Hi, I am starting this thread in response to a couple of comments in this thread. It was said that the “you can’t prove a negative” argument is fallacious. I would like somebody to point out to me how it is. I thought it was impossible to prove a negative and that meant that there could be no “proof” that there wasn’t a God.
Also, there was a comment about the problem of evil existing with an all good God actually being incorrect. Why would God allow Satan to exist? To test us? We need no testing. God is omniscient and knows what will happen anyways so a test is useless… that is unless he doesn’t know everything.
In math, negatives are proven all the time, often using a proof by contradiction. You assume the truth of the negative you are trying to prove, show that this leads to a contradiction, which proves the negative.
You probably mean that you cannot prove an existential negative - such as you cannot prove that leprechauns don’t exist because you can’t look everywhere at once.
For gods, certain definitions of god may lead to inherent contradictions, which disprove them. But since god is not a well-defined term, we can’t disprove the existence of a god in the general sense.
You should be able to confirm the existence, if one showed up. Not prove, since a powerful alien may be fooling you, but you might be convinced to any level.
But in all cases, you need to say which religion, and which god before we can go any further.
Just read the parent thread to this one. The only time the “can’t prove a negative” argument is used is when a theist comes up with the lame “atheism is wrong since you can’t prove god does not exist” argument. But that is lame for a bigger reason than it not being reasonable to ask someone to prove an existential negative. This assumes that god existing is the default case - and usually whatever flavor of god the theist believes in. That is not a reasonable assumption. It often degrades into a popular vote argument - we can assume my god is true since lots of my neighbors and countrymen believe in him.
I don’t have any arguments that destroy religion myself. I only have arguments that can refute particular claims by theists. That’s about all one can expect.
First of all, if you’re presenting this as an argument against the existence of a good God, in order to invalidate that argument, I don’t have to know what the reason is; I only have to believe that there is or could be a reason (why God allows Satan, or evil, or suffering to exist).
Now then, it makes perfect sense for a good God to allow the existence of Satan, or evil, or suffering, if this would somehow result in ultimately greater good than would be possible otherwise. As for how this could be the case, I suspect a complete answer is impossible. As for an incomplete answer, well, whole books (and threads) have been devoted to this.
So if everyone became good overnight, the devil would disappear, and God would then cease being good, because without the presence of evil good cannot exist.
That’s not what he said. He suggested that the existence of evil ultimately allows more good to result over time. He did NOT claim that goodness would disappear if evil disappeared.
No argument will destroy religion. It is impervious to data, and its precepts unassailable by logic. A strong tendency to religious faith of one form or another may even be innate to a vast number of people; as natural as handedness, and equally unalterable.
I think a more useful question is “How should humanity cope with the demonstrated fact that no argument can destroy religion.”
No. I’ve seen arguments right here suggesting we must take seriously the notion that complex partial siezures are bona fide ecstatic spiritual experiences. If God can do anything, why can’t He communicate to us via abnormal electrophysiology? That may even be a good working definition of the phenomenology of sensing the numinous. Once you open up the infinite-and-omniscient can-o-worms, you see how impossible it is to argue against religion with evidence. Any and all evidence is simply taken as affirmation of divine action.
Like I said, I’ve come to recognize the argument as really some other kind of exchange. One without a resolution.
Why do you assume God is good? That’s too narrow of a definition. Isn’t goodness defined by one’s unitive experience with god? Maybe your definition of what is good is flawed. Maybe you don’t know what “goodness” really is. Goodness is inherently defined by god, god isn’t defined by goodness. So all you can prove is that your definition of goodness is incorrect, not that god does not exist. Unless of course you have some other standard of goodness, in which case it wouldn’t have anything to do with this particular argument. Good and evil are constructs of our own mortality. There is no such thing as objective good or objective evil, they are merely the application of our own bias based upon our own fear. That which we fear the most is evil, that which makes us feel safe and secure is good. Outside of our own very personalized bias, there is no such thing as good and evil.
God does not exist merely within our minds. God is all. God is the thought in the mind, God is the mind itself, and God is all that exists outside of the mind, God is the electrical impulses that fire within our synapses, God is the quanta and the superstring. I like the idea of the Great Architect, but the Great Architect would still be subordinate to God in my opinion. The Father, Son, Holy Ghost, Earth Mother, Prometheus, Zeus, Hera, Osiris, Isis, Lucifer, Satan, Mary, all are subordinate to God. God is the singularity itself. Now, I personally believe in spiritual entities that are like gods, such as the Great Architect, Satan etc… and we can argue about whether or not THEY exist, but arguing about whether or not God exists is a futile gesture.
I can live with that.
But if/when people live their lives by an ancient book written by other people who were mostly men. So that Male ideals and ego permeated the book. Male ego and ancient knowledge adhered to in this day and age does not make me comfortable.
I am made uncomfortable by the most powerful nation on earth’s Govornment being so bound by fundemental religious ideas. If they are doing it to pander to their voting base then that is even more reason to be uncomfortable.
I am more uncomfortable for that than for Islamic fanaticism, which is far less organised and powerful then we’re led to believe. It’s convenient for Western govornments to have us think we’re in danger from terrorism, and what makes me the MOST uncomfortable is that most of the citizens of that powerful nation have swallowed the bullshit comprehensively.
By saying this you make the word “God” lose all of its meaning. We have a word for this God, the universe. If there is no difference between God and everything that we can experience then why even have the notion of God?
My definition of good and evil (as associated with the Christian religion, not my actual personal definition) goes something like this. Anything that God approves of is to be considered good, while, anything that he doesn’t approve of would be bad. If that is the case why would God suffer to have Satan around tempting his creations? There is no need for a test because God knows whether we would fail or pass his test in advance. Who here believes that free will exists? If it exists then how does that work with an all-knowing God?
On the OP, but off the subject of the latest discussion, most religions make the claim that god “loves us.” When it is pointed out that a god that loves someone would not let people suffer, and clearly people do suffer, three arguments are often taken,
We are not suffering really, because everything we experience negatively will be made up for in the after life.
God does love us, but we need to learn from our mistakes.
Oh my dog! I have been misenterpretending facts to insert a god into my imagination, when in fact, thereis none in existence. (I wish they said this)
is hard to refute, just like the existence of underwear gnomes.
I would answer that "Not only are their things in the world which kill people and make them suffer through no fault of his own, but if I were a parent, I would not let my child suffer. Even if I was convinced that it would be a good thing to let them learn from their mistakes, I would soon renounce that belief and rush to save them. Any learning their mistakes that a child might make will have to be done under my nose with out me realizing. Such is stupid of me, but it is the impression I get of parental love from friends with children, and I agree with it. So parent might or might not think that way, but I hope that a “god” would not.
I wish.
Another refutation could be found with the philosopher Porphyry (232-305), who was a nemesis of the early Christians.
“A famous saying of the Teacher is this one: ‘Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you will have no life in yourselves.’
This saying is not only beastly and absurd; it is more absurd than absurdity itself and more beastly than any beast: that a man should savor human flesh or drink the blood … and that by so doing this he should obtain eternal life!
Tell us: in recommending this sort of practice, do you not reduce human existence to savagery of a most unimaginable sort?”
This argument doesn’t work because it implies that God is not omnipotent. When you say that the God creates and sustains evil to achieve a good which would not be possible otherwise, you’re saying that God cannot create that “greater good” simply by willing it to exist, and that meams God is not all powerful. An omnipotent God does not require means to ends, he needs only to create the end.
