Well, that’s good then. All you folks who thought you were atheists, welcome to the agnostic side! We don’t, sadly, have cookies…
I have seen many such. They go so far as to ridicule the faithful, and call them “idiots”.
I’m sure you realise that this is exactly the same argument that some atheists use against the existence of God.
My favoured cosmology of the week is something I like to call ‘turtles all the way down’. Sure, we are in a matrix, but the person who made us is also in a (much bigger) matrix; the entity that made that matrix was actually made by God, but that God was made by a much bigger, much more ineffable God, and She thinks that She is the ultimate creator of everything everywhere (but She is wrong, of course).
What do you call an atheist God? Turtles all the way down.
A person doesn’t have to be able to disprove all gods to feel justified in ridiculing the faithful. They just have to feel there’s good reason to disbelieve in whichever specific god the faithful person in question happens to worship.
According to the terms I understand as being generally accepted as correct, I’m a generally weak atheist who is a strong atheist against certain specific gods - which happen to include all omnimax gods and all gods that include a world creation myth incompatible with observed reality. (Like say the biblical god.)
So yes, I am quite confident that christians are wrong, as I am about anyone who claims my apartment complex was build by a seven thousand foot tall monkey. But to claim that ALL gods are fictional? No way would I go that far. In fact it’s quite easy to define gods that definitely exist. For example: I’m a god. I’m not omnipotent, not omniscient, not omnibenevolent, not eternal, not spectral or supernatural, not a world creator, and have no special magical powers whatsoever. However none of these failings individually or collectively disqualify an entity from being a god, so if somebody defines me as being a god, then there’s no objective reason to say they’re wrong. And I do definitely exist.
So yes, if one applies shenanigans like that, then I’m a theist. But by standard ideas of gods? Fictional, the lot of them. Can I prove it? Depends on the god, or rather the claims made about the god. But for all practical perspectives I’m an atheist.
Who finds various christian arguments very ridiculous and eminently mockable.
Is there a word for someone who is constitutional incapable of believing in a deity? It thought it might be “culatheist”, which fits my case – that any deity you could propose would by definition be so detestable that believing in it would be painful – but I am not sure that the implied meaning would be appropriate for everyone with such a condition.
And, really, it is not absolutely obvious that atheism rules out post mortem continuation, only that it would support no superbeings, no rainbow bridge, no golden streets, no endless torture, ad infinitum.
Oh come on, I’m not that bad. 
I’ve read enough depressing news to believe that awful monstrous dictators -and completely ineffectual nobodies- are entirely possible, at a theoretical level. Now, I’m unable to imagine any deity that is morally worthy of worship - any deity decent enough not to elicit my disgust wouldn’t desire worship anyway.
hmmmmm
Well, and that is the baffling thing. Og is just doing its job. Do we worship anyone for that? The perfect hip-section with the sweet moves is worthy of worship, but I can see and appreciate that. And those are not omnipresent (though they can seem omnipotent at times).
While I basically agree with your conclusion, your argument doesn’t establish it. First of all, the god you describe is none anybody ever believed in; so while the argument, if it works, establishes that there can be no general disproof of god, this isn’t saying much, due to the vague nature of the term—some pantheists basically consider ‘the universe’ or ‘nature’ to be god, which certainly doesn’t admit of a proof of nonexistence either. What one would want, rather, is a proof that establishes a specific deity with some set of properties doesn’t exist—say, the Christian tri-omni God.
Furthermore, you basically concoct a scenario in which we would have no evidence of god. That’s fine, but doesn’t amount to demonstrating that we can’t prove god’s nonexistence—or rather, it only does if you stipulate that all knowledge must come to us empirically. But this is a contentious proposition: after all, the claim ‘all knowledge is empirical’ is itself non-empirical, so if it were true, how would we ever know?
Additionally, no attempt at proving god’s nonexistence to my knowledge ever proceeds from empirical facts; most attempt to uncover a logical contradiction in the definition of a particular ‘god’, rendering the notion absurd (something of the could-god-microwave-a-burrito-so-hot-he-couldn’t-eat-it variety). This isn’t excluded in your scenario; it’s unlikely, but imaginable that one might show the sort of ‘invisible creation’ you propose to be logically impossible, thus disproving the existence of that sort of god.
Lastly, your proof depends on me accepting that this ‘invisible creation’ is something possible for god. But I don’t know that it is; and me believing that would mean believing that the notion of god is possible, in which case it’s already clear that we can’t disprove the existence of god (since what is possible could be actual), rendering the argument circular.
I agree that it is impossible to disprove the pantheist type of god, or even the deist type of god which starts off the universe and then vanishes. I’ve mentioned the tri-omni god above. Yes, you can disprove some varieties but if one defines strong atheism as knowing that no gods exist, you have to disprove all of them.
The reason I selected the god I did is that it falls into what most theists here would accept as god, (unlike the pantheist one) but can’t be proven to not exist.
Lots of theists claim that atheism is invalid because we claim to prove that no gods exist but can’t - when actually almost no atheists do this.
I agree - the point is that we cannot know one way or another. Clearly the inability to disprove all gods does not mean that one or some must exist.
But that only gets rid of a small subset of possible gods.
You don’t have to believe in anything to know that we cannot speak of the god I just spoke of. I threw in creating the universe to make him more god like. I actually think that mortal beings might be able to create universes in distant futures - but not be able to interact with them.
But the real point is that not being able to disprove god is a strawman argument, and only one atheist I’ve ever interacted with thought he could disprove god in general. We certainly have good reasons to believe that no gods exist though. As long as we are open to reconsidering our belief in the light of new evidence.
I’m not holding my breath about having to do that.
Please point me to an atheist who claims that he can disprove any possible god.
The opinion piece you linked to before just says that this is an unreasonable position - which is true - without mentioning anyone who holds it.
And just to be clear, the person I’m calling an idiot here is an atheist.
You do understand the point about belief, don’t you?
You can’t disprove my contention that Paris Hilton comes to my house every night for hot sex. I’ve got a tunnel, she has a transporter and a body double, etc. etc. However I could prove it very easily. That she and I choose not to prove it to protect her virtue or something, or to preserve faith that she can come to anyone, does not mean we can’t prove it.
And actually the minor problem that it doesn’t happen 
is the real reason. Just like the real reason God can’t seem to prove his existence is that he doesn’t exist, not that he is shy.
Just to hammer home what has been said in the past few posts.
The vast, vast majority of atheists make no claim beyond “i have no belief in a god or gods”. This is the equivalent of, and the same reasons why, most theists say they have no belief in the myriad other gods that have ever been suggested. They find the evidence for, or the necessity of the concept, somehow lacking.
That is really the core of it. It is rather boring and mundane and does rather force the theist to do more intellectual work than they are used to but there it is.
It has been said but I’ll say it again. If you make a claim it is up to you to provide the evidence, not for the person you are trying to convince to prove the opposite.
If you can’t accept that then you are not even making an argument, you are merely asserting without evidence and Hitchen’s razor comes into play.
And that is precisely what the Christian god…or any god, is, an assertion without evidence.
I think this is missing the point somewhat. Evidence may simply not be the right point of entry here—as I said before, not all claims are empirical in nature, and thus, claims regarding deities may not admit of refutation via evidence.
For instance, 2 + 2 = 4. This is accepted, by pretty much everyone, to be a true statement, yet we’ve got no evidence for it at all: it’s a statement about abstract objects, not about stuff we can find out there in the physical world. (And before somebody comes with a couple of pebbles, we may also consider statements like ‘every infinite set contains an infinite proper subset’.)
So I can assert it without evidence, but it can’t be dismissed on those grounds. In principle, I think one should be open to the possibility that propositions about god could be of a similar form—born out by logical necessity, not merely by evidence; only the contingent requires evidence, and god (most gods, at any rate) is typically considered a necessary being.
That’s the trust of things like the ontological argument and its ilk. Those may all fail (and I believe they do), but that doesn’t exclude the possibility that some such argument might exist that is successful (which, to me, would go a great deal farther towards convincing me of the existence of god than any number of miracles and magic tricks).
If you are making a claim that a god or gods interact with the world then you have entered the world of the empirical. That is the game you have chosen. If you are positing a god that never interacts with the world then you are not arguing for any of the main gods at large in the world today and it is a god that is utterly irrelevant to humankind.
Mathematics will not work without that assumption but the world works perfectly well without the assumption of god or gods. They are not required (or at least no necessity for them has ever yet been established)
And such a being could only hope to be something outside our word, non-interracting and irrelevant to it. Not that any such logical necessity has ever been shown.
Considered so by those who have a vested interest in asserting so…that’s handy is it not?
Any argument put forward for the non-contingency of gods is more simply made for the universe itself. A god complicates things unnecessarily.
You are getting huffy for no reason.
No. Plenty of conceptions of gods exist that interact with the world without leaving an empirically accessible trail. Think of the doctrine of occasionalism, for instance: everything, every event, is directly caused by god. God is the sole foundation of all that ever occurs; so you couldn’t possibly interact more with the world. Yet there’s no empirical evidence of this god—you can only know him through recognition of the fact that he is the sole cause of all that occurs.
Various variants of dualism have also appealed to god in order to bridge the gap between mind and world. The mental realm can’t act directly on the physical world, so this interaction is mediated by god—this is also often a version of occasionalism, as with Malebranche, but for instance Leibniz defended the view of ‘pre-arranged harmony’ where god sets things up such that the mental and the physical evolve in perfect synchrony. Again, since god acts on the world in order to realize the link between mind and body, there is clear interaction, and yet, no empirical evidence.
Moving over to the mental side, there’s Berkeley’s idealism, in which everything that exists in the mundane world, does so as an idea in the mind of god. So the very essence of everything around us is directly derived from god’s mind—still, we’d be foolish to try to dig up evidence of that.
But more ordinary versions of interventionist gods that cover their tracks are possible. God could only act in ways that also admit of a mundane explanation—somebody healed after prayer may have just gotten lucky, or maybe, god really willed it so. A sufficiently tricky god could perhaps even arrange for the statistics of miracles globally to be indistinguishable from mere chance, even if one had the data and computing power to run the numbers on that (which nobody does, or likely ever will).
A pure creator god—a kind of demiurge—doesn’t interact with the world, yet he’s still kinda relevant to humankind: as without the creative act, there wouldn’t be any humankind around. Any god presiding over an afterlife that holds either punishment or reward is relevant to the way we live our lives today, but need not intervene in the world at all.
Maybe, but I don’t know that. It could be that the only way to get a world like ours is to have a being like a god create it. I don’t think it’s a terribly likely proposition, but nothing I know rules it out. And if you have some inside scoop here, please share!
That’s a very different point, and I agree. But the simple fact that no necessity has as yet been established does not imply that it never will be, or even if it never is, that there is no necessity.
Sure. It’d be fallacious to think that makes it wrong, tho.
That depends on what sorts of thing you want to call ‘universe’. If it turns out that the only such ‘universe’ contains an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and omnibenevolent personal entity transcendent to the collection of matter, space and time that one would usually call ‘universe’, then sure, you might call that collection ‘universe’, but that’s in the end merely semantic legerdemain.
Sure, I know what belief is and how it works and how you can or can’t disprove things. Your argument certainly demonstrates one reason why it might be unlikely that the Christian God might not exist, though, of course, perhaps he has no real desire to ‘prove’ his existence to humans, or perhaps he has other reasons why he doesn’t want there to be absolute proof. Or, perhaps he doesn’t exist. This doesn’t prove that all gods don’t exist, or even that all anthropomorphic gods don’t exist…just that they don’t necessarily follow your thought on needing to prove themselves.
One of the reasons I always put my belief in quotes when talking about God or gods is that it’s built on similar logic to what you are saying here. The difference, I think, between myself and most atheists I’ve met or interacted with here on this board is that I freely concede that a God or gods might be possible, just that I’ve seen no proof of them. This could be the ‘god’ of the simulation we are running in, or the God that kick started the Big Bang, or even immortal aliens so advanced that to us they would be gods (sufficiently advanced science and magic and all that sort of thing).
My own response you quoted there was more talking about labels and not belief. I’ve been repeatedly told on this board that I’m an atheist because I don’t believe in God/gods and that atheists are aware that there isn’t proof that there is no God/god and they accept that. I’ve seen many who don’t, but ok, I accept that atheists comprises a wide range. So, I’m saying (tongue in cheek) that if atheists have the same set of criteria I do (i.e. they don’t ‘believe’ in God/gods, but know there isn’t any proof and concede that there could be but that we will probably never know or be able to prove it) then they are agnostics. Welcome to the club. If you guys want, bring your cookies with you, since atheists get all the good stuff.
I am not so sure that calling that person an idiot is entirely fair. Because it is essentially upon the faithful to support their claim, not on the unbeliever to provide substantive negatives.
The most critical question is “why?” What value does the existence of a deity or pantheon provide to our understanding of reality? Give us a reason for Og to be there in the first place. This comes knife-edge close to “disproving” any superbeing and is generally satisfactory for most if not all unbelievers.
And really, the why question is not a trivial issue. Our ignorance is vaster than our understanding, and it looks like it always will be. Filling the mysterious and perplexing with a definitive ubercritter (or uberzoo) is the opposite of adding value, because our nature is to explore, and if you gate off uncharted territory with theology, you are denying our natural urge. History has shown us how badly that can play out.
There will always be things we do not know, and some people find that troubling, find comfort in having dragons be there, or whatever. Others find comfort in the expansive unknown, a sort of promise that we will always have room to grow into, and a cosmic omnikitty just gets in the way of that.
Aha. I have no requirement that he needs to prove himself, just that he *can * prove himself. That is enough to invalidate agnosticism. If you define agnosticism as saying there is no proof today about gods, almost everyone falls into that category. Are you getting agnostic membership fees or something? I can’t imagine any other reason you want to define all of us as agnostics.
Proof or evidence? Plus you need to define what qualifies as a god. Relax the definition enough and I’ll happily agree that some god is possible. Tighten it up, say to a tri-omni god, and I won’t.
Hell, we can do most of the stuff God does in the Bible today. Remember the ST:TNG episode where Picard defeats a woman wishing to take over a planet by posing as a god by doing all the promised miracles with Enterprise technology?
I wish someone would point out the atheists who think they can prove that there is no god, since I’ve hardly met any. I wouldn’t be surprised if someone said it talking loosely, but I suspect they’d quickly agree that it isn’t possible to disprove gods in general.
As for proving god, I suppose you can say that if there is no god you can’t prove that god exists - but that would seem to be a strange definition of agnosticism.
That’s the point. Not only is it impossible to prove that no god exists, it is unnecessary since the null hypothesis has to be that no gods exist, because there is no reason to choose among all the possible gods to select one whose existence would be assumed. That your parents and neighbors believe in one variety of god does not make it the default hypothesis.