or something like
GEN 7:2 Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens, the male and his female: and of beasts that are not clean by two, the male and his female.
GEN 7:8 Of clean beasts, and of beasts that are not clean, and of fowls, and of every thing that creepeth upon the earth, GEN 7:9 There went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded Noah.
May I request that we qualify statements like this more correctly. Very often on SDMB
someone will point out the worst of those who claim to believe in God and throw out a statement that seems to paint all believers with that brush. I’m sure you know that there is much diversity among believers. Many of us are not rabid.
[bolding mine]
well, that particular trick would, given the context of its creation along with other embellishments I’ll detail later, would go a long way toward disproving God.
Let’s say we figure out how to make a realistic simulation inside a very powerful computer. Not only does it conform to all the laws of physics in this universe, the entities that interact within can easily pass the Turing Test and are for all purposes alive.
Thus, we have essentially proven that it does not take a God-like power to create a universe, provided we have turtles all the way down. That’s about as close as you’re gonna get to proving the superfluidity og God.
Hmmm? I thought the scientific method was come up with a hypothesis and then attempt to falsify it, or disprove it. The better the attempt at falsification and the better the hypothesis stands up despite the attack the more accurately it is assumed to model the real world.
That’s why I said demonstrate, not prove. In any case, it might be that the creation of the universe is strictly within the bounds of science. But the thread in general is about the existence or non-existence of god. Many Greek gods had no part in the creation of the universe, for instance.
While a god doing all sorts of cool miracles might not prove his existence to everyone, it might be the most obvious explanation. Some theists blindly reject every disproof of Biblical events - atheists should not agree to play that game by saying that they would blindly ignore any evidence of god. I’m more of an atheist because there has been no such evidence. If there is, I’d reconsider. I’m not holding my breath though.
The OP didn’t - his was a mess. Someone else in the thread mentioned a proof however.
As I said, the first problem in these discussions is that few people (you being the notable exception) ever actually try to define what they mean by god.
Like I said, the disproof/proof of the negative depends on exactly what your premises are (ie. the properties of the entities):
IF Gorillas are easily visible.
THEN There exists a/no gorilla in this room.
… is an easy disproof/negative to prove.
IF Gorillas are invisible.
THEN There exists a gorilla in this room.
… is an impossible disproof/negative to prove.
IF Gorillas are easily visible.
THEN There exists a/no gorilla on this planet.
… is a difficult disproof/negative to prove. Finding one single gorilla falsifies the negative instantly.
I don’t know about that. If you’re using the scientific method, you use your hypothesis to make a prediction, then confirm that the predicted result occurs. You’re not trying to falsify it, you’re trying to confirm it. But anyway, what I was trying to say is that you can never disprove it with 100% certainty. We all know that what might seem impossible today can very well be shown to be possible tomorrow, so the only rational course of action is to start with the assumption that we only know that for which there is evidence, pending further evidence, e.g. assume that the invisible dinosaur is NOT in my closet until I have some reason to believe so, rather than assuming that it is. I understand what you’re saying though; I probably didn’t word it as well as I could have.
It’s the common Christian explanation for why God isn’t evident - that if he were, it would destroy faith. Since they more or less believe in the Bible (and you don’t have to be a literalist to believe in the Exodus) this is a valid refutation of that argument. It obviously is not valid for non-sked theologies. Deists believe in a god who is not evident, so this isn’t a problem at all for them.
That your concept of god has changed is understandable. What is less understandable is that the official definition of god has changed also. If any of these religious folks actually had a direct or indirect line to god, their perception over the ages should remain pretty stable. That it has not means that only one has had this connection (and who that is is unclear) or that none has, which is a lot more likely.
I already gave you that. Assume that they do exist. Derive an inference that contradicts the premise. The premise is then false; i.e., they don’t exist.
It seems to me that proof by contradiction has emerged thus far as the best way to go about proving or disproving the existence of a creator of the universe. In other words:
Assume god exists (where god only means an intelligence that created the universe)
Show that this contradicts something which we know to be true, or even better, that it contradicts itself
Your wrong here SR47. It is possible to prove or disprove God. You yourself dont beieve in God so someone or something must have proved to you that God doesnt exist. I believe in God so someone or something proved to me that he did exist.
The question you should be asking is “Can someone convince me God exists”. Asking any other question is misleading and unfair. You already believe God doesnt exist, I assume you came to that conclusion by some method using “proof” of some kind. So really, what are you asking here? You want to be converted? Or do you need some sort of reassurance in your atheism?
Incorrect. I don’t believe in god either, but that doesn’t mean someone has proved to me that he doesn’t exist. It merely means that I haven’t seen any evidence that he does. I cheerfully accept that he may; I just see no reason to believe it.
So you spontaneously decided that no God exists? No argument or theory convinced you of that? No annoying born again Christian hounded you so much that you just decided no God could be worth this?
Not calling you a liar, but I find that hard to believe. To form an opinion, any opinion, you must have something to base it on. So somewhere, somehow, you heard/read something that led you to believe God doesn’t exist. And whatever you heard/read was proof enough for you. Therefore you have proof that God doesnt exist.
I wondered about that so much myself that I researched it for quite some time, and what I discovered was that all this crap — you can’t prove a negative, and so forth — originated on usenet. There are certain conditions under which you can’t prove something, but it has nothing to do with whether it’s positve or negative; it has to do with scope and modality. For example, you can’t prove that there are no invisible unicorns in the universe. But you also cannot prove that there are exactly five of them either. Positive, negative, no matter. The universe is too large to examine empirically.