Prove to me god doesn't exist
Posted on: November 14, 2009 - 1:06am
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Prove to me god doesn't exist
OK, so this is pretty simple. I don't know what I believe (although I'm leaning towards atheism). If you guys could help me solidify my atheism, that'd be great.
PROVE TO ME GOD DOESN'T EXIST.
Here's a question I've been thinking about to get you guys started:
Moral Law - the pretty universal accept of 'right' and 'wrong' like don't kill and stuff like that. At first I though it's redundancy was exaggerated, but I sat down with a cultures book for a whole day and found there were practically no cultures that wouldn't condemn some type of killing.
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"Prove to me god doesn't exist"
Define god.
"the pretty universal accept of 'right' and 'wrong' like don't kill and stuff like that. At first I though it's redundancy was exaggerated, but I sat down with a cultures book for a whole day and found there were practically no cultures that wouldn't condemn some type of killing. "
The key there is some type. Almost all of them advocate some type, and condemn some type. It isn't particularly hard to find people that advocate use of the death penalty in any culture I'm familiar with. Some cultures go further and use it. The only trick to it is an us-them mentality. Noone likes it when it's us getting killed. But when it's them, far less protest, and many demand.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
What culture would survive if killing was not condemned? Survival as a group is > than survival as individuals. How does one build a society with killing isn't condemned? The social contract proved the framework and empathy stabled it. Universal concepts? I don't see any of those universal concepts in none social animals. When a theist suggest that morals must come from god they also suggest that morals are useless. If moral are useful to us then we can derive them their effect on us and our group. So we wouldn't need a god to figure them out all we would need is survival to determine morals. As a society grows larger the ideas of a group who has the most beneficial systems tend to suppress the less beneficial systems.
Sounds made up...
Agnostic Atheist
No, I am not angry at your imaginary friends or enemies.
No social animals, all the way down to ants, go around casually killing members of their group.
Apes and even dogs have been shown to have a basic moral sense, most easily shown as a sense of 'fairness', like they show clear resentment when another animal in their group is given a 'treat' and they aren't.
All seems to show the moral sense is basic to life, not God given just to us.
As Magus said, animals that live in groups that didn't have an instinct inhibiting them from killing members of the same group would not survive as well as ones which evolved such as instinct.
Even we certainly have no basic instinct against killing anyone perceived as a threat.
Favorite oxymorons: Gospel Truth, Rational Supernaturalist, Business Ethics, Christian Morality
"Theology is now little more than a branch of human ignorance. Indeed, it is ignorance with wings." - Sam Harris
The path to Truth lies via careful study of reality, not the dreams of our fallible minds - me
From the sublime to the ridiculous: Science -> Philosophy -> Theology
Hello, first of all I would like you to realize that what you're asking is an impossible task. Unless what you're trying to prove not to exist is logically contradictory (and hence impossible), you cannot prove that something does not exist. For instance, you could prove that a square triangle cannot exist based on first principles alone, but you could not prove that say, there is not a tiny martian that has incredible cloaking technology living on top of the Empire State Building.
The burden of proof lies on the person making the positive claim. If the person making the positive claim cannot provide adequate evidence ie. "God Exists because x" we are left with the null hypothesis -- that is, no stance on the claim whatsoever. This stance, with respect to the existence of gods, is what is commonly known as atheism.
Are you asking why moral "laws" seem to exist, or why they SHOULD exist?
If you are asking why moral imperatives seem to exist in the human race and elsewhere, the best explaination science could give you at the moment is that these traits arose through evolution through a combination of kin selection and group selection. Traits that provided altruistic behaviors allowed individuals first to preserve their shared genes in close family members (like brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, aunts, children, etc.). Secondly, traits that arise in groups (punishment, retribution, etc.) for moral crimes came about through a combination of the emergence of these genes through kin selection, and the selection of entire groups through group selection.
For instance, members of a population may mutually hold genes that make them feel sick when thinking about killing someone else, and thus they avoid it. In turn, the entire population tends to punish individuals who kill others, and in this way the entire population is preserved through the next generation because their members are not being killed off.
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If you are talking about why moral laws SHOULD exist, that is an entirely different ballpark -- the philosophy of ethics. Academic philosophy has long since come to the conclusion that moral imperatives are not, and SHOULD NOT be based on religion. Firstly, we know they ARE NOT based on religion because people will obey certain moral laws in religious texts, and not others -- based on reasoning. This means there is an external sense of morality not related to religion at all. Secondly, we know that moral laws SHOULD NOT be based on religion, because religious moral laws are completely arbitrary. Christians have a different set of laws that contradict with Muslims, which contradict with Jews, which contradict with Buddhists, etc. and it is impossible to determine WHICH SET of arbitrary moral laws to follow without appealing to something arbitrary (like faith) or by using an external moral sense.
If we are using an external moral sense to decide WHICH religious laws to follow, then why not cut out the middle man altogether and use this sense rather than the teachings of religion?
I'll break it down to ya trailor park style. When it comes to a culture condoning the killing of their own: Well, you don't like it when your dog shits in your yard so.. You let him go to the neighbors yard instead.
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi
There is no evidence.
Aside from that, define "God."
Uuuhh, what's the question?
If we all killed each other, we'd be extinct.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors, | As I foretold you, were all spirits, and | Are melted into air, into thin air; | And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, | The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, | The solemn temples, the great globe itself, - Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve, | And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, | Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff | As dreams are made on, and our little life | Is rounded with a sleep. - Shakespeare
up_the_ante wrote:
How does one "solidify" a non-belief ?
There is a complete absence of any credible evidence for a single or multiple gods. How does one SUBTRACT from zero ? It's a silly proposition you make. As already pointed out to you, GOD EXISTS..... is a positive claim. I could not prove to you that there is no god any more than I can prove to you that there is no Xenu or anymore than a christian could possibly prove to you that there is no Allah.
But there is no reason or necessity to do so.
The responsibility for PROVING the existence of god lies with the believer of such a proposition, NOT the skeptic.
I can manufacture over a million positive claims and realistically you could not disprove a single one of them. But that shouldn't lend the slightest credibility to any of them should it ?
Now I know this isn't YOU.... but if I had a dime for every dishonest christian (excuse the redundancy) that I see "pretending" to be an atheist to pose a "clever" question that they think will trip up those evil atheists in the forum, I could buy Saudi Arabia (and I'd finally get those 72 virgins for real). Now, I know that's not YOU.
Uh, good luck with your atheism.
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act."
George Orwell
This has effectively been done through the inability of anyone to prove the opposite.
Atheists don't sit around trying to develop some proof that God doesn't exist. Rather, we examine claims made about what God allegedly does and does not do. Typically, when we question theists about these claims, they will eventually say something like "Well, God doesn't conform to physical laws blah blah blah". This is essentially a win for us, because we do not cross the border into the realm of the supernatural (since the supernatural does not exist).
There are billions of people who concretely believe in the existence of some sort or deity, yet they have exactly zero evidence to support that belief. You'd think, with so many believers, that someone would have been able to prove God's existence by now.
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
If there was a god then he's a real bastard. But he doesn't exist cause if he did then what kind of monstrosity would make us capable of the atrocities that we commit every single day? Would all the killing and greed just be a form of amusement to him? I don't think so.. We don't need a god to be good. As a matter of fact I can't help but think that if everyone accepted the fact that there was no god then maybe we wouldn't be so evil and always be thinking that he forgives us and we will always have another chance in heaven.. For those that we kill there is no heaven, better place, tomorrow, just the emptiness that was once a life. And I won't even begin with the muslims cause there is no hope for them to ever evolve into human. They are the most dangerous people on earth cause they actually believe in Allah and think that he hates all of us, christians and non-beleivers alike..Man created god in his own image: Violent, intolerant, homophobic, sexist and narcissistic. Wake up and smell the putrid stench of reality..God is without a doubt the worst invention in the history of mankind.
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi
And there's practically no cultures that don't condone killing when it's done during warfare or to stop criminals. In fact you're a hero if you do it for your country, tribe or religion.
Morality is basically is social preasure to behave in a way favorable to the other members of particular group one is a part of. People throw around terms like immoral, cowardly, selfish, etc... just as a way to condemn behavior not favorable to the other members.
Taxation is the price we pay for failing to build a civilized society. The higher the tax level, the greater the failure. A centrally planned totalitarian state represents a complete defeat for the civilized world, while a totally voluntary society represents its ultimate success. --Mark Skousen
Hi Ante, welcome aboard.
Would you mind doing me a favor so I can help you? List a few of the most persuasive reasons you currently have for believing in a God. I'll try to show you why those reasons aren't good, and therefore you should abstain from believing in one.
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I don't mean to be the jerk; it just happens.
Burden of proof is not for the negative or neutral position.
When someone says "Turds are purple", I am never asked to prove they are not. It is up to someone to show me a purple turd. If they just scoff at me for requiring evidence of purple turds and tell me that faith is required to see the purple in the turd then have they really satisfied the burden of proof?
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And I plan to use it on my 80yo mother. I'll let you know how it goes...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
I couldn't have put it better brother.. Show me a purple turd and I'll you someone who has eaten way too many mushrooms. I loved that.. A great way to prove a point. Obviously turds are brown unless you have a really screwed up diet and then you need medical help. I think the same goes for people who live their life based on what they cannot see, feel, touch, taste or validate in any way yet they feel so strongly about it that they push their ideas, laws and morals on us.. Christians used to say that air (like god) was invisible but still there none the less, but we can feel the air. I always thought that was a fairly stupid argument. The holy spirit is nothing more than the endorphans in your body going on a fiesta. Everything that they say can be validated through science except the existence of god.. It's easy to say that god is everything but then that wouldn't be correct to the biblical god, now would it?
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi
The holy spirit is nothing but a big, fat squeeze of your serotonin system...
"Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination." Max Planck
"There is no God higher than truth." -Mahatma Ghandi