Can Someone prove to me that God doesn't exist?

Great Debates
141

Alright, I feel that I should’ve joined this discussion much earlier since now I’m about 3 pages behind and believe that I may have skimmed over some thought provoking opinions.

I believe that the concept here started with a mere discrepancy in definition. “Atheism” as a definitive principle lacks tangibility. Many a debate on the subject has been adjusted to replace atheism with agnosticism purely based on the fallacy that is contained in the definition.

It is to say that as an Atheist, I believe that no omnipotent, all-knowing being exists and that I know that for a fact to be true based on the findings of my own omniscience. It’s simply contradictory.

However, the position of Agnosticism is defined as one that states that “God may or may not exist, but I don’t care to include Him in my belief systems, my understanding or my lifestyle choices.”

I believe that to be a legitimate argument and I would humbly rebuke Cyrin for his show if hypocrisy and more than ignorance: arrogance. As well, those who have taken shots at him outside of the argument are in no better position. I am intrigued to observe what spills forth from such an enlightening dialogue.

Now, that said, please continue.

142

Cyrin. I understand that you don’t mean offense, but if we were arguing about politics, and I said “I’m a democrat, and anyone who isn’t hasn’t REALLY thought”, you might understand (if you were a republican) that people MIGHT possibly be offended, especially, if I admit that I don’t believe I’ve thought more than other people, just other people, because they don’t agree with me, must not have REALLY thought.

Do you understand why some people, including me, who spent 3 YEARS searching, that for you to casually dismiss us all as “not REALLY searching” is a bit annoying? (to say the least) Believe us, many of us DID try.

BTW, that passage you quote is exactly why I decided a God that is truthful and spoke through the Bible doesn’t exist – I did search. What kind of christian could I call myself if I tried my hardest and never got an answer?

Feel free to suggest that I am just not worthy, or that God doesn’t like me, or whatever, but don’t ever say that you looked and I didn’t, unless you can back it up.

Me’Corva

143

Dude, you do know that Morpheus isn’t a real person, right?

“Neo saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man escapeth from the Matrix, but by me.” – The Matrix 14:6

144

Love is not an abstraction.

Love is active.

If you truly love, you show love in all your actions, in all your words.

I’ll pray that you come to understnd that, brother.

145

He’s a Canadian…we don’t talk about politics…it doesn’t work well as an analogy.

Just kidding.

Though you make a good point, and that I can see how it might seem that way to you. There may be no great revelation from the heavens, but what I would ask you to consider is whether you truly need to look that far in the first place. I believe the problem is that God surrounds you with His mind and you seek His face.

Early in this thread Dignan said:

“Where should we look? We’ve been up in the clouds, He wasn’t there. We’ve been above the clouds, He wasn’t there. We’ve been to the top of Mount Olympus, He wasn’t there either. Where should we look next? Is there anywhere that we haven’t looked?”

But who really put those clouds there? Who constructed the mountains? Who made the intricacies of nature unfold before our eyes? How far need you look to see the beauty of God?

146

Last summer I vacationed with my family (hubby, children 2 and 3) at a resort. We are frolicking by the pool, along with many other families. There is a gentleman there that could have stepped of the holiday Coke can. Except for the red suit (he was wearing swim trunks, and it was July).

The six year old girls near me noticed him and started tittering. This guy was good. He had the bit down pat. He must have been paying attention as they played, because he knew their names. He got a hit right away with “Didn’t I bring you girls Barbie stuff last year?” (Hey, what are the chances with six year old girls). He could carry on a discourse on the state of the reindeer and how the elves were doing.

Had I not stopped believing 20-odd years ago, and knew what tricks he was using, I think I would have bought it.

Of course, all the adults went along.

Those girls had an up close and personal experience with Santa. They’ll probably still be believing at 14.

I don’t know what age I shook my Santa belief, but I do know that an “up close and personal” experience with the Easter bunny had me buying that for several years after I knew the Santa truth. One Easter eve I had a very vivid dream in that half-sleep state. I know I saw the Easter Bunny hiding eggs as I slept in the living room (we had company for Easter and all us kids were camped in the living room).

147

Çyrin

I think that possibly the strongest argument against your OP that atheists have to disprove the existence of God, is that it doesn’t work; as we’ve seen, we can argue the logic until our faces are blue, but that’s all that it provokes -arguments; the atheists you hit with this simply become more convinced that Christians are from cuckoo-land.

It simply isn’t an effective argument against skeptics.

148

And even the Koalas are confused.

[sym]O{[sup]Ä[/sup]·[sup]Ä[/sup]}O[/sym] [sym]O{[sup]Ä[/sup]·[sup]Ä[/sup]}O[/sym]

149

Hmmm…I had hoped to be done with this thread, aside from the amusement I am getting watching the people arguing against Cyrin get increasingly frustrated with him, but since I have been called out…

I forgot about that legislation on the books right now that blocks you from having sex. If the TOPP and the IPU feel like sending folks over to my house to badger me they are welcome to do so. They have that right. Their exercising that right does not trample any of my rights. I’m over it already. If they want to post up some religious quotes in the classroom, I have no problem with that, either. I don’t think anyone has ever been converted by having religious statements in school. And if I feel that it has gone to far, then I will simply challenge it in court or simply take the time to explain my religion to my children or send them to classes at the local synagogue, temple, mosque or church.

Your human rights have not been trampled in any way shape or form. If you want to experience your human rights being trampled on, we can take a trip somewhere where I can show you true human rights trampling.

Second, I’ve never said that everyone should just shut up about their religion in this thread, nor do I believe they should have to.

I simply said that if an atheist should present is argument as one of a lack of evidence, not one of fact, simply because you cannot prove a negative. In the same way a Christian cannot prove the existence of God. So since neither of the two positions can be proven conclusively, then they are equal in that regard. Whether someone should give more weight to skepticism or to faith, that is another argument then the one I am making.

150

I hate to get involved further, but that is not nonsense if you bother to understand the context. Which version of the Bible are you quoting from? I believe the Catholic New American Bible makes a wonderful explanation and a clearer translation.

“Go, take a harlot wife and a harlot’s children; for the land gives itself to harlotry, turning away from the Lord”

The rest of the Book of Hosea goes on to chronicle the difficulties he had with his harlot (ie, unfaithful) wife, Gomer.

Gomer, the adultress, symbolizes faithless Israel. And just as Hosea could not give up his wife forever even when she played the harlot, so Yahweh could not renounce Israel, who had been betrothed to him.

Israel’s infidelity took the form of idolatry and ruthless oppression of the poor. No amount of mechanically offered sacrifices could atone for her serious sins.

I would suggest that you read more carefully and with an open mind. The Bible is full of metaphors. It is not perfect and I will not argue that there are no contradictions, but it is almost never full of nonsense.

151

I see God in the cloud and mountains - if you define beauty as God.

I see God in my children - if you define awe and wonder as God.

I see God in my good fortune in my husband and family - if you define luck and serendipity as God. Serendipity gets us the unlikely events of Creation - so yes, God is there as well.

I see God in Hope.

So, if you define God as beauty and serendipity, love, laughter, hope, peace, awe and wonder - I guess I’m a pretty strong theist. And I’m going to guess that at least some of the self identified atheists on the board would find God if this limited definition were used.

However, I’m a non-Christian agnostic and a Unitarian. Which is as close to a religion as I’ve found which lets me define God on these terms.

I’ve never seen evidence of Yahweh in these things.

152

J.B. Phillips would have no problem with your post until you got to the religious-classification part.

He was the guy who wrote an entire book on people’s misconceptions of God as Petty Tyrant, Fiery-Eyed Judge, Divine Teddy Bear, Impersonal Spirit Pervading the Universe, etc.

The title of his book was Your God Is Too Small.

My wife and I see God in the same things as you – and, as well, in the Eucharist celebrated in a loving family-style church, and in the sincere prayers of a little old lady whose faith has never wavered, and in my namesake being burned at the stake at age 86 for refusing to deny the Lord he loved, and in a lot of other things.

Any comment to that view?

153

This is not a convincing argument.

Recently about 20,000 people in India died in a natural disaster. Presumably that was God’s handiwork too?

Why does God let babies die?

Why does He allow famine and plague?

Why does entropy increase in God’s world?

These are tough questions, but if you claim an omnipotent loving Being exists, you should have an answer for them.

Thinking about the original question:

No, I can’t prove God doesn’t exist (like I can’t prove fire-breathing dragons don’t exist).
But I can say there’s no evidence of any God.
So if you have a personal experience that makes you believe, good luck to you.
But if God exists, why is he so shy?
Why are there so many religions, some of which are contradictory?

154

Best answer to “Why doesn’t God answer prayer?” and “Why does God let evil exist?” is by analogy.

You are not omnipotent. But neither are you impotent. You cannot foresee the consequences of every act. But you can accurately predict some of them.

Why don’t you stop the evil you complain about – or at least as much of it as you can?

God answers all prayer. But sometimes His answer is “No” and sometimes it’s “Not yet.” And sometimes it’s “You’re old enough now; fix it yourself.”

Those of us who know and love Him hear the last a lot. And we give it our best shot.

Think about it.

155

Neurotik:

You challenge the statement about sex, arguing from a position of ignorance.

http://www.lambdalegal.org/cgi-bin/pages/states/sodomy-map

should help you out. It details the 14 states that make consentual sexual acts illegal.

The thing is, I agree with you on the door to door thing – it’s annoying, like telemarketers, but it surely isn’t illegal.

But, if you want to talk about why religious messages don’t belong in the schools, start a thread – you’ll get some good reasons as to why we shouldn’t let that Pizza Eating IPU into our schools, corrupting our children.

oh, and btw,

In that regard is a pretty nebulous concept. I could say that “I can’t prove you are human”, and “I can’t prove you aren’t a telepathic anti-gravity based sea squid”, and they are equal in that regard, but, well, not really equal in likelyhood, validity, or anything like that.

Me’Corva

156

I would post something insightful and knowledgeable and purely simplistic here to fully uncover the mysteries surrounding this discussion. However, it seems the slightest word from my mouth stirs up great grumblings and frustration amongst the Dopers. So instead here is a story about Marmosets:

The History of the Marmoset

Many, many, many years ago (I believe it was 4), Marmosets ruled the Eastern regions of Africa, without fear of sharks or jelly fish, as Marmosets cannot swim. The Marmoset was a happy creature because his ears were always pointing east, especially when they weren’t. This most handy feature made the Marmoset the most popular Marsupial of them all.

Our Story begins with the invention of toothpaste a few years back (I believe it was about 80 million or so but lets not get too specific) at any rate the growing need for bilbot berries, which, as everyone knows are required for the production of many kinds of toothpaste, was becoming somewhat of an issue amongst the Marmosets as they enjoy a good bilbot berry hotdog now and again. It wasn’t long until the bilbot berries supply had been depleted.

Not long after the bilbot berry supply had been depleted, the Marmosets, having no need for toothpaste, decided to kill all those on the planet who used the product. In the process many lives we lost, most of them Marmosets as they aren’t very dangerous and they can be killed quite easily with only a small rabbit and a fishing rod. The people of Britain, being quite upset with the fact that the marmosets didn’t bother attacking them, decided that they would set forth to rule the earth in a sort of fashion not unlike the new Ralph Lauren spring collection, and they did and everyone had lovely clothes.

There has been much said since the discovery of Marmosets, but little of it has ever actually been about them. They are very complex and interesting creatures, spending most of their time sleeping.

In the Spirit of the Marmoset, and in conjunction with funding from readers like you, I would like to propose a toast to the Marmoset, this most incredible Marsupial. Now lets all raise our glasses and enjoy a big glass frozen yogurt. (Why frozen yogurt? It’s all that was in my house, sorry!)

Ok, now can we talk about the complete absurdity of atheism? We can use this story as an example. Just about anyone can see it’s completely absurd to believe this nonsense. In the same way just about anyone can see that atheism is completely absurd so why continue to defend it? (Because you have been preaching it for so long, it would be pretty humbling to go back on that now huh?)

Well, I suppose I have learned my role here at SDMB, I wanted to be someone who expressed his opinion, heard from others and carried on debates concerning said opinion. It’s really a shame I was assigned a different role. “That Ignorant fundamentalist who obviously knows nothing…” Oh well, why fight the crowd? From now on that’s just what I’ll be, and frankly I’ll do a horrible job at it because that’s not who I really am. Oh well.

157

Çyrin…

Cry me a friggin’ river, willya? You forgot to add “woe is me!” to the end…

158

Okay…

I’ll try.

First to address Dangerosa, who said:

“So if you define God as beauty and serendipity, love, laughter, hope, peace, awe and wonder - I guess I’m a pretty strong theist.”

To you I say welcome. My definition is “God is love”. There’s more to it than that, but that’s my definition and you can’t find a more potent image than “Love Incarnate”.

Secondly, Polycarp. My jaw dropped at this one. A martyr is more than I’m worthy to deal with and I applaud that individual’s convictions. Also, I agree with your answer to “Why does God allow evil?” and add this. God allows free will so as to allow a potential for a sincere love relationship. We are allowed to be tempted so that we are able to choose God and overcome the evil with our own personal devotion to truth, justice and love.

I’d love to go on, but I’m running late…

…everybody have a great night…

God Bless (and I’m aware of the irony)

159

You misspelled “Christianity”.

160

No one has forced you into a niche. You have carved one for yourself with your words and attitudes.