OK Atheists.......prove god doesn't exist

Just because someone makes something up doesn't mean that something similar doesn't exit. Thor, Apollo, Jehovah, and The Flying Spaghetti Monster are fictional entities invented by mankind. They've been defined in supernatural terms with human characteristics.

Just because the "gods" invented my mankind don't exist doesn't mean a real unimaginable supernatural timeless entity doesn't exist. I use the word unimaginable because if a supernatural entity was to exist then mankind doesn't even have the imagination to conceive of it. We really have puny imaginations and I have the perfect example.

I'm a combat veteran and I told my wife that I don't talk about my combat experiences because I can't describe them and, in fact, even though I've experienced combat I can't imagine it because it's an overwhelming experience that we have no way of comprehending.

 

As I've mentioned elsewhere if it makes someone feel good then they should feel free to do so. That doesn't give them the right to tell anyone else what to do but their beliefs have no negative impack as long as it remains just their religiou beliefs.

 

I have also previously put this forward and got it hand waved away by the fundagnostic dogmatist but, it is the same reasoning as to why Leprechauns, faeries and my cat last Thursday gets hand waved away because, absurdity destroys people that invoke ignorance; it's ignorance all the way down!

I will reiterate that as an atheist I can only lack belief in the positive assertions of theists, until the theists concepts are asserted I have no understanding of what they are and, it is not incumbent upon me to flesh out the concept or accept obviously malformed concepts. I can only assess what theists bring to the table and, on that basis I would justifiably also say that I believe that gods do not exist but, I do not say that because there is no need for me to do so. As an atheist I do not need to elaborate beyond lacking belief in assertions that have no evidence to support them and that is something that remains consistent whatever absurdity is put forward. Someone that is pointing at something, somewhere that might have done something at some point and calling it gods is doing something that is no different to what you did in your post.

Now, I wonder if we can find someone around here that might want to discuss the deeper implications rather than just keep repeating the same old tired nonsense?

 

Discuss what deeper implications of what?

 

I believe the intent is to discuss the reality that debating the validity of an issue that has no data to review is not possible to a rational mind. Any debate would be concerning the lack of information vs. the issue that lacks said information. This is why every discussion of this concept follows the same general template:

I believe in God.

What is this God.

The creator of everything.

explain please.

God works in mysterious ways.

That is not an explanation.

You are going to hell.


Rinse and repeat.

 

I suspect that someday (if not already) cognitive neuroscience will find that gods are just a manifestation of that part of our brains that attaches us to our parents when we are young and needy. Create the right atmosphere and even adults fall into child like behavior.

Throughout man's existence and evolution, clever people have redirected that instinct to control and manipulate. Religions, governments, abductors...They all use the same principles.
-Create or identify fear
-Offer protection and hope and maybe some food and shelter
-Take control.

Some people have a higher tendency to fall for it.

Now please prove or disprove my theory without any doubt. I just came up with it, so any evidence one way or the other is coincidence. Or it's not original.

 

The concept of fear based religion to control the population has been around for millenia. The unholy alliance between church and state was based upon the bogus "divine right of kings".

 

Indeed. It seems to be the case that intellectual reflections (whether they be philosophical, existential, and/or practical) emerge out of problems of human experience. As such, they are necessarily entwined with not only how we view the problem/conflict out of which they are born, but also inexorably tied to questions of how we move forward, as guidance for (and enrichment of) present and future action. I take it that this embodied activity, as well as the intellectual conceptualization (indeed I take the take the two to be interrelated), is necessary for a robust sense of meaning, which highlights the concerns about vagueness and evasion that you raise in your post.

 

That is not a perfect example it is in fact contradictory.

If one has experienced something yes that person can imagine it. And yes they can be described .

Yes actually the concept invented by man of a supernatural being is as unlikely to be true as leprechauns.

 

I'm not sure I follow your thought process. By definition, a supernatural entity is god. If you believe such entity is possible, then you are a theist. If you don't believe, then you're an atheist.

 

For me personally, a robust sense of meaning is important because I want, and need, my internal model of reality to accord as closely as possible with what I sense or observe about reality; as you have put it, this need has arisen from intellectual reflections that have emerged from experiences. I have to accept that how I sense and observe reality is subjective, that I have to make assumptions about that reality and that I am ignorant about the true nature and extent of reality. In practical terms, I would lead a very dull existence if I had to go back to first principles and contemplate my very existence before committing to every decision I have to make but, what I can do is work within the limitations and evaluate the outcomes every now and then to check that it works (it will be obvious that I have no formal philosophical qualifications so I have no means to put this in terms of theorems, axioms or essays written by academics but, I don't think that I'm alone in that here). In practical terms I guess that I have made my ignorance of reality a basal assumption and moved on and, from what I have read on here, I don't think that any of us are as unaware of ignorance to the extent that some particular posters appear to think we need repeatedly to be reminded of it!

So, the real question here has nothing to do with 'gods'; that is simply a device being used to cause the maximal amount of disruption to a particular demographic on this forum. The real question is how do we consistently deal with claims made about reality? Now, the key word there is consistency and it is the point at which I feel that many of us are diverging regarding the question of ignorance; personally, I don't have a problem so much with using ignorance as a basal assumption as I do with being consistent with application. I have called this the 'regression of ignorance' because, it is my claim that using ignorance to support the possibilities of an assertion immediately makes that assertion itself subject to ignorance and absurdity. If you want to claim X because we are ignorant of reality then that very ignorance means that you have no justification for the claim and that claims about X mean that you must consider an infinite amount of claims, however absurd, with the same logic. And this is the point at which being precise with meanings and concepts matters because we can filter precise meanings and concepts into sets and evaluate them. I would suggest that the way forward here is that we either become precise and honest with meanings and concepts or we broaden the discussion such that we talk about ignorance of the true nature of reality rather than vague and evasive meanings and definitions of 'gods'.

Ignorance is not universal and logical in itself unless you are prepared to be consistent with it and accept the absurdity however, I do consider it a stepping stone to something truly universal and logical which is that you should lack belief in assertions made without evidence. Without that caveat, the extreme agnostic walks and quacks like an extreme theist pretending that they don't believe and guess when it is apparent to everyone that they do! Returning to the gods theme momentarily, here is how that looks...

The extreme theistic line is that we are ignorant of the true nature of reality and can therefore be mistaken about everything we 'know' and, if that is the case then we have to accept the possibility that gods exists.

The extreme agnostic line is that we are ignorant of the true nature of reality and can therefore be mistaken about everything we 'know' and, if that is the case then we have to accept the possibility that gods exists.

In fairness to the theists, at least they are prepared to (poorly) defend a concept more defined than, 'something, somewhere that might have done something at some point'.

 

Actually that is probably not by definition. By definition god must be a supernatural entity but there is no reason to velieve that all supernatural entities must be god.

As a simple example your definition would make the devil a god. While an interesting idea Indoublt that would be widelynaccepted.

 

That would appear to be a bit of a strawman. Since you're talking about "widely accepted", we should note that there is no philosophical position anywhere that would accept that there is a devil but there is no god. So my point stands: if you believe that a supernatural entity is possible, then you believe that a god is possible, and therefore, by definition, you are a theist.

 

Sorry the logic was beyond your grasp.

 

I don't like the term Supernatural wouldn't all reality including this god being touted by many Theists be part of Nature just well be the highest part of nature. So god is then nothing special just a Big Tree or Giant Rabbit?

 

So you ran out of arguments, huh? No need to get personal. You can just admit it.... Not the end of the world. It's just a part of growing up.

 

I agree. And I too find the discussion of assumptions of reality to be foundational here. It seems to me that the issue of what constitutes reality is a question of immense importance, because it moves us from a question of consciousness to one of self-consciousness; that is, we move from a discussion of what is (the object), to a question about how we know what is (the subject that knows). As was mentioned above, it appears that claims about reality are necessarily derived from the experiential and on top of this are limited in many ways by the conceptualization of this experience when attempting to give these experiences meaning. This is not to suggest that a debilitating skepticism must necessarily emerge, since that can be practically dismissed by merely pointing to everyday behavior: for example, we commit ourselves to a certain view of the world in our everyday actions - if we don't act like radical agnostics concerning the merely possible when living our day to day lives, then there is good reason to suggest that we don't really subscribe to those concerns (something that would no doubt bedevil our resident fundagnostic, as you put it). But that being said, I think there is an important issue of just how this conceptualization (which constructs our sense of meaning and understanding) takes place, since it would appear to be something uniquely dependent on language, culture, and our interactions with others. This then means that the question of how we know, has a significant social element to it; what is taken to be truth in many ways becomes defined by the narrative lens by which experience is conceptualized, filtered, and in many ways given (which would help explain certain contemporary political events in both the US and Europe). And thus the issue of reality/truth ultimately becomes an issue of sociality (how the framing of the objective world becomes an issue of socially-dependent consciousness). If we find ourselves socially/culturally in an arena in which irrationality is taken for rationality, then it seems that critique (or even critical thinking) has very little purchase. As depressing as that is, I still want to believe in the power of reasoned discourse, but it may be a hope that lacks optimism.

 

Wasn't personal to point out that your reasoning is logically flawed. Your statement was " by definition a supernatural entity is a god" First of course that obviously is an assumption on your part not a definition. All I dis was point out that by your statement since a devil if it exists must be supernatural then by your definition being supernatural the devil must be god.

Now you can either explain why my logic is incorrect or you can disavow your statement that " by definition a supernatural entity is a god" Or of course you can make some silly statement like there can't be a devil without a god

And then of course there is your statement that if you believe a supernatural entity is possible you must be a theist. Another indefensible leap of illogic.

 

That is a very simple statement to understand. Why would you think that I didn't? I was explaining that my main point was that if you believe that any supernatural being exists, then you believe there is a god. I understand that most believers think that there are other supernatural beings besides god. But that's besides the point. And I re-phrased my point: " if you believe that a supernatural entity is possible, then you believe that a god is possible, and therefore, by definition, you are a theist."

I don't know if your logic is incorrect or not, at this point because you haven't made any statements. My original message was for somebody who did make one and it opened with "I'm not sure if I follow your logic..." asking for clarification. But I can make the statements I have made for two reasons: One is that you mentioned "widely accepted" as a valid argument (and I happen to agree that it's valid). And that there might be a devil with no god is most definitely not in that category. Second, because if there is a devil (as defined by the "widely accepted" definition of "devil"), that devil would be a god. Now, I know the "devil" reference is just an example, You could have used "Thor" or "Zeus"... which are also by definition, gods. And they are considered that for no other reason but because they are supernatural. If you are thinking of any type of supernatural entity whatsoever, that entity, if it is not bound by the laws of nature, is by definition a god.

Well... I just defended it.

Let me give you one piece of advice: if you are going to accuse somebody of not following the rules of logic, it is required in a rational debate to point out where the fault lies, which logical imperative makes the argument invalid, and in what way the conclusion does not follow from the premises.

For example, if at this point you were to try to arbitrarily re-define the word "supernatural", I would point out one or maybe more than one logical fallacy.

 

I'll slightly adjust...
They all use the same principles.

• -Answer seemingly unanswerable questions
• -Create or identify fear
• -Offer protection and hope and maybe some food and shelter
• -Take control
• -Indoctrinate the next generation

 

None of that has any relevance to my post. Please read what I said and then try again.

 

I don't know what it is I have not responded to. My point was " if you believe that a supernatural entity is possible, then you believe that a god is possible, and therefore, by definition, you are a theist.". Your's was that a supernatural entity might refer to other entities like (for example) the devil. I wrote a long response to that. Which I can summarize by saying that any being that is not bound by nature is, by definition, a deity. Using your example, the devil is considered a deity in most religions. It's a lesser deity only when there is a greater one (God, Zeus, Odin... depends on the religion). However, if you believe that deities can exist, you are a theist.

 

Well if you are willing to accept that the Devil is God I believe that logic can be consided to be done here.

 

Obviously I don't accept that at all. I'm an atheist. No devil.... no God... no Thor... none of that am I willing to accept. So, since the logic is not done, you can now read my response again. And respond to it, please.