So Rainn Wilson posted this today via his facebook. I think this would be a fun thing for us to do on here. Since there are people who feel strongly about this on both sides of it.

Prove the (Non)Existence of God: Via Rainn Wilson on Soul Pancake

Hopefully we can keep this from turning into a bickering fight and just discuss our views and opinions without being assholes. Make sure you read the comments on the the website as well.Some of them have really good points.

Posted by MonkeyPunchBaby Hopefully we can keep this from turning into a bickering fight and just discuss our views and opinions without being assholes. Make sure you read the comments on the the website as well.Some of them have really good points.

Good luck with that!

But seriously, I think we all know you can't prove a negative, with a few exceptions. For example, I can prove that I'm not a giraffe. But I can't prove that ghosts don't exist. But, lack of proof that something doesn't exist doesn't mean it does exist. In the US legal system, the burden of proof is with the claimant. For example, if I was accused of trespassing in the Westinghouse factory in Cleveland, the prosecutor (assuming I pleaded not guilty) would have to prove that I trespassed. He'd have to use eyewitness testimony, maybe security camera footage or a casting of my bootprint from the crud inside. The prosecutor can't say "I'm an authority, and I say he trespassed, therefore he trespassed." Maybe in Saudi Arabia that would work, but not in a country where the legal system in based on logic. Those making claims must provide evidence, and extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Let's get back to ghosts. I have at least three sisters-in-law who swear they've seen ghosts. I love my SIL's, and I have no reason to think they're lying to me. I believe them. Or, more specifically, I believe they're telling the truth as they believe it. But because they believe they saw or heard ghosts doesn't mean ghosts exist. Normal phenomena can be misinterpreted. Example: I was just in the bathroom a couple minutes ago, and the toilet in the stall next to me flushed all by itself. There was no one else in the bathroom with me, and I looked under the stall to make sure. (I looked just enough to see if there were feet there. I'm not a pervo.) Does that mean my workplace is haunted? For some people, yeah, it might. But the toilets flush automatically when (hopefully not before) you get up. Who's to say a fly didn't land on the sensor and set it off? Or, to make it a little weirder, maybe the flourescent tubes are about to die and are throwing off odd wavelengths of light that interfere with the auto-flush.

The point is, there are phenomena we encounter everyday that we don't understand, but not understanding something doesn't make it supernatural. To bring this back to the existence of God, saying that the universe is so complicated that we (as laymen) don't or can't understand it, therefore it must have been created by God (therefore, God exists), is called the "argument from incredulity," and is the same as what I described in the last paragraph. If I were to say that the Abrahamic god doesn't exist, but it's actually the gods of the Vikings (i.e. Norse mythology) that is true, you'd say, quite rightly, that I need to show some pretty darn compelling evidence to back that claim up. The same could be said of Jehovah.

There's one more point I want to make, and that's that you're also an atheist. You don't believe in (I assume) Odin, Thor, Loki, Marduk, Ganesh, Horus, Amen-ra, Kuan-yin, Zeus, Set, Venus, Krishna, Cu Chulain, Mielikki, etc. I just go one god further.

Posted by splumer But seriously, I think we all know you can't prove a negative

+1 for that.


The link above points to some fools website that attempts to misrepresent the entire genre of secular intellectual writing as arguments for the non-existence of god. Strawman fallacy. Fail.


Most people claiming to be atheists would never attempt to make such an argument for the following reasons:

1) It is impossible to prove a negative. This is also true for the infinite number of other imaginary concepts that also cannot be proved to not exist.

2) It is far easier and more intellectually honest to simply point out that there is NO good reason to believe in the existence of:
god/jesus/miracles/wmds in iraq/santa/toothfairy/giant spaghetti monster/zuess/appolo/ra/ ad infinitum.



But if you want to have a debate, first define god.

Since you have nothing, I'll do you a solid. I have adapted a standard model of god. Please feel free to quibble about the details. Once we can agree on what god is, we can then set out to either prove or disprove the existence of god.

1. God is the almighty ruler of the universe. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, timeless, omnipresent and perfect.

2. God is the creator of everything. He created the universe and the earth.

3. God is the creator of life and human beings. Many people believe that God created the first man (Adam) and woman (Eve) in his own image, and we are all Adam and Eve's descendents. (alternatively we can allow that: God played a central role in the creation of the human species and our consciousness)

4. God instills in each of us a unique and everlasting soul.

5. We have eternal life after death. When we die, people believe that our souls return to God in Heaven for eternity if we have accepted Jesus as our savior.

6. God wrote or inspired the Bible. The Bible is God's word. There is a sentence that summarizes the Bible for many people: The Bible is infallible, inspired and inerrant. (alternatively we can allow that: God played a central role in the Bible's creation)

7. God sent Jesus to earth as God incarnate. Jesus performed many miracles while he was alive, and after his death Jesus was resurrected, appeared to hundreds of people, and then ascended into heaven, proving that he is God.

8. God is a benevolent and loving ruler. God is good and God is love.

9. God is a living being who knows and loves each one of us. Each of us can speak to God and have a personal relationship with him. The way that we speak to God is through prayer.

10. God has a plan for each of us. We each have a distinct and unique purpose in God's universe.

Posted by tekriter 10. God has a plan for each of us. We each have a distinct and unique purpose in God's universe.

If someone were to prove that God didn't exist, it would of course be part of His plan, and therefore infallible proof that He does.


Which reminds me of how Douglas Addams proved that God does exist, and therefore He does not.

You mean this?

"Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bog-gglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as the final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God.

The argument goes something like this: `I refuse to prove that I exist,' says God, `for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing.'

`But,' says Man, `The Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. QED.'

`Oh dear,' says God, `I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanished in a puff of logic.

`Oh, that was easy,' says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing.” - Douglas Adams

That's the one, but then again, I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Well, guys, I think we're done for:



That finishes it. There is a god!

hey guys sorry i havent been a part of this. my wife and i just moved into our apartment and we dont have internet yet. so im doing this on my phone and my phone is a god damn idiot when it comes to typing online. if i press backspace more than twice quickly it erases everything. but splummer and mandis i really respect your points and i will be commenting as soon as i get to a mcdonalds or starbucks to type a real message.

Posted by MutantMandias That's the one, but then again, I still think digital watches are a pretty neat idea.

Don't Panic.

I see that you're using a christian god, but I'll toss in my two cents now.

Posted by tekriter Since you have nothing, I'll do you a solid. I have adapted a standard model of god. Please feel free to quibble about the details. Once we can agree on what god is, we can then set out to either prove or disprove the existence of god. 1. God is the almighty ruler of the universe. He is all-powerful, all-knowing, eternal, timeless, omnipresent and perfect. 2. God is the creator of everything. He created the universe and the earth. 3. God is the creator of life and human beings. Many people believe that God created the first man (Adam) and woman (Eve) in his own image, and we are all Adam and Eve's descendents. (alternatively we can allow that: God played a central role in the creation of the human species and our consciousness)

I will disagree with you starting at 2 and 3. I'll accept the term god for lack of a better word, but I believe that the universe (or the ALL) is a flicker in the imagination of god (or the ALL) for that is the only way I can conceive that some thing can be created from nothing without subtracting from god. If god is almighty, powerful, perfect and existed before the material universe than nothing can be subtracted from it.

4. God instills in each of us a unique and everlasting soul. 5. We have eternal life after death. When we die, people believe that our souls return to God in Heaven for eternity if we have accepted Jesus as our savior.

I believe that we are born with our souls at least inactive, or at worst without one and that it must be developed through experience and contemplation, but there are short cuts to doing so.

6. God wrote or inspired the Bible. The Bible is God's word. There is a sentence that summarizes the Bible for many people: The Bible is infallible, inspired and inerrant. (alternatively we can allow that: God played a central role in the Bible's creation)

The bible and all other religious texts were written by man and thus are fallible.

7. God sent Jesus to earth as God incarnate. Jesus performed many miracles while he was alive, and after his death Jesus was resurrected, appeared to hundreds of people, and then ascended into heaven, proving that he is God.

If Jesus existed he was probably more like Charles Manson than anyone else (minus reported murders). He could have just been in touch with some strange element of the ALL or just been an extremist. Further his myth is more important the the realities of the situation and the stories in the bible should be read in a mythological context to gain their inner meaning.

8. God is a benevolent and loving ruler. God is good and God is love.

good and bad are human qualities. The ALL or god can do neither good nor bad.

9. God is a living being who knows and loves each one of us. Each of us can speak to God and have a personal relationship with him. The way that we speak to God is through prayer.

living and existing are two different concepts. A rock "exists" and a rock is part of god or the ALL. We can't normally conceive of its part of the ALL's consciousness just as dust mites living in our eye brows don't see how a skin flake has our consciousness.

Depends on the type of Prayer.

10. God has a plan for each of us. We each have a distinct and unique purpose in God's universe.

We influence those plans but are bound by them to a degree. The best analogy I can give is that in society if you don't abide your life is made harder until you do or break free/ kill yourself.

Posted by earthworm I will disagree with you starting at 2 and 3. I'll accept the term god for lack of a better word, but I believe that the universe (or the ALL) is a flicker in the imagination of god (or the ALL) for that is the only way I can conceive that some thing can be created from nothing without subtracting from god. If god is almighty, powerful, perfect and existed before the material universe than nothing can be subtracted from it. I believe that we are born with our souls at least inactive, or at worst without one and that it must be developed through experience and contemplation, but there are short cuts to doing so.

A pretty philosophy, but there really is no evidence that it is true, and belief does not make it so. Of course, there is no reason why this is NOT true, but at some point, such philosophies become mere mental exercises and essentially meaningless.

Have you ever watched "Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman?" I think it's on the Science Channel. They've had a similar discussion to this. There was a cosmologist they interviewed that believes (and has some evidence to suggest) that the universe is just an atom in a larger 'verse, which is in turn an atom in a larger 'verse, with an infinite regression. He cites the existence of sub-sub-atomic particles in atoms. The name of these particles escapes me at the moment. Not quarks, but sub-quarks.

Well,

Christianity comprises 33% of the world population, or over 2.1 billion people. The above "standard model" seems to agree with their idea of god.

It is consistent with the bible - the most widely cited "evidence", and with the majority of christian teachings.

I am aware that the number of people that believe an idea doesn't make it true (argumentum ad populum), but for the purposes of argument, the model that satisfies the largest number would be the best way to get consensus.

If your objection is christianity, then we can modify the model to exclude jesus and refer to the bible and the koran thus satisfying mohammed's god and abraham's god.

This would cover Jews, Christians and Muslims, or roughly 54% of the planet. The animists, buddhists and others don't believe in a god, so we can safely ignore them - for the purposes of this argument.



On the other hand, is there any good reason to adopt your "model" for the purposes of this discussion?


Further to that, this raised the point that even amongst those that profess to believe in a god, there is no real consensus. Why not?

Well, if you are going to make, as basis of argument, the assumption that god is all powerful then it should follow that all religions have an element of truth to them. The judeo-christian religions are as much an expression of the culture they came from as animalist religions especially if you put them into a purely mythological context. How many other cultures use similiar analogies as the bible? If there is a god that could be explained by its absolute power rather than cultural difission. As a for instance the planet venus is associated with love and war in greco- roman and aztec culture, the two having no contact.

Posted by earthworm Well, if you are going to make, as basis of argument, the assumption that god is all powerful then it should follow that all religions have an element of truth to them.

I'm sorry I don't understand. How does one follow from the other?

Posted by earthworm The judeo-christian religions are as much an expression of the culture they came from as animalist religions especially if you put them into a purely mythological context.

I would tend to agree - but how does this relate to a standard model of god and the question of wether that god exists or not?

Posted by earthworm How many other cultures use similiar analogies as the bible?

How many cultures did the bible borrow from? The long winded answer to this only seems to suggest that the bible is a purely human construct.

Posted by earthworm If there is a god that could be explained by its absolute power rather than cultural difission. As a for instance the planet venus is associated with love and war in greco- roman and aztec culture, the two having no contact.

The model does not attempt to explain god, but to merely create a consensus for starting point for the question at hand.

Quetzalcoatl was a mythical feathered serpent god in aztec culture related to things like wind, knowledge, dawn and art.

The relation to venus was mayan and since the deity was related to agriculture and the appearance of venus in the sky coincides with the rainy season.

This seems to suggest nothing more than coincidence based on observable weather and astronomical phenomena.

But more to the point, what does this have to do with a definition of god?

I will accept that the bible and all other religious texts are human constructs, but I don`t think that disproves the existance of the ALL or god.


As for the feathered serpent, I`ll provide some evidence of the love/ war association when I get to a proper computer. I`ll also double check the rainy session assocation, because as I understand it venus` orbit doesn`t match up so well with our own.


as to the point at which you don`t understand my logic, suppose that god is all powerful, why would he only choose one group of people to pass knowlegde on to? It seems that an all powerful god would be have influence over all religions (unless the others aside from christianity are the work of demons, as the christians are quick to point out). therefore a shaman would have the same abilities to talk to a god that the apostles claimed to have. to get to god one must strip the cultural context from the myths, unless you want to disprove thor.




actually, lets just make it easy and disprove thor then feel superior about our selves.

also I still view myself as an atheist for the record.

Posted by tekriter The relation to venus was mayan and since the deity was related to agriculture and the appearance of venus in the sky coincides with the rainy season. This seems to suggest nothing more than coincidence based on observable weather and astronomical phenomena.

You're basing the idea that venus' appearance coincided with the rainy session on a wikipedia article. Its kinda BS, as venus' synodic period is 583 days, its visible as the morning star for something like 245 days, disappears for 14 then becomes the evening star for another 247 days. I really don't see how that would match up to rainy sessions for very long. Its like basing a holiday on a lunar cycle, it will tend to move around the sessions.


My suggestion is that such an instance and others like it would be proof of the existence of some sort of phenomenon that is universal but not directly observable, which is basically my stake in the argument rather than arguing that jesus is the son of some dude with a beard in the sky. The latter would be as easy to disprove as the existence of Wotan.

Further it is my belief that the term god is misused by religions for some phenomenon that is, as yet, unmeasurable. I think it might have something to do with altered states of consciousness, as that and religion are found in every natural culture. I also believe that proving or disproving this phenomenon's existence is applying a mechanical model to a nonmechanical system, making it as relevant as measuring the essential spissitude of your house.

Posted by tekriter If your objection is christianity, then we can modify the model to exclude jesus and refer to the bible and the koran thus satisfying mohammed's god and abraham's god.

The Muslims believe Jesus was a prophet, and that at least some elements of the Jesus story are true, so your definition I think still holds.

We could broaden the definition to include other gods, such as the Hindu gods, and say that "god" is any conscious, omnipotent, omniscient entity.

But I stand by my earlier statement that the burden of proof lies with the claimant, and that at some point, when you believe in a god or "all" as some sort of abstraction, the idea of god becomes essentially meaningless. I think of Einstein's statement on whether he believed in god: "I believe in Spinoza's god, that god is the sum total of all the physical laws of the universe." In that case, of course the laws of the 'verse exist, therefore, according to Einstein's statement, god exists, but it's not really the god that the majority of people think of as god.

I would also like to say that I far prefer this discussion to the "there is no god and you're a douchebag for even thinking there might be!" that usually pops up here.

Viva le Captain!

Posted by splumer "there is no god and you're a douchebag for even thinking there might be!"

Good point.

Posted by splumer I think of Einstein's statement on whether he believed in god: "I believe in Spinoza's god, that god is the sum total of all the physical laws of the universe." In that case, of course the laws of the 'verse exist, therefore, according to Einstein's statement, god exists, but it's not really the god that the majority of people think of as god.

Exactly. I think this is why you need to define the question first.

There are an infinite number of possible personal, esoteric definitions, but I think the question is best served by the "standard model".

I don't think minor points about jesus being a prophet or not would affect the outcome.