that a total lack of evidence indicates something about the nature of the immaterial, if it exists at all: it does not leave evidence. This being the case, we can conclude that it does not affect the material universe.

No, we cannot conclude that it does not leave evidence, we can, at the most, conclude that we have not found any evidence, for whatever reason (whether the evidence exists but not in our location, the evidence exists in our location but we simply haven't seen it yet, or maybe the evidence does not exist, but we don't know which scenario is correct, we only know we have not seen any evidence).

Furthermore, we cannot conclude that a lack of evidence shows it doesn't effect the material universe; even if I grant you that we can conclude that it doesn't leave evidence, we can't then logically leap to "does not affect the material universe": it could effect the material universe without leaving evidence, let alone detectable evidence.

You can't logic your way out of a God with a long list of arguments based on internal observation

That's a nice way of saying it.

And I must, sadly, agree with iJoe: the best argument is that we see no convincing evidence therefore we won't believe; you're kind of already on this track. This of course does not mean there are no gods at all, just that we don't have any good reason to believe. We of course don't have perfect certainty, but that's ok because if I'm being rigid about everything I don't have perfect certainty about anything.

 

[Nogre]

you could build a pretty strong case for "god" not being at all necessary, and therefore pointless from a practical standpoint.

I fully agree with this. If there is a god and it wants us to know about its existance, it would have made itself clearly apparent. On the other hand, if there is a god and it doesn't want us to know, that makes perfect sense. If there is no god, that makes perfect sense. Our actions in the case of both of the latter two scenarios are the same. The first scenario leads to different actions, but I certainly would agree that you can disprove that kind of god.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I fully agree with this. If there is a god and it wants us to know about its existance, it would have made itself clearly apparent. On the other hand, if there is a god and it doesn't want us to know, that makes perfect sense. If there is no god, that makes perfect sense. Our actions in the case of both of the latter two scenarios are the same. The first scenario leads to different actions, but I certainly would agree that you can disprove that kind of god.

You can't say that "god doesn't exist" but what you can do is show that, based on the evidence, "god" is indistinguishable from "nothing."

 

[MRaverz]

I'm pretty sure that a common reply you would get to this would be:

There are things we are not meant to understand. :ugeek:

 

[Baranduin]

I'm pretty sure that a common reply you would get to this would be:

There are things we are not meant to understand. :ugeek:

Then why do you bother to define it with adjectives like omnipotent, eternal, and, you know, existing...?

 

[g-off]

"Material/something other than material" is a true dichotomy. "Material/immaterial" for what seems to be your definition of "immaterial" is a false dichotomy. Theists will claim that their imaginary friend is made out of some substance that contains the exact properties they need it to, and you can't actually disprove it... trust me, we've been trying!
.

Well let's take a look at what the substance that christians would posit would be:

-impossible to detect via any of our senses (otherwise the absence of evidence argument doesn't work)
-Is within view of everything in the universe, or at least everything on earth (otherwise could not be omniscient)
-Has the ability to influence our universe (this is a given for him to have created it)

My point is that you cannot have all three properties at once. If he is everywhere in the universe and yet we cannot detect him, whatever substance he is made of does not disturb energy and thus cannot interact with matter (or observe it for that matter).

He could also be omnipresent and have the ability to influence our universe, but in that case we would be able to detect him, and since we haven't we can determine that this is not the case.

The only other option is that he is not omnipresent and thus is too far away for us to detect. In this case, he would not be able to influence us specifically because his influence could not exceed the speed of light, and he would not be able to observe us for the same reason.

So, as I said before, whatever substance they come up with for such a god, it cannot be involved in our lives and be undetectable at the same time.

 

[g-off]

What I am saying is that a total lack of evidence indicates something about the nature of the immaterial, if it exists at all: it does not leave evidence. This being the case, we can conclude that it does not affect the material universe.

No, we cannot conclude that it does not leave evidence, we can, at the most, conclude that we have not found any evidence, for whatever reason (whether the evidence exists but not in our location, the evidence exists in our location but we simply haven't seen it yet, or maybe the evidence does not exist, but we don't know which scenario is correct, we only know we have not seen any evidence).

Furthermore, we cannot conclude that a lack of evidence shows it doesn't effect the material universe; even if I grant you that we can conclude that it doesn't leave evidence, we can't then logically leap to "does not affect the material universe": it could effect the material universe without leaving evidence, let alone detectable evidence.

simply observing things disturbs their wavelengths. If it has not left evidence here, it has not observed or interacted with the earth, or at least it isn't doing so right now. in this case there is no point in acting to please it because it doesn't know what we are doing. in other words, it is STILL irrelevant even if it has simply not observed our world for a long period of time.

the point is that any interaction with matter leaves evidence. Either god exists and does interact with matter but hasn't done it here yet, or he exists and cannot interact with matter. Or he doesn't exist at all. None of these allow him to have created us.