Proof of the nonexistence of God (well, YOUR God at least)

Great Debates
1

I’m sure this argument has more holes than a truckload of Swiss cheese, but bear with me if you will…

All right, now I know there are certainly exceptions, but in general I think it can be said that most religious faiths believe that their beliefs are “correct” and that every one else’s beliefs are either just plain wrong or at the very least incomplete. At the extreme end are those religions that believe you have to be a member of their faith in order to go to heaven and that everybody else is going to hell. To a lesser extreme is simply how one interprets the fundamental nature of God and his commandments (if any). Whether the religion is Catholic, Methodist, Moslem, Jewish, Mormon, Jehovah’s Witness, or whatever, a fundamental tenant is bound to be “we’re right and everybody else is wrong.”

Now, at the same time, I think it is fair to say that most people who profess a particular faith do so because that is what they were raised to believe. In other words, most people’s religious convictions (including the conviction that their faith is the “correct” one) is nothing more than an accident of birth. Again, there are certainly exceptions (those who convert from one faith to another or discover religion after being raised as an atheist), but I think those exceptions are extremely small in number when compared to the religious world as a whole.

So, if most religions believe that they are the only correct religion, and if most people believe in their particular religion solely because of how they were raised, it stands to reason that most people are not in the correct religion (or, in other words, most people’s interpretation of God, what he wants from us, and what we need to do to return to him, is wrong). I mean, the odds of being born into the one religion that has it all right are pretty small, given all the many, many possible religions out there.

Now, methinks it might be different if everybody in the world selected their religion after much study, prayer, contemplation, etc., since then you could at least argue that the religion chosen by the most people has the greatest chance of being the correct one. Instead, however, you have people all over the world utterly convinced that THEY (and ONLY they) know “the truth” about God based solely on where they were born and how they were raised.

In short, assuming there actually is a God of some sort, and assuming that your belief in him is based on how you were raised, the odds are that your particular God is the wrong one.

Just a thought…

Barry

2

Weigh that against the expected payoff (a la Pascal’s Wager) and tell me what strategy you come up with after the math. :stuck_out_tongue: :wink:

Also, I don’t see why selecting a god versus being born into a religion that professes belief for a god is inherently any more certain as we are largely born into the system of acquiring knowledge as well. If being born into a belief is a shot in the dark, I see no way to escape it.

3

This isn’t a “proof of the nonexistence of God”. It’s an argument for the invalidity of religion, which is a somewhat different issue.

Let there be N number of possible, mutually-exclusive religions. Only one is correct. It can easily be shown that for very large values of N, the chance of choosing wrongly is much greater than the chance of choosing rightly.

Therefore, unless the penalty for choosing wrongly is arbitrarily small compared to the reward for choosing correctly, making a choice will have a negative overall outcome on average.

The question then becomes: what is the reward or penalty for not choosing?

4

I believe that “very large value” would be “three”, TVAA. :wink:

5

It seems to me that the above discussions are assuming that all religions have an equally large chance of being correct, which is incorrect. Certainly we can say that a religion that proclaims that the Earth is supported on the back of giant turtles is less likely to be “correct” than, say, Christianity. It also seems to presuppose a roughly even distribution of disciples in each religion, which is again false - Christianity has far more disciples than Scientology, or hedgehog worship, or whatever.

Also, we must take into consideration any correlation between the numbers of worshippers of a particular religion and the plausibility of that religion. There are, for example religious historians whose job it is to study the stories presented in religious texts and see how closely they match what we can verify to have happened. We know that a lot of the Christian bible is true, for example. There was a guy named Jesus who was crucified. Most of the players in the Bible we know to have really existed. We can’t verify the more elaborate parts of the Bible - miracles, and such - but we can verify much of it. Contrast this with Scientology - it’s a completely unsupported tale of alien possession and some evil extraterrestrial warlord named Xenu. There’s not a shred of evidence to support any of it.

It would also seem that we need to take into consideration similarities between religions. For example, say we ask four people to describe the scene of a crime:

  • Person one says a guy named Bob showed up and beat Ed with a bat, then stole his wallet.
  • Person two says a guy named Bob showed up and beat Ed with a 2x4, then stole his watch.
  • Person three says a guy named Bob showed up and beat Ed with a wrench, then stole his keys.
  • Person four says a guy named Phil showed up and had his trained attack chihuahua eat Ed’s shoe.

Based on the four testimonies, it seems logical to assume that what really happened more likely resembles the description of persons one, two, or three. We would need to look at all religions and see how they compare, and spot notable similarities between them. Of course, we would also need to consider why they were similar, since many mainstream religions are offshoots of one another.

Basically, it would seem that if we assume that there is a correct religion, then your chances of being in the correct one are much higher if you’re in one of the biggies. Then again, IANA statistician, so I could be completely full of crap.
Jeff

6

Well, that’s why I qualified it by adding “Your God,” meaning your interpretation of God. Besides, you have to take a little leeway in order to come up with a snappy title…

In general, my whole “argument” (such as it is) is based on the ridiculousness of so many people claming to have cornered the market on truth, when their convictions are largely based on a wholly random accident of birth. If the terrorists who flew the planes into the World Trade Center in the name of Allah had been given up for adoption at an early age and raised by, say, nice Catholic families, I’m sure they would have been utterly convinced that Moslems were the true “infidels.”

I’m not really arguing that there is no such thing as God, only that it’s ludicrous (not to mention dangerous) for people to be so utterly convinced that their religious beliefs are correct (and that everybody else’s beliefs are wrong), when they didn’t even choose to be a member of that particular religion in most cases. And from a strictly probablistic point of view (as you nicely elucidated for me, thank you), the odds are overwhelming that whatever you personally believe is probably not correct. Or, to put it another way, Your [concept of] God isn’t real.

Regards,

Barry

7

GT: Religion and logic rarely inhabit the same house. In fact it is necessary to bypass logic and reason in order to believe in God. Nice try, though.:slight_smile:

8

I’m sorry. Not to be overly obtuse, but why, exactly, is that? Methinks you only believe that because you were raised in a Christian home. If you were raised in a part of the world where they teach that the Earth is supported on the back of a giant turtle, you would likely believe that instead, all emprical evidence to the contrary.

Of course, I’m not aware of any current religion that believes this, but if there is you can be sure that THEY don’t think it is less correct than Christianity.

In general, once you start dismissing religious whose beliefs cannot be proven or which seem to contradict science, you’d better just chuck them all out the window.

Barry

9

El Jeffe, I was raised Jewish, and Christianity has never made much more sense to me than the world being supported on the back of a turtle. Of course, the stuff I learned did - it took me a while to get over that.

Each person seems to give credence to the parts of their religion they find rational, and explains away (or ignores) the parts they don’t. And the see the irrational components of someone else’s religion far more clearly than they see the irrational components of their’s. In any case, you are using reason and logic to choose a religion, and I thought this was a no-no. Aren’t you supposed to just have faith?

"Oh migod it’s full of elephants! - Terry Pratchett

10

GT and Voyager:

I say that some religions (eg, Christianity) are more plausible than others (eg, the fictitious Earth-on-turtles thing) because Christianity, for example, meshes better with what we know to be true. We know, without uncertainty, that the Earth does not rest on turtles. We know that because we’ve been into space and not seen turtles.

Some religions are more plausible simply because they have fewer inexplicable elements, elements that do not mesh well with what we “know”. Christianity, Islam, and some others fit into this category. Others are more easily refuted, or just plain silly - Scientology, Wicca, and others go here. In general, I would be far more surprised to find that I am being haunted by the spirit of a dead alien who was murdered millenia ago by an intergalactic troublemaker than to find that this guy named Jesus we keep hearing about really did have some ties to a higher power.

For the record, I am not Christian, nor was I raised in a Christian household. I also see nothing wrong with using logic and reason to choose a religion. That’s probably why my religion is pretty much, “Yeah, umm, there’s a God. He probably does stuff. I dunno.” The existence of a supreme being makes sense to me, though a lot of it is just taken on faith - it “feels right”. However, I see no reason to continue believing in something that blatantly flies in the face of logic, reason, and evidence. If it was theoretically possible to prove the existence or nonexistence of God, or the validity of some religion, then my beliefs would change to reflect that.

I suppose it’s like this: if your faith leads you to believe that there is a God, then some religions will sound more plausible than others. If your faith leads you to believe that there is no God, then I guess they would all sound equally impossible. If you fall into the latter category, then just count the number of impossibilities in each religion, and rank them accordingly. :slight_smile:
Jeff

11

ElJeffe:

I still don’t agree with your point. You claim that critical study of religions will tend to gravitate people to one or another based on it’s probability to be more beleivable.

There are two problems with this.

  1. As the OP suggests most people are born into a particular religion adn are taught that religion during their formative years. Barring some minor excemtions these people will be more incilined to believe anything their faith has taught them inspite of imperical data to the contrary.

  2. The moment you start to choose one religion over the other based on supposed validity you run inot problems. For example: You compare christianity with a fictional religion where turtles support the earth. Well to some jesus coming back from the dead, and moses parting the red sea might sound just as silly.

So who’s to say what’s what?

12

Hmmmm.

Christianity: There is a God. He had a kid, who turned water into wine, raised the dead, healed people with touch, was killed, and was resurrected. Talking to God has an effect on the world.

Wicca: There are a God and a Goddess. Bad stuff you do ricochets back at you three times over. Thinking the right way and making appropriate ritual noises has an effect on the world.

Yeah, I know which one strikes me as having fewer inexplicable elements.

13

I fail to see why turtle backers couldn’t just as easily do what Christians did when their falsifiable propositions didn’t pan out: turn them into metaphors or appeal to deeper supernatural realities in which what they are saying is true. Anyone can play this game, and hence become no less impluasible with minor effort.

Or one could say that the turtles simply don’t want us to find them yet: we have to come to the acceptance of the turtles first without any reason at all to believe in the turtles in order to prove the strength of our faith. What was promised will be revealed in time.

14

[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by Kinthalis *

  1. As the OP suggests most people are born into a particular religion adn are taught that religion during their formative years. Barring some minor excemtions these people will be more incilined to believe anything their faith has taught them inspite of imperical data to the contrary.

[QUOTE]

This is an erroneous preposition. Example: a young child, upon inquiring as to the origin of babies, is told they “grow in a Mommy’s tummy”. This same child, upon reaching adulthood (Gads! I certainly hope sooner!) will no doubt require further information pertinent and correspondent to the age/reasoning capability. The assumption that silly Bible stories told to children are sufficient to generate sincere faith in adulthood is
unsubstantiated and, in my experience, innacurate.

The difference being that there is a substantial portion of Biblical history which can be verified through alternative sources. When you are able to demonstrate a given level of accuracy in the verifiable areas, you are left with less reason to question the accuracy of those you cannot prove by similar methods.

A mental shrug-of-the-shoulders would be a poor response. We’re not discussing whether teal or turquoise look better on Jennifer Lopez, after all.

15

Hmm. Okay, Since it appears we’re really arguing the Supernatural Turtle Backer Earth scenario, if we begin by defining the fictitious faith as having this single concept, the earch supported by a giant turtle, then once this has been demonstrated to be in error, the faith would essentially collapse. There would be no other principles or historical facts to be weighed in the balance.

Nice. You’ve watched too much late night television evangelism and it’s leached your vital braincells. No matter, the Turtle Backers can’t help you. You’ll have to search for a cure from some other source.

16

I think the OP is correct and well-reasoned, as far as it goes, and its conclusion is valid as stated. godzillatemple was pretty careful not to overstate his case. But I’d like to just throw out a few thoughts.

Religions that are different often still overlap by quite a bit; they may share some of their beliefs. Thus, though the odds are against a particular religion being completely right, that doesn’t mean it’s completely wrong.

Even if a religion is only partly right, it may be better than no religion at all. (Compare this to scientific theories. We now know the Newtonian view of the universe is not completely right, but it served us pretty well for a long time.)

It may be possible to reconcile some of the apparent differences between religions, by seeing them as different metaphors for the same truth, or different routes for attaining the same goal, or different customs and traditions that are not mututally exclusive. (Though, of course, not all religious beliefs can be reconciled this way; some really are incompatible.)

It would be a misrepresentation to say that every religion believes that it possesses the complete and total truth. Some are more tolerant of differences and variations than others. Some have, as part of their dogma, that there are things we do not or cannot know. Some distinguish between essentials and inessentials of their faith, with much room for variation in the latter. Some are quite willing to say, “we do X this way, or we look at Y this way, but there are other legitimate ways of doing X or looking at Y.”

Some people, though, are very uncomfortable with uncertainty. These are the kinds of people who, if you ask them a question, no matter how insignificant, rather than admit they’re not sure of the answer they’ll confidently assert some bullshit. And there are people who are convinced that there is one right way to do everything, and that is their way. These are the people who say “We’re right and everybody else is wrong,” but they say that about everything, not just religion.

17

Blasphemer!! Offler will consume your soul for daring to suggest that the sacred words of the Prophet Pterry are naught but metaphor!!

:smiley:

godzillatemple: There are two problems with your specification. One is that the probability of th actually existent is 1.0 – though there are an enormous number of possible ratios of the weight of the proton to that of the electron, each with a very low probability, it so happens that 1835:1 is the actual one. If God as described by the Baha’is or the Duck River Baptist Connexion happens to be the real one, then the rest of us were wrong and whichever of them happens to have hit on the right description is right.

The other is that there is some general agreement within the various subgroups of a religion as to the nature of the God/gods/whatever it holds worthy of worship – the differences are in doctrinal details. The nature and proper time of life for confirmation is something Dogface and I differ on – but that disagreement says absolutely nothing about the God we have in common, and whom we’re inclined to describe in quite similar ways.

18

While what you say about being born into religion, taught it is true, and now willing to defend it as truth is valid.

But what you are missing is those who are born into science, taught science is true, and now willing to defend it as truth is also valid.

We are usually convinced that our upbringing, schooling, and values, whatever they may be, are true and correct and everyone that don’t agree is wrong.

Now, the challenge is to study closely all the beliefs we hold true and make them prove themselves. Our task is to seek truth in all things and wherever we may find it. Nothing is sacred. All beliefs to be questioned. Following that path will lead you to greatness, but you will lose a lot of friends along the way.

Love
Leroy

19

Well, I can throw in here that from day one of my life I was confronted with an other religion then the one I was raised with: My mother was Catholic. I saw her priest almost daily. I talked al ot with him and of course with my mother.
Yet, already at a very young age I was convinced that Islam was much clearer and that God had no son and certainly wouldn’t let that son die on hte most cruel way, because God wasn’t able to forgive sins of humanity.
There were many other aspects of my mother’s religion that didn’t make any sense to me.
Later I made of Islam my studyfield. That is very controntational and on top of that: I studied at a Catholic university. Where this religion didn’t play a role in the education, yet were I was surrounded by many Catholics from which some became my close friends. And a comparitive study Islam/Christianity was part of the program.

All this influence couldn’t bring any doubt in my mind about my own religion. The more since it gives place to others, as Al Qur’an describes: God created many ways.
I wouldn’t say that someone who worships the sun because that is what he imagines to be God, doesn’t has the intention to worship the Creator of All.

Salaam. A

20

Not bad logic, and you did say exceptions, but wrong so far.

Following paragraph is therefore irrelevant. Moving on…

Continuing the trend, wrong so far…

I’ll give you credit for that one. If I personally hadn’t been born, or the universe had not come into being, we can safely assume I wouldn’t have these religious convictions.

I would, in fact, assume that my religious beliefs could not possibly have it all right. Credit again for you.

In which case they (we) could still be wrong. And should acknowledge it up front. Certainly we are incomplete in what we know.

A generally good and highly useful one, and one that I would hope would occur to anyone who is serious about religion. Thread title got me in here ready to tear up some pompous atheist butt. Actually I think you’re off to a great start. Begin with what you’ve got here and built your spiritual understandings around it. Consider it to be your cornerstone (and don’t become haughty just because you don’t believe what you believe as a result of buying into an entire package of prepackaged beliefs just because you were raised with them–questioning and pursuing your truths directly and personally doesn’t make you infallible).

Oh, and you need not call it “religion” or use the word “God”. Strictly optional :wink: