I can easily prove that God does not exist, but...

[Lion IRC]

If you've called me a liar (or worse) via private message I probably don't take the time to read your public attempts at sincere dialogue.

 

[bilby]

If you've called me a liar (or worse) via private message I probably don't take the time to read your public attempts at sincere dialogue.

Thank you for that detailed rebuttal of his proof that your position entails a contradiction. It's a good thing you didn't simply come up with an emotional excuse to dodge the argument when you were shown to be wrong, because if you had, people might imagine that you had no rational come back.

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

 

[Elixir]

If you've called me a liar (or worse) via private message I probably don't take the time to read your public attempts at sincere dialogue.

Would it help if I called you deluded, which you clearly are?
After years of dealing with fundies online, it's fairly easy to see which ones really believe the BS they are spouting, and which ones are still trying to convince themselves...

 

[atrib]

If you've called me a liar (or worse) via private message I probably don't take the time to read your public attempts at sincere dialogue.

I have called you out for repeating falsehoods more than once in the public forums, but I have never sent you a private message that I can remember. Excuses aside, you almost never engage in sincere discussion. You assert something in a post, you ignore the rebuttals, and then you come back later and repeat the same assertion, as if it had not been rebutted already. I posted an example of this behavior in my last post in this thread, and I provided links to your post and to the rebuttals you ignored. I consider this kind of behavior dishonest, but my standards are clearly different from yours.

But whatever, if you want to pretend that you are all butthurt just to avoid acknowledging the point that your god can only be omniscient if it is a programmed automaton, which my last post clearly demonstrates, then go ahead. You are not fooling anyone here.

 

[Learner]

Learner, back in the nineties a fellow named Steve Locks did a great deal of research on philosophically informed atheists or agnostics who later became believers, of whatever sort. See Asymmetry of Conversion for his work.

He found that extremely few people who demonstrated understanding of the arguments for atheism or agnosticism ever took up any form of religious faith. And none of those few could ever give logical arguments for their change of heart; it was always emotionally driven, not a matter of reasoning. OTOH, there are great numbers of priests, theologians, and committed believers from all faiths and walks of life who have become unbelievers due to the force of the rational arguments against belief in God, or gods. I am one; many here will say the same.

From another site on this asymmetry:

Brian Holtz is a bit more specific in his "Atheist Deconversion" pages; he looks for conversion provoked by force of reason, without any influence from

example or pressure from parents, professors, or any authority figure;
desire for fellowship with some religious person or social group;
desire to rebel against parents, professors, or any authority figure;
negative personal experience with anti-religious people or institutions;
distaste for the historical or distant actions of anti-religious people or institutions;
distaste for the evils that might be mitigated by belief in god(s);
emotional dissatisfaction with the logical implications of atheism;
personal injustice or victimhood;
personal misfortune such as disability, injury, illness, or the misfortune of a loved one;
personal failure or crisis related to substance abuse, gambling, guilty conscience, imprisonment, etc.;
personal dissatisfaction with one's social, romantic, or vocational circumstances;
desire to reform (or excuse) one's morality or behavior;
desire for hope in divine reward.

He continues by analyzing such self-proclaimed ex-atheists as A.S.A. Jones, Josh McDowell, and Lee Strobel, finding some of those factors at work.

I note that I've personally seen people who switched from unbeliever to believer- until they were put on medications which effectively helped them deal with mental illnesses of one sort or another, who then went back to atheism. (Not that I'm saying religious belief is in itself a mental illness, but it can result from such illness, definitely.)

Theres a lot to go through but I don't argue that types of arguments "back then" in the ninties as you mentioned in the top paragraphs, which were not neccessarily good arguments from many theists defending their beliefs. Be interesting to read up a bit more on what "particular" arguments were used and if its still used today. Some arguments still used, I'm sure, that are still worth the debate ( just thought...there are some bad arguments ,mind you, on you tube to be fair). Would another research of the kind (if one hasn't yet been done that we know of so far) have a slightly different conclusion today I would wonder?

The various reasons in Brian Holtz list may well apply today but I would also say that a lot has happened since then ..20 years plus i.e. later discovered knowledge (archeological findings or knew clearer bible interpretations from continous scrutiny and study, the bible will reveal itself - is the theist POV) both the theology and of course the sciences has advanced since the "ninties" . A whole wide spectrum of various additional infomation which has in cases , influenced at least a few atheists today .... (a little bit of the matrix philosophy / computer-universe-theory sort of thing maybe ? ) but anyhow I would include (former) atheists scientists.

 

[Learner]

Hypothetically, let's suppose next year the warp-drive is invented, in two years NASA sends a mission to Alpha Centauri, in three years Virgin Galactic actually goes literally galactic, in four years the fares drop down to your vacation price range, and in five years you take a cruise to Arcturus. There, you meet an ancient race of long-lived inorganic silicon-based life forms. One of the aliens explains to you that four billion years ago, their ancestors determined that our newly forming solar system would never become suitable for silicon-based life, and, abhorring the wastefulness of lifeless star systems, one of their scientists -- in point of fact, his own mother -- invented DNA, constructed a self-reproducing cell, and obtained authorization from the galactic environmental protection agency to set it free on the primordial Earth.

Hypothetically, how would you react to this knowledge? Would you say "Wow! Your mother was THE Creator of organic physical life-forms of a material universe. You are the Son of God! I shall worship you!"?

When you ask "how would you react to this knowledge" ? Are you asking about reacting to the knowledge of the existence of "inorganic silicon-based life-forms" and the mother-creator as being as one of them asking permission from the rest?

This resembles more imo of the biblical sons of God or maybe the "nephilim" the sons of the sons of God (a type-2 god, if you will, like Prof. Kaku's theory puts it: a type I or II civilization etc. , can't remember which civilization applies). My answer : I wouldn't worship the son of this "advanced being" of another civilization.


I would use the (atheist) question here in knowledge that she wasn't the only one : "Where did the mother-creator come from and before that and before that and..?"

So your biblical God is subject to being modified by human action? Which version of Him do you worship? The original Being who didn't want to be worshiped, or the degraded-by-jealousy Being who doesn't deserve to be? Either way, He doesn't qualify as a god.

I think ( imo biblically) its more of a compromise than being forced (shall we say) by human actions because there are also ultimatums and consequences should man go too far.

 

[Learner]

Okay, so you are apparently implying that wanting to be worshiped is not a necessary condition for something to be a god. No problem. Here's an easy modification of Bomb#20's definition and argument:

My take is ; If people were easily going to worship Baal for example then its better that they worship the Real-Deal instead if they're going to worship at all! (for lack of better wording)

A "god" is anything that deserves to be worshiped. Worship is immoral. Thus, no thing, agent, substance, etc., deserves to be worshiped. Therefore, gods do not exist.

According to the logic above, the result could be just as you've demonstrated, but thats only because you have defined these restrictive parameters for this particular conclusion. A slight alteration and you could have a different pov outcome, just as valid, on worship, like the sentence above.

 

[Learner]

See Learner?

They : "What do you mean by God?"

We : "How can you say there's no God if you don't even know what it is you disbelieve?"

They : "Oh...we know all about God. It's all there in the bible. We know the bible better than you!"

We : Make up your mind.

Indeed Lion it often happens,

(sorry Lion late reply)

 

[Bomb#20]

...
Hypothetically, how would you react to this knowledge? Would you say "Wow! Your mother was THE Creator of organic physical life-forms of a material universe. You are the Son of God! I shall worship you!"?

When you ask "how would you react to this knowledge" ? Are you asking about reacting to the knowledge of the existence of "inorganic silicon-based life-forms" and the mother-creator as being as one of them asking permission from the rest?

I was asking about reacting to the knowledge of the existence of "inorganic silicon-based life-forms" and the mother-creator as being as one of them. The asking permission part isn't critical -- I assume it would make no philosophical difference to you if the scientist in question happened to also hold the office of Queen of the Galaxy.

This resembles more imo of the biblical sons of God or maybe the "nephilim" the sons of the sons of God (a type-2 god, if you will, like Prof. Kaku's theory puts it: a type I or II civilization etc. , can't remember which civilization applies). My answer : I wouldn't worship the son of this "advanced being" of another civilization.

Didn't think so. But you would still worship the Christian God, yes? So it follows that the silicon Arcturus lady is not God. My point is, she nonetheless satisfies your stated criterion for being God:

' We can define God simply as THE Creator of life ', specifically, ' "organic" physical life-forms of a material universe. '​

Therefore your definition is wrong -- it does not adequately specify what you mean by "God". Are you up for taking another go at bilby's challenge?

"Theists cannot clearly define their gods, for to do so would render them rapidly and comprehensively unbelievable."​

I would use the (atheist) question here in knowledge that she wasn't the only one : "Where did the mother-creator come from and before that and before that and..?"

Presumably she came from her inorganic silicon mother, and her grandmother before her, eventually from more and more primitive silicon life forms, and before that from some non-living chemical process, presumably some sort of crystal growth. As Dawkins said, Darwinian natural selection is the only theory anyone's ever come up with that's even in principle capable of explaining why reality contains complex functional processes. Doesn't stop her from satisfying your definition.

But what has any of that to do with God-hood? I take it you're implying you'd react to meeting our creator by tracing the chain of causality back to some earlier creator. Why? Why would someone occupying some specified point in a creation chain be a reason to worship him?

So your biblical God is subject to being modified by human action? Which version of Him do you worship? The original Being who didn't want to be worshiped, or the degraded-by-jealousy Being who doesn't deserve to be? Either way, He doesn't qualify as a god.

I think ( imo biblically) its more of a compromise than being forced (shall we say) by human actions because there are also ultimatums and consequences should man go too far.

Certainly; but that doesn't change the fact that according to the Bible humans modified God. Cause and effect goes on whether anyone is forcing anyone or not. I didn't force the grocer to give me a loaf of bread, but my offering to pay him was still what caused him to change his mind from inclined not to give it to me into inclined to give it to me. If God compromised because Jews worshiped a golden calf, that means the golden calf worshipers caused God to compromise. A compromise is a modification.

 

[Lion IRC]

If you've called me a liar (or worse) via private message I probably don't take the time to read your public attempts at sincere dialogue.

Thank you for that detailed rebuttal of his proof that your position entails a contradiction. It's a good thing you didn't simply come up with an emotional excuse to dodge the argument when you were shown to be wrong, because if you had, people might imagine that you had no rational come back.

Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out.

I can come and go when I want.
Respond to whichever posts I feel like.
Troll people without them knowing for sure if their shouty, sweary, angry atheist routine might be exactly the response I want lurkers to see on full display.

The door to your echo-chamber won't ever hit you in the ass on the way out because you're pretty much a permanent resident here as far as I can tell.

 

[Jobar]

See Learner?

They : "What do you mean by God?"

We : "How can you say there's no God if you don't even know what it is you disbelieve?"

They : "Oh...we know all about God. It's all there in the bible. We know the bible better than you!"

We : Make up your mind.

Indeed Lion it often happens,

(sorry Lion late reply)

Until we can agree on a coherent meaning for the word 'god', it's nonsensical. Meaningless. While we can treat it as a word that might *possibly* have meaning, and label some existent entity or state, until we can clearly state it we have no reason to believe in it; it has the same ontological status as 'wuzzyfugle'. We simply don't know what it means, or whether it denotes an existent entity, or not.

There are practically an infinite number of things we all lack belief in, because we have never heard of them.

On the other hand, the word 'god' has so many definitions that we cannot say which one is valid, or at least more valid than all the others. I put it to you both that I could ask you a dozen or so questions about God, and we'd find that you each had a different understanding of some aspect of the word. Long experience has shown me every believer has a different idea of what god is; and because there is no common reality that would allow you to test your ideas against a real being, and thus hone away the errors and imprecisions of your model, each and every one of you has a unique definition for 'god'.

 

[Underseer]

See Learner?

They : "What do you mean by God?"

We : "How can you say there's no God if you don't even know what it is you disbelieve?"

They : "Oh...we know all about God. It's all there in the bible. We know the bible better than you!"

We : Make up your mind.

Indeed Lion it often happens,

(sorry Lion late reply)

That second part is imagined on your part. So yes, in your head, we are contradicting ourselves.

But here in the real world, you are asking us to accept something as true when not only have you not proved it, but you can't even properly define it. Do you accept as true the existence of other gods from other religions under similar circumstances? If not, why do you expect us to accept it from you, but not you from other religions?

- - - Updated - - -

I love how many of the latest arguments from Christians and Muslims boil down to "I don't have to prove that any of my truth claims are true because you secretly agree with me and are lying when you say that you don't already accept that my truth claims are in fact true."

Nothing shows how desperate they are or how empty their arguments than their willingness to use arguments that flaccid and ludicrous.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

A big problem for theists is the God hypothesis makes a number of sub-hypotheses. That there is a supernatural realm, that God exists there, that God is transcendental. More controversial claims such as God is outside time, God is simple, and so on.

The problem is that none of these things are provable or demonstrable. If one's definition of God hangs on there really being a supernatural realm, but that claim can not be supported, the theist then cannot support the claim God exists. For me, an atheist, the question "What God do you not believe in" is answered by none of the usual Gods theists have been arguing for for millenia.

Most certainly none of the varieties of God argued for by Christian, Moslems, Jews, et al.

 

[atrib]

Troll people without them knowing for sure if their shouty, sweary, angry atheist routine might be exactly the response I want lurkers to see on full display.

I am going to keep calling you out on your falsehoods as you keep making them up, because I think it is important to do so, not because I am angry. I have lived in the South most of my life and am quite accustomed to talking to Christians who don't know shit about Christianity or reality. Many of them would make you look like a downright amateur in that department, and I know how hard you try

So, since you have not responded to my recent posts, I will assume that you concede the point that an omniscient god is a programmed automaton, even using your definition of the word omniscient. And since you brought up contradictions, I will assume you have conceded that:

1. The Bible story about god creating humans and other living organisms is wrong because the story is contradicted by the evidence we have for biological evolution, and for modern organisms evolving from older species.

2. The Bible story about the Noah flood is wrong because the story is contradicted by the utter and complete lack of evidence in the geological record and in the genomes of any living animals, and also based on the physics of the story being impossible.

These were contradictions that had been pointed out to you in other threads which you had ignored. I will go out on a limb and predict you will ignore them again, and keep repeating your mantra - "There are no contradictions" over and over. But then again, if you are right about god being omniscient, you have no choice in the matter, since you are a programmed automaton as well, and have apparently been handed a very limited script

 

[Angra Mainyu]

According to the logic above, the result could be just as you've demonstrated, but thats only because you have defined these restrictive parameters for this particular conclusion. A slight alteration and you could have a different pov outcome, just as valid, on worship, like the sentence above.

I don't understand. Are you saying that worship is not immoral? If so, what you're doing is denying one of Bomb#20's premises, so that could be the matter of a discussion. If you're not saying that, are you saying that you don't agree with the definition of "god" in the argument? Or something else?

 

[atrib]

and no matter how much evidence we see from collapsing God claims we can demonstrate, it does no good when logic and reason are abandoned, replaced by bluster and this incomprehensible God of the gaps.

God of the gaps?
What a fitting way to end a monologue post about how you can't reason with theists because their arguments are all so wrong, wrong, wrong, and they can't be taught, and they're not as smart as atheists, and they won't see the obvious errors in their own logic, and they drank the koolaid, and blah blah blah (yawn)

I don't think all theists are stupid; some of them are, but that is true for almost any demographic. I think theists are brainwashed, systematically indoctrinated into a culture of belief from a very early age, usually by the people they trust and depend on the most. Indoctrinated to the point where they are not able to examine their beliefs in an open, critical manner, as they would do with any other fantastic claims they may come across.

You don't believe in the tooth fairy, at least, I hope you don't, because you can examine the story of the tooth fairy in an unbiased manner and find it to be baseless. In real life there is no difference between believing in the tooth fairy and believing in an invisible supernatural creature that watches over you and decides your fate in an afterlife. Atheists understand this, and theists don't. If you disagree, can you tell me why the god story should be believed but not the tooth fairy story? You can't. You can wave your hands and duck and weave all you want, but you can't explain to me why the two stories should not be treated the same. If you could, you would have done it a long time ago!

How about multiverse of the gaps? How about quantum vacuum of the gaps? How about Dark Energy of the gaps? How about universes spontaneously popping into existence as a workaround to avoid the God Conclusion?

You are attacking a strawman again. Atheists don't claim that humans/scientists know everything about everything with certainty. Hypothesis like the multiverse and dark energy represent potential answers to some of the questions scientists are working on. Potential answers that are derived from peer-reviewed mathematical models of our physical universe. Who peer-reviewed your god hypothesis? Are you really so ignorant of modern science that you can't tell the difference between a scientific hypothesis and stories of god made up 2,000 years ago? Of course not. You are attacking a strawman because you don't have an argument grounded in facts and logic. This behavior is dishonest, and the reason you keep getting called out by people like me.

 

[Learner]

I don't understand. Are you saying that worship is not immoral? If so, what you're doing is denying one of Bomb#20's premises, so that could be the matter of a discussion. If you're not saying that, are you saying that you don't agree with the definition of "god" in the argument? Or something else?

It seemed to me like one of those restrictive questions (which could be mistaken as tactical) requiring only a Yes or No answer - without further clarity, so to speak. (not avoiding the question)

Worship is not immoral I will say (in regards to the biblical God and as the theology goes) but woshipping the wrong entity (baal etc..) that requires human blood sacrifices or you to do evil things etc. is not beneficially a good thing or the right thing to do (obviously from the theist POV).

Besides, in regards to your premise for worship. People also use the word "worship", when for example :film stars or musical chart toppers are besotted by devoted people or someone having a strong devotion to someone they have love for _ with the expressions; "they worship the ground He or She walks on". Would that form of worship also be immoral to you? (I suppose you'd see it as a different contextual thing, even with the use of the same word)

 

[Testy Calibrate]

Yes, I can prove that God does not exist, but it is also true that other people can prove that he does not. That's because "proof" in the context of such an argument is usually about whether or not God or deities are likely to exist, not whether there is some absolute logical proof of existence. (Exception: philosophical debates in the sense of scholasticism, which I am not interested in here.) We believe or don't believe because the concept of God seems credible to us, and we establish credibility on the basis of evidence. In my experience, most believers think that they have sufficient evidence to find God credible.

But how is it possible for me to prove something to exist, if someone else can prove it not to exist? Proof is always an exercise in logic. One starts with a conclusion that can be either true or false and then shows that it follows logically from a set of premises. The catch here is that the premises must themselves be true in order for the conclusion to be true. A conclusion that merely follows from premises is valid, but not necessarily true. A valid conclusion that follows from true premises is necessarily true. That is, the proof is sound.

Debates over the existence of God always seem to go nowhere. People on both sides of the debate are almost never persuaded to a conclusion that is opposite the one they started with. My point here is that the debate is never over the truth of the conclusion. It is almost always over the truth of one or more premises. The only way to win such a debate is to stipulate that all the premises leading to the conclusion are true.

So what is my "easy" proof that God does not exist? Right here:

1. God is a disembodied spiritual agency.
2. Disembodied spiritual agencies do not exist.
3. Therefore, God does not exist.

Too simple? Of course it is. Most people believe in the existence of disembodied spiritual agencies, so they reject the second premise right off the bat. Very few theists will deny the first premise, although I have rarely come across some who do. It is part of Mormon doctrine, I believe, that God does have a material body, although one would need to check on that with the individual Mormon, I think.

What about the second premise? Is it true or false? I believe that it is true. All agencies, whether you want to term them "spiritual" or not, require material brains in order to exist. The evidence for my belief comes from the observation that agents cease to exist when the brains that they depend on are destroyed. We know this, because consciousness is impaired when the brain is damaged, and consciousness is a key component of volition or agency. Now don't tell me that you disagree with that belief, or we'll have to have a debate over it, before we come back to my original ironclad proof that God does not exist.

I could obviously go on, but I invite others to comment on or critique my thesis: I can easily prove that God exists, but there are others who can easily prove he does not. The argument is almost always over the soundness of the proposed proof, not the validity. So the real debate is never really over whether the conclusion is true. It is really over whether other beliefs that the conclusion depends on are true.

I can absolutely prove that the sky daddy version of god does not exist. Beyond that, it's a dumbass whackamole game over definitions. Here's the thing, first someone who wants to argue that god exists has to commit to some set of attributes to assign the word. Those attributes will either be scientifically testable as hypotheses or not. If not, they are merely paradigm. Point is, god is a really good meditative concept but it's a shit ontology.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The problem is that some theists challenge atheists to disprove God without making any claims as to what God they believe in, and the details and evidence for their version of God. Then it becomes a game with them. It is metaphysical trolling. As Christopher Hitchens stated, That that can be stated without evidence can be denied without evidence.

And of course, there are the standard claims made by centuries of theologians about this God they want to claim exists. And they lack of evidence and the dodgy assumptions and bad reasoning that is the hallmark of standard theology. So in the end, that game of some theists doesn't work.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

Worship is not immoral I will say (in regards to the biblical God and as the theology goes) but woshipping the wrong entity (baal etc..) that requires human blood sacrifices or you to do evil things etc. is not beneficially a good thing or the right thing to do (obviously from the theist POV).

Okay, so you have a moral disagreement with Bomb#20 - and with me. He is saying that worshiping is immoral - and I agree. You disagree. So, there might be some room for debate there.

I recommend you address his other points in his latest insightful reply to you, though - see, in particular, what he says about the definition of "god" that you provided.

Besides, in regards to your premise for worship. People also use the word "worship", when for example :film stars or musical chart toppers are besotted by devoted people or someone having a strong devotion to someone they have love for _ with the expressions; "they worship the ground He or She walks on". Would that form of worship also be immoral to you? (I suppose you'd see it as a different contextual thing, even with the use of the same word)

Well, that would depend on the circumstances and what the behavior actually involves, but in those cases, the word "worship" is used in a figurative sense, so it does not have the same meaning, and the morality of "worshiping" in this figurative sense is not the issue (for that matter, sometimes, famous artists are called "gods", but no one denies their existence).