Atheists: you cannot disprove the existence of GOd

[AnyoneAnybody]

God cannot be proven by empirical evidence because God is a constant. We cannot randomly assign God to one universe and No God to another universe and then measure the differential results. Moreover, what precisely would the dependent variable be?

---

It is not an atheist’s job to disprove the existenc eof God. It is not a positive assertion. If an atheist were to claim that it is impossible for God to exist then it would be his onus to back up that kind of statement.

No, the onus is on those who make the claim that God absolutely exists and you must worship Him or else be tortured in hell for all eternity because that is a positive asserrtion.

And they must prove it by using hard empirical evidence.

These include things like regrowing a limb (not replacing it with a technologic device to restore function), and seeing a real miacle such binging the dead back to life, after a few days of being dead. That’s the kind of things atheists look for in evidence and many of them will convert under those circumstances.

However, I am not an atheist, I do believe in God. But I used to be one and old habits die hard.

 

[Harmony1988]

Before talking about proving and disproving, realize the different methods.

There is induction (scientific)
deduction (mathematical)
abduction (probability based)

These are the 3 main ones, when people talk about proving or disproving, they generally think in scientific terms, and by that method, no one can disprove or prove God, neither by deduction nor abduction.

Before even attempting to do such a thing, one must figure out how exactly to go about proving or disproving God through these methods.

Pius XII stated that the truths that have to do with God require self surrender and abnegation to realize, so it’s not a matter of looking for chemical traces of spirits in the out reaches of Pluto’s crystallized atmosphere or whatever. Other theologians, philosophers have discussed this issue.

AnyoneAnybody, that’s a rather faulty statement of yours. You can prove the non-existence of something if you prove the existence of something else that is related to the supposed “non-existence”. For e.g. theoretically, at a temperature of -273.15 Celsius, heat doesn’t exist, how do we know this? Because heat requires the atomic vibration of particles, and at -273.15 Celsius (theoretically) there is no vibration, therefore by conclusion heat will not exist.

If anything, proving the non-existence of something greatly depends on what exactly the subject matter is and therefore it’s not acceptable to make random generalizations like AA.

 

[Valke2]

God is endlessness and thus, beyond our ability to conceive. Any concept of God therefore cannot be an accurate definition of something that is beyond conception.

Since our definition must therefore be incorrect, God cannot be what we define it as. It therefore,does not exist.

 

[juhothenero]

God is endlessness and thus, beyond our ability to conceive. Any concept of God therefore cannot be an accurate definition of something that is beyond conception.

Since our definition must therefore be incorrect, God cannot be what we define it as. It therefore,does not exist.

This is not logical… the problem is by making a concept of God as something we cannot make a concept out of, you already made a concept of God and therefore told us that God in fact does exists, if everything that human can make concept out of exists but everything one cannot make concept about does not exist.

Anyway endless, love, eternal, holy… are all concepts which God himself has told us about him…

 

[Miles_Mariae]

God is endlessness and thus, beyond our ability to conceive. Any concept of God therefore cannot be an accurate definition of something that is beyond conception.

Our definition is “inaccurate” in the sense that it is incomplete, but it does not logically follow that our conception of God is erroneous.

Since our definition must therefore be incorrect, God cannot be what we define it as. It therefore,does not exist.

Premise that our definition is “incorrect” - not accepted.

 

[Valke2]

Viewed through the lense of abstract monotheism, whether God exists or not, He is beyond our preceptual reach and beyond our conceptual grasp. As abstract monotheism evolves, the relationship between us and God becomes less and less important and is replaced with the emphasis on the relationship between me and you.

 

[AnyoneAnybody]

How fun! You’re a tough customer!

But I disagree with you…

Your response capitalizes on an ambiguity in the term “nonexistence”. Your example refers to heat that may not exist in reality under the condition of 0 Kelvin. Heat, in this sense, exists as a viable and very real phenomenon, but happens not to occur at 0 Kelvin.

This is the nearly equivalent to proving that Peter Pan, who we know to be real, happens not to be in the room at the time. He like the heat exist: just not at the current location.

When I used the term “nonexistence” I used it in the context of “God’s nonexistence” which does NOT mean that under the current conditions NOR at the given location God happens to not exist, but later, under different conditions or in a different location God does exist. (This is how your heat example ran amuck).

To speak unambiguously, nonexistence is here used to mean "having no reality whatsoever (1) under any condition, (2)at any time, and (3) in any location.

I cannot apprehend the meaning of “it’s not acceptable to make random generalizations like AA” so will not respond to this. It appears wholly irrelevant.

---

Before talking about proving and disproving, realize the different methods.

There is induction (scientific)
deduction (mathematical)
abduction (probability based)

These are the 3 main ones, when people talk about proving or disproving, they generally think in scientific terms, and by that method, no one can disprove or prove God, neither by deduction nor abduction.

Before even attempting to do such a thing, one must figure out how exactly to go about proving or disproving God through these methods.

Pius XII stated that the truths that have to do with God require self surrender and abnegation to realize, so it’s not a matter of looking for chemical traces of spirits in the out reaches of Pluto’s crystallized atmosphere or whatever. Other theologians, philosophers have discussed this issue.

AnyoneAnybody, that’s a rather faulty statement of yours. You can prove the non-existence of something if you prove the existence of something else that is related to the supposed “non-existence”. For e.g. theoretically, at a temperature of -273.15 Celsius, heat doesn’t exist, how do we know this? Because heat requires the atomic vibration of particles, and at -273.15 Celsius (theoretically) there is no vibration, therefore by conclusion heat will not exist.

If anything, proving the non-existence of something greatly depends on what exactly the subject matter is and therefore it’s not acceptable to make random generalizations like AA.

 

[AnyoneAnybody]

Separately, regarding your proving/disproving point. I did make the assumption that the original stimulus pertained to deduction when I presented this logic:

---

"Re: you cannot disprove the existence of God
This statement is the same as:
you cannot prove the NONexistence of God.

This statement is illogical because, as a rule, it is impossible prove a null set(e.g., God’s nonexistence).

It is also impossible to prove that the Easter Bunny does NOT exist. "

---

I did not simply state as you did the conclusion that God can be deductively proven to not exist (petitio principii). I actually explained why this was so.

Many Catholic theologians/philosophers do contend that God’s existence can be deductively proven (I take no position here), but you state that one cannot do so. On what basis, do you challenge Peter Kreeft?

Before talking about proving and disproving, realize the different methods.

There is induction (scientific)
deduction (mathematical)
abduction (probability based)

These are the 3 main ones, when people talk about proving or disproving, they generally think in scientific terms, and by that method, no one can disprove or prove God, neither by deduction nor abduction.

Before even attempting to do such a thing, one must figure out how exactly to go about proving or disproving God through these methods.

Pius XII stated that the truths that have to do with God require self surrender and abnegation to realize, so it’s not a matter of looking for chemical traces of spirits in the out reaches of Pluto’s crystallized atmosphere or whatever. Other theologians, philosophers have discussed this issue.

AnyoneAnybody, that’s a rather faulty statement of yours. You can prove the non-existence of something if you prove the existence of something else that is related to the supposed “non-existence”. For e.g. theoretically, at a temperature of -273.15 Celsius, heat doesn’t exist, how do we know this? Because heat requires the atomic vibration of particles, and at -273.15 Celsius (theoretically) there is no vibration, therefore by conclusion heat will not exist.

If anything, proving the non-existence of something greatly depends on what exactly the subject matter is and therefore it’s not acceptable to make random generalizations like AA.

 

[AnyoneAnybody]

Hi!

I want to know where you got this quote (or did you write it?) It had me in stiches…

"Feel the flame, feel the curve of the sword. Your living flesh reeks of compromise.

And in the face of the barbarian hordes, an honest retreat is your only reward. "

Viewed through the lense of abstract monotheism, whether God exists or not, He is beyond our preceptual reach and beyond our conceptual grasp. As abstract monotheism evolves, the relationship between us and God becomes less and less important and is replaced with the emphasis on the relationship between me and you.

 

[Valke2]

Hi!

I want to know where you got this quote (or did you write it?) It had me in stiches…

"Feel the flame, feel the curve of the sword. Your living flesh reeks of compromise.

And in the face of the barbarian hordes, an honest retreat is your only reward. "

That quote is from a song that somehow made it to my mp3 player. Don’t know who sings it but I’ll try to find out.

 

[AnyoneAnybody]

That quote is from a song that somehow made it to my mp3 player. Don’t know who sings it but I’ll try to find out.

I googled after posting to you and found its someone named Marianne Faithfull singing the song “Without Blame”

 

[Harmony1988]

How fun! You’re a tough customer!

But I disagree with you…

Your response capitalizes on an ambiguity in the term “nonexistence”. Your example refers to heat that may not exist in reality under the condition of 0 Kelvin. Heat, in this sense, exists as a viable and very real phenomenon, but happens not to occur at 0 Kelvin.

This is the nearly equivalent to proving that Peter Pan, who we know to be real, happens not to be in the room at the time. He like the heat exist: just not at the current location.

When I used the term “nonexistence” I used it in the context of “God’s nonexistence” which does NOT mean that under the current conditions NOR at the given location God happens to not exist, but later, under different conditions or in a different location God does exist. (This is how your heat example ran amuck).

To speak unambiguously, nonexistence is here used to mean "having no reality whatsoever (1) under any condition, (2)at any time, and (3) in any location.

I cannot apprehend the meaning of “it’s not acceptable to make random generalizations like AA” so will not respond to this. It appears wholly irrelevant.

---

Actually AA, I was referring to this:

This statement is illogical because, as a rule, it is impossible prove a null set(e.g., God’s nonexistence).

It’s not so much the examples, but the fact that you can prove a null set depending on what exactly the subject matter is.

Edit: I read your subsequent post, I realize where my misinterpretation was, you were referring to deduction which I didn’t read carefully enough

 

[Harmony1988]

Separately, regarding your proving/disproving point. I did make the assumption that the original stimulus pertained to deduction when I presented this logic:

Ah well, sorry, I didn’t really take note of that. In which case you would be right as far as I can think of because it’s only the scientific experiments (inductive) that spring to mind in cases of proving a null set, as you say. Though it may be possible by deduction but this remains to be seen, I say this in the light of reading something about Pavel Florensky a Russian Orthodox priest who wrote about the theory of relativity, complex numbers and its link to the Kingdom of God, he was ultimately imprisoned for his views by the communist russian government in the 1930’s.

I did not simply state as you did the conclusion that God can be deductively proven to not exist (petitio principii). I actually explained why this was so.

Many Catholic theologians/philosophers do contend that God’s existence can be deductively proven (I take no position here), but you state that one cannot do so. On what basis, do you challenge Peter Kreeft?

Do I? I’m not quite sure who Peter Kreeft is actually, though I have heard of the name. But let it be known that I did actually misinterpret you, as you were referring to deduction.

 

[Valke2]

I googled after posting to you and found its someone named Marianne Faithfull singing the song “Without Blame”

there you go. It’s a catchy song.

 

[whiteknite]

Pious Fraud!!

 

[holy_wood]

Rather than disprove God, it is easier to disprove logic. The preexistence of logic which in and of itself is a language, is not logical. All language must be created and implemented. Without the implementation of the creator or implementation of those the creator of the language gave the language to, the language no longer has meaning.

Once they prove that logic could not have eternally existed, God must have existed since He is the One that created logic.

It is logical that the Creator of logic would have and Existence that is out side logic. Thee and One at the same time is not logical.

 

[holy_wood]

Why there must be a God:

For some background, I am Catholic so I will be arguing from a Christian perspective (influenced heavily by Thomas Aquinus).

The few times the pronoun “He” is used when speaking in reference to God is not a description of gender but a metaphor for God’s active/masculine relationship with creation.

When Catholics speak of ‘God’, we’re initially speaking of an unchanging being, an ‘unmoved mover’, or ‘first cause’ of the created order. We begin our apologetic by asking two fundamental questions: 1) does something unchanging exist?; and 2) is this being the God of classical theism?

In support of (1), I argue that the regularity with which we observe change is itself an indication of something unchanging. ‘Regularity’ itself is a description of something unchanging. If it were to change, it would not be regular to begin with. So, something unchanging exists.

Secondly, we should define words ‘actuality’ and ‘potentiality’.
Here’s what I mean. At one point in time, you were a fetus (in actuality) and an adult (in potentiality). Changing beings are composed of both actuality and potentiality, since they are one thing, but can possibly change into something else.

Now, something unchanging has no potentiality to change whatsoever. Hence, it must be purely actual. This will be key as we explore the following questions.

Why must God be all powerful (not just powerful enough to create the universe?

If we understand the ‘universe’ as entailing every being that possesses some potentiality (we live in a changing universe, after all), then God must be fully actual in every respect. To illustrate this further, you and I are partly actual and partly potential. We have some power because we are partly actual. A purely actual being, then, must possess every power there is to have.
Or lets put it another way.

1. 1. Changing beings exist.
2. All changing beings are composed of act and potency.
3. No potency can actualize itself.
4. Only Pure Act can actualize being.
5. So, all finite beings are actualized by Pure Act.

The reason why (4) is true is because every being composed of both actuality and potentiality has its potentiality actualized. But since no being can actualize its own potentiality then there must be something purely in actuality.

Why God must be infinite and eternal

Given that God is pure actuality, there could never be a time in which He was not. If He ever came into or out of being, then He wouldn’t be purely actual, since only potential beings can change from being to non-being, or vice-versa.

Why there cannot be more than one God:

---

If there were two or more gods (i.e. more than one purely actual being), then there would be distinctions between them. We can only know that A and B are different if they can be distinguished–that is, if one has some attribute the other hasn’t this would mean that it is not infinite. Since these distinctions entail limitations, and only potential beings are limited, then what is purely actual cannot have any distinctions between “other” pure actualities. Hence, what is purely actual (God) must be one.
Here is an example. Pour water into a cup and then pour some more. You would not be able to distinguish the water poured in initially from the water poured in the second time, since the substance would be indistinguishable.

or

Paint an entire wall yellow. Then color the wall with another coating of the same yellow paint. You would not be able to distinguish the first coating from the second costing, since both coatings color the entire wall and are the same color. It is the same with an infinite being. Two infinite beings would both be everywhere with the same infinitely perfect attributes. There would be no way for us to distinguish the two. They would completely overlap each other. So you can cannot have two or more distinguishable infinite beings.

Now, you may argue that although you cannot have two distinguishable infinite beings, I have not prove that you cannot have two indistinguishable infinite beings. You can have two or more infinite beings sharing the exact same space ****
(since there was no space or time before the universe then the space referred to must be approached abstractly and viewed metaphysically), and are indistinguishable except to each other. And if you said this, I would have to concede that you right.

But this is exactly what the Christian faith is saying. The doctrine of the Trinity cannot be proven by the use of natural reason. It is revealed to us in Sacred Scripture and Tradition.
However, despite the fact that natural reason cannot prove the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity, neither is the doctrine opposed to natural reason. There is no contradiction in saying that there is one God in three persons. Norman Geisler puts it this way: there is one what (God, the being of God) and three who’s (persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit).
If you have two or more indistinguishable beings, isn’t this what traditional Christianity calls the Trinity? If there are two or more beings that are indistinguishable, then that would mean that they share the same essence, just as two coats of yellow sharing the same essence - the yellow paint.

So logic clearly shows that you cannot have two or more distinguishable beings but logic cannot show that you cannot have two or more indistinguishable beings that completely overlap in the same state of existence, sharing the same essence, which is the doctrine of the Trinity - Three Persons sharing one Essence.

**
Why God must be personal in nature:**

---

Let’s take the example of knowledge. Humans are partly potential and partly actual. Humans as partly actual beings have some knowledge. It therefore logically follows that a purely actual being would know everything there is to know; God must be omniscient, or all-knowing. However, since only sentient beings (humans, animals, aliens?) have knowledge, along with the ability to act on it then it must follow that God is personal.

One might respond by saying that ignorance is an actuality, but God cannot be ignorant because this misconstrues the nature of ignorance, which is a privation (a lack of an actuality). God is the fullness of what is actual, not of what is lacking.

 

[bobzills]

I actually do believe in God, but here is an argument that I have heard which is intended to prove that God does not exist. (I am presenting this as an academic argument):

1. God is all loveing and all powerful.
2. An all loving God would see to it that children are protected and He would see to it that there not be horrible harm and suffering borne by his creatures, and He would not tolerate evil.
3. Evil exists and there is horrible suffereing and cruelty toward innocent people and children in this world.
4. Therefore, there cannot be an all loving God, since an all loving God would not tolerated this type of evil and suffering which innocent people have to bear.

 

[juhothenero]

I actually do believe in God, but here is an argument that I have heard which is intended to prove the God does not exist. I am presenting this as an academic argument):

1. God is all loveing and all powerful.
2. An all loving God would see to it that children are protected and He would see to it that there not be horrible harm and suffering borne by his creatures, and He would not tolerate evil.
3. Evil exists and there is horrible suffereing and cruelty toward innocent people and children in this world.
4. Therefore, there cannot be an all loving God, since an all loving God would not tolerated this type of evil and suffering which innocent people have to bear.

This is a fallacy since it makes an assumption that something that is all-loving must love in terms which are acceptable to me as all-loving. Meaning that it assumes that all-loving God must protect us from anything evil…

But this is not the truth even in a human society as we see it, I would say parents are quite all-loving towards their children, and a good example of something similar to Gods love (relationship kind of love won’t do, since it includes a lot of selfish aspects) and it is very unselfish. Even so parents educate their children to later on come by in society by themselves, through this love and when they grow enough parents let their children go away from them in to a world which can in fact and will kill them in the end…

Another issue that God is not all-loving but love itself… This is another distinction that must be counted for so the first point is also wrong God is not all loving and all powerful but love and all powerful… I think this affects a bit, since even human can know what it is to be loving, human is not love and cannot know what it is to be love…

 

[holy_wood]

This is a fallacy since it makes an assumption that something that is all-loving must love in terms which are acceptable to me as all-loving. Meaning that it assumes that all-loving God must protect us from anything evil…

But this is not the truth even in a human society as we see it, I would say parents are quite all-loving towards their children, and a good example of something similar to Gods love (relationship kind of love won’t do, since it includes a lot of selfish aspects) and it is very unselfish. Even so parents educate their children to later on come by in society by themselves, through this love and when they grow enough parents let their children go away from them in to a world which can in fact and will kill them in the end…

Another issue that God is not all-loving but love itself… This is another distinction that must be counted for so the first point is also wrong God is not all loving and all powerful but love and all powerful… I think this affects a bit, since even human can know what it is to be loving, human is not love and cannot know what it is to be love…

God is love, power, justice, and mercy. God is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end and the source of knowledge can comprehend.