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Is it possible to prove God doesn't exist?

arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
LZ has gone rather quiet. Not sure why, but I hope he returns to the thread at some point, it was just getting interesting.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Greetings,

Happy New Year to everyone!
Happy belated New Years, Dragan Glas.
As has been pointed out by others, it's not for atheists to prove a negative - that a deity doesn't exist - but for believers to prove that one does.
Question 1
If God exists, would you agree that the sentiments atheists commonly hold, concerning how one should correctly go about proving His existience, are not particularly usefull?

There are two types of deities - theistic (interactive) and deistic (non-interactive)


Religions all over the world make the same claims:

1. Our deities exist;
2. Our deities created everything - including people;
3. Our deities wrote/inspired our religious texts;
4. All other deities, religions, and religious texts are false;
5. Therefore, our religion is the One True Religion.
Well religions all over the world are Abrahamic. Over half the population of the world. Some non-abrahamic religions don't even have texts. And as far a I know, texts are not a requirement of any Abrahamic religion. In otherwords, they existed before the texts did. That should be obvious to you.

I think you are just kinda trying to try fit things into an atheist paradigm.


In relation to 1 and 2 above, Richard Carrier did a article on probability theory and the likelihood that a deity exists - he shows that it's more probable that there are a infinite number of deities rather than just one (polytheism is more likely than monotheism0. The same argument works for universes - the multiverse is more likely than a universe.

At one time it was thought that a rainbow was a spirit, until Newton showed that it was just diffracted light.

Similarly, if we found naturalistic explanations for every phenomenon, this would show that there's no need for a theistic deity, since it would negate the need for any intervention by said deity..

A deistic deity, on the other hand, is a different matter. Since such a deity only creates a naturalistic universe - no souls, life-after-death, heaven, hell, etc - we would only find naturalistic explanations for everything, which would not rule out a deistic deity.

As *SD* noted, many concepts of God can be dismissed due to internal contradictions or logical incoherence. This means that the viable concepts of God have to be logical, which results in a logical contradiction (particularly relevant to MrBatman's topic).

P1: God created everything - including the laws of logic;
P2: God's existence is contingent (dependent) on the laws of logic:
C: Therefore, the laws of logic pre-exist God.

Which raises the obvious question:

Whence the laws of logic?

It remains for the believer to do the following - as I've posted elsewhere in this forum:

1 Prove that it's possible for any deity to exist;
2 Having proven 1 above, prove that the deity in which you believe exists to the exclusion of all others;
3 Having proven 1 and 2 above, prove that the deity in which you believe created and/or has anything to do with physical reality;
4 Having proven 1, 2, and 3 above, prove that the deity in which you believe has anything to do with your religious texts (and religion).

kindest regards,

James
I think I do remember an article by Richard Carrier on the probability of multiple gods. I don't remember being impressed by it. Are you saying you agree with him?

Is your answer to question 1 a yes?
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
LZ has gone rather quiet. Not sure why, but I hope he returns to the thread at some point, it was just getting interesting.
I have actually missed you guys too. I am at the moment trying to get through some bad health problems and a drug addiction that is killing me. You probably wont see me again for a while but I wish you all the very best. There have been some interesting and special lines of thought.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
Look after your self, that's the most important thing if you're dealing with personal issues. We'll see you when you return. Not if, but when, right?
 
arg-fallbackName="Dragan Glas"/>
Greetings,

Happy belated New Years, Dragan Glas.

Question 1
If God exists, would you agree that the sentiments atheists commonly hold, concerning how one should correctly go about proving His existience, are not particularly usefull?
You assume a deity exists - we don't. It's for you to provide evidence that it does.

You;re attempting to avoid doing so by saying that it's "not particularly useful" to question the deity's existence by asking for evidence.

Well religions all over the world are Abrahamic. Over half the population of the world. Some non-abrahamic religions don't even have texts. And as far a I know, texts are not a requirement of any Abrahamic religion. In otherwords, they existed before the texts did. That should be obvious to you.

I think you are just kinda trying to try fit things into an atheist paradigm.
Most religions have texts, not just the monotheistic ones. And these were predated by oral traditions.

Mu earlier criteria could be amended to

1 Prove that it's possible for any deity to exist;
2 Having proven 1 above, prove that the deity in which you believe exists to the exclusion of all others;
3 Having proven 1 and 2 above, prove that the deity in which you believe created and/or has anything to do with physical reality;
4 Having proven 1, 2, and 3 above, prove that the deity in which you believe has anything to do with your religious texts/oral tradition (and religion).

it doesn't change anything as to what you have to prove.

I think I do remember an article by Richard Carrier on the probability of multiple gods. I don't remember being impressed by it. Are you saying you agree with him?
Yes, many are more probable than one, and one is more probable than none.

Is your answer to question 1 a yes?
IF a deity exited, it would be - but you have to first provide evidence that one exists.

Kindest regards,

James
 
arg-fallbackName="Desertphile"/>
Question 1
If God exists, would you agree that the sentiments atheists commonly hold, concerning how one should correctly go about proving His existience, are not particularly usefull?

Answer 1a: I agree. If the gods do not exist or if the gods do exist, it is not up to sane people to state what evidence exists or does not exist that shows the gods do not exist or the gods do exist; that is indeed not useful.

Answer 1b: The only "sentiments atheists commonly hold" regarding the gods is NULL.

Answer 1c: The burden rests upon the people who claim gods exist to DISPROVE their claims about their gods.

Answer 1d: There is a staggering amount of study and evidence that demonstrates convincingly and confidently that most humans create gods out of their ape-minded obedience to, and desire for, alpha males and alpha females. Humans who have no desire to belong to groups tend to have no desire to believe the gods exist. Humans who do not require "leaders" tend to have no desire to believe the gods exist.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Greetings,


You assume a deity exists -
Well, I think what actually is happening is that I am assuming that my way of determining whether or not a deity exists is better than your way of determining whether or not a deity exists.

I have no reason to consider you an authority.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Greetings,


You assume a deity exists - we don't. It's for you to provide evidence that it does.

You;re attempting to avoid doing so by saying that it's "not particularly useful" to question the deity's existence by asking for evidence.

Most religions have texts, not just the monotheistic ones. And these were predated by oral traditions.


Mu earlier criteria could be amended to

1 Prove that it's possible for any deity to exist;
2 Having proven 1 above, prove that the deity in which you believe exists to the exclusion of all others;
3 Having proven 1 and 2 above, prove that the deity in which you believe created and/or has anything to do with physical reality;
4 Having proven 1, 2, and 3 above, prove that the deity in which you believe has anything to do with your religious texts/oral tradition (and religion).

it doesn't change anything as to what you have to prove.

Well...I have to admit that this is an interesting way to look at it. I'll try to ponder on it bit.

Yes, many are more probable than one, and one is more probable than none.
Thank you for your answer here. Not sure if you are right or not but I think you are probably smarter that Richard Carrier.
IF a deity exited, it would be - but you have to first provide evidence that one exists.
Thank you for your honesty here. I know it's probably a bit unfair of me to ask someone to disprove something without me giving my own reasons for believing something exists.
 
arg-fallbackName="Led Zeppelin"/>
Mu earlier criteria could be amended to

1 Prove that it's possible for any deity to exist;
2 Having proven 1 above, prove that the deity in which you believe exists to the exclusion of all others;
3 Having proven 1 and 2 above, prove that the deity in which you believe created and/or has anything to do with physical reality;
4 Having proven 1, 2, and 3 above, prove that the deity in which you believe has anything to do with your religious texts/oral tradition (and religion).
So I think the most relevant thing I have to offer here is to let you know that no one has ever proven any of these things to me. There is automatically no person I would even considered qualified to be able to do so.

What I do know, is that there are people who want to be good and there are people who want to be evil. I think if God does exist and if He would like to eventually separate these 2 types of people, then He would do so by knowing our hearts and minds. Rather than Him knowing our ability to prove something like a mathematical puzzle.

My belief in God is a humble value judgement, based on my own personal obseveration.
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
My belief in God is a humble value judgement, based on my own personal obseveration.

I could respond to what you said above this quote, but I think it'll be more productive to focus on this part by asking a simple question...

What did you observe?
 
arg-fallbackName="*SD*"/>
Things working the way I would expect them to if the God of the Bible exists. People behaving as expected.

I'm pretty sure we've been through this already. This is a vacuous, non-descript nothing burger.

You need to be more specific otherwise you're not actually saying anything, and inevitably proving nothing at all in the process. The God of the Bible/Christianity obviously doesn't exist, but you think it does so please start explaining rather than posting vague assemblies of words with no informational content. I'll help you out -

What "things" are "working" the way you would "expect" if this God existed? Do remember to include how you would "expect" these "things" to "work" if the God doesn't exist.
Which "people" are "behaving" as "expected" based on the idea that this God exists? Who are these "people" and how would you "expect" them to behave if the God didn't exist? What behaviours of which people?

Please try to accomplish the above without it resulting in a big fat non-sequitur, thumping great appeal to incredulity and/or ignorance.
 
arg-fallbackName="ldmitruk"/>
And here's Mr. Deity with more thoughts on why god doesn't exist, specifically why does god remain hidden.

 
arg-fallbackName="mechtheist"/>
Mu earlier criteria could be amended to

1 Prove that it's possible for any deity to exist;


James
That's my thinking for over a decade--debating this question should precede any debate on the existence of a god, otherwise, it seems you're making a huge a priori assumption that is pretty dubious. It's a different question. If there were some kind of all powerful thing going around exercising its powers, you'd think we would see evidence, like Noah's flood, there would be obvious signs. We have observations that look at the whole universe across all kinds of metrics, and there ain't any clear signs of it being fucked with. The laws of physics rule out that sort of god. Asking if one exists assumes it's possible for a being to exist that isn't governed by them and there is no reason to think that's true.
 
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