Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[BillyJoe]

"Indistinguishable from supernatural" is not the same thing as supernatural, right (supernatural = beyond natural, i.e. beyond all naturalistic, scientific explanation, now and forever)? And God is supernatural (not merely apparently supernatural) by definition. What is there to argue about here?

Probably the definition of "supernatural".
If you are going to say "now and forever", how can you ever conclude that anything is supernatural? God is not necessarily supernatural by that definition. God could turn out to have a naturalistic explanation - he could be an advance alien for instance.

Unless you are saying that the idea of the supernatural is just a mistaken idea. That nothing is "really" supernatural, there is just ever advancing levels of technological development. We encounter technology that is so far advanced from ours that we cannot imagine any natural explanations and we wrongly call such things supernatural. But actually they have natural explanations that we just don't yet understand.

But isn't that what you are saying?

As far as I know I just raised it as a possiblity - that god could just have a naturalistic explanation. The creator of the universe could turn out to be an advanced alien. So, if the definition of god is the being who created the universe, then to disprove god you will need to disprove the possibility of an advanced alien capable of creating the universe.

If you can argue successfully that this is true (that there can be no truly supernatural phenomena once we understand the world fully, scientifically speaking) you have then disproven God because God is defined as being supernatural.

Well, it seems to me that you have defined god as being supernatural and you have defined supernatural in such a way that nothing can ever be proven to be supernatural. By this means you have shown that a supernatural god cannot be proven. But, you still have not shown that a supernatural god can be disproven (let alone, simply, god = creator of the universe).

 

[BillyJoe]

Christianity, Islam, Catholocism -- from what I understand, they don't (at least, the majority don't) worship the Deist version of God. The worship a very specific version. Christianity and Catholicism are very set on prophets, and supernatural abilities given to the prophets, a specific testament given to them by prophets from God, different sources that tell them what is right and wrong, and what is God's will.

To accept any one version, is to accept another version as untrue in all things, and false in some things, if not false in most things. To find common ground would be good, but common ground in all three cases isn't a deistic god. Nor is it a god that is an alien intelligence, with no soul in existance throughout the world. To make it indistinguishable from the biblical God, the other version of God has to be God. He would *have* to be the creator, to be creator of the afterlife, and to have jurisdiction over our souls. Otherwise, He is not the biblical God.

Again, I wasn't aware that we were discussing just the god of the bible.
There are people who believe in a deistic god. How would you disprove their version of god?

 

[BillyJoe]

Breaking three hours is pretty flash work mate! Christ, I'd break a leg before I broke three hours.

$#!+, I was hoping everyone would let that one ride.
My fastest time was 3 hours, 18 minutes, and 38 seconds.

 

[CapelDodger]

But you see, the entire point here is that it doesn't need to. Once the claim "God is real" is shown to have no possible truth value, we're done.

And it has no possible truth value, because a God which does not interact with the world is both a Humpty Dumpty definition and and a definition which leads to meaningless, empty, or nonsensical claims, and a God which does interact with the world inevitably leads to contradiction of known fact or becomes redundant with purely material explanations.

The claim "God is real", upon examination, is empty or meaningless.

What Piggy said right there. Done and dusted. The rest is waffle.

 

[Lonewulf]

I thought we were supposed to be disproving God in this thread. I didn't know it was "God of the Bible, Soul, and Afterlife".
What if my definition of God is "The being who created the universe". My original question asked if this God has been disproven by what has been said in this thread. I'm sorry I was tricked into even offering an aside about the God of the Bible.

I think you missed the part where people have said that we're intentionally defining God before disproving it?

Did you miss it?

Am I supposed to run around and knock down every definition that possibly exists? In that case, it's a nonsense task. I can't give an argument that suits every single tiny case.

We have to define a case before we set up an argument. You go with any major religion's version of God, and you can disprove it's concepts by demonstrating a more valid theory that goes with the physics and information we already know, or you can disprove certain cases within the religious texts that the belief is centered on.

I'm not quite sure what everyone's fetish is with being slippery. Keep moving the goalposts, and your beliefs will be left behind in the dust.

But how does the God = The Being Who Created the Universe compare to the Advanced Alien? If you cannot disprove the Advanced Alien, then you cannot disprove the God = The Being Who Created the Universe. They could be one and the same being

If the advanced alien CREATED THE UNIVERSE, then what makes him different from the God of the bible? If he there is an afterlife, and God has CONTROL OF OUR SOULS (and the souls exist), then what makes the alien different than the god from the bible? He's not an alien, he IS God. The definition of "alien" is ridiculous; you just described an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being that created the universe and, supposedly, exists outside of the universe. That IS God.

Again, I thought we were supposed to be disproving God, not specifically the God of the Bible. If you cannot disprove the deist god have you really disproved god? That was the question I asked in my original post. I don't really want to be wasting my time trying to defend the God of the Bible.

I really don't get your point here. I never said that I was going to go out and disprove every single utterance of God from every single nonsensical believer.

You know why moving the goalposts is so annoying in discussions? Because nothing ever gets done; you disprove many of the major points in an argument, and the arguer backslides and backslides and backslides.

Can the deist form of God exist? Even if he could (and I'm not accepting that he could), that still disproves most of the major religions. I don't get why you don't accept that idea. And no, no one here has had the goal of setting out to disprove every single nonsensical idea of God. I wouldn't go about that task, and if you wish to, then go ahead. But I'm not you.

The second point is not one that I was making as I hope is now clear.
As for shifting the goalposts, since "God" in the title of the thread was unspecified, I took that to include the deistic god. Unless you can disprove the deistic god you haven't disproven God.
So now I'm back to the original question: Can the deistic god be disproven? (Actually, my original post included the possibility that god, if he wanted to, could intervene in the universe he created.)

Once more, you missed the part where you have to define a version of God before disproving it. Piggy was the one that explained that point, I believe; or at least, one of the other posters. I recommend you go back and read before criticizing my attempt to have a cogent discussion instead of batting down invisible men.

The majority of religious believers are not deists. Thus, it is sensical to make an argument that fits within the beliefs of the majority of religious believers. Because THOSE are who we are arguing against; when they all change their religious preference to include the Deist God, then we can go and knock down that theory as well.

If God can be anything, that's nonsensical.

If God can be anything, so you worship a specific form of God, that is nonsensical.

I'm not sure why you want a Super Argument (tm) from me.

 

[Piggy]

Let me just ask then: What use is it?

It's the same use as I said before. We need to get beyond the "You can't disprove God" notion. It's just not true.

We're not going to reach faith-believers. We're just not. You can't reason on an issue with folks who willingly embrace the irrational when it comes to that issue.

But it matters -- to me, at least -- that other folks understand that we really do live in a post-god world now, for real. It matters to me that the "You can't disprove God" myth is exposed as a myth in rational circles, because I still see heads nodding among intelligent, educated, skeptical people when that argument comes up, and they should not be.

That said, we (rationalists) still must accept the reality of the situation -- a lot of taxpaying citizens with kids in school and who vote are going to have a religious worldview. They get their say, too. We all have to make it work, somehow.

But at the end of the day, what's real is what's real. If I had kids, I'd want them to understand why God is a myth -- not just probably a myth. So it matters to me, I guess, that's all.

 

[Apathia]

I guess my question sank to the bottom of the pool.

Piggy has done his usual slam bang debunk of the Theistic Gods.
I'm curious, though, about the non-theistic views of Divinity. For example Spinoza's Cosmic Principle of Rationality that is popular to some classical scientists including Einstein.

Another variation on this naturalistic sort of Divinity is the "Tao."

In each case what's being discussed isn't a creator entity of the Judeo-Christian sort, and not an individual sentiant being.
Included in this the subversive non-theistic theology of Paul Tillich in which God is not a being existing somewhere, but instead is the ground or field upon which we come to be as persons.

Are some uses of the word "God," tolerable, as long as the user doesn't make an equivocation right back to Theism?

 

[Piggy]

Piggy has done his usual slam bang debunk of the Theistic Gods.

I am perfectly willing to slam bang debunk any God you are prepared to propose.

So the question is, are you merely dangling borrowed Gods, or do you have a God you'd like to seriously suggest may be potentially real?

I'm curious, though, about the non-theistic views of Divinity.

There are none. The terms are equivalent.

For example Spinoza's Cosmic Principle of Rationality that is popular to some classical scientists including Einstein.

Another variation on this naturalistic sort of Divinity is the "Tao."

In each case what's being discussed isn't a creator entity of the Judeo-Christian sort, and not an individual sentiant being.
Included in this the subversive non-theistic theology of Paul Tillich in which God is not a being existing somewhere, but instead is the ground or field upon which we come to be as persons.

Are some uses of the word "God," tolerable, as long as the user doesn't make an equivocation right back to Theism?

I don't see any meaningful definition of God there.

 

[EGarrett]

And I just love ad hominem, so get ready!

Child: the reason I won't debate you is that you have nothing to debate. When I'm discussing something with Piggy, as long as he gets the message, I'm happy. When the kindergarten kiddy starts to wee his pants because he's seen a logical fallacy, I simply tell him to go home to mommy like a good child.

Now run along.

Insults and anger are always the last resort of people who are flat-out wrong and have no other way left to argue their point.

No matter who I am, it does not magically make your argument informed, or non-fallacious. It remains useless and ignorant. The problem is that I pointed it out to you and you have no way to respond.

 

[The Atheist]

What Piggy said right there. Done and dusted. The rest is waffle.

I had you at very short odds to feel that way!

That said, we (rationalists) still must accept the reality of the situation -- a lot of taxpaying citizens with kids in school and who vote are going to have a religious worldview. They get their say, too. We all have to make it work, somehow.

But at the end of the day, what's real is what's real. If I had kids, I'd want them to understand why God is a myth -- not just probably a myth. So it matters to me, I guess, that's all.

If it helps you personally, that's a good enough reason.

It just smacks of something written from a desire for confirmation, because I think your use of "probably" isn't completely honest - I'd suggest most atheists see god as an exceeding unlikely prospect rather than "probably" non-existent, or they wouldn't be atheists.

It all depends where your targets are, I guess - you're aiming at rationalists and it's highly suitable for that, not so useful to me in trying to drive a wedge between mainstream and fundamental christianity.

 

[Apathia]

I am perfectly willing to slam bang debunk any God you are prepared to propose.

So the question is, are you merely dangling borrowed Gods, or do you have a God you'd like to seriously suggest may be potentially real?


There are none. The terms are equivalent.



I don't see any meaningful definition of God there.

Nah, I don't have a God for debunking.

 

[BillyJoe]

I think you missed the part where people have said that we're intentionally defining God before disproving it?...Did you miss it?

No.

Am I supposed to run around and knock down every definition that possibly exists? In that case, it's a nonsense task. I can't give an argument that suits every single tiny case.

No. Just the one I asked about in my original post that started this exchange.
Perhaps you missed it?

I'm not quite sure what everyone's fetish is with being slippery. Keep moving the goalposts, and your beliefs will be left behind in the dust.

Well, if you want to show that God (unspecified) can be disproven, you have to cover all bases. I chose to concentrate on the deistic god. If you don't want to go there, you don't have to, but then I don't have to accept that you've shown that "God (unspecified) can be disproven"

If the advanced alien CREATED THE UNIVERSE, then what makes him different from the God of the bible? If he there is an afterlife, and God has CONTROL OF OUR SOULS (and the souls exist), then what makes the alien different than the god from the bible? He's not an alien, he IS God. The definition of "alien" is ridiculous; you just described an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being that created the universe and, supposedly, exists outside of the universe. That IS God.

The advanced alien hypothesis does not need for souls to exist, nor for there to be an afterlife (although it is possible that he may have discovered how to live forever and could possibly even offer us miserable humans that option).
And he does not need to be omnibenevolent. He could be good, bad or indifferent. He could chose never to interact with his creation. Or he could choose to interact if he so desired.

I really don't get your point here. I never said that I was going to go out and disprove every single utterance of God from every single nonsensical believer.

No. Just one: the deistic god
(who created the universe; who could be good, bad, or indifferent; who could interact with his creation if he wanted to, or never interact with his creation if he so desired; who could have discovered how to live forever and who could offer the option of eternal life to his creations if he so desired)

You know why moving the goalposts is so annoying in discussions? Because nothing ever gets done; you disprove many of the major points in an argument, and the arguer backslides and backslides and backslides.

Sorry this is the nature of a discussion where the object of the discussion is unspecified. But I am not the culprit here. I have asked about only one type of god.

Can the deist form of God exist? Even if he could (and I'm not accepting that he could), that still disproves most of the major religions. I don't get why you don't accept that idea. And no, no one here has had the goal of setting out to disprove every single nonsensical idea of God. I wouldn't go about that task, and if you wish to, then go ahead. But I'm not you.

Whether I accept that the god of the major religions can be disproven or not has no bearing on whether I think the deistic god has been disproven. I have not even offered an opinion about the former and I am enquiring about the latter. If you think the idea of a deistic god is nonsensical why don't you simply demonstrate that?

Once more, you missed the part where you have to define a version of God before disproving it. Piggy was the one that explained that point, I believe; or at least, one of the other posters. I recommend you go back and read before criticizing my attempt to have a cogent discussion instead of batting down invisible men.

If the term deistic god is not sufficient for you as a definition, I have added a few attributes above (some of which are not strictly deistic, but which are more of an extension of the idea of a deistic god and which I think you would find difficult to disprove).

The majority of religious believers are not deists. Thus, it is sensical to make an argument that fits within the beliefs of the majority of religious believers. Because THOSE are who we are arguing against; when they all change their religious preference to include the Deist God, then we can go and knock down that theory as well.

You can do that if you wish, but there are people who believe in a deistic god and, if you chose not to tackle that god then you have not disproven god (unspecified).

I'm not sure why you want a Super Argument (tm) from me.

My enquiry was to posters generally in this thread. If you do not wish to answer it, that is your choice and I will have no choice but to accept that.

 

[Lonewulf]

Here's a question I want you to answer before responding to my post:

"Is one form of God like any other?"

If the answer is "yes", then disproving one form will disprove another.

If the answer is "no", then kindly explain how any single person can knock down each version or belief of God in one single swathe. Please demonstrate.

The answer is, naturally, that they can't. The idea that, if you can't knock down every definition in one single swathe, therefore ALL possibilities are plausible, is bullspit.

Whether I accept that the god of the major religions can be disproven or not has no bearing on whether I think the deistic god has been disproven. I have not even offered an opinion about the former and I am enquiring about the latter. If you think the idea of a deistic god is nonsensical why don't you simply demonstrate that?

I did not say that the deistic god was nonsensical. I said that continually changing the definition until you have one that fits, and then says, "GOD (in the general sense) EXISTS! HUZZAH!" is nonsensical. If the deistic version is the only one that can exist, then so be it; that disproves the majority of versions of God. Then you can examine the deistic God again, and then see if he really can exist. Thus, you would disprove all forms of God as accepted in the general sense.

So you are stating here that everything but the deistic God is not possible? If you are stating that, make it clear.

Then, we can move onto the deistic God, and examine that possibility. After all, we just went, point by point, and knocked down the major Gods. We disproved the major religions. Now we move onto the minor versions that only a select few believe in.

I'd rather deal with the majority of religions that have real influence on the world, instead of focusing on your selected minority religion.

I'd rather focus on Christianity than Wicca. One has more influence -- or did you not realize that?

That's my choice. Just as it was your choice to focus on Deism. If you think that automatically makes your belief justified -- feel free. Don't mind that sound, it's just me laughing behind your back.

The advanced alien hypothesis does not need for souls to exist, nor for there to be an afterlife (although it is possible that he may have discovered how to live forever and could possibly even offer us miserable humans that option).
And he does not need to be omnibenevolent. He could be good, bad or indifferent. He could chose never to interact with his creation. Or he could choose to interact if he so desired.

Interesting hypothesis, but it doesn't fall in with any religion that I've ever heard of. You have to redefine every religion to make it fit.

And then, it STILL lacks evidence.

So I don't get the point?

 

[Taffer]

To add my two cents:

I just had this conversation, so hopefully I can explain myself well enough here. I consider myself a "weak atheist". A weak atheist being the term I have learned for someone who does not have a belief in any god, but does not belief any god does not exist. I.e. lack of belief not positive disbelief. And I have a very specific reason for this, and for believing that, ultimately, a god cannot be disproven.

I am a scientist, and as such follow my understanding of the philosophy of science. To wit: for a theory to be proven or disproven, it must be falsifiable. Most - but I admit not all - definitions of God are not falsifiable. Thus, they can never be proven, and by the same token, they can never be disproven. They are also utterly meaningless, for that reason. I also will throw my 'mantra' into the works, here. Absence of evidence is not evidence for absence. We do not have evidence that God does not exist, we lack evidence for the existence of God. This means that it is possible he exists, albeit vanishingly unlikely. But, as I just said, this doesn't mean anything unless the concept of God is falsifiable, and almost always it is not.

Don't get me wrong, though. There are times when definitions of God are falsifiable, and can be disproven, either with evidence or logical argument. But in every case I have come across, it comes down to "but X doesn't apply to him" or "be he is not X", etc. It is this watering down of definitions which makes him ultimately unfalsifiable.

An interesting thing, however, is that some of you may remember a thread many moons ago wherein I outlined my logical argument for the impossibility of the existence of the "supernatural". This would apply to a god-concept too, except that in every single case I've come across, it boils down to "God isn't subject to those laws" and "he just is", etc. Thus, given some definitions of God, if he exists he must exist outside the universe, and thus is meaningless. But given the vast majority of definitions, it is impossible to falsify the god-concept, which makes the whole concept meaningless (by my epistemologic philosophy).

 

[BillyJoe]

Lonewulf,

It was my post regarding deism that started this exchange. Really, if you don't want to answer that question it's fine by me. My question was not put specifically to you after all. But I have already stated several times that I'm not concerned here with the other versions of god.

regards,
BillyJoe

 

[BillyJoe]

I'll just add this:

That's my choice. Just as it was your choice to focus on Deism. If you think that automatically makes your belief justified -- feel free. Don't mind that sound, it's just me laughing behind your back.

That's the second time you've made assumptions about my belief system.

 

[Piggy]

What's so odd is that we are asked to accept arguments regarding God that no one would consider reasonable if applied to any other notion.

Going back to the phlogiston example -- because it's so apt -- once it had been shown to everyone's satisfaction that oxygen rather than phlogiston was the missing piece of the combustion puzzle, and that no such thing as phlogiston existed, what if the pro-phlogiston camp declared that, actually, the existence of phlogiston is perfectly compatible with the new discoveries, as long as we redefine the term to mean something other than what it used to mean?

Or what if they declared that phlogiston was an indirect cause of combustion, but that it acts in ways which are undetectable? Turns out, the old ideas about phlogiston were just primitive and naive. The more sophisticated understanding simply tosses out those qualities of phlogiston which are contradicted by fact.

Or what if they declared that we cannot reasonably assert that phlogiston doesn't exist because someone might, one day, invent some new and as yet unthought-of definition for the term which conforms perfectly with observation?

Or what if they claimed the freedom to define the term any way they saw fit, and pointed to that as a refutation of the refutation, without presenting any particular definition as one which actually describes a phlogiston that could be real?

What if they established an intellectual tradition with their own way of knowing, and in this tradition, their belief in the existence of phlogiston, their own internal mental experience of it, and the fact that they write and talk about it are sufficient evidence to salvage the notion from the scrap heap?

What if they proposed that phlogiston may be a higher-dimensional substance which interacts with things in our universe in ways which appear, to us, to be identical with oxygen-fueled combustion?

Would anyone take this kind of talk seriously?

Of course not.

And by the same token, its absurd to demand that anyone take seriously the same types of claims about God.

When the magical world-view collapsed, so did God.

 

[Lonewulf]

I'll just add this:

That's the second time you've made assumptions about my belief system.

If you, <the believer>.

I did not mean to imply your personal belief system.

As for Deism, Deism is designed specifically to be so slippery that it cannot be "disproven", whether by philosophical or logical argument. The only argument that works against it is Argument by Irredicable Complexity, i.e., Occam's Razor.

There is nothing that Deism would describe or predict that cannot be adequately subscribed or predicted by current knowledge/events.

 

[BillyJoe]

...Would anyone take this kind of talk seriously?

Of course not.

And by the same token, its absurd to demand that anyone take seriously the same types of claims about God.

Should not be taken seriously, but is taken seriously.
- but not disproven.
Perhaps, like Atheist, I was looking for a knock-out blow.

But I get your point about the nodding heads.
Perhaps I'll start shrugging my shoulders.

 

[chriswl]

Probably the definition of "supernatural".
If you are going to say "now and forever", how can you ever conclude that anything is supernatural?

You'd have to take it on faith, which is what religious people do.

God is not necessarily supernatural by that definition. God could turn out to have a naturalistic explanation - he could be an advance alien for instance.

"Being who created the universe" is a poor definition of God. To almost every believer God is much more than that.

Unless you are saying that the idea of the supernatural is just a mistaken idea. That nothing is "really" supernatural, there is just ever advancing levels of technological development. We encounter technology that is so far advanced from ours that we cannot imagine any natural explanations and we wrongly call such things supernatural. But actually they have natural explanations that we just don't yet understand.

But isn't that what you are saying?

No actually. I don't think God can be disproven quite that easily. I was guessing it was your position, and if so then you have already disproven God to your own satisfaction.

As far as I know I just raised it as a possiblity - that god could just have a naturalistic explanation. The creator of the universe could turn out to be an advanced alien. So, if the definition of god is the being who created the universe, then to disprove god you will need to disprove the possibility of an advanced alien capable of creating the universe.

But "creator of the universe" isn't anyone's definition of God, they all include more than that. Even deists don't believe that their deist creator could be an alien - that would be silly as the alien would then need a creator. The deist god creates himself out of nothing - aliens can't do that.

Well, it seems to me that you have defined god as being supernatural and you have defined supernatural in such a way that nothing can ever be proven to be supernatural.

Its not me who has defined God as supernatural, its the believers in God that do this. And its not me who insists that supernatural things do not have natural explanations, that's what the word means.

By this means you have shown that a supernatural god cannot be proven. But, you still have not shown that a supernatural god can be disproven (let alone, simply, god = creator of the universe).

I'm well aware of that. I've not so far attempted to show that God can be disproven. I've just concentrated on refuting your argument that God cannot be disproven because he might be an advanced alien. I'd just like to get that objection out of the way so we can move past it.