The "There's no proof god doesn't exist" argument.
Offline This is probably one of the most brought up arguments of all by theists. The variants go "You can't prove or disprove god, so there is no definite answer" or "because there is no proof that god doesn't exist, he exists" etc etc etc.
No matter how many flaws you find in a bible, or qu'ran, or how many times you explain to them, logic, reason, physics, etc etc.
They will always hold faith because "you can't disprove god, therfor he may exist"
How do you argue back against this argument?
P.S.
I think I remember reading an earlier topic where someone had a counter argument to this, but I never could find the article again.
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Offline Dmasterman wrote:This is probably one of the most brought up arguments of all by theists. The variants go "You can't prove or disprove god, so there is no definite answer" or "because there is no proof that god doesn't exist, he exists" etc etc etc.
No matter how many flaws you find in a bible, or qu'ran, or how many times you explain to them, logic, reason, physics, etc etc.
They will always hold faith because "you can't disprove god, therefor he may exist"
How do you argue back against this argument?
P.S.
I think I remember reading an earlier topic where someone had a counter argument to this, but I never could find the article again.
I think that the entire concept of atheism is a bit of a joke. A theist believes in gods, an atheist doesn't. What is the definition of a god, according to the Bible or a good dictionary? Anything or anyone who is given veneration or is considered mighty. Much the same as a Lord is someone having authority, usually but not always given to them.
So, even if a god does not exist it exists as a god. I don't believe that Dagon exists as a real person, supernatural or natural. The Bible agrees, and yet it calls Dagon a god. People used to spray paint slogans all over England that Frodo or Eric Clapton was God. Frodo a fictional person and Eric a modest fellow who hated that having been done, were still gods.
So . . . to say that gods don't exist is pretty stupid. Not a well thought out conviction.
I have no problem with the gods mentioned in the Bible - they were all constructs of the human imagination.
To say that supernatural beings that people called gods actually existed - now that's pretty stupid.
"I do this real moron thing, and it's called thinking. And apparently I'm not a very good American because I like to form my own opinions."
— George Carlin
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Offline The "There's no proof god doesn't exist" argument. This is probably one of the most brought up arguments of all by theists. The variants go "You can't prove or disprove god, so there is no definite answer" or "because there is no proof that god doesn't exist, he exists" etc etc etc. No matter how many flaws you find in a bible, or qu'ran, or how many times you explain to them, logic, reason, physics, etc etc. They will always hold faith because "you can't disprove god, therfor he may exist" How do you argue back against this argument? P.S. I think I remember reading an earlier topic where someone had a counter argument to this, but I never could find the article again.
My signature says it all.
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You cannot disprove the existance of God, but you also cannot disprove the existance of an all powerfull, incomprehesible, pink elephant that lives in the boot of my car.
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Offline My signature says it all.
So does mine. Well along with a couple other snappy items I dreamed up.
I watched the Htchens vs Sharpton debate, I agree with a poster who said when Sharpton compared god to electricity, Hitchens should have offered to pull an electric line and put it to Sharptons forehead.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
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Offline When this happens most people seem to bring up that you can't disprove UFOs, unicorns, or a tea pot that orbits Jupiter (etc). If you know what they are likely to reject out of hand it's easier. Once you find something that they reject, and that can't be disproven; they will likely tell you some reason why what they believe is completely different then other people’s crap. At that point you at least have something to argue with them about.
Yes.
Burdon of Proof. I have no need to prove the negative, I am not making any claim as an atheist.
Yes.
I use both of these when I debate the existence of God.
I watched that debate with the RRS and two Christians in which they failed to prove, scientifically, that the Abrahamic God exists. That's all I need.
I think Mr. David Henson is just trying to be difficult.
Faith is the surrender of reason.
Money = Debt = Slavery.
You are False Data.
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Offline You have not shown how omnipotence itself is explicitly self contradictory. Keep in mind that the definition of the LONC states that a proposition p is explicitly denied in the same sense, in the same way.
An explanation of your assertion would be appreciated.
I don't know of anything inherently self-contradictory about omnipotence, or the definition of "God". The self-contradiction exists in the belief systems about God. For example:
Omnibenevolent: unlimited or infinite benevolence.
Benevolence: disposition to do good.
God is omnibenevolent, yet he won't intervene on the behalf of starving children, so his benevolence is not unlimited or infinite.
Therefore, God is omnibenevolent and not omnibenevolent. Absurd.
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Offline Actually, I found this post on the self-contradiction of God's definition:
ifywar Posts: 14Joined: 2008-09-25
Offlinefavorite bits of logic for and against god.
awwwwwright peeps, in this tread post your fav arguements for or against god.
my fav is one against god.
disproving all seeing, all knowing, all powerful god is possible with logic:
if god is all seeing, all knowing, and all powerful, can he see what he will do?
if so, can he change it?
if he can, he is not all seeing. sure, he could see all possible paths he could take, but if he cannot see exactly what he is going to do, he is not all seeing.
if he can see what he will do, and cannot change it, then he has no will power, and is therefore not all powerful, but stuck on a track, predestined by something else. this begs the question; what made this track? apply the piece of logic already stated to see why there can be no track, nor any all powerful, all seeing being on it.
just some food for thought. eat it up! omnomnomnomnomnomnom.
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Offline Thank you!! I have read this kind of twisted logic before. Nice response!
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Offline I'm of the position that deities & magic have been, beyond any reasonable doubt, falsified.
First, there's the fact that 'God' isn't a coherent concept. What is the composition of God, exactly? Where is God located? How long has God been there? If you can't even begin to describe the properties of something, positing it's existence is ridiculous.
Second, there's the great & rank heap of testable claims made by theists & mystics that have all failed miserably when scrutinized. Christians claimed that prayer would assist ill patients recover from illness - we tested the claim, it fell on it's face:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html?_r=1&pagewanted=2
A witch doctor in India claimed he could kill a man with his 'Ultimate Destruction Ceremony' - this pathetic, facepalm inducing display was the result:
A woman claims to have healed by Agnesë Gonxhe Bojaxhi's Saintly power, and it turns out upon investigation she was cured through conventional cancer therapy & medication:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Theresa#.22Miracle.22_and_beatification
Creationists claim that we won't find fossils that we do, in fact, eventually dig up. Demagogues like Mr. Dobson & Mr. Warren make specific claims about homosexuality (like, for example, that it is strictly a human phenomena) & child rearing (like, for example, that physically smashing your child around during their formative years is a good practice), based on their religious convictions, that are directly contradicted by research.
I could go on; I'm sure you can think of your own laundry list of shams that science has made roadkill of.
Third, the supposedly sacred & canonical texts that are purported to deliver the message & history of these deities to us are terribly flawed, endlessly edited & translated, describe events that contradict known physical laws, describe locations that are non-existent, describe persons that are absent from the historical record where they should be quite present & prominent, give inaccurate explanations for a myriad of phenomena and, frankly, are not often written very well. Some passages in the Bible are just flat out absurd, even within the context of the story being a parable.
Fourth, and finally, the universe we inhabit is a creature of chaos; what we see does not at all corroborate the notion that things were carefully laid out or planned. The galaxies are all racing away from each other; pretty soon the galaxies in the furthest regions of the void that we can see will have sped out of our line of sight. The whole enterprise is, if very slowly, approaching absolute zero due to atrophy. Suns collapse & explode (if sufficiently large) after a cosmically brief period. Gamma ray bursts rip through whole stellar neighborhoods at random. Stellar debris whips through solar systems and periodically slams into established planetoids, altering trajectories & climates and, on at least one occasion that we know for certain, wiping-out whole species.
No other topic at all could get by with this many failed tests & predictions, all the while being so vague & incoherent.
"Natasha has just come up to the window from the courtyard and opened it wider so that the air may enter more freely into my room. I can see the bright green strip of grass beneath the wall, and the clear blue sky above the wall, and sunlight everywhere. Life is beautiful. Let the future generations cleanse it of all evil, oppression and violence, and enjoy it to the full."
- Leon Trotsky, Last Will & Testament
February 27, 1940
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Offline Dmasterman wrote:This is probably one of the most brought up arguments of all by theists. The variants go "You can't prove or disprove god, so there is no definite answer" or "because there is no proof that god doesn't exist, he exists" etc etc etc.
No matter how many flaws you find in a bible, or qu'ran, or how many times you explain to them, logic, reason, physics, etc etc.
They will always hold faith because "you can't disprove god, therefor he may exist"
How do you argue back against this argument?
P.S.
I think I remember reading an earlier topic where someone had a counter argument to this, but I never could find the article again.
I think that the entire concept of atheism is a bit of a joke. A theist believes in gods, an atheist doesn't. What is the definition of a god, according to the Bible or a good dictionary? Anything or anyone who is given veneration or is considered mighty. Much the same as a Lord is someone having authority, usually but not always given to them.
So, even if a god does not exist it exists as a god. I don't believe that Dagon exists as a real person, supernatural or natural. The Bible agrees, and yet it calls Dagon a god. People used to spray paint slogans all over England that Frodo or Eric Clapton was God. Frodo a fictional person and Eric a modest fellow who hated that having been done, were still gods.
So . . . to say that gods don't exist is pretty stupid. Not a well thought out conviction.
The word "atheist" wouldn't need to be used if morons wouldn't go around claiming their comic book super heros were actually real.
Just like cops have to exist. In a utopia it would be nice if we didn't need them. But as long as people go around claiming that invisible brains with no neurons or cerebellum with magical super powers floats out in the cosmos everywhere and nowhere at the same time meddling in the affairs of humans, the word "atheist" will be used by those who rightfully scoff at such absurdities.
to say that gods don't exist is pretty stupid.
Is it stupid to say that Thor doesn't exist? Is it stupid to say that Horus was not a real god and the sun was not a real god?
What is stupid is thinking that all this around us is the cause of an invisible non-material magical super brain.
Stupid is believing in Santa for adults.
Take a slide of a cadaver's human brain, look at it under a microscope and juxtapose it next to a Hubble deep space photo. Don't be a moron and tell me they are the same things capable of the same functions.
"gods" are merely human projections of wishful thinking. It is an unfortunate part of our species history in anthropomorphizing OBJECTS and putting human qualities on those objects.
GODS DON'T EXIST! So you are calling me stupid. Ok, find me god's DNA, show me his GPS location.
If you can accept that others have made up gods that have rightfully ended up in the graveyard of myths, what makes you think your pet god, or any currently held by any label, wont meet the same fate of changing zeitgeist?
Deities are nothing but placebos that reside in human brains and will ultimately die when our species goes extinct because no one will be around to sell those absurdities to the next generation.
"god/s" are nothing more than Superman/Santa falsely sold by humans as real.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
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I don't believe in a god of any sort. Therefore I am not in denial, how can I be in denial or in opposition to something that does not exist? Pushing on an invisble wall I will fall over, whoops!
I am apparently in denial, and/or opposition of another "persons" who is. I do not worship a person or their beliefs either so no, atheism is not a religion, thanks.
Faith is the word but next to that snugged up closely "lie's" the want.
"By simple common sense I don't believe in god, in none."-Charlie Chaplin
you cannot argue with them. in fact, i think that even if Sitchin (Zachariah), Icke (David), and all those other ancient astronaut proponents' theories are right, and one day we're visted by an alien race that reveals to us the true nature of our origins, and then proves it (somehow), i still think that after that, theists would still deny it. they would clkaim that the aliens were devils sent by satan to lead us away from god. kinda like Winston at the end of 1984. He was brainwashed to the point where he really loved big brother. same with christians (and all other religions too). they're all so brainwashed that no matter what, they won't believe anything otherwise.
in the same thought though....i always wonder what they would do if they were right and we were wrong. if Jesus were to magically come back, and everything they've ever believe were to be true, a large part of me thinks that they're so zealous now, that they wouldn't believe their messiah is who he says he is, and they'd all prolly end in burning because of their own piety. it makes me smile every time...
I think that the entire concept of atheism is a bit of a joke. A theist believes in gods, an atheist doesn't. What is the definition of a god, according to the Bible or a good dictionary? Anything or anyone who is given veneration or is considered mighty. Much the same as a Lord is someone having authority, usually but not always given to them.
Actually, God is considered by a good dictionary and the Bible as a venerated supernatural spirit.
The Bolded part shows your problem. You have two definitions of "god" going. One is the omnipotent spirit that Christians believe exists (the first definition of god), the other something that is treated as a god, or venerated (a second or third definition of "god" ). However, Atheism is the rejection of the FIRST definition. Atheists do "believe" that objects are venerated. They don't believe that the object venerated holds any supernatural spiritual qualities and thus reject god even if it exists as a venerated object, or god (second or third definition).
Try thinking. It usually has the effect of avoiding embarrassing posts like yours.
"The Chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization and he was exhilarated by his discovery. It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. Just no Character."
"He...had gone down in flames...on the seventh day, while God was resting"
"You have no respect for excessive authority or obsolete traditions. You should be taken outside and shot!"