Thought experiment. What if it was one day proven 200% there’s no God?

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Are you being flippant or is that really what you think arguments for God are?
 
Curious11 said:
We find scientific explanations for those phenomena. It usually goes something like this: there’s a storm, a religious person says God is the cause and therefore prayer would help it stop. A scientist comes along with a meteorological model based on data, math and proof from obersvational methodology. Then the Religious person says “yeah but God is behind that”, but offers no proof, yet tries to elevate it to the level of scientific certainty
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This is a “God of the Gaps.”

You need to answer whether you believe all of reality is contingent or not.
 
Yes I would, the point is that evolution is not only based on rigorous cause and effect observation, but can literally be proven through scientific experimentation with a control and treatment group. None of that is true about God
 
Curious11 said:
Yes I would, the point is that evolution is not only based on rigorous cause and effect observation, but can literally be proven through scientific experimentation with a control and treatment group. None of that is true about God
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You seem to imply that the scientific method isn’t based on cause and effect, which makes me wonder what you think we’re measuring.
 
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I am NOT being flippant. I must say some (NOT ALL) Catholics on this forum are quick to point out perceived mockery on the part of atheists towards religion yet remain with their heads remarkably turned in another direction when Catholics do it to atheists. Case in point would be the thread created by Techno2000 on evolution, the motivation behind which he admitted was trolling
 
Curious11 said:
I am NOT being flippant. I must say some (NOT ALL) Catholics on this forum are quick to point out perceived mockery on the part of atheists towards religion yet remain with their heads remarkably turned in another direction when Catholics do it to atheists. Case in point would be the thread created by Techno2000 on evolution, the motivation behind which he admitted was trolling
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I’ve had my disagreements with Techno2000. I’ll just leave it at that. Suffice it to say, though, that if you’re not being flippant then you don’t really have any experience with proper arguments for God if that’s how you characterize them.
 
I agree. It’s incoherent if everything is merely contingent, for then nothing now could exist.

Ok so at least one reality does not merely receive existence, but has existence by its own nature. That is what is meant by non-contingent, for contingent means its existence is dependent on some reality outside itself.

So you and I are not like this. We, as human organisms, could very well not have existed.

So what is the nature of reality that is exists in itself? What is the nature of a non-contingent being?
 
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Okay I respect that if that’s truly what you believe. Is there a way we can quickly solve that issue without having to interrupt this discussion?
 
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Curious11 said:
Okay I respect that if that’s truly what you believe. Is there a way we can quickly solve that issue without having to interrupt this discussion?
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Quickly? I don’t know. It’s not out of nowhere, though, but in response to you stating there is no rational basis to believe in God and thinking it is the same question as whether a dragon lives in your garage.
 
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You said God cannot be proven. I agree, not by empirical methods.

So I am attempting to dialogue with you regarding a metaphysical proof.

If we admit that there is at least one reality in existence that does not depend on something else for its existence, then we have to ask what the nature of such a thing is.

E.g., we know it can’t be something from our daily experience like a cat, for a cat does not have to exist. It is contingent, receiving its existence from outside causes.
 
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You just said that not everything is contingent. 🤔

But if everything has a cause, then nothing could exist.
 
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Because by contingent I thought you meant subject to randomness.

As far as I know, there’s an infinite chain of causality that had no start and will have no end. Even the Big Bang was caused by things that were caused
 
Atheists always seem to fall back on their pathetic analogies with Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc. Well since they can’t deny the witness of the Apostles and martyrs, might as well resort to third grade “reasoning…”
 
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Curious11 said:
To me it’s the same thing. Unproven facts elevated to dogma.
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But you seem to take certain axioms for granted as well. You hold that under controlled conditions you can replicate results. That you can remove interfering causes to learn more about a thing through empirical means. That our perceptions track reality. The principle of causality, the principle of proportional causality, and the like. It’s from these principles which make something like the scientific method possible that God’s necessity follows from.

When I first started thinking critically about science, it caused me to question my worldview and led me away from religion. When I first started thinking critically about knowledge and the principles by which we know it, I was led back.
 
I’m not gonna flag you, but if I said Catholics resort to pathetic reasoning you can bet the chances are high that I’d be suspended
 
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