As a skeptic, I find this to be a problem with how everyone seems to point out how God must not exist because there is no 'proof.' Well I challenge you to 'prove' anything. Just because you can see or experience something doesn't mean it actually exists. Just because you can't see or experience something doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Decartes' proposed that if you can doubt something, then there is no way to prove it is absolutely true. He simply didn't go far enough in his meditations to prove that we may not exist. But getting back to the point, How can all of you who claim that God doesn't not exist because there is no proof, when you don't really have proof of anything at all.
Faith is Faith, no matter what you think is true
- Thread starter DJ Erock
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I challenge you to disprove God is real then. Time and time again I hear athiests asking me or another believer to prove God is real, how about disproving God.
In the end Athiests and thiests alike rely on faith. Athiests generally use the common contradictory statement on God, but again, if the beings complexity is infinite, understanding it fully is impossible, thus it can still do anything, and everything, and be everything at anytime.
Just becuz you can't understand something, doesn't mean it makes it false, as the human mind in itself is a limit. God logically can exist, but it's characteristics are seemingly illogical to the human mind.
Athiests use the contradictory statement of God not being able to create itself, thiests use the contradictory statement that the laws of the Universe cannot create themselves, and that chance is an eventuality that never exists, only natural law.
In the end athiests and thiests alike are left to faith.
I am generally a believer, but I base it off of things that seem utterly super natural. Things that cannot be explained scientifically.
In the end Athiests and thiests alike rely on faith. Athiests generally use the common contradictory statement on God, but again, if the beings complexity is infinite, understanding it fully is impossible, thus it can still do anything, and everything, and be everything at anytime.
Just becuz you can't understand something, doesn't mean it makes it false, as the human mind in itself is a limit. God logically can exist, but it's characteristics are seemingly illogical to the human mind.
Athiests use the contradictory statement of God not being able to create itself, thiests use the contradictory statement that the laws of the Universe cannot create themselves, and that chance is an eventuality that never exists, only natural law.
In the end athiests and thiests alike are left to faith.
I am generally a believer, but I base it off of things that seem utterly super natural. Things that cannot be explained scientifically.
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charles cure
Guest
not true. you can't prove a negative. its been said a thouand times here. disprove the existence of invisible fern shaped aliens. disprove the pink flying unicorn. disprove the existence of a black hole shaped like a raccoon. you can't. it is a nearly universal tenet that if you claim something exists, you have to prove it, or people are not inclined to take your word as authoritative. you do not say "hey i have a million dollars", and then when someone doesn't believe you, say "prove that i don't". no, the proof is that you can't buy anything worth $ 1 million, and the proof that god doesn't exist is that there is nothing that has ever happened in the world that is attributable to his direct action. there is, in fact, a total lack of evidence that a god exists.
Indeed that is true, but again you can't say it simply doesn't exist. Lack of evidence it does exist indeed, but you can't simply say, "well you have no proof, so it must not exist".
This being is like the wind, you can't see it, but you can't exactly say it doesn't exist. "It hasn't show itself to me, therefor it doesn't exist", is not conclusive data. By evidential definition it doesn't exist, but theoretically it still can.
I admit, I can't prove the supernatural experiences that I have witnessed, I admit, I can't prove anything, but I have put logic into them, I'm not just some blind sheep of God. Trust me, I put reason into things.
This being is like the wind, you can't see it, but you can't exactly say it doesn't exist. "It hasn't show itself to me, therefor it doesn't exist", is not conclusive data. By evidential definition it doesn't exist, but theoretically it still can.
I admit, I can't prove the supernatural experiences that I have witnessed, I admit, I can't prove anything, but I have put logic into them, I'm not just some blind sheep of God. Trust me, I put reason into things.
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charles cure
Guest
Regulus said:
i didn't say that. i said that you can't prove a negative and that there is no proof for a god, and therefore, no reason to believe that there is one. i didn't make a claim that god doesn't exist, just that there is obviously not one, because there is no evidence of any kind for one, nor any unexplained phenomena that must necessarily be seen as having been caused by god as opposed to any other reason.
that's ridiculous. you can't see the wind, but you can measure its velocity, you can measure the pressure it exerts on other physical objects, you can see the effect it has on the things around it, and you can map air currents using infrared and radar technology. there's no getting that kind of evidence for god. come on, try harder than that.
i don't trust you. you didn't even think there was evidence for the existence of wind.
I don't think 'God' doesn't exist. I don't believe God exists. However, I am 100% sure that all man-made religious notions about God are completely false. You only have to look at each religion to see they are incompatable - therefor the odds of one of them being right are zero. Moderates will say 'well they are still describing the same God depending on cultural tastes'... Well maybe, but even so - I think the man-made notion of intelligent creation simply demonstrates our inability to think outside of the box and say that is impossible for there to be a "blind watchmaker".
If someone believes in God without following forced indoctrination, emotional wishful thinking or superstitious reasons, then I could allow that. However, I can not stomach the arrogance and mind numbing stupidity for people to dogmatically follow an organised religion that is obviously false from the get-go.
How can you prove God's existence if God has no direct connection to any of the senses, is boundless, infinite in nature, beyond material conception, material cause and effect, etc...? Perhaps you can try to prove it mathematically some how if God really exists but thats about it no laboratory experiments will work
If god has no existence discernable to the senses, is beyond cause and effect and material conception (? = checking his existence by other means? 
) then IF he existed it would be not only unprovable but he would also be unable to do anything to "reality" as we know it and therefore might as well have no existence. If he can't affect anything and can't be detected then what's the difference between that and non-existence?
All of the above apply to the FSM, pink unicorn and invisible fern-shaped aliens. (Apart from infinite in nature, whatever that is, and I might as well claim it for the FSM as well ).
) then IF he existed it would be not only unprovable but he would also be unable to do anything to "reality" as we know it and therefore might as well have no existence. If he can't affect anything and can't be detected then what's the difference between that and non-existence?All of the above apply to the FSM, pink unicorn and invisible fern-shaped aliens. (Apart from infinite in nature, whatever that is, and I might as well claim it for the FSM as well
).Oli said:If god has no existence discernable to the senses, is beyond cause and effect and material conception (? = checking his existence by other means?
All of the above apply to the FSM, pink unicorn and invisible fern-shaped aliens. (Apart from infinite in nature, whatever that is, and I might as well claim it for the FSM as well
Actually, not neccessarily. Things like zero-point energy have no direct connection the senses and exist. As well as many other things like dark matter and dark energy that have been proven to exist mathematically. There are many things not directly connected to the senses, beyond material conception that have been proven at least mathematically to exist. Also as for cause, the source of things like gravity, electromagnetism, etc... have yet to be discovered. Scriptures say he effects everything, but nothing is effected by him, he is said to be "smaller than the smallest" physically, the absolute one.
I think you guys are missing my point a little. I don't think anything is really provable, being that proof of something is a verification that it is absolutely true. So whether it is the notion of God, or the notion of the chair your sitting in, there's no way to prove that it exists beyond a reasonable doubt. So why is it that all of these people can logically accept that the chair exists, but not God?
Because the chair has characteristics that are agreed upon by all observers - it has four legs, is made of wood etc. It has measurable properties that remain the same no matter who is doing the measuring or when - length, width, mass etc. If you leave the room and I move it, then I leave the room and tell you where it is you will find it there; or even if I don't tell you, you will see where it is and and your observation would exactly match my memory - its "existence" does not depend upon any particular viewpoint. The chair can directly interact with us and other real objects - we can't place it exactly in the middle of the dining room because the table (another real object) is there. Etc, etc.
How many of those apply to god?
DJ - you appear to be stuck on the outdated notion that the primary atheist position is a belief that gods do not exist. You will find it difficult here, and with so many atheists, to find anyone proffering that suggstion.
I don't know of anyone who claims that a god does not exist because there is no proof.
I don't know of anyone who claims that a god does not exist because there is no proof.
Zero-point energy can be measured or at least experiments set up to do so. Direct-sensing is not the sole criterion - radar exists even though it cannot be directly sensed, but we can build devices that can sense it.
Dark matter, dark energy have not been PROVEN to exist mathematically or otherwise, they are speculative inferences/ terms to make equations come out right based on what is currently known and because of OBSERVED effects. I.e. we know that something is having an effect but can't tell what it is, hence dark matter until we do find the answer.
I didn't know we were talking about cause (as in ultimate) but cause and effect. We have things falling to the ground - an effect. The cause is called gravity.
We have the universe expanding at a particular rate - an effect. The cause is called dark matter. (The matter itself is not AFAIK required by the maths, it's just that the name used as a catch-all term to explain the effect)
What effect is there that requires god as a cause? What experiments are there that can detect god?
Ugh, -_-charles cure said:
what I mean is, the effects are around us, but we just don't see it. It's like a metaphor.
But then again, that is a flawed metaphor. Your right on that.
And no, you can't exactly say there is obviously no God because it doesn't show itself. Reasons for not showing itself are obvious.
If God were to show itself to us then it would basically take away our freedom to actually think if such a being exists. We ourselves wouldn't be allowed to contemplate or think for ourselves on this matter. We were put here to learn for ourselves, if God were to show itself, there would be no learning.
Think about it, answers in life don't just come to you, and God can't just swoop down and say, I HAVE THE ANSWER FOR YOU. I am sure it can be apart of learning to figure it out yourself.
If God were to show itself to you, then it might as well give you all of the answers up front, because it already gave you one right there.
But isn't that part of the "problem"? Theists claim that evidence is all around us, that god is in everything and that atheists fail to see it.
And atheists say that theists have given up thinking and looking for answers and chosen faith instead.
It's the same thing with athiests.
They claim the Universe and everything eventuated from chance, when chance in itself has been given no evidence to exist.
Not even something as bullet proof as infinite causality can justify everythings eventuality, because that in itself cannot just BE, on the eventuality of chance. Thus that in itself is a paradoxal view on everythings eventuality.
This is why I say that athiests and thiests alike rely on faith.
We're both saying it can be this way because it is IS this way. In the end, all we can do is wait for death to get the answers. Unless there is no afterlife, then we will never find out.
The only way I account my belief on this other then intelligent design, is the experiences I witness. Other than that I have nothing.
In the end, both thiests and athiests rely on a certain level of faith.
They claim the Universe and everything eventuated from chance, when chance in itself has been given no evidence to exist.
Not even something as bullet proof as infinite causality can justify everythings eventuality, because that in itself cannot just BE, on the eventuality of chance. Thus that in itself is a paradoxal view on everythings eventuality.
This is why I say that athiests and thiests alike rely on faith.
We're both saying it can be this way because it is IS this way. In the end, all we can do is wait for death to get the answers. Unless there is no afterlife, then we will never find out.
The only way I account my belief on this other then intelligent design, is the experiences I witness. Other than that I have nothing.
In the end, both thiests and athiests rely on a certain level of faith.
This is fucking rediculous. The chair I'm sitting on exists by the very definition of "existence". It has repeatable, demonstrable persistence throughout spacetime. It can be examined by anyone who cares to, and will be verified universally to have physical existence. How do you define existence? Damn I hate the fucking word games of the jello minded.DJ Erock said:
This is fucking rediculous also. So now atheism is a faith based religion. Who are these idiots? Get a dictionary. Do some research. Learn a bit before opening your pie hole.Regulus said:
Calm down.... you seem to be getting very worked up..
I know this frusterates you but there is no need to get upset.
Handle others rebuttles lightly.
If you can't, then there's no reason to have an intellient conversation.
"ATHIESTS ARE NOT IDIOTS!!! BLAAAAAAAH!!!"
Do you even realize how you sound? I can see why you have that avatar of yours.
I know this frusterates you but there is no need to get upset.
Handle others rebuttles lightly.
If you can't, then there's no reason to have an intellient conversation.
"ATHIESTS ARE NOT IDIOTS!!! BLAAAAAAAH!!!"
Do you even realize how you sound? I can see why you have that avatar of yours.