# If you don't know what God is how do you know God doesn't exist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 8, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754 "2005-12-08T21:17:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/1 "2005-12-08T21:17:28Z")
First Question: f you don’t know the meaning of the word God, then how do you know that God doesn’t exist? Second question: Is it possible for one person to have an experience that another person has never had? ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/2 "2005-12-08T21:22:58Z")
1. Let’s make a deal – you define god, I’ll tell you whether or not I think what you’ve just defined actually exists. 2. Sure, but there’s got to be a way to decide whether the experience reflects something that has any real existence… I may experience halucinations about Invisible Pink Unicorns which you have never experienced. You tell me whether or not this tells us **anything at all** about the existence of IPUs ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/3 "2005-12-08T21:26:07Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > First Question: > f you don’t know the meaning of the word God, then how do you know that God doesn’t exist? > > Second question: > Is it possible for one person to have an experience that another person has never had? 1–The only gods that do not exist are the ones that have been defined (i.e. the meaning of the word is known.) 2–Yes. I would go so far as to say it is neccesarily true that every person has had countless experiences that another person has never had. A question for you. If you do not know the meaning of the word Slatmorponcificater how do you know that Slantmorponcificater does not exist? ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/4 "2005-12-08T21:29:51Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > First Question: > f you don’t know the meaning of the word God, then how do you know that God doesn’t exist? Lapsed Catholic here: what for the ones that knew before and now think otherwise now? > [@](#): > > Second question: > Is it possible for one person to have an experience that another person has never had? Yes, and even I thought after that that an extraordinary experience is not a reason to start a movement. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/5 "2005-12-08T21:33:34Z")
I like **noone special** ’s reply, especially to item #1. I suggest we let \*\*mswas \*\*answer that before adding to this thread. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/6 "2005-12-08T22:40:00Z")
> [@Noone Special](#): > > 1. Let’s make a deal – you define god, I’ll tell you whether or not I think what you’ve just defined actually exists. Fair enough. I am not going to define God, that’s what Blasphemy is as you may know. The definition then becomes a false idol, and people begin to worship it thinking that its the real thing, but it is not. Then they repeat it to their children, it gets ingrained, and you know, and generations grow up thinking that a stale ‘idea’ of God is the real thing, when the real thing is experiential in the Now, not a memory of the past or a fantasy of the future. For instance I feel Gods presence right now, I always feel God’s presence, I’ve even had experiences where my perception of everything in the world was disappearing, and the only thing I sensed in that void besides myself was God’s presence. These experiences of course are ineffable, meaning I lack the ability to communicate this through writing or speech, unless to someone who’s had a similar experience, then it’s not hard at all. So if myself and many others have had this experience and you have not, and we lack the words to explain our experience to you, then how do you know that God does not exist if you do not know what God is? > [@](#): > > 1. Sure, but there’s got to be a way to decide whether the experience reflects something that has any real existence… I may experience halucinations about Invisible Pink Unicorns which you have never experienced. You tell me whether or not this tells us **anything at all** about the existence of IPUs The IPU is a truly horrible example, because it sort of lacks the scope of the whole God question, and is an event that by its phrasing didn’t happen as phrases in the statement cancel each other out. It has nothing to do with the question that’s being asked, its a question that seems superficially to have something to do with the question, but doesn’t run that deep. You can’t see it if it’s invisible, it wouldn’t have a color if it wasn’t visible. Now you may or may not have sensed a unicorn in some fashion, but I don’t know either way, so I will reserve judgement until presented with more information. Also if a hallucination is that all-encompassing that you think it is real, then for you it is real, and I wouldn’t doubt it, I would remain skeptical of it existing in my own world until I sensed it myself, but I wouldn’t deny its existance outright. > [@Contrapuntal](#): > > A question for you. If you do not know the meaning of the word Slatmorponcificater how do you know that Slantmorponcificater does not exist? I don’t. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Schuyler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/54ee81/32.png) [@Schuyler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schuyler)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/7 "2005-12-08T22:43:20Z")
I like \*\*John Mace’s \*\* suggestion above, but I hope it’s OK that I clarify what it is that **mswas** should produce, according to **Noone Special** ’s request: what is _your_ meaning when you use the word God in the OP, and how would you describe _your_ usage of the word exist? (IMHO, this just removes what may be viewed as a semantic escape from discussion by someone refusing to “define god”.) Ack - on preview I see that this post is about 2 minutes too late. ☹☹ ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/8 "2005-12-08T22:44:38Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Fair enough. I am not going to define God, that’s what Blasphemy is as you may know. How do you know that it is blasphemy to do this? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/9 "2005-12-08T22:48:48Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I don’t. > > Erek What is your position on the existence of Slantmorponcificater? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/10 "2005-12-08T22:49:09Z")
Oh, and the IPU analogy only really works with a Bearded Man in the Sky approach to God. The Bearded Man in the Sky is a way that people bring a concept so vast into a frame of reference they can understand, but after a while that perception of God loses it’s value, and one has to transcend and look a little deeper at it. There is always deeper to go as we carve out the pathways of consciousness. So I don’t really look at God as a Bearded Man in the sky, mostly I see multiplicities springing from a hierarchy of relative measurements that are emerging from a sizeless, shapeless and timeless point. If you want to define it by one particular face, then I’d say that you are looking at archetypes, while some may be vast and encompass a great deal in comparison to your reference point, it is still not the object itself. All Matter and Energy are tricks of the light, giving me a lens through which to view any of the myriad aspects. I do not view the Invisible Pink Unicorn as being a sensitive enough lens through which to view the question I posed. Erek ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/11 "2005-12-08T22:51:20Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > What is your position on the existence of Slantmorponcificater? It is a word that you have introduced me to in the past half hour or so. I like the word choices that were made in creating that word. Slant and you almost have Pontificater in there, but not quite. Erek ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/12 "2005-12-08T22:52:54Z")
When I think of God, i think more in terms of fire, but not the flame itself - that which it leaves behind. We are all in the fire, and we give up part of ourselves to the flame, but that extraneous part of us is that part that is possibly God, who is to say? See, I can make up shit too. Why do you believe what you believe, **mswas**? ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/13 "2005-12-08T22:55:29Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > I am not going to define God, that’s what Blasphemy is as you may know. I doubt you would get much argument from anyone around here if you assert the proposition – God (undefined) exists. However, whenever you assert anything about the _nature_ of God, you are no longer referring to the first proposition. A God who has a nature is no longer undefined. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/14 "2005-12-08T22:55:33Z")
Ooh, and I’d also like to point out that mswas tried to get us to, in his belief system, be blasphemous in the answer to his first question. What a nice guy. ---
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/15 "2005-12-08T22:57:42Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > It is a word that you have introduced me to in the past half hour or so. I like the word choices that were made in creating that word. Slant and you almost have Pontificater in there, but not quite. > > Erek So it is simply a word? Again, if God is simply a word then by all means he exists. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 10:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/16 "2005-12-08T22:58:21Z")
> [@Revenant Threshold](#): > > When I think of God, i think more in terms of fire, but not the flame itself - that which it leaves behind. We are all in the fire, and we give up part of ourselves to the flame, but that extraneous part of us is that part that is possibly God, who is to say? See, I can make up shit too. > [@](#): > > Why do you believe what you believe, **mswas**? Because its an experience I’ve had. However, I’m making shit up right? So, you would prefer to believe that I am lying, than I am actually describing an experience I’ve had? What makes you think that I am making shit up then? Erek ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/17 "2005-12-08T23:01:49Z")
This is a pretty simple answer. There are many many different and contradictory concepts of God out there. I don’t happen to believe any of them. I don’t have to inventory and explain each one, because if I DID believe in any of them, then I’d know so. I don’t have to worry about different definitions which may or may not be intelligible or not. All I have to know is that there is no belief that corresponds to anything being advanced as a God belief. That’s one reason non-belief is different from belief. A believer has to know what they are believing in to believe it. But I don’t have to know what “blorfglap” is to know that I’m not living in any place called that. Maybe “blorfglap” is actually another name for the city I live in, but if so then I’ve never heard that, and you’ll still have to inform and convince me that you’re serious before I could rightly be said to know that I am living there. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/18 "2005-12-08T23:04:46Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > The IPU is a truly horrible example, because it sort of lacks the scope of the whole God question, and is an event that by its phrasing didn’t happen as phrases in the statement cancel each other out. … You can’t see it if it’s invisible, it wouldn’t have a color if it wasn’t visible. > Erek I am disturbed by your lack of faith. 🙂 The invisible pink part is no more a mystery than the trinity, which plenty of people believe. A while back I asked you a bunch of questions about god, which included - is god separately conscious? - does god have a moral code? - how is the universe with god different from the universe without god? We’ve also had a debate about the definition of god [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=344622&page=2&pp=50&highlight=Voyager+mswas+definition) Is this discussion going to be anything new? Or should we change the thread name to “I refuse to tell you what I mean by God, so you can’t not believe in it.” And not believing, by the way, is what atheism is all about. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/19 "2005-12-08T23:05:49Z")
> [@Contrapuntal](#): > > So it is simply a word? Again, if God is simply a word then by all means he exists. Do words in and of themselves have genders? If God is a word, and God exists, does this word have a meaning? > [@](#): > > I doubt you would get much argument from anyone around here if you assert the proposition – God (undefined) exists. However, whenever you assert anything about the nature of God, you are no longer referring to the first proposition. A God who has a nature is no longer undefined. I would say that all of science, every scientific pursuit is an attempt at the true definition of God. **RevenantThreshold** I didn’t truly define it for you, I told you what I saw, I didn’t say it was true for you, and I reminded you not to take what I said as a true definition, for as by the time you read it, we were in a different time space, and that was no longer true for God, or even how I see God at the present moment. Also, it was me who committed the blasphemy if it was such, it does no damage at all to you for me to commit blasphemy in front of you, unless of course you chose to believe it as being true, and the end all be all definition of God that you needed so you could try to deny its existance, then you would be misguided. All I am doing is pointing out how silly the term “atheism” is. I know people hate it when I slaughter their sacred cows on my altar to Baal, but it must be done GOD WILLS IT!!!\* Erek \*Said like the dude in “Kingdom of Heaven” who always said that. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2005, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754/20 "2005-12-08T23:06:54Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Because its an experience I’ve had. > > However, I’m making shit up right? So, you would prefer to believe that I am lying, than I am actually describing an experience I’ve had? What makes you think that I am making shit up then? > > Erek Sorry - I thought my question later on made it clear what I meant, apologies if it wasn’t obvious. What I meant was, I too can post a long list of what God and people are, as you did - however, all of that is meaningless shit unless you actually say why you believe that. Why is it you believe in - > [@](#): > > multiplicities springing from a hierarchy of relative measurements that are emerging from a sizeless, shapeless and timeless point. Why this, exactly? What leads you to believe it? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-you-dont-know-what-god-is-how-do-you-know-god-doesnt-exist/334754.md?page=2)