Proof for God's Non-existance?

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I quess I'll be the first to tell you, Jon, that you can't prove a negative.

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Not so. Negatives are no harder or easier to prove than anything else (and, in fact, the very statement "you can't prove a negative" is self-refuting, if you can't prove a negative how could you prove it?). I can, for example, prove it is impossible to square the circle, or that there is no hippo on my keyboard.

The evidence for the non-existence of god is very straight forward: there is no evidence for the existence of god. The universe around us gives every impression that it is operates entirely by physical law, without any supernatural element. There might be a god, it is not possible to be certain there isn't, but if there is a god he's a pretty trivial creature taking no active or meaningful role in reality.

I disagree. But some uses of the word agnosticism have deviated from the original meaning and into areas where, yes, you're correct.The original agnostics made the strong claim that it was impossible to make judgement one way or the other until death. This is not an atheistic claim as it holds theism and atheism as equally valid and likely but unknowable. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning

"You can't prove a negative" is itself a negative statement. So if you can know it is true you can prove a negative and it must be false...

I've been thinking about this. I think you're asking the wrong question, I don't not believe in god; I believe in a naturalistic world and that leaves no place for god.I wrote about this on my LJ a while back so, if you'll forgive me quoting myself:

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I self-identify as an Atheist.

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But I don't like the word. Naturalist or Materialist would be better, but they've long since been claimed by other ideas. So Atheist it is.

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Why don't I like the word? Because it is defined by negation - OMG? You, like, don't believe in god?. Yeah, I don't believe in god, I don't believe in fairies either, or unicorns, or spirits or ghosts or some mystical energy that, like, binds us together dude but that's not why I'm an Atheist. It's the other way round, I don't believe in those things because I'm an Atheist.

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I'm Atheist because a world that is driven not by will, but by the quiet machinations of mindless material things driven not by purpose or intent but by the simple and repeated application of rules (in other words a natural world or a material world) not only appears to be what actually is out there in terms of what our senses and sciences can reveal to us but is a world more intellectually fulfilling and aesthetically pleasing.

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There is, of course, much we don't understand and quite possibly will never understand - there is no real reason to suppose that the world is such that it can be understood by human minds, yet alone will be - but a naturalist view at least presents us with a world that is accessible. I believe consciousness is a product of the human brain; no brain = no consciousness. How it works I have no idea but it allows me to be very sure of certain things: you are conscious too, for example. It means we can, in principle at least, take a good shot at understanding why we are conscious, and whether our pets are conscious too; it means that we know already about brains and minds actually makes sense.

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In our naturalistic world, we choose our own path; make decisions about what is meaningful or desirable for ourselves, and use the information we can gather about the world to make the best decisions we can knowing full well that this is it; our one shot at life and that the only criteria we can meaningful judge it on are the ones we choose for ourselves.

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I choose Atheism not because I reject ideas of god, and the supernatural, but because I embrace the notion of a material world - one we can touch and feel and test.

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Looking and not finding is not absence of evidence, it is evidence of absence.

I think this has diverged from what Jon is saying. I believe he is arguing instead not-proved-god does not imply proved-not-god.