Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[EGarrett]

Certainly my opinion as well. I just don't think we're quite there yet, and the theological questions are the only remaining ones - as far as I can tell. I think what EG's problem is, he thinks the train's already at the station.

More straw. You misunderstand what I'm trying to say, and you have no argument in response.

 

[The Atheist]

You misunderstand what I'm trying to say, and you have no argument in response.

No misunderstanding; I have no interest in what you're trying to say.

If you really need to debate something, I'll get my teenager on the case - he's about your level.

 

[Piggy]

Before I make my next post, I feel like I ought to clarify one point.

I'm not under the delusion that my argument will sway anyone who believes in God on a faith basis.

Folks who maintain a positive belief in unfounded concepts on the basis of mere faith -- or on the grounds of tradition and scripture -- have removed themselves from the realm of reason on the issue, and therefore cannot be reasoned with on those matters.

When you get to the level of evangelical believers -- such as Kirk Cameron, who is going around publicly claiming that God is scientifically provable, and spouting patently ridiculous arguments in support of this idea which any middle-schooler should be able to see through -- then there's simply no hope of having any intelligent discussion on the topic whatsoever.

And when dealing with fundamentalists who can look at Genesis 1-2 and honestly claim to see no contradiction, who can read Joshua and Judges and honestly say that they are not in any way contradictory, then you have no hope of piercing their prefabricated belief system with any amount of logic or evidence.

So I'm not addressing those audiences.

My purpose is to demonstrate that intelligent, rational, educated persons in the year 2007 are not, in fact, obligated to concede that the claim "God is real" has any possible truth value.

And if we are not obligated to recognize any potential truth value in that claim, then we can indeed reject the claim as false.

 

[Thunder]

I know there is no proof of it, but is there anything wrong with believing that "God" is behind evolution, the Big Bang, etc?

Its like looking at a bicycle and saying "that thing has no purpose...it just is". We all know it has a purpose, cause we know humans designed it. Why can't the universe be the same way?

 

[Piggy]

An overview of the argument against the claim "God is real"

First, I apologize in advance for the repetition that's necessary for this post.

Second, a review of the terms and shorthands I use as a convenience:

GOD = the totality of all possible definitions of God or gods

God = a monotheistic god, although I often use this rendering as shorthand for "God or gods"

god = any of the gods in a polytheistic or henotheistic system

anchored concept (AC) = a concept grounded in what we know about the world (e.g., black holes as a consequence of the known laws of physics)

unanchored concept (UC) = a concept which is not anchored in what we know about the world, such as the undetectable dog that moves my glasses

nonsense object (NO) = a hypothetical thing which by definition cannot exist, such as a boiled invisible pink ice cube, or a circle with corners

unknown unknown (u2) = things which we truly have no ideas about whatsoever, like utterly unknown and unthought-of things which may (or may not) exist in unexplored regions of the deep sea or beyond our light cone in the far reaches of the universe (note that not all things which may/not exist in these regions are u2's -- for example, p-branes outside our universe are anchored concepts since they are theorized on the basis of what we do know about our universe and have defined qualities)

Resolved: The claim "God is real" has no possible truth value, because the statement will always prove empty, nonsensical, contrary to fact, redundant with purely material claims (i.e. not God), or mere Humpty Dumptyism.

It is important to note at the outset that the God hypothesis (GH) is much like phlogiston. That is, it arose within, and depends upon, a set of assumptions about the world which have proven false.

Some theists (as well as atheists) prefer to avoid any discussion of the mythical origins of the GH because, they point out, mythic origins do not prove falsity.

And while it is true that mythic ideas may coincidentally prove true -- for instance, the idea that there were inhabited lands across the ocean to the west of Europe and Africa -- we must deal with the mythic origins of the GH in order to distinguish it from ACs such as black holes. We have already seen on this thread the attempt to defend God by comparison to ACs such as black holes, despite the fact that God is a UC.

History has not been kind to the magical world view which made the GH appear plausible. At every turn, God and the mythic world view have lost -- heavenly lights are not divine beings, an anthropomorphic creator is not needed to explain universal origins or consciousness or life, geographic features are not the result of wars among the gods, etc etc etc -- so that today the only (only!) progress being made in the investigation of our world is being conducted within a framework that makes absolutely no reference to God, gods, the soul, or magic.

Not only is there no evidence for God, but there is no need -- indeed, no room -- for God or for theories of God.

To make matters worse, GOD is an utterly incoherent concept. There is no universal agreement among theists on even a single quality of God. Such a situation is unimaginable for any other concept we are expected to take seriously -- if there were no agreement on the essential qualities of a black hole, for instance, the notion would be roundly and rightly ridiculed as a non-concept.

Going back to phlogiston, once it was demonstrated conclusively that the existence of oxygen accounted for observations of combustion, and that phlogiston had no place in the system, no one felt free to simply dream up a brand new definition for the term "phlogiston" and claim that it was somehow the same thing. And yet theists do not balk when this is done with God. That alone should demonstrate the utter incoherence and invalidity of the concept.

Yet unlike phlogiston, God has persisted as a common figment of the human imagination. And there are reasons why we should expect the notion of God to persist, despite the fact that God is not real.

God is a byproduct, a side-effect, of how our brains are constructed. Human beings are built to search for meaning behind events, and we have a reflexive impulse to search our environment for patterns. We also have a tendency to search for human motives behind events, and a deep desire to be loved and cared for. And, of course, a profound fear of death. It is no wonder that our minds generate the notion of God.

And while this may not be a complete or totally accurate explanation of the persistence of the GH despite all evidence to the contrary, it is not trivial that we do indeed have a plausible explanation for the endurance of the notion of God which does not require that there actually be any God or gods.

The response to this state of affairs -- the collapse of the world view which engendered, sustained, and allowed God; the complete lack of evidence for God; the firm establishment of an explanatory framework for our universe which has no place for God; and the existence of a rational and reasonable explanation for the persistence of the GH nonetheless -- has been the rise of intellectual theism which dismantles the very definition of God and removes God from the realm of reality into a purely hypothetical and imaginary space.

In doing so, intellectual theism has attempted to deny the qualities of God which are recognized, even demanded, by the vast majority of believers across the globe -- an intelligent, conscious being who acts within the world.

By invoking this ploy, the intellectual theists may rightly be accused of reducing God to an empty or nonsense concept, or a mere Humpty Dumptyism.

And that is where we stand today.

We live in a post-God world which poses an insurmountable challenge to theists. Given what we know, the claim "God is real" must always resolve to a claim which is empty, nonsensical, contrary to fact, redundant with materialism, or a Humpty Dumptyism.

We have 2 choices -- either God acts within this world in detectable ways, or God does not act within this world in detectable ways.

If the latter is asserted, then God becomes nothing more than an "I don't know what living in I don't know where at I don't know when doing I couldn't say which". In that case, statements about God are equivalent to statements about nothing.

Yet we must keep in mind that God is not a u2. This is essential. The millions of people who worship God, who make the pilgrimage to Mecca, who sing hymns on Sunday, who burn incense at the shrines, who leave food and flowers at the altars, who pray for their children -- they do not, by any stretch of the imagination, consider that God is an utterly unknown thing we have no ideas about whatsoever and have never discovered or thought about. To claim that God is a u2 is Humpty Dumptyism.

We also do not have the option of leaving God undefined if the claim "God is real" is to have any meaning.

To say "God may have caused the Big Bang" is not in any way meaningful if God is an "I don't know". It would be like claiming that flurgs caused the Big Bang, while declining to make any statements regarding the qualities of flurgs.

It is also meaningless to claim that God may have caused the Big Bang (or done anything else, for that matter) while merely pointing to GOD in lieu of a definition. It would be like claiming that flurgs caused the Big Bang while defining a flurg as whatever any flurg theorist cared to dream up as a definition without there being any common set of agreed-upon essential qualities to restrain those definitions.

On the other hand, if it is asserted that God does act in the world, we find that the claims are either empty (unsupported by evidence) or contrary to fact (contradicted by what we know about the world) or redundant (indistinguishable from material/scientific explanations).

And that is where the matter stands.

Under these circumstances, it is unreasonable to demand that anyone concede that the claim "God is real" may possibly have truth value.

The claim is either contrary to fact, nonsensical, devoid of meaning, or indistinguishable from the claim that God is not real.

Therefore, we may dismiss the claim.

God is not real.

 

[Piggy]

I know there is no proof of it, but is there anything wrong with believing that "God" is behind evolution, the Big Bang, etc?

Yes, there is something fundamentally wrong with saying this, if God is not defined. Under those conditions, the statement is meaningless.

Would you care to define what this "God" is which may be "behind" evolution and the Big Bang?

 

[Lonewulf]

I know there is no proof of it, but is there anything wrong with believing that "God" is behind evolution, the Big Bang, etc?

Its like looking at a bicycle and saying "that thing has no purpose...it just is". We all know it has a purpose, cause we know humans designed it. Why can't the universe be the same way?

<spock> Quite illogical. </spock>

We already know of the existance of humans. Humans exist. We are here. We can create, and we accept this premise as true, because it obviously is. 100% deduction: Humans exist, humans can create bicycles. WIthout the premise of human or creative existance, the premise of a bicycle being created by such a being is automatically illogical, because such a premise is impossible (I.E., humans don't exist, so can humans create a bicycle?)

To accept God as creating anything, you'd have to accept the premise as true; but without it being proven true, the premise then fails.

Quid pro quo. QED. ~Fin.

You can believe that there is a creator, and then use that as a premise for claiming that everything was created by a creator. But no one has to take that claim seriously without the premise of a creator being proven. Just like I don't have to take seriously the premise that presents under my christmas tree must have been brought down by Santa Clause; as there is another explanation that is just as valid, and is more supportable by evidence and reason (I.E., that humans exist, my family exists, and humans give presents to each other).

 

[The Atheist]

It is important to note at the outset that the God hypothesis (GH) is much like phlogiston. That is, it arose within, and depends upon, a set of assumptions about the world which have proven false.

Some theists (as well as atheists) prefer to avoid any discussion of the mythical origins of the GH because, they point out, mythic origins do not prove falsity.

Don't take this the wrong way, because I appreciate the effort gone into writing that and I agree with the premise of it, but it's old hat. Been there, done that and it fails.

It's great for preaching to the converted, but useless in converting the preachers. (As you suggested earlier on)

We need to be a bit more creative - buggered if I know how, but I'd hoped you were going to show us. You'll get pretty strong agreement in here, but what's the point in accolades from atheists? It's a bit like The God Delusion; sells a couple of million copies, but has it actually swayed anyone from their absurd posture? If it hasn't, I wonder whether it was worth the effort, and even worse, wonder whether it's just a cynical ploy to make a mio or two.

I'll just go back to the baseball bat.

 

[Piggy]

I agree with the premise of it, but it's old hat. Been there, done that and it fails.

It's great for preaching to the converted, but useless in converting the preachers.

Actually, it does not fail in one very important aspect. It does, in fact, matter.

If we stop short of demonstrating that God cannot be real -- if we stop at a mere "unproven" or "undisprovable" -- then we allow the myth to persist that "You can't disprove God". This allows the theistic camp to assert (falsely) that theism is a valid worldview, that it can stand alongside a non-theistic worldview as equal options.

The political implications of this are important. So, although we cannot reason with those who have left the path of reason, it is still necessary that we debunk the "You can't disprove God" myth.

 

[Piggy]

You'll get pretty strong agreement in here

Actually, the "You can't disprove God" myth is widespread among skeptics and folks of a scientific mindset as well. Just take a look at some of the posts in the "Proof of strong atheism" thread. And we've seen Dawkins and Sagan, for example, stop at "unproven".

 

[BillyJoe]

Have we disproven the god who, from his 4D universe, looks down upon his creation, the 3D universe? This god could, if he chose, forever remain out of the reach of the inhabitants of the 3D universe; or he could, if he chose, intersect with the 3D universe so as to interact with it or its inhabitants or to reveal a 3D cross-section of himself to them.


(Okay, I plagiarised this from a previous poster - or actually form "Flatland" and "Sphereland" by Edwin Abbott)

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Actually, the "You can't disprove God" myth is widespread among skeptics and folks of a scientific mindset as well. Just take a look at some of the posts in the "Proof of strong atheism" thread. And we've seen Dawkins and Sagan, for example, stop at "unproven".

Perhaps they stop short because they do not require people to define God. And, indeed, there seem to be some problems in that requirement.

Defining God seems to be a contradiction in terms in some religious traditions; i.e. a believer is required to define something that seems to be incomprehensible in the first place – even to the believer. At best, some might come up with some anthropomorphic attributes they perceive God (or the experience with God) having. God is a common name that points to the experience, nothing more. Moreover, when God is perceived as an individual experience, any debunking of that experience is directly related to how well it is explained or defined, which sounds rather odd. It wouldn’t be a mystical experience if it would be explainable or easily definable. We should perhaps first define how the term God is used, it might be a about connotations rather than denotations?

 

[Vintij]

Strawman.

There may be many things that exist that we don't know about. But that doesn't mean that completely nonsensical arguments will one day turn out to be true.

There are many things science doesn't know. But what science doesn't know are all the explanations behind everything we observe. Science doesn't have to make up explanations for nonsense concepts, or things that we can't observe and that have no effect whatsoever on the universe because for all intents and purposes, they don't exist. And you cannot put forth any ideas about these things UNTIL we observe some aspect or reasoning behind them.

Do you see what I'm saying? If not let me know, because this is important.

No, to make sense you must terms that have actual meanings. If you change the meaning of a term at will, it is the textbook definition of nonsense. (words that have no sense or meaning)

That's fine. But that will still happen through actual consistent reasoning and study and observation. Not nonsense or irrationality.

I agree with your second statement. I could not remember if you were the one trying to debunk god though? In any case, you and I agree on one thing, though we have different views of it. You said that we should not promote reasoning for things we can not observe. Exactly my point! Which is why I said that piggy should not try to fall into the trap of all thiests, by actually trying to come up with a logical argument that god can not exist. This goes both ways, if we can not observe god then religion should not exist, but if religion observes god on a spiritual level, there is no point in trying to put a reasonable argument about something that can not be proven or disproven to exist, because that puts skeptics on the same boat as believers, for believing that god can not exist without knowing. Basically putting all their chips into the observation pool which as history will tell us, is not always the best way to go.

I guess thats the nature of a skeptic, but you cant be a skeptic and argue that god does not exist without explaining why, and making sense. Just like you cant be religious without explaining why and making sense. I feel that more skeptics should be in the middle on this one, like I am. We have no proof that god does, or does not exist. Though I feel eventually we will have our proof.

 

[chriswl]

Have we disproven the god who, from his 4D universe, looks down upon his creation, the 3D universe? This god could, if he chose, forever remain out of the reach of the inhabitants of the 3D universe; or he could, if he chose, intersect with the 3D universe so as to interact with it or its inhabitants or to reveal a 3D cross-section of himself to them.


(Okay, I plagiarised this from a previous poster - or actually form "Flatland" and "Sphereland" by Edwin Abbott)

Merely having an extra dimension doesn't sound very god-like to me. He's just a 4D alien. We have to distinguish between aliens (even very powerful ones who can create universes) and gods. Gods are supernatural creatures, not creatures whose existence can be understood with further advances in physics.

 

[slingblade]

Merely having an extra dimension doesn't sound very god-like to me. He's just a 4D alien. We have to distinguish between aliens (even very powerful ones who can create universes) and gods. Gods are supernatural creatures, not creatures whose existence can be understood with further advances in physics.

Which I rather think was Dawkins' recent (and misunderstood) point, yes?

Excellent point, Chris.

 

[tsg]

Merely having an extra dimension doesn't sound very god-like to me. He's just a 4D alien. We have to distinguish between aliens (even very powerful ones who can create universes) and gods. Gods are supernatural creatures, not creatures whose existence can be understood with further advances in physics.

In the end, that is my argument as well. But it is a whole other argument.

Personally, I maintain that even if we could prove god's existence, he will never live up to the myth.

But that is assuming a nature of god that, so far, hasn't been claimed.

 

[Piggy]

Have we disproven the god who, from his 4D universe, looks down upon his creation, the 3D universe? This god could, if he chose, forever remain out of the reach of the inhabitants of the 3D universe; or he could, if he chose, intersect with the 3D universe so as to interact with it or its inhabitants or to reveal a 3D cross-section of himself to them.

Again, we're left to ask "The what that looks down from his 4D universe?"

If that is not answered, the proposition is meaningless.

And again we come back to the lose-lose choice: Either this entity interacts with the universe, or it does not.

If it does not, and it has no definition, then to speak of it is to speak of nothing at all. It would be like talking of flurgs, while claiming that they perform no actions, exist in no place we know of, and have no qualities we can point to.

If it does, then we arrive at another lose-lose choice: In a post-magical world, these actions are either supernatural (in which case, they contradict what we know about the world, or are empty assertions lacking any evidence whatsoever) or else they are merely redundant with material explanations and are not in agreement with the general consensus about what this entity is supposed to be.

 

[Piggy]

Defining God seems to be a contradiction in terms in some religious traditions

So what? Since religious tradition is incapable of discerning truth from non-truth, it hardly matters whether religious tradition takes the absurd route of refusing to define the core concept of their belief system.

 

[BillyJoe]

I don't know if this is an adequate reply, but it is a start at least.

Merely having an extra dimension doesn't sound very god-like to me.

It is said that there is the odd physicist who can imagine a 4D cube (it has a name that I've forgotten for the moment), but most other physicists say they are probably lying (if you think that is unkind, some have used an even less kind description but I will leave that to your imagination).
Can you imagine a 4D universe?

Merely having an extra dimension doesn't sound very god-like to me.

Physicists have hypothesised the existence of up to 11 dimensions, but the extra dimensions are "wrapped up" at the scale of plancks constant. We can probably imagine one of these - a 1D line seen in the distance in our 3D universe becomes, on closer inspection, a cylinder with not only length but circumference as well, the circumference being the 4th "wrapped-up" dimension.
There is also the concept of curved space where, if you travel in a straight line (by your reckoning), you eventually end up where you started from. But that dimension is at a scale of "cosmic dimensions".

An extra everyday macroscopic dimension is surely beyond our imagination.

He's just a 4D alien.

Okay, call him an alien then, I don't care which word you use.

We have to distinguish between aliens (even very powerful ones who can create universes) and gods.

We only need one alien who is indistinguishable from god - the one who created our universe and us.

Gods are supernatural creatures, not creatures whose existence can be understood with further advances in physics.

To primitive man, we are supernatural creatures (the 'cargo cult' phenomenon).
It is said that, to every generation, the technology of the next generation is like magic.

 

[chriswl]

Perhaps they stop short because they do not require people to define God. And, indeed, there seem to be some problems in that requirement.

Defining God seems to be a contradiction in terms in some religious traditions; i.e. a believer is required to define something that seems to be incomprehensible in the first place – even to the believer. At best, some might come up with some anthropomorphic attributes they perceive God (or the experience with God) having. God is a common name that points to the experience, nothing more. Moreover, when God is perceived as an individual experience, any debunking of that experience is directly related to how well it is explained or defined, which sounds rather odd. It wouldn’t be a mystical experience if it would be explainable or easily definable. We should perhaps first define how the term God is used, it might be a about connotations rather than denotations?

Lets try and nail this tedious issue once and for all, shall we? The following is a slightly edited version of something I posted a while ago that addressed this issue of God-definitions and I think its relevant:

***

Firstly, the word God means something. I don't accept that it is so broad that there is nothing to be said about it. It's a word and it's meaning comes from the way people use it. There aren't any words that people use that have no meaning.

Secondly, the word doesn't just have one meaning. A pantheist means something different by the word God than a Christian. Paul Tillich means something different to the Reverend Ian Paisley. This doesn't mean that the god concept is broad enough to encompass all these meanings, any more than the true meaning of the word "chip" (which means French fries in Britain) encompasses American potato chips and British fries. In fact there is no one who uses the word to mean both of these things. There are parallel definitions and you mean a particular one when you use a word. This is true even when the definitions overlap.

Furthermore, there is not usually any need to indicate which definition you are using. When asked whether they believe in God Christians will simply answer "yes". They do not feel the need to clarify that they believe in the Judeo-Christian God just to make sure no one gets the wrong idea and thinks they have become pantheists or deists. There is an implicit understanding about what the word means in a given group or society or culture, about how to use it in conversation. This also applies to those who say that god doesn't exist. They refer to a particular concept of "god".

But the most important thing is this: understanding is a publicly observable thing. We don't have to take a believer's word for it if we want to know what they mean by god. Sometimes they may give us an honest definition, sometimes they may give us a rather "political" definition, one that stands up well to arguments but describes something rather more minimal than the being they actually pray to. And sometimes they may just fail to define it very well. The point is, they are not the authority on what they mean by God. The meaning is the way they publicly use the word (this is essentially Wittgenstein's argument about the meaning of words from PI).

So, to justify my statement that God doesn't exist I need to figure out what is meant by God in our culture (not arbitrarily invent a definition) and explain why I don't think this kind of entity exists. This definition is not arbitrary but it may not include everything that has at some time or another been labelled "god" by someone, somewhere.

***

So, we just need a definition. I Like the definition Dawkins picked in the first chapter of his recent book:

A supernatural creator that is 'appropriate for us to worship'

I think that picks out qualities that must be possesed by the God of the western philosophical and religious tradition. And therefore the god that an atheist (an English word) is claiming doesn't exist.

That's all we need - to show that some quality or qualities are essential to what it is to be God by our definition and then show that no being possessing these qualities could exist.