Why shouldnt I believe in God?

[spacetrex]

My dad is a pastor, and Im 17. I believe in God and have nothing more than a little neat idea as to why I believe that a God/Gods or supernatural being(s) must exist (to keep it strictly scientific). I have been incredibly bored recently, and I think it would be loads of fun to debate with any or all of you. However, I dont believe in debating something I dont whole heartedly understand. So please, tell me why I should not believe in something more - and then Ill do my best to give you a logical reason why I believe, regardless of your statement wether it turns out to be correct or not. Also, Im only one guy - try not to immediatly flood me with questions and stuff. And if I lose this debate, I will sincerely admit it and be on my way. But for the record, if I do lose Im not going to simply lose all my faith as well. The goal here is not to stop me from beliveing, just to show me the faults in my ideas. Quite honestly, if someone does find faults in my 'theory' (if it can be so called), I will thank you. I dont want to believe in a totally ridiculous idea if its wrong.

First thing first, tell me how illogical the existance of a God is (not religon specific). Oh, try to make this less of an attack and more of a teaching.

Edit: it seems no one is around to do this right now. ill be back later i guess. try not to drown me in reading when i get back.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

That's sort of a backwards way of looking at it, and it leads to forcing you to defend belief in just about anything, including contradictory things, with no consistent way of knowing which ones are wrong, or if any of them are actually right.

So, instead of discussing your specific beliefs, I think we need to start with a more basic understanding of belief, faith, logic, and evidence. Otherwise, we'll be defining terms as we go, and redefining them as it becomes convenient, which also tends to lead to contradictions.

 

[Aught3]

What about the a debate thread?

 

[spacetrex]

Alright, Im all for defining. I, in this case, would define evidence as an idea that cant be disproven. Now, im not going to be an idiot and go "hey, god exist now disprove me". I will supply you with my own idea as to why i believe and id expect you guys to help me prove myself wrong. but as i said before, id rather you guys just tell me why you dont believe. Just tell me a good reason why to not believe - and after i understand your views on this ill go ahead and present my ideas.

also, now that i look back on it....all of the terms you feel we need to define seem to have only one reasonable definition already. cant we just stick with that?

and a debate thread? do you mean theres a better place for this? because i didnt see one. maybe im blind. you tell me.

 

[Aught3]

That's a very strange definition for evidence.

Ok, why I don't believe, really two reasons.
1. No evidence, none. This puts a god in the same league as djinns, demons, & dragons in my book.
2. Multiple possible gods have been described, some of which are contradictory with each other in terms of possible existence. As I have no way to distinguish which one is real and which one is false, I take the simplest position and ignore them all.

Tried to keep it short - hopefully it's what you were after.

 

[spacetrex]

it is a pretty terrible evidence example. because then nearly everything anyone could say could be true. so yeah, just stick with the real definition. anyway, you say that you dont belive because there is no proof. But i say a absence of evidence is not evidence of an absence. and with your idea on everyone having different ideas of what/who God is, i do understand exactly what your saying. your saying that you have no reason to belive one version over another so theyre all equally wrong to you. none of them can prove anything to back themselves up. but im not after why you dont belive in a specifc God, i just want to know why you belive NOTHING of the sort exist.

and yes, thanks for keeping it succinct.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Alright, Im all for defining. I, in this case, would define evidence as an idea that cant be disproven.

Your definition of evidence is wrong, and that's why we need to get things out in the open up front. Usually when we talk about evidence, we mean things that are empirical, repeatable, verifiable, and CAN be disproved. If there's no way to show that an idea is wrong, how can we know if it is right?

 

[spacetrex]

it is a pretty terrible evidence example. because then nearly everything anyone could say could be true. so yeah, just stick with the real definition.

I agree.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

I agree.

I smell me a troll!

 

[IBSpify]

For the most part, I think everyone here disbelieves in gods, because there is no evidence for them, just as there is no evidence of faeries, and unicorns so we don't believe in them.

I personal stance is that IF there is a god, we could not possibly conceive of it thus all religions are invariably flawed, and the process of speculating on his existence is irrelevant to our lives anyway, so why bother?

 

[spacetrex]

I smell me a troll!

they have pills for that. no, im not trolling anyone. im serious. i mean - if you want to assume im a troll i cant do anything about it. but, i guess youll just need to have faith.

hey, why dont my quotes work?

also, IBSpify (if i remember your name right) ive already said that an absence of evidence does not constitute for evidence of an absence. so isnt not belive just as much faith dependant as beliveing?

 

[Aught3]

^ you forgot the " at the end

i just want to know why you belive NOTHING of the sort exist.

This is not quite what I would say for myself. I would say I do not positively believe in any god(s). Do you see the distinction?

absence of evidence is not evidence of an absence.

Although I agree with the sentiment, this is not always the case. If an event should have left some noticeable evidence behind, and we do not find that evidence, we can use that lack of positive evidence as evidence that the event did not occur. If a god is said to have interceeded in the world in some way and we find no evidence for that action, it is reasonable to assume that action never took place. This perhaps applies more to a theistic god than a deistic one. Could you tell me which type you believe in?

i do understand exactly what your saying. your saying that you have no reason to belive one version over another so theyre all equally wrong to you. none of them can prove anything to back themselves up.

This is why I don't believe in any of them. There is no way to tell which is the correct one, so the simplest position is to assume none of them are correct.

 

[spacetrex]

Im a christian, and i think now would be a good time to explain why i believe in God- aside from faith. but this is probably going to either take me a minute to find a saved version of or type up. so give me a second.

 

[Ozymandyus]

The answer to why you shouldn't believe in God is quite obvious to me - you shouldn't believe in absolutely anything that has no evidence. I also think you shouldn't believe in ghosts, unicorns, psychics, fairies, an earth-centric universe, or the innate goodness of eating glass.

It seems you're asking the wrong question. The real question is Why SHOULD you believe in god? I suppose the answer is, because your father taught you to. If your father taught you to believe in the goodness of eating glass, would you continue to do it occasionally, or just ingest very small bits of glass, as you began to learn that it really wasn't a very good idea?

 

[Josan]

I don't belive in any god or gods because of the lack of evidence, I think we have a rigouros, natural explanation of the world, and so there is no need for any gods to describe it.

You responded to this same claim earlier in the thread, but I think you are misunderstanding our position, or at least mine. We are not making a positive claim that there is no god, we are simply lacking a belief in a god, see the difference?

 

[spacetrex]

Ok, my theory is pretty close to the same as the one the infamous "VenomFangX" has conjured up. He states it simply as "event + event will never reach infinity thus time is finite and everything had a beginning. This beginning could only be brought fourth by a supernatural force which I believe is God". the difference between his idea and mine though is how we came to the conclusion, and the maturity level active when presenting it.

heres a version i found in my sent list on my gmail:

Zeno, a long time ago came up with what is today known as the motion paradox. he stated that given an infinite amount of mass, motion cant exist. to keep this short, ill only explain the motion (actually, movement) paradox if you don't already know what it is (im absolutely cool with explaining if you want0. anyway, because of the fact that we can move, it can be logically concluded that the cumulative sum of all matter in the universe is finite.

now, consider time. time (by definition) is the duration of an event or duration of a event lacking period between subsequent events. now, what's an event? an event is simply when something occurs. What's an occurrence? when something, somehow, changes in anyway. what's the only thing in existence to change? physical presence (matter). so an event can be defined as a change in matter.

now, if there is a finite amount of matter - how many events can occur? a finite amount. however - you may think 'well what about in the case of a single event repeated an infinite number of times?'. well, that's impossible once again, to try to keep this succinct - i feel this is a part you may already understand. so ill skip it unless you ask me to explain. and once again, id be happy to if need be. anyway, the conclusion here is that finite matter can only result in finite events.

so, now we know that both matter and events ARE finite. now if events are finite, time must also be because (using measurements that we create) time and only measure the duration of a finite number of events. therefore, once again, time must be finite as well. this, also through means i don't feel i need to explain to you unless you want, also means that time is directly dependant on matter. just like physics, it wouldn't exist without matter. now this means that because both matter and time are finite they both had a beginning.

so the 'before existence period' that must have existed consisted of the absolute lack of everything. however - it all exist now. so how does nothing become something? it cant create the entire universe on its own. there had to be an outside 'supernatural force' in action. i don't call it a God or Gods because i want to be strictly scientific. i cant force someone to believe in a god or more because there's no way to prove that's what it is. but i can, i believe, prove that SOMETHING must be out there. anyway - the question may arise 'what created this super natural force'?

well, i would go with the common 'you could ask that infinitely, but its got to start somewhere' cliché. but i don't think that's the case. this supernatural force didn't have to be created by another force of some kind. it could have simply existed forever. let me explain it in a hardly relevant metaphor. pretend you made a robot. you and the robot must abide by all the pre-existing laws of the universe 9ie gravity and stuff). but you, being the creator of the robot can add additional laws that only it must abide by. for instance you can make it shut down every day at 7:00 pm. you don't have to fall asleep everyday at 7:00 pm because you created that law - it didn't come before you and doesn't affect you (effect? which is right there? i have no clue). so anyway, you can transcend the laws that you created since they didn't come before you.

now imagine the robot builder as god and the robot as the universe. because he made the laws such as: everything has a beginning, nothing is infinite, gravity, terminal velocity etc... he doesn't have to abide by any of them - even when within their realm. this is why, i believe, God exist and can do 'the impossible'. because even though it may be 'impossible', everything is possible when you can transcend everything. this even includes the ability to do entirely illogical things and yet somehow make them work.

Yes, i did notice how ironic the length of that was even though i kept saying id try to make it short. but trust me, i do have a longer version too. just more detail, i don't think you'd need it though. Im pretty confident none of you are totally un-experienced in this sort of thing.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

It seems you're asking the wrong question.

Actually, the question is maybe the best answer of all... in that, if the best you can come up with for a reason to believe is because you can't come up with a reason not to, then you don't really have any reason at all.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

Ok, my theory is pretty close to the same as the one the infamous "VenomFangX" has conjured up.

So your "theory" is complete garbage. Gotcha.

 

[spacetrex]

I noticed your rebutle was equally convincing. ^

Actually, the question is maybe the best answer of all... in that, if the best you can come up with for a reason to believe is because you can't come up with a reason not to, then you don't really have any reason at all.

thats actually a pretty good way to put it. ive never heard it that way before. but you are making thr assumption that no one has any reason at all to believe. and thats not true. wether its scientific evidence or not doesnt matter to a lot of people. a reason is a reason.

Edit: id also like to re-state what i said in the OP. this is mostly all about you telling me WHY im wrong. not that i am. i have heard many "your idea is worthless" arguements. but no one has ever explained to me WHY im wrong. thats what i was hoping to get from all of you.

 

[ImprobableJoe]

thats actually a pretty good way to put it. ive never heard it that way before. but you are making thr assumption that no one has any reason at all to believe. and thats not true. wether its scientific evidence or not doesnt matter to a lot of people. a reason is a reason.

You don't seem to have a reason to believe. You don't seem to have anything at all but some vague talk about how the universe is finite, and therefore... and there's no reason to make that leap after the "therefore" at all, let alone to leap to your specific beliefs. Really, you just believe without reason, and call your rationalizations "reasons" when they aren't.