Terra Drake was kinda right when he said that its up to those who believe in God to prove God exists. I know that said people are under no obligation to do so, but I'd like it if someone did, or at least put forward a good arguement. Please?

I know this is slightly off topic, but Spree? I'm a she.

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Proving that God exists is an impossibility in itself, as faith by definition has nothing to do with rational thought, but with personal beliefs that can't be proven nor disproven.

A believer will tell you, 'Prove that God doesn't exist' and one would be hard put to find arguments one way or the other. Some claim that pure chance cannot explain the apparition of life, and that a guiding force must be working to make it possible. On the other hand, it's not because something has a low statistitical probability that it is irrefutably impossible.

I have some beliefs, born of my personal experience and upbringing, but I've learned a long time ago that discussions about faith are futile. I remember a poem my grandmother (a devout Catholic) had on a poster in her kitchen, it went "I believe in the light, even when it is night; I believe in laughter, even when I am weeping; I believe in love, even when I am alone; And I believe in God, even when He is silent" - Of course, you can claim that God is always silent, or that He speaks to us through His creation and not in words. It all depends on your point of view in the end.

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Sorry Terra, my bad.

 

Terra explained why it should be explained "Prove god exists" rather than "Prove god doesn't exist" in another thread a while ago. I can't currently remember what SHE said. (Terra, if you can remember, it'd be appriciated if you'd post that here again).

Gladly.

It is the responsibility of the believer, when making a radical claim, to support their claim. It is not the responsibility of those abiding by the obvious decision to prove the believer wrong. There is no evidence that something does not exist. Only evidence that it does.

I could ask you to prove that leprechauns do not exist, and you would be stumped. However, it is common knowledge that leprechauns do not exist, because no evidence is there to prove they do. There is no evidence that something does not exist, simply because there cannot be evidence for that which is not real.

The only evidence would be towards the existence of something. Lack of evidence in and of itself is evidence that it does not exist. If there is no sign that something exists, then that alone is proof that it doesn't.

So to ask someone to prove that something does not exist is only evidence of one's deepening stupidity, and the lack of a valid argument.

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Proof is beyond a god. How does someone prove to you that a being whom exists beyond our sensibilities exists? It is not that he does not leave evidence of himself. All of creation falls under that category. It is not that none have seen him. For the last several millenia people have claimed to see and interact with him and his agents. Groups of people. It is not that his existence is not well documented. The only way that a believer could further prove the existence of God would be to pull him down and throw him in your face.

And that, could easily be explained through completely natural and non-godlike terms, no doubt. Even if a believer could do such a thing, have had done such a thing, it would not be credible. After all, people whom see or hear God are crazy. You can see them on Jerry Springer relating their experience next to those that have been sexually violated by aliens.

You make it seem so simple. Oh, well, prove the existence of God to me and I'll believe you. I would love to, but any evidence I can give you can dispute. Oh well then, it's over, innit? We can continue with our lives until they end. After that, who knows? And even if someone did, who cares? They're crazy!

 

 

So your point is that it's stupid to be debating this.

...why exactly are you in this thread?

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Hey, arguing that the argument itself is an invalid argument is as valid an argument as any other argument in the argument.

... ... ...

You went into a thread and said, "This whole thing is pointless and stupid." That has to be against a rule of some sort. If you think it's stupid and pointless to discuss, then don't discuss it. Simple as that.

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Actually, there is a thinktank of scientists that believe they are well on their way to mathematically proving the existance of god. They wrote a book that was laden with hideously confusing jargon and computations.

Also, there is the theory of "intelligent design". What that basically says is, there is too much perfection in nature and the way things have progressed, from the evolution of man, to the structure of a plant cell, for all of this to have come from a random big bang. The idea is that SOMETHING must have designed the world. Sketchy, but a theory anyway.

In the end, "god" is a concept based on faith. You cannot prove- or disprove- matters of faith.

"Wood, arguing for the sake of arguing is the stupidest thing ever."

-entire post

Quote, from Organized religions

(drowning in the irony here...)

My reason for coming here was to reiterate my argument in entirety from the slightly off topic Organized religions thread, which was that atheists are impossible to convince because the only evidence a believer can cite is invalid in the eyes of non-believers.

Your reason, quite similarly, was to reiterate your point from the same thread. Under the circumstances, I think I can stand quite that I didn't come here to say "this is pointless and stupid" as you so harshly put it, but to actually put forth my conclusion, as well as the opinion that this can't be argued.

Seeing as how even if This could be argued, I'm one of the few here with anything approaching a fundamentalist christian standpoint, (and I say "approaching" lightly) and without a counter point to your claims, the argument is invalidated anyways.

Not if I take both sides....

 

What Batty said might have some truth to it. The chances of humans evolving into what they are today on a planet that (barely) supports us are ridiculously small. This might be because we're lucky, or because god had something to do with it.

"Proof is beyond a god. How does someone prove to you that a being whom exists beyond our sensibilities exists?"

That is an unsubstantiated claim that most theists use to get out of explaining what God is. It's their little trap door that they escape through when they're backed into a corner and don't want to think.


"It is not that he does not leave evidence of himself. All of creation falls under that category."

Again... unsubstantiated. You're just saying that. It's like, "Look at this tree. Proof of God." That's not a logical argument. You're using the fallacy of False Cause.


"For the last several millenia people have claimed to see and interact with him and his agents. Groups of people. It is not that his existence is not well documented."

Anecdotal evidence. People claim to see ghosts, UFOs, Big Foot. Every religion has testamonies of miracles and supernatural events.
People lie. They can deceive you and they can deceive themselves.
What you're talking about are urban legends. Things that cannot be confirmed, and when they are, investigators find dead ends, exaggerations, and whatnot. If these things really happened, then why does it always happen to missionaries in Africa, where the civilized world can't observe it? Why does it always happen in secrecy?
Another point I'd like to make is that the power of suggestion works in such ways that if a person really wants to experience God, their own subconscious will fabricate the experience.
Don't believe in the power of suggestion? Walk into a crowded room and pretend like you smell a fart and make a huge deal about it. Pretty soon, other people will start "smelling" it, too.
You think church is any different?


"Also, there is the theory of 'intelligent design'. What that basically says is, there is too much perfection in nature and the way things have progressed, from the evolution of man, to the structure of a plant cell, for all of this to have come from a random big bang. The idea is that SOMETHING must have designed the world. Sketchy, but a theory anyway."

Intelligent Design is not a theory. Rather it's an argument from ignorance. It's the assertion that "I don't know how life began, so there must be a God." It's an intellectual fallacy.
These "experts" try asserting that things are "too complex" or "too perfect" to have happened naturally, but they don't have any tests to show where there's a line where things start being "too perfect" to have happened naturally. All they have is an arbitrary assertion which is, much like everything in creationist logic, unsubstantiated.

Furthermore, there's plenty from the Christian definition of God that one could perceivably use to disprove such a being. For example, the Christian deity is contradictory in his attributes. It is impossible to be all-knowing and all-powerful at the same time. It is impossible to be all-just and all-merciful at the same.
And the Bible itself is contradictory enough, with itself and with the science (astronomy, cosmology, biology, and geology), that it puts into doubt that a supreme being inspired its word. In fact, if this supreme being is perfect, then it cannot be his word.

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as Terra said, you can't prove something doesn't exist, but claiming that the scientifical ways life is explained are too impossible...well, they have made life in labs, cells, not anything complex, but evolution has showed us that they will be someday, i mean, look at us, i don't think the age of man has too much time left, it's evolution

But you can disprove incoherencies.  If the attributes contradict, then they cancel each other out.  For example, a spherical square, a flat cilinder, or a rectangular cube.  None of those things can coherently exist, therefore they don't exist.

There may be such a being as a God.  Since supernaturalism isn't defined, it can't be disproven.  However, if the attributes Christians commonly assert to God are incoherent and contradictory, as the ones I pointed out above, then we have a cancelation of attributes, thus disproving that particular being.

God can't know his own future and have free will to change the future at the same time.  If he knows, then he's not free to change it, but if he can change it, then he doesn't know.  ...Unless he knows how he's going to change it, in which case he isn't actually changing anything.  It doesn't make sense.  Therefore, the all-powerful, all-knowing God of the Bible is an incoherent and contradictory being and doesn't exist.

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