Can one proof that god DOESN'T exist?

au, One point on the board for you! Love it. c.i.

I don't think anybody can prove there is NO God, or prove that there IS God. But, they can throw up a lot of smoke, dance around a lot, yell a lot. Like Babsatamelia said, you have to have someone who is willing to listen, then you can prove anything. Then, what have you done? Busy work, I guess.

Just having returned here after a lengthy gap from my "signing up" untill now, I feel it necessary to make "the" obvious comment here; whether or not there is a deity involved in the initiation, or operation of this universe is totally irrelevant. Considering the existing state of the universe (especially this specific planet), if there is a deity involved, "it" is irrelevant.

BoGoWo,

You know, I agree with you on this in one way. Of course, the question of proof of the existence of God and the question of the relevancy of the answer are separate questions. Thinking through either of these questions can be an interesting and therefore entertaining exercise in logic.

But you do bring up this other question about the overall seceme of things and the significance of knowing the truth about anything. The literal truth of any idea is always a more simple question than the underlying, unconscious meaning. What the concept of the existence of God represents is what gives it meaning or purpose, and that meaning will be unique to each person.

So the literal question about the truth of the existence of God is actually rather boring, I think. The really interesting stuff is what lies beneath the surface in the individual, personal meanings that make up each person's perception of reality.

I think the individual's fascination with God/god/Gods and Goddesses is amazing. Some of us choose to believe a religion which is so full of words that it automatically makes it suspect in my eyes, since the feeling of the numinous cannot be explained with words. Then there is Islam which says the words within the Koran itself proves the existence of Allah.

It would be a lonesome feeling, not to believe in anything.

Piffka,

Those who don't believe in the existence of God are not really "unbelievers" unless one is thinking that theism is the only worthwhile belief one could hold. I'm a believer in science. I can't call it a religion because it depends on empirical evidence rather than something called faith. (I have never been able to understand how one is to have faith in something about which one does not believe. I do however understand that there are many people who do not want to think about why they believe in a system, and if that's called faith, then I can understand it better.) But science is a belief system, i.e., a system requiring belief, non the less and provides me with a sense of being a part of a whole of humanity that is very comforting to me.

The argument made by followers of Islam and some fundamentalist Christian groups that there must be a God because the "word of God" (the Bible or Koran) says he exists is a logical fallacy of such huge proportions it seems amazing to me that it's not identified as such.

Lola says:



It has been identified as such, many, many times. There is a lot of literature out there that points out the fallacies.

All you have to do is get a group of people together and start a phrase - pass it on, see what the end results are. Now take a message and pass it on for hundreds of years before you write it down, translate it many times and "modernize" it. Now take phrases out of context and link them together as being the word of God.

I find it much easier and much truer to go to the source!

Well, I certainly believe in Science, too, though one must admit, the Experimental Theory leaves a lot to be desired. If you cannot test accurately, it doesn't necessarily follow that something doesn't exist. Also, there have been awful determinations by Science that are suddenly proven wrong -- therein is the best of Science. When it is wrong, after a relatively short amount of time, everyone accepts it and moves on.

The Koran's "proof" of Allah is that it holds itself together so well and numerically and several other esoterica things.

I think, Piffka that the fact that science not only is open to, but actually depends upon doubt distinguishes science from religion. This is what makes science a belief system not dependent on faith, or at least not dependent to the extreme extent religion requires "faith," i.e., a non understanding about why one believes as one does. Science is about having a working hypothesis. It's about a willingness to question the truth by forming some possible explanation for the nature of things and testing it, not once but continually. Science doesn't claim to know truth....it is, in fact the opposite. Science claims that new explanations can and will arise as attempts to understand are employed. It's the doubt that makes me feel safe and a part of a whole, and not lonely. But we're all different and have our own ways of achieving this end. Mine is not necessarily the one for others. I just think it best if the idea that theism is the only true belief system be questioned.

And I agree with you that obviously there are many who have pointed out the fallacy I mentioned. I was referring to those who do not recognize or acknowledge the fallacy. And I wasn't including you, by any means. I thought I was agreeing with you. I hope you didn't take it any other way.

Well, I'm glad we're agreeing, Lola! That part of science certainly has a lot to recommend itself. I think any system that is self-correcting is best. This topic has had its ups & downs.

Part of the confusion is that God to some of us means a white-haired elderly but v. powerful gent of the Judeo-Christos-Islamic tradition. Period. Do we believe in that or not?

Then there's a belief in God... unknowable, but something bigger than ourselves, apparently there, though seemingly unaware or uncaring of this minor creation out here on the edges of this insignificant galaxy. Is this a sort-of agnostic view? A Deist's?

And there's a belief in God... the something more that we'll never know... which may eventually be understood scientifically... translated imperfectly by nearly every religion, every one of which gets something right and most things wrong, with or without resident gods & goddesses who are atavistic extensions of all that there is.

And I suppose there is a belief in no god, just science, where all the coincidences and beautiful symmetries, the delightful chaos that in itself has patterns are part of this amazing and varied experiemental station that we find ourselves. We're here for four score & ten, give or take. And then gone. Is that all there is? If so, then it doesn't make any difference to us anyway, especially if we don't have children... which I guess is where the lonesome part comes in.

My personal take is that the believers need the belief in the same sense that children need to believe that mom and dad will not let anything bad happen to them when they go to bed at night. I feel it is important, for myself at any rate, to point out that those who believe in a deity and those, such as myself, who do not are not two sides of the same coin. The believers in a deity are making an extraordinary claim insofar as they are not able to produce the required item upon demand. Those who do not believe them are "spiritualistcally from Missouri"--they're saying: "Show me." No one has ever shown me, so i've no reason to believe. This beggars this entire question, because those who do not believe are under no obligation to provide any proof that deities do not exist--those making the extraordinary claim have the burden of proof if it is expected that others can be convinced to join in the belief.

There have been tribes of "primitives" which were not known to have believed in a deity--you have to dig for such information, because even among academics, the theistic imperative is strong enough to skew the information one receives. In my surmises, i see "primitive" humans of several dozen millenia ago confronted with a world which their senses combined with a human intellect comparable to our own made them capable of seeing as a vast and complex entity, for which they had far too few explanations. With a large and capable brain, but little socialization such as comes from the larger groups of which modern humans are a part, and no education at all other than on-the-job-training as hunters, gatherers and very basic tool and artifact makers--early humans were intellectually adroit enough to ponder questions for which there were simply no resources to provide answers. It is important to keep in mind that homo sapiens tens of thousands of years ago was as intelligent as we are, but was at the very base of the huge mountain of accumulated knowledge upon which we sit to survey the world and it's history in lofty disdain. A god or gods was one solution which occured to many of the sharper minds, which gave them an opportunity to appear knowing and self-assured. It also gave a means of control to the sharpest of those minds. In the Julian Jaynes book The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, he asserts that because the two hemisperes of the brain did not communicate (he's on truly shakey ground there--no one can say with any certainty when the commiserata formed, and at what point the hemispheres began to communicate, nor can he assert with assurance that such communication was ever lacking in homo sapiens--a good deal of his effort is taken up in demonstrating his contention), humans would see the memory of their clan leader or cheiftan as an actual apparition, and goes on to assert that beliefs in deities arose from such memories as visions after the death of a clan or tribal leader. He also asserts that, after the two hemispheres begin communicating smoothly, the "gods" retreat from our immediate earthly surroundings, and thereafter reside off in a heaven or on a Mount Olympus somewhere. There is much about his book with which i do not agree, but this thread is not about his book, so i would like to say that Jaynes' work is an example of an eggregious violation of entia non sunt multiplicanda. I think it much simpler to explain how the "vexed question of religion" arose.

To my way of thinking, many intelligent human adults tens of thousands of years ago saw sentient powers in the natural phenomena which ruled their lives--the sun, the moon, storms, earthquake, volcanoes, tidal waves--so many forces of nature which remind us of how puny and relatively powerless we are. The step to anthropomorphizing these powers is a very short and alluring one. With gods invented, the cleverest of them learned that they could dine out all their short, nasty, brutish and dull lives by presenting themselves as intermediaries or interpreters of the deities' will and wishes (i.e., as shamans, priest(esse)s, etc.). The more adroit humans became at manipulating their environment, the more crucial it becomes for the shaman to elaborate his/her explanation of the world in terms of the will of the deity so as to maintain their influence and control. At the point at which temple societies arise (a very good idea at that particular stage, to organize human energies for a greater productive good--and one we, as the human race, ought to have dispensed with millenia ago), the priests and priestesses are obliged to present a deity or a pantheon that demands complete obedience, threatens dire punishment on the one hand for malefactors, and offers incredible paradise on the other for true and doctrinally faithful adherents on the other. The force of this will to dominate must not be underestimated--more than three millenia after the appearance of temple societies, and two millenia after the appearance of secular cities marginalized the value of temple societies--we are still in the greedy, desparate grip of religious fanatics and coniving religious leaders who threaten us with damnation for our recreance. Judge not lest ye be judged? The most neglected of biblical injunctions.

The Baptist Dog

A Baptist preacher and his wife decided they needed a dog.

Ever mindful of the congregation, they knew the dog must also be
Baptist. They visited an expensive kennel and explained their needs to the manager, who assured them he had just the dog for them.

The dog was produced and the manager said "Fetch the Bible."

The dog bounded to the bookshelf, scrutinized the books, located the Bible, and brought it to the manager.

The manager then said "Find Psalms 23."

The dog, showing marvelous dexterity with his paws, leafed thru the Bible, found the correct passage, and pointed to it with his paw.

Duly impressed, the couple purchased the dog.

That evening a group of parishioners came to visit. The preacher and his wife began to show off the dog, having him locate several Bible verses. The visitors were amazed.

Finally, one man asked "Can he do normal dog tricks too?"

"Let's see" said he preacher. Pointing his finger at the dog, he
commanded "Heel!"

The dog immediately jumped up on a chair, placed one paw on the
preacher's forehead and began to howl.

The preacher turned to his wife and exclaimed "Good grief, we've bought a Pentecostal dog!"
*******************

Just goes to show, it's nearly impossible to prove that god doesn't exist. c.i.

god existence
All of you who cannot prove the non-existence of my magical unicorn must join my new church and pay a tithe. Setanta (sp?) is right.

Only if our tithing is tax deductible and I want to see the Revenue ruling first.

religion
Joanne, you blasphemer; you are my church's first excommunicatee.

It follows then, Setanta, that atheists are more highly evolved. I'm glad we've got that settled.

You bet i'm more highly evolved, i peels them bernanas afore i eats 'em . . .

In an elegant turn of phrase, Einstein said of his understanding of the principles underlying his special theory of relativity that it "beckoned like a liberation." This is how i view my maturation on the subject of gods and other juju toys. It is indeed a liberation to realize that we are totally without any special significance in the greater world of the cosmos. It means that we are free to act without the restraint of someone else's manufactured deity--it also entails a level of responsibility saddly missing from the canons of the religiously minded. When you no longer have a god to give you dominion over the birds and beasts and fishes and all the fields and forests, then you have become responsible for the effects of your actions within the environment. Your responsibility is to yourself and your fellows for the quality of the world which we inhabit, and to the generations which will succeed us. When you are required to think for yourself, and to create a personal ethos, and are no longer subject to an externally imposed morality, you have both freedom and responsibility. Freedom to interact with others without seeing them through the distortion of religious bigotry, or racial/ethnic biogotry derived from religious bigotry. And you become responsible for the consequences of your interactions with others. There is no white beard old man out there who will save us from ourselves, who will make it all right again if we lose it and push the nuclear button. There is no paradise after death to make up for what we suffer, whether meekly or not, at the hands of others in this life. Losing god is, to my mind, growing up in a very real, very human sense.

very good

Of course, going from what you've said, Setanta... that there are tribes of "primitives" who don't have a deity... and that it wasn't until the brain evolved to the point where it could create/realize a God... perhaps you are less evolved than we'd all like to think.

You said that in the course of human history:
1 -- primitives didn't believe in god
2 -- brain evolved to make them believe in god
3 -- you, now evolved further don't believe in god

Evolution doesn't turn back upon itself, ergo you must be a throwback. LOL