Proof for God's Non-existance?

Proof? Who needs proof? It's just that (apologies to Laplace) I have no need for that hypothesis.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

And it's wrong when it's said.Absence of evidence can be evidence of absence. If one expects that there should be certain evidence and the evidence is not actually observed, then that counts as evidence of absence.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Who are we talking about? Are you thinking of anyone in particular?All I'm saying is that once one has a hypothesis, including a description of the attributes of the theoretical entities involved in the hypothesis, and then one can predict what should be observed in the real world if the hypothesis is an accurate description of reality and the theoretical entities exist. Then one can make the necessary observations, and if the predicted evidence does not exist, then there is a problem with the hypothesis. One needs to either try to reformulate the hypothesis (and see if the predicted attributes of the theoretical entities might be different than one initially exprected), or one abandons the hypothesis.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

This is what Rob would write if he were an atheist.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

In fact, it would be impossible to even conduct a normal life.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

But this isn't what we are saying.What I am saying is that with the limited knowledge that I have, I believe that there is no God. If there were a god, I would expect that certain evidence should exist, but I do not see such evidence. Therefore, I conclude that there is no god.As far as I am concerned, that makes me an atheist.Now, you may disagree with this the meaning of "atheist" if you want, but why should I care? It's what I mean by the word "atheist", and it's what the people I speak with mean by that word.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

You are making an excellent point. And one can even add (and perhaps you're implying this) that such a "god" really isn't all that interesting -- I mean, other than forming the start of the universe, this "deity" has no other effect, so who really cares if such a being exists or not?But I still feel that it is possible to conclude that even such a being probably doesn't exist. If there was something that exists outside of space-time (whatever that means) and created the universe, including space and time, ex nihilo, then such a being is far beyond anything we can comprehend. It would, presumably take actions based on motivations that we couldn't even begin to understand. In fact, I would even say that we could not even recognize such a thing as a conscious personality. So such a thing could not be called a god in the sense of how most people understand the term: a conscious being. It would seem very much like, and, in fact, would be, some as yet indescribable force of nature (or whatever we would call such a thing that is beyond our universe). (I suspect that this may be what Dawkins meant in the iceage's quote.)Of course, it might be possible that such an entity does have what we would recognize as a personality, and, in fact, created the universe in such a way that beings with personalities (us!) like it has would arise. But that would seem to imply that such a being would have some interest in us, and so I would expect it to interact with us in some way. And in some way more that just inspiring a few people here and there into writing essays and morality plays that would eventually get assembled into a single incoherent and factually inaccurate book.Or is any of this even making any sense?

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Basically correct; to be more precise, an argument is a set of statements called premises and a statement called a conclusion; an argument is valid if the conclusion is true whenever all the premises are true; and the rules of logic gives a procedure to determine whether the argument is valid or not.- No, it's not. It's easy to construct a valid argument that proves that something does not exist.A widget has properties a, b, and c.
Properties a, b, and c give rise to phenomena x, y, and z.
Phenomena x, y, and z are not observed.
Therefore, widgets do not exist.This is a valid argument. As crashfrog has pointed out, this is exactly the procedure you use (perhaps not consciously) to determine when milk does not exist in your refridgerator.This is a valid argument. Of course, it may still be unsound because the premises may be false, but that is a potential problem with each and every attempt to construct a logical argument to prove something.Edited by Chiroptera, : Some minor editing for clarity and flow.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Well, that's because the exact argument is going to depend on which god one is discussing. To show the non-existence of something, one has to point out particular phenomena that one sees or does not see, and which phenomena are relevant is going to depend on the attributes one assigns to the particular god. For instance, I have already given an explanation why I think that a disinterested creator who doesn't interact with its creation doesn't exist.If you want, I can even formulate the argument in syllogistic form. However, I suspect that you aren't going to agree with the premises. But that is going to be the problem with any argument that anyone comes up with; almost every argument I've seen that disproves god has premises that I find problematic -- and I'm an atheist.On the other hand, maybe you're looking for a single proof against any and all gods. But how is such a thing possible? Unless we are specific enough to be able to decide the attributes of this alleged god, how can anyone formulate any kind of proof? Basically, some people keep their god so vague that what we are supposed to disprove is a statement like, "Someone did something somewhere at some time." How can such a vague statement be disproven?

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Well, humans can't say what would be evidence for anything's existence with any certainty. But this doesn't prevent humans from coming to conclusions that allow us live our normal daily lives. At least, as crashfrog points out, until we start involving god.And, in fact, humans do say what would be evidence for their God's existence with certainty, whether they admit it or not.It is true that if the concept of god is vague enough, then the statement "god exists" is just like the statement "someone did something somewhere at some time." Something that vague is pretty hard to disprove, but I think that this type of statement is pretty uninteresting.But we aren't discussing whether or not there might be some kind of entity who might have done something or other or maybe didn't do anything at all. We are conversing with people like Buzsaw and Rob who have definite ideas of what god is. And then there is the problem. Whenever anyone comes up with a reason that their particular god doesn't exist, the true believers just make up a reason to get out of the problem. The reasons themselves are not necessarily testable and usually don't follow from the rest of their religion's tenets (unless it was thought of some time ago -- and then it becomes a tenet itself) -- this is ad hoc reasoning. By refusing to really commit to any particulars (beyond "I believe what I believe, and that's that!"), one can come up with any explanation for any reasonable objection whatsoever.And so, that is the problem with saying, It is really just a way of preemptively starting with the ad hoc fallacy before the opponent has a chance to open her mouth.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

Huh. What would be "positive evidence" for no-anything? I can't think of anyway that anything has been "disproved" except by being somewhat precise about what it is that one is "disproving", and then pointing out that evidence that should exist if that something existed in fact doesn't exist.But let me explain why I don't believe in god. It's about as close to a "proof" as anything in the real world can be "proven" to exist or not exist.If a being created the universe, including space and time, then that being has to be independent of space and time. Since it (allegedly) created the laws of nature, it would not be subject to them. Now, the minds and personalities of humans beings are due to the physical structure of their brains operating according to the laws of nature (I will deal with the objections of those who believe in "souls" a bit later). Therefore, such a being would not have a "personality" as we would understand it. It would be totally beyond our understanding -- it's motives would be incomprehensible, and so its actions would be indistinguishable from either "random noise" or another of the regular laws of nature. In short, such a being would not be a being at all -- this would not be a deity who is a conscious, thinking entity who takes actions based on motivations. Perhaps we could talk about an impersonal force like the tao, but not a god as most people understand the term.So why would a being who is independent of the laws of nature have a personality that is, on some level, analogous to personalities based on material brains operating according to the laws of nature? The only thing that makes sense to me is that the being created the universe in such a way that the laws of nature would allow and produce material beings with personalities analogous to itself -- in other words, the being created the universe with us (as sentient beings) in mind.This implies that this god is interested in us. In that case, I would expect some sort of interaction with us, on a level that would be unambiguous. In the case that this being created "souls" especially for humans, then this indicates that this being really is interested in us to the point of actively intervening to create us (as sentients) directly. So, I would expect a little more evidence of this being existing rather than the apparent ravings of what seem to be nutcakes. I mean, if this being is really interested in humanity, why would it limit its interaction with humans by having lunatics mediate?The problem is even more severe in the case where this being is concerned about humans enough to have set up eternal pleasure palaces for a particular few and eternal torments for others. I would really think that such a being would especially make sure that we understand what it takes to avoid the eternal torment -- I would think that a creator of the universe and judge of eternal souls could do better than, say, incorporate the warning in a book that was compiled over several centuries and that not only was internally inconsistent but factually inaccurate as well.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

It's only a problem for those who believe that God exists. For others, it's not a problem. If God existed, there should be some evidence. But no one agrees on what this evidence should be. Some even insist that there shouldn't be any evidence at all! One would think that if there were a god, there would be a little more agreement as to what this god should be like -- the fact that so many people have so many different ideas about this god, and there is no way to reliably distinguish which ones are more accurate is itself evidence that God does not exist.- And this is exactly an example of an ad hoc explanation that I was talking about. It completely removes the question from further discussion. On what other subject would such a reply be considered satisfactory? Only when we are talking about peoples' preferred myths does this kind of dodge become a reasonable response.-But, again, a god that cannot be known because it transcends the universe isn't what anyone is talking about, really. I don't know what it is like in the UK, but here in the US we have people who really do believe that they know God, and that they have indisputable evidence for God. Look at the Flood threads and the ID threads. These are the people who want to force women to have babies because God wants to punish sluts, and that we need to burn homosexuals at the stake otherwise God will fly more airplanes into tall buildings.I mean, look at the OP of this thread. It is a demand that atheists present "proof" that there is no God. Why? Who the hell cares what atheists think?Rhetorical question. The reason some religious people care what atheists think and demand to be shown "proof" is that atheists are a particularly visible part of the population that resists basing important policy decisions on a particular kind of irrational reasoning.For example, most atheists are not interested in having public schools teach kids that there is no god, so we really aren't obligated to provide proof of anything. It is the religious fundamentalists who are afraid that if the public schools aren't indoctrinating kids into their religious tenets, then the kids are going to figure out the truth themselves. (In fact, this is the raison d'être for the Discovery Institute.) It's the religious fundamentalists who need to demonstrate that God as a fact, if they want to schools to present it as a fact.Atheists generally don't base their opinions on public on the fact that there is not god -- hell, as you state So there's no real way of knowing what this unknowable god would want or not want anyway. Atheists (like some people with religious beliefs) want to policies based on proposing desired outcomes and using evidence to figure out how best to achieve those outcomes.It is the religious fundamentalists who have a problem with this. Generally, the facts tend to speak against the policies they want to advocate, and so they have no choice but to resort to outright irrationality to make their case -- including appeals to a Zeus like god who once flooded the world by opening windows in a solid dome in the sky. And when the irrationality of their position, the unsoundness of their arguments, the vast amount of data that contradicts their position is shown, they then obfuscate not by demanding evidence that their particular magical skyman is false (that's pretty self-evident), but by that atheists present proof that no god of any kind whatsoever exists.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger

I agree that it's a good one. I'm using it myself on this very thread.

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I could tell you what I've read about evolution, the big-bang, super-universes, quantum foam, and all that stuff. Eventually you'd ask a question I can't answer, then I'd have to go look it up. Even If I had the time for that shit, in the end you'd ask a question science hasn't answered yet. So let's save time and skip ahead to "I don't know." -- jhuger