Is there evidence that God doesn't exist?

Discussion in 'Off Topic Area' started by Strafio, Jul 9, 2010.

  1. Strafio

    Strafio Trying again...

    I was reading another thread and came across this quote:
    It got me thinking, because nowdays I think that the evidence suggests that God doesn't exist. I think this argument is sometimes referred to as "The Silence that Screams". Basically, it claims that if there was a God as people claim, then the world would be a different one from the one we actuall see. For example:

    A friend of mine points to a bit of ground and claims that there's a hole there, when there isn't. I could say that if there was hole I'd be able to see it. I might even step on that piece of ground and point out that if there was a hole then I would fall in it. My friend then says that it's not like normal holes, that I can't see it and that I don't fall in it because it works in mysterious ways, but it's still there.

    In my experience, that's hole is God and/or religion. If you look at the world as it is, you see things that if a person was in control that he'd change. Sometimes theologians try to claim that a life that was too easy would be pointless, and that challenge builds us. However, a God could construct a world with challenge - that would different to the real world we have where there's so many genuine hopelessness and unfairness. For me, theology seems to try to construct amazing and sophisticated arguments to try and tell us that "the hole in the ground" might be there, despite the evidence of our senses saying otherwise.
     
  2. Hatamoto

    Hatamoto Beardy Man Kenobi Supporter

    To my mind with things like that people supply their own evidence. Once when I was in hospital a nun came to see me. I didn't mind, I find nuns and priests and the like very pleasant and relaxing people to be around as long as they're not of the fire and brimstone kind, they're usually more polite and calm and stuff, it's very relaxing. But of course we got onto the subject of God, which again, I didn't mind, I was quite militantly atheist at the time, I'd debate with anybody (funny how things change), I said basically I didn't believe, and she told me to look outside to see proof of God.

    I'm a total hippie so I can see what she means. I'm not saying trees prove God, but if you believe in God, then you can say anything you like proves the existence. As you say, people come up with sophisticated arguments (sometimes not so sophisticated), but if you look hard enough you can find "evidence" for both the existence and the nonexistence of God.

    It's a bit moot in my opinion though, to me you either believe or you don't, the abundance or complete lack of evidence is irrelevant to that.
     
  3. RhadeConstantin

    RhadeConstantin King of Badasses

    IMHO this point is really really really stupid. There is no evidence that there aren't gnomes and leprechauns living on pluto smoking crack that they secretly get from columbian drug lord who's body has been taken over by a body snatcher from outer space. however this lack of evidence is not evidence against the plutonian gnomes. Also since there is no other evidence against my plutonian friends I think its wrong to call someone who believes in them delusional. on a serious note though we have more evidence for the existence of bigfoot and UFO's than we have for god.

    exactly. let me give you an example Josef Mengele was a Nazi doctor who was in the concentration camps at that time and quite fond of human experimentation his experiments included injecting chemicals into the eye balls of children to change the eye color. usually this resulted in intense agony and death. twins were a favorite of his. he used to sew their hands and legs together (without anesthesia) and compare them to real conjoined twins. usually these people died soon of gangrene. he used to also amputate limbs and remove organs from live conscious people without anesthesia. Imagine the kind of agony they went through and this is just a small list. Even if god did exist and he had the power to stop it, he'd have to be a pretty big psycho not to.
     
  4. Moosey

    Moosey invariably, a moose Supporter

    I think you're looking at this the wrong way round (or, rather, the people you're describing are).

    Rather than starting from the hypothesis that there is a God and demanding proof of his absence, the more proper approach would be to ask "What evidence do we have that there is a God (in the sense of a supernatural intelligence governing the universe)".

    For most people, the proof that they have is a) My mum/dad/teacher/priest told me and b) it's written in an old book.

    This sets a very liberal standard for evidence and not one that most people over the age of 10 or so would accept.
     
  5. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    My original point was that if we take the following definition of 'delusion' - "an erroneous belief that is held in the face of evidence to the contrary", then it is not correct to call someone delusional unless there is evidence to the contrary and a lack of evidence for God's existence does not constitute evidence that God does not exist.

    If you'd bothered to look at that statement within the context of that thread you'd see that the person I was arguing against was using a different definition of 'delusion'.

    Feel free to point out the logical flaws in my argument.
     
  6. cloudz

    cloudz Valued Member

    I don't really understand why "god" has to be in control. Neither do I really understand the evidence that God does not exist. What is that ?

    But of course, these type discussions only make a formal sense with some pre determined idea of what god should be or someones idea of what god is supposed to be and what god should do.. blah blah.

    Maybe God is more of a subtle thing to grasp or a bigger and better idea than those puny silly things could ever hope to be.

    "the absolute" has nothing to do with holes in the ground. It's the absolute or nothing, that's the choice when all else is truly exhausted and found to be wanting. And one day you might not be able to tell the difference. forget about holes in the ground. There's a reason Taoists say the tao that can be spoken is not the true tao.

    This is the truth and the sooner certain mainstream religions catch on the better! Not to mention the folks who want to play tennis against ridiculous theology. But that's probably wishful thinking. For a smart guy, I don't know why you waste your time up blind alleys.

    What are you really after, deeper understanding of spirituality for yourself and others or an intellectually stimulating game against students of theology that is forever destined to go nowhere.. It seems it is probably only the latter, unfortunately. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but you are so focused on the finger, you inevitably miss out on the moon. At least you never seem to acknowledge it.

    So why all the digging on religion and God. maybe you are just kidding yourself that you have found a position that truly fullfills and satisfies you. You're still young. I never really got to know my own spiritual side to any worthwhile degree until I was in my thirties. You never know.

    It might just be waiting in the wings to creep up on you.

    There would be no "challenge" if we didn't experience suffering.. Hopelessness and unfairness are just binary mental perspectives of what we experience in natural life as a matter of its course. If we didn't embrace and take to heart our contrasting experiences of fairness and hope and contemplate them the way we do, nothing in life might strike us as hopeless or unfair. They would just all be "a matter of fact" or "facts of life", or the human condition.. Or some other non dualistic category.

    On one hand you have the events, on the other what we feel about them. To organize and communicate (the polarity of) our feelings we have a catologue of dual categories to draw on. "unfair" and "hopelessness" are not real solid true constructs in of themselves they are mental snapshots of the polarized ends of what is a continuum of experience.

    It's hopeless when a kid is next to starving in Africa and you are tucking into a bucket of KFC.

    It's a tough break. You can only hope he's looking up at the moon too and it makes him feel better.

    It might be comforting to him to know everyones heading back to the same destination, back to where they came from, this big "nothing".. KFC or no KFC. Water or no water. No need to hope for it, and no one can say it is unfair.
     
  7. watto86

    watto86 Nah brah I'm not gone

    Well as atheist as I am, to my mind a lack of evidence does not equate to proof of non existence. But then again you can't gather evidence to prove something doesn't exist. You might be able to prove that something or someone wasn't responsible for an event, but that won't prove that that person, force, thing or whatever never existed. For example, let's just say that hypothetically one day it's proven that the universe was actually created by the big bang, or that lifeforms actually evolve on their own. Neither of these "facts" will prove that a god or gods don't or have never existed. What with once you gather evidence that indicates to anything, that does the exact opposite. To me it'd be kind of like if that red nut on CSI Miami rocked up at a crime scene and told everybody to find evidence that a particular suspect for the murder doesn't exist. They won't because a murderer that doesn't exist, doesn't exist. That's not to say that God doesn't exist, just that if something such as a god or gods doesn't exist, you aren't going to find evidence to support this because if it doesn't exist, then there isn't going to be evidence saying thusly. That is to say, that if something doesn't exist, the evidence won't, either.
    While some people might use this line of thought to say that, "You can't prove that he/she/it doesn't exist," then use this as a reason for actually believing in said force/entity/whatever. It then comes back to the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Invisible Pink Unicorn, Russel's Teapot and now Rhade's Plutonian crackhead gnomes theories. So then it just sort of breaks down into a rational belief vs rational disbelief vs irrational belief vs irrational disbelief fight.
    So yeah as I see it the long and the short of it is that as of yet it hasn't, nor can it be proven one way or the other. Hence why so many non-believers base their non-religious ideas/beliefs/etc on a lack of belief rather than that assertion of falsehood or non-existence.

    But then again I guess I could be wrong.

    Edit: Wow. Looking back at that wall of text I guess I could have just answered your question by saying, "No." Sorry.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2010
  8. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    Since I'm away this weekend, I'll make one further point for 'really really really stupid' poster et al.

    argumentum ad ignorantiam
     
  9. garth

    garth Valued Member

    Holy head JCH posted

    Just a question but if I said that I had learnt Ninjutsu from the spirit of Hanzo Hattori who for twenty years visited me every night to teach me Iga ryu Ninjutsu, would you say that I could not be counted as delusional until counter evidence against the existence of Hanzo Hattoris spirit came to light or would you call me a fraud?

    Because it seems to me that sometimes in debates abaout god our logical mind sets that we use to determine other fraudulent practices and claims get suspended.

    Garth
     
  10. Smitfire

    Smitfire Cactus Schlong

    Evidence that god doesn't exist for me is the fact that previous gods have ceased to exist as human belief in them has wained. They only "exist" when people believe in them.
    It's a form of cry wolf.
    I have no reason to believe that the gods of today are any more real than the gods of yesterday.
    Of course all gods WILL be false if only one is real but then you are getting into the realms of choosing which one seems more reasonable to believe in than the others.
    And they are all much of a muchness as far as I can see.
     
  11. holyheadjch

    holyheadjch Valued Member

    That's a fair point, but one I don't have time to examine. I'll look forward to the ensuing discussion when I return from the wilds of North Wales.
     
  12. RhadeConstantin

    RhadeConstantin King of Badasses

    cool then I guess if I plan to hit it up with my plutonian crack smoking body snatching leprechauns I am not delusional since there is no contrary evidence to their existence.

    holding a belief without any evidence or logical basis is delusional by common definition. the only basis for believing in something cannot be that there it hasn't been disproven yet. with that kind of logic you can come up with any kind of statement whatsoever and believe it because it hasn't been disproved. I can use that logic to say that there are invisible unicorn's in African rainforests. note the fact that
    and hence I can believe in my invisible African unicorns and you cannot call me delusional since it hasn't been proven that there are no unicorns right? I mean there's no contrary evidence.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2010
  13. Strafio

    Strafio Trying again...

    Sorry HolyHeadjch, I wasn't intending for people to start taking cheap shots at you.
    I was more interested in what you'd make of "the hole" analogy.
    Is God analogous to "the hole" in the post?
    If so, then I think there's evidence against God's existence.





    Good example.
     
  14. Ranzan

    Ranzan Valued Member

    There is no evidence santa clause doesn't exist either so lets all believe in and worship him.
     
  15. watto86

    watto86 Nah brah I'm not gone

    That is an excellent hypothetical, if I may say so myself.
    Personally I would probably call you a fraud at face value. But then I suppose that technically because I have no evidence to prove that this didn't happen to you, the flip side to that coin is that I could be labelled as jumping to conclusions, or even just a bit of a jerk.
    Although, as with the case of things such as religion, because you made the initial assertion, the burden of proof is yours to bear. So while it may be technically incorrect for myself or anyone else to outright say that you are deluded or lying. If you fail to provide proof then we aren't obligated to go along with your side of the story.
     
  16. Seviko

    Seviko Enlightened

    Humans need to feel important so they believe a god actually cares for them.

    Clearly people are focusing to much on earth and forgetting the rest of the universe. You would have to be kind of dim to believe we are the only lifeforms even in our own Galaxy let alone the billions of others. Do you believe that any other intelligent lifeform from another planet believes in the same god and has the same teachings hm...

    If this biblical God exists it clearly has no will to interfere in the physical world of earth. Humans have free will..what horrors we do to each other has nothing to do with a god and it would not be his job to stop the horrors we do with our free will.. even if he could.

    I believe in a higher power but i have turned away from the biblical god for some time as there is to much confliction in my mind about it rite now. There is to much logical evidence that weighs against that GOD.
     
    Last edited: Jul 9, 2010
  17. Strafio

    Strafio Trying again...

    I disagree.
    I consider my life to be challenging.
    I thought my life was a fair game, so I dismissed the "argument of evil"
    Then it got pointed out to me that not everyone's life is as lucky mine. See the example from RhadeConstantin for an idea of what I'm talking about.

    My life is merely a challenge.
    Other people have suffered genuine hopelessness.
    While you're right that "hopelessness" isn't a "physical fact" about the situation, I see that as an irrelevent point. How does that fact that it's a projection of human values change anything?
     
  18. garth

    garth Valued Member

     
  19. garth

    garth Valued Member

    Holyheadjch posted
    Watch out for those invisible leprechauns.
     
  20. AZeitung

    AZeitung The power of Grayskull

    Of course you can, unless it's not observable or has no observable effect on anything.
     

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