Jireh wrote:My question goes to strong atheists, which defend a active position, that God does not exist.

Present the evidence to justify such position. Please no religion bashing, but scientific and philosophic reasons to defend such a standpoint.
I want to see POSITIVE claims.

If we assume for a moment that God is nonexistent, it's hard to prove such a being doesn't exist, because there is no material to work with. It's not like proving a material is composed of certain chemicals, because there is 'nothing' to analyse in your question.

Putting it another way- hypothetically- demanding that one prove something nonexistent exists is rather like pointing to an undefined patch of space and then demanding that person A define the limits of something envisaged in person B's mind.

This is one of the reasons people get trapped in belief.
They assume that, trusting a nebulous idea, they are then thinking on an entirely different 'higher' plane of thought (which is actually a delusion- it's more a self-justifying/reassuring type of confusion)

Here is a small psychological experiment to illustrate your suggestion and the problems it poses- amicably, not mockingly.
Let's say I 'feel' or imagine that an invisible pink flying spaghetti monster exists, somewhere nobody knows, and then ask you to 'prove' that it does not exist.

All mythological texts are notably imprecise about details of place, time, and physical existence.

Alternatively, you could see the idea of a God as a psychological trick that is useful for dispelling egocentricity. In one sense this works quite well, but it just diverts the ego into a stubborn determination to cling onto the theory, in order to save losing a feeling of certainty.

It's a cleverly constructed trick in one way, as you can see from my examples. It tends to confuse believers while cementing their belief that psychological release and reward is synonymous with evading rational observation.

I'd suggest the following as currently reliable proofs that a real-God hypothesis is unworkable:

1. No documentary visual evidence (this is mainly relevant since the age of photography)
2. No information or evidence of the physical form of 'God'.
3. No geographical location listed or
4. Total reliance upon one text for absolute proof, which would never be accepted even in a basic Sciences A-Level especially as that text does not prove any of their sources. Scientifically, it's about as rigorous or truth-seeking as listening to what some guy said in the pub one night.

Also, it's important to remember that science is based upon the most likely hypothesis given the available facts. Nobody has any documentary or physical evidence of 'God'

You could also logically and scientifically discount the Christian idea of God, at least, by noting that the Biblical version of creation, purportedly direct from 'God', directly contradicts a huge quantity of geological evidence, in fact, all geological evidence so far. This would suggest that the 'infallible' God of the Bible is scientifically unsound.
This is one example of one way of disproving the existence of God (as described in the primary text) via it's own proponents!

ChasM wrote:Paraphrasing? Hell no. Came across this Feynman lecture today, and thought this nice little snippet apropos to drop in the thread.

I think that when we know that we actually do live in uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind – this attitude of uncertainty – is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of mind which the student must first acquire. It becomes a habit of thought. Once acquired, one cannot retreat from it any more.

What happens, then, is that the young man begins to doubt everything because he cannot have it as absolute truth. So the question changes a little bit from "Is there a God?" to "How sure is it that there is a God?" This very subtle change is a great stroke and represents a parting of the ways between science and religion. I do not believe a real scientist can ever believe in the same way again. Although there are scientists who believe in God, I do not believe that they think of God in the same way as religious people do. If they are consistent with their science, I think that they say something like this to themselves: "I am almost certain there is a God. The doubt is very small." That is quite different from saying, "I know that there is a God." I do not believe that a scientist can ever obtain that view – that really religious understanding, that real knowledge that there is a God – that absolute certainty which religious people have.

- Richard Feynman, "The Relation of Science and Religion"

http://calteches.library.caltech.edu/49/2/Religion.htm

Well, the first couple of sentences were quite interesting...

And the rest was...?

ChasM wrote:And the rest was...?

I couldn't say. My Internet Regurgitation Filter kicked in.

Terribly sorry...

sort of works like a spam filter, I suppose. no helping it.

Jireh wrote:My question goes to strong atheists, which defend a active position, that God does not exist.

Present the evidence to justify such position. Please no religion bashing, but scientific and philosophic reasons to defend such a standpoint.
I want to see POSITIVE claims.

1st guy: "I know the answer to everything"
2nd guy: "what is it?"
1st guy: "Gob, Gob did it".
2nd guy: "Who's Gob?".
1st guy: "He's the creator and maker of everything and keeps it all running".
2nd guy: "I don't believe you".
1st guy: "you better believe me because Gob will kill you if you don't".
2nd guy: "There is no Gob".
1st guy: "Oh, yeah? Prove there is no Gob".
2nd guy:

ChasM wrote:

Davian wrote:

Teuton wrote:
Following Saul Kripke, I could argue that unicorns are impossible objects and hence (necessarily) nonexistent.

I don't exempt God from that argument. Do you?

re: unicorns as impossible objects
Let's assume that the platypus had not yet been discovered. If someone proposed such an animal, its qualities would also seem impossible - until one is actually discovered.

or a glass of lake water, before the invention of the microscope. But that's beside my point.
My point is, when I go to Wiki I see "A unicorn is a mythological creature".

re: God as an impossible object
This would depend on how you define and conceptualize God, wouldn't it? A Yahweh-walking-in-the-Garden of Eden God could be thought of as an impossible object. But if an incomprehensible non-objective God is posited, then we could only claim agnosticism.

I used capital-g-God, and Teuton answered in form. I think answer was a bit off the mark in light of your comment and my thoughts, as 'theism' is a big bucket. I would narrow the focus from according to theism to according to Abrahamic religions...

I like this poem by Stevie Smith...;p

"Our Bog is dood, our Bog is dood,
They lisped in accents mild,
But when I asked them to explain
They grew a little wild.
How do you know your Bog is dood
My darling little child?

We know because we wish it so
That is enough, they cried,
And straight within each infant eye
Stood up the flame of pride,
And if you do not think it so
You shall be crucified.

Then tell me, darling little ones,
What's dood, suppose Bog is?
Just what we think, the answer came,
Just what we think it is.
They bowed their heads. Our Bog is ours
And we are wholly his.

But when they raised them up again
They had forgotten me
Each one upon each other glared
In pride and misery
For what was dood, and what their Bog
They never could agree.

Oh sweet it was to leave them then,
And sweeter not to see,
And sweetest of all to walk alone
Beside the encroaching sea,
The sea that soon should drown them all,
That never yet drowned me."

Late to the game but...

My answer would be induction.

I believe in all sorts of "theories" about the world justified on inductive evidence. Like that food will keep me alive. And that drinking vodka will be pleasurable (unless I over-do it).
I also believe that magic doesn't exist. The entire universe seems to follow natural laws... From the biggest star to the tiniest things conceivable. The best explanations that fit with the universe we live in, are models without magic or magical beings. All the claimed evidence against the naturalistic model of the universe are consistent with it, if we assume people are gullible, dupe themselves and lie. (So Buddhist saints may have claimed to be able to fly, but none of them are doing so. Which could mean that their claims are rubbish.) And the universe doesn't appear to be designed. We have enough evidence for the idea that nature is what causes what we see that strong evidence should be given to overcome that evidence before we accept those claims. (Likewise, if someone claimed that drinking strychnine isn't really dangerous, we'd have strong reasons to think they were full o it before they gave us really good evidence to the contrary.)


That doesn't mean I absolutely know gods don't exist... Just like I don't absolutely know people who are decapitated can't go on living. But since every example I have supports a model which denies both, I think it's rational to believe both are false. (Show me a god or a living headless man, and I'll buy into it... After scrutinizing the evidence of course.)


PS, Love the site. A friend referred me here. Glad he did.

Jireh wrote:My question goes to strong atheists, which defend a active position, that God does not exist.

Present the evidence to justify such position. Please no religion bashing, but scientific and philosophic reasons to defend such a standpoint.
I want to see POSITIVE claims.

Ahh... how does one while refuting something, not bash the only 'evidence' we have of said controversy's existence?

Prove a negative in the absence of compelling evidence to suggests something God exists? How about someone comes up with some of that compelling evidence (Preferably scientific evidence) that God exists before demanding that it be refuted.

sennekuyl wrote:

Jireh wrote:My question goes to strong atheists, which defend a active position, that God does not exist.

Present the evidence to justify such position. Please no religion bashing, but scientific and philosophic reasons to defend such a standpoint.
I want to see POSITIVE claims.

Ahh... how does one while refuting something, not bash the only 'evidence' we have of said controversy's existence?

One doesn't - and it is just part of the extremely disingenuos strategy he has been using here. He has actually presented purported evidence in this thread of God's existence, as a response to people who said argued the idea could be dismissed without evidence. After doing that he has responded to any criticism of the evidence by saying that the purpose of the thread is not to argue against evidence for god. The whole thing is rather obnoxious and all he is trying to do is award himself a "Get out of any criticism for my rather extreme and silly claims" free card.

Andrew4Handel wrote: I think the evidence issue is more subtle than it is portrayed.

For instance if you knew nothing about humans and found a toaster in a desert you couldn't draw and conclusion about humans physical make up from the structure of one of their artifacts.

Actually you could draw a vast number of very accurate conclusions.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

So there is no reason to expect to find gods nature behind every cause or within "mechanisms". If god/s did exist there is no reason for him/them to be found within nature.

Well that does not follow from your opening sentence which was monumentally wrong.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Even in our own ancestory I may have a great grandparent who cremated and therefore evidence of the persons existence in any meaningfull way has been anhiliated.

That remark does not appear to have anything to do with anything remotely logical at all.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Another example I use is ....

I hope it's going to be better than the previous two misguided examples .

Andrew4Handel wrote:Another example I use is .... the cake. By looking at the structure of a cake you wouldn't discover anything about the flour mill that made the flour or the fact that hens have feathers..

A "cake"?? ... this is going to be the good example is it?? .... OK, let's hear it ...

... actually you could deduce quite a lot of things if you found a cake.

But to then claim there is some useful religious evidential argument to had from the fact that you might not be able to determine where the ingredients of a cake were made, is utter & complete nonsense - it has nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that there is no good evidence for the existence of a supernatural God.

Look - God is supposed to have "made" millions of things, not just a nutty fruit cake. For 2000 years religious people insisted that he made Man. But now we know he definitely did not make man at all. Man's appearance was nothing to do with any God.

So far, modern science has discovered and explained literally millions of things which were once said to be directly or indirectly due to God. And so far, not a single one of those things has anything to do with any god. So far the score is natural answers 100-million vs Godly miracle answers precisely Zero!

There is no good honest reason at all to believe that evidence of God would always be 100% absent whenever God did anything. But one very reasonable and convincing explanation for such total absence of evidence is that God just is not there, and the reason that (say) earthquakes happen is the reason explained by modern science (and not because God is having a fit of temper and rage), ... ditto all the 100-million other natural scientific explanations.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I have not heard a good rebuttal to these points.

Then something rather nasty must be blocking your years ears and closing your mind .

IanS wrote:

Andrew4Handel wrote: I think the evidence issue is more subtle than it is portrayed.

For instance if you knew nothing about humans and found a toaster in a desert you couldn't draw and conclusion about humans physical make up from the structure of one of their artifacts.

Actually you could draw a vast number of very accurate conclusions.

What conclusions could you draw bearing in mind that in this scenario you know nothing about humans before hand?

Andrew4Handel wrote:

So there is no reason to expect to find gods nature behind every cause or within "mechanisms". If god/s did exist there is no reason for him/them to be found within nature.

Well that does not follow from your opening sentence which was monumentally wrong.

Yet you didn't refute it...It follows that if humans create mechanisms that operate on their own without the imprint of the human anatomy on it then why would a creation have gods imprint on it?

So far, modern science has discovered and explained literally millions of things which were once said to be directly or indirectly due to God. And so far, not a single one of those things has anything to do with any god. So far the score is natural answers 100-million vs Godly miracle answers precisely Zero!

God and other creators have usually only been charged with creating the world. Religions aren't science text books with claims about gods intervention behind everything. You are layering your own interpretation on scientific findings. They don't say anything about whether things are designed or created.
But the implausible thing is that anything would exist at all with no good reason.

Science shows that the human body is highly complex. Evolution offers a general explanation for how things could of arisen but there is no reason why it should have happened this way. And why things should exhibit multifarious properties including consciousness and concepts.

You are simply saying science therefore no God which isn't a logical conclusion. There is no ultimate explanation for why anything should exist or why it does. People can easily understand infinite regress or the arbitrary cut off of causality.

Evolution theory allows people to cheat in my opinion. People can give any lame half assed explanation of something that happened without our observation and is unfalsifiable. So even if we can't know exactly how the brain evolved we have to accept that it evolved regardless of a paucity of verifiable theories. Theories about the origin of the earth can't be emprically tested.

Andrew wrote:
Evolution theory allows people to cheat in my opinion. People can give any lame half assed explanation of something that happened without our observation and is unfalsifiable.

How many different ways would you like evolution theory tested? Every prediction made has been verified - From the earth having to be much older than thought to be to the fusion of two chromosomes found in chimps to be one chromosome in humans.

Evolutionary theory walks along a cliff edge and is highly falsifiable. One single prediction proved wrong could bring the whole theory into question. But this hasn't happened. Time and time again the predictions are shown to be correct.

Certain types of fossils have been predicted in certain layers of rock and they have been found. Transitional fossils have been predicted and found. Evolution theory even had a role in the prediction of continental drift/plate tectonics. This is a small sample that does not include the predictions made about the genetic mechanism or real time evolution that can and has been observed in and out of the laboratory.

Andrew wrote:
So even if we can't know exactly how the brain evolved we have to accept that it evolved regardless of a paucity of verifiable theories.

What paucity? There is more evidence and explanation for the evolution of the brain than you could read in a lifetime. We must accept that the brain evolved because that is where the evidence leads.

Andrew wrote:
Theories about the origin of the earth can't be emprically tested.

The only theories about the origin of the earth that cannot be empirically tested are those theories that propose divine creators. The current scientific theory came about through empirical evidence that has been tested along the way.

Oldskeptic wrote:

Andrew wrote:
Evolution theory allows people to cheat in my opinion. People can give any lame half assed explanation of something that happened without our observation and is unfalsifiable.

How many different ways would you like evolution theory tested? Every prediction made has been verified - From the earth having to be much older than thought to be to the fusion of two chromosomes found in chimps to be one chromosome in humans.

I can't see how you could logically know how the human brain evolved. It could only be speculation. Maybe they found fossilised brains during each process of change? There is just alot of things you can't observe because they have already happened.
Some aspects of human anatomy have several theories to explain them like skin and the paucity of hair on the body.

I am refering to the difference between what has been observed and what has been inferred. Such as the inferrence based on gene similarity and skull shape and the stages of foetus development.

Alot is known about the human body, cell structure and the like which is highly complex so you can produce a theory that invokes complex ideas and words but is just leeching of the current explaination for how something works.

So to challenge every article written about the evolution each organism and its many parts is unfeasible but my skepticism remains.

Oldskeptic wrote:The only theories about the origin of the earth that cannot be empirically tested are those theories that propose divine creators. The current scientific theory came about through empirical evidence that has been tested along the way.

To test a theory about how the earth arose you'd have to produce another earth elsewhere by this procedure.

To suggest that the Earth and universe were created it is just needed to cite their existence and intelligibility.

Dawkin said that nature had the overwhelming illusion of design and also that if you saw an eye it would be crazy not to think it was designed if we didn't have evolution theory.

I found this interesting because it suggests that people without scientific knowledge who see design are making a valid inference.

I just can't see how science can explain why anything exists and where it comes from intially. That leaves plenty of room to speculate about deities for me not a small gap.

Andrew4Handel wrote:To test a theory about how the earth arose you'd have to produce another earth elsewhere by this procedure.

We just need to witness planets being born without a cosmic chef stirring the pot. It's called planetary accretion. Look it up.

Andrew4Handel wrote:To suggest that the Earth and universe were created it is just needed to cite their existence and intelligibility.

Non-sequitur and question begging in the same short sentence: impressive.

Their 'intelligibility' centres around the notion of gravity and conservation of angular momentum. No intelligent creation required.

Andrew4Handel wrote:
Dawkin said that nature had the overwhelming illusion of design and also that if you saw an eye it would be crazy not to think it was designed if we didn't have evolution theory.

Citation?

Andrew4Handel wrote:I found this interesting because it suggests that people without scientific knowledge who see design are making a valid inference.

Non-sequitur.

It doesn't mean it's a valid inference, but an understandable mistake.

Andrew4Handel wrote:I just can't see how science can explain why anything exists and where it comes from intially.

Argument from ignorance. You've also not been paying attention to science over the last century.

Andrew4Handel wrote:That leaves plenty of room to speculate about deities for me not a small gap.

No, you *want* to speculate about deities and do so on the back of ignorance of why things exist. You've just gone for the most simplistic answer possible. Note that it doesn't say 'simple' answer. It's quite the opposite of a simple answer, it demands a whole realm of other explanations. Basically, you've just invoked infinite regress as a satisfying answer.

Andrew4Handel wrote:

Oldskeptic wrote:

Andrew wrote:
Evolution theory allows people to cheat in my opinion. People can give any lame half assed explanation of something that happened without our observation and is unfalsifiable.

How many different ways would you like evolution theory tested? Every prediction made has been verified - From the earth having to be much older than thought to be to the fusion of two chromosomes found in chimps to be one chromosome in humans.

I can't see how you could logically know how the human brain evolved. It could only be speculation. Maybe they found fossilised brains during each process of change? There is just alot of things you can't observe because they have already happened.
Some aspects of human anatomy have several theories to explain them like skin and the paucity of hair on the body.

I am refering to the difference between what has been observed and what has been inferred. Such as the inferrence based on gene similarity and skull shape and the stages of foetus development.

Alot is known about the human body, cell structure and the like which is highly complex so you can produce a theory that invokes complex ideas and words but is just leeching of the current explaination for how something works.

So to challenge every article written about the evolution each organism and its many parts is unfeasible but my skepticism remains.

So, what you mean is that your "skepticism" will remain no matter what evidence is available. Nice!

Andrew4Handel wrote:To test a theory about how the earth arose you'd have to produce another earth elsewhere by this procedure.

You don't have to physically see something to know it exists, and even if you do, you can never be 100% certain of anything. For example you wouldn't need to see me walking to the shops or to re-create my journey to know i did it. There are millions of ways to find out i went to the shops, from getting an aboriginal tracker to find my tracks and gather all the evidence, or you could fly over my potential-track with an extremely good infrared camera to map out my footprints by reading which particles on the path have been stepped on in the last few hours (assuming the technology was available).