Maybe we CAN disprove God...

[NobbyNobbs]

BEFORE you can even begin to insist that others accept that God may be real, you must establish what this claimed God is. Period.

I totally agree, and this is the problem theists have when debating...they can't agree what to debate on, but insist on debating it anyway.

It's as if I claimed to have seen a flurgit. You might ask me what a flurgit is. I'd say, "Doesn't matter, it's indescribable. The point is, I saw one." You might ask me what it looked like, or what actions it took. I'd say, "Can't describe it, we just don't have concepts for it. But I saw it."

How far can anyone get debating like that?

 

[lupus_in_fabula]

Piggy, defining God as “everything” is not uncommon, I hear it all the time. You say it’s the definition of the Universe, I say it’s the definition of the Universe, and some say it’s the definition of God. You can dislike it all you want, that definition is not going away anytime soon. And yes, it could also imply the existence of Santa Claus… who knows, he seems to be around during Christmas. It doesn’t make a difference, if we don’t have anything concrete to investigate, we are stuck, and ideas will fly high.

It’s my understanding that we are always at point zero when discussing this phenomenon. Whether someone claims that God exists or claims that God doesn’t exist is an exercise in futility if no common definition is under scrutiny. And to my knowledge no such common definition has ever surfaced. Yet people talk about God (or some other name) as something they experience, something other than what we currently know via scientific inquiry, the universe, consciousness etc. God has come to be a unitary term for some reason – we never know what people mean by God (even though the wording might be the same). Failing to provide an unacceptable definition is just reality for this particular issue. Yet the whole phenomenon involved in this process does not go away with the absence of a definition. That’s why I personally think arguments for or against is pointless (except for entertaining discussion on an internet forum).

If the point of this tread is about it being possible to disprove God once and for all, but we still don’t have definitions about the thing called God, then how an earth are we supposed to do that? Here, in this thread, the onus is on the one who intends to disprove something that no one seems to know what is.

Btw. It wasn’t Harvard it was Andrew Newberg (Univ. of Pennsylvania). And it was not about manipulating brains as such, although scans were made. It seemed to indicate that a blockage in the area where the experience of self seems to emanate from somehow induced an experience of unity with the universe; the term they used was an ‘absolute unitary being’.

 

[Darth Rotor]

What you described is not an act of creation, so it's changing the property we just assigned to God. As I said originally, if you change definitions of key terms at will, you have nonsense...not actual discussion.

And even so, that question still has to settle where the "stuff" that God used to make the universe came from.

You are wrong, but only in a semantic sense, which is the game you seem to be playing.

I create a cake by taking other matter, changing its form, and voila, we have cake where there was none before.

If the issue at hand is God creating The Universe ex nihilo, in the sense that there was in the very strictest sense Nothing At All and No Place For Anything to Exist (The Void) then we are dealing with the nature of Everything, to include that which is bounded by spacetime and that which is not.

You get nowhere with that, since you have not yet established what God is, or isn't, as an initial condition. Without that, you fail to be able to determine what God is capable of not doing, or where he got all that Stuff that did, or didn't, change form into the Universe.

DR

 

[EGarrett]

ie. 'we have no reason to believe that god isn't bound the universe's rules.'

Not exactly, there's a slight alteration there between what you're saying and what I replied to. The original statement was "if god created the universe, he is not part of the universe and hence not bound by its rules." It wasn't a statement about a lack of reasons to believe.

of course we do, your starting assumption is that god created the universe, including its laws, and my analogy points out why he is not bound by his creation.

The problem is that he created a universe that gives no indication at all of its creation being possible. The nature of the creation frames out the notion of it being created.

I definitely understand what you're saying though. We're disagreeing over whether we can make the leap outside of reason and rationality.

by 'know' in bold i mean how do you know with absolute surety. certain forms of brain activity may well be an indicator of consciousness but you can by no means prove that you need to have an organic brain comprised of neurons in order to be conscious.

We can only go by everything we've observed. And we've observed several ways that things can be alive and conscious, but none of those are remotely present in the overall universe as we've seen it.

The response is "perhaps God is a different kind of consciousness that has no structure", which wouldn't be consciousness that we understand, brings us into changing the definition of God for convenience.

is there a word for simultaneously nonrandom and nonpredictable, or can you at least describe this characteristic in a positive sense?

I suppose the word is "willed" or "consciously controlled." But it's hard to define those outside of saying that they do things that are not random and not a predictable, unintelligent pattern.

my dog can't pass a turing test, but i'm willing to bet he's conscious.

Dogs certainly can't speak English, but we can't create a computer program that can convincingly simulate a dog either. Nonetheless, I know what you're saying, and we have to take every aspect of information into account. The Turing Test is one of the measures we can use, and all of the measures together indicate that there is no consciousness in the universe.

consciousness is self awareness. it is necessarily a private experience. it does not necessarily have to provide physical responses to your experiments, it very well may not be able to but still maintain a private sense and you would never know.

All our observations of consciousness indicate that it does have physical aspects (brain activity etc.)

sorry no, i meant in the quoted paragraph - "Therefore, according to what we've observed, there is no possible known way that this can occur This would make God impossible." the 1st assertion is the 1st sentence, and the deduction i spoke of is the 2nd sentence.

Fair enough.

i never called this arbitrary object god and i made sure to include "or the entire universe" so i haven't shifted your definition.

Well, that brings us back to the point that the structure of the universe has no possible method of consciousness, given everything we've observed about it and consciousness.

you however haven't retorted or conceded to my point that your argument from ignorance is invalid.

If I take the form of "we don't know how it can happen, therefore it can't," then I am arguing from ignorance and I concede that point. If at some point I do slip up and say that, then I also apologize in advance. But saying "it is impossible, given the laws of nature that we've observed," is different, and I believe it is a valid form of disproof.

where's the contradiction? it is perfectly consistent that god sparked off the big bang and let the universe run from there as we observe it, just as in the simulating cosmologist's case.

That only works if we've observed that matter was created at the point of the Big Bang. That would violate thermodynamics and open the door to such a thing. But to our knowledge, the matter that "exploded" at that point was already present, just in an infinitely small space, and the creation of it remains impossible according to everything we've observed.

no, you can say your observations dictate it is unlikely. impossible is a strong word. (i'm only being pedantic since you are claiming to disprove god, and proof is an equally strong word).

I understand. But I don't think I'm using "impossible" in an invalid form. I think I'm using it exactly the way it's always used. Doesn't "impossible" mean "it cannot happen within the context of everything we know about reality?"

For a quick example, if we say that it is impossible for 1 + 1 to equal 3, we're saying that 1 + 1 can't equal 3 given everything we know about the universe.

 

[EGarrett]

You are wrong, but only in a semantic sense, which is the game you seem to be playing.

I'm not a fan of semantics, but we have to be clear on definitions when we discuss God, because so much of "God" relies on switching key definitions at will.

I create a cake by taking other matter, changing its form, and voila, we have cake where there was none before.

But a cake is a specific configuration of matter, when we refer to the universe, we're talking about all the matter in whatever form. (scientists don't stop calling it the Universe when they talk about the Big Bang, or expansion and contraction)

If the issue at hand is God creating The Universe ex nihilo, in the sense that there was in the very strictest sense Nothing At All and No Place For Anything to Exist (The Void) then we are dealing with the nature of Everything, to include that which is bounded by spacetime and that which is not.

Let's be careful with "that which is not," because that can very quickly move us into impossibility also.

You get nowhere with that, since you have not yet established what God is, or isn't, as an initial condition. Without that, you fail to be able to determine what God is capable of not doing, or where he got all that Stuff that did, or didn't, change form into the Universe.

DR

What initial condition should we use? I think logic dictates that if we determine that the key aspect of God isn't possible, then it is disproven in that form without need for further discussion.

 

[Darth Rotor]

What initial condition should we use? I think logic dictates that if we determine that the key aspect of God isn't possible, then it is disproven in that form without need for further discussion.

Since you began with a conclusion, why are you even bothering with this?

DR

 

[Vintij]

Look you guys can go back and forth on this but neither of you will put up proof or even a new theory that can be tested.

The fact is, even if the bing bang singularity has always existed and never had a beginning, that does not meant that it could not have been created outside of spacetime.

Spirituality, is not a method that science follows and vice versa. A religious man believes in god because he has felt the effects of prayer, not because he has seen god.

So to say that science can disprove god is saying that science has evidence that nothing exists unless it is in the universe, which is technically true but can not be tested outside of the 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time (dimensions break down at the speed of light).We are not a photon of light that can experience the stopping of time, but what we do know is that whatever is outside, does not live by the laws of time, space, gravity, thermodynamics, or even conscieness.

If we can observe that time breaks down in a black hole, and in a singularity, then that means.....at the speed of light, there is no beginning and no end, therefore god COULD have created the singularity because the singularity did not actually infinitely exist, it just sort of bended the word infinite a little by existing outside of TIME, so therefore technically it could have been created outside of time while still holding the laws of thermodynamics (matter can not be created no destroyed WITHIN the boundary of TIME and space)

I know its hard to understand but just picture a circle, you dont know where it starts therefore it has always existed, but if you stop time.......it does not matter where it started because "where" and "when" do not exist and can not be observed.

It is very much possible to believe in god and science. Though it is impossible to believe in any religion or bible, and still understand that science has disproven every single religion.

 

[Beerina]

The universe was created 5 minutes ago you just think it's older because god is tricky like that.

Actually philosophers of old had severe problems with this -- it indicated God was not honest about reality, and that's a bad property to assign to a good god.

It showed up in more ancient times with the question of whether Adam and Eve had belly buttons. If they didn't, they weren't in the same form as modern man. If they did, then God had created structures indicative of past events that never actually occured.

The same can also be said of tree rings in trees in the Garden of Eden, or light from stars billions of light years away "already on its way", and showing events in the distant past that never actually happened.

 

[dglas]

Look you guys can go back and forth on this but neither of you will put up proof or even a new theory that can be tested.

The fact is, even if the bing bang singularity has always existed and never had a beginning, that does not meant that it could not have been created outside of spacetime.

Spirituality, is not a method that science follows and vice versa. A religious man believes in god because he has felt the effects of prayer, not because he has seen god.

So to say that science can disprove god is saying that science has evidence that nothing exists unless it is in the universe, which is technically true but can not be tested outside of the 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time (dimensions break down at the speed of light).We are not a photon of light that can experience the stopping of time, but what we do know is that whatever is outside, does not live by the laws of time, space, gravity, thermodynamics, or even conscieness.

If we can observe that time breaks down in a black hole, and in a singularity, then that means.....at the speed of light, there is no beginning and no end, therefore god COULD have created the singularity because the singularity did not actually infinitely exist, it just sort of bended the word infinite a little by existing outside of TIME, so therefore technically it could have been created outside of time while still holding the laws of thermodynamics (matter can not be created no destroyed WITHIN the boundary of TIME and space)

I know its hard to understand but just picture a circle, you dont know where it starts therefore it has always existed, but if you stop time.......it does not matter where it started because "where" and "when" do not exist and can not be observed.

It is very much possible to believe in god and science. Though it is impossible to believe in any religion or bible, and still understand that science has disproven every single religion.

You want hard to understand? Here goes.

We are a clever little species with a wierd thing called language. It's really cool because with it we can make up words at will and stipulate whatever stipulations we want for them. Very, very powerful - and very, very easy to abuse.

We can, for instance, make up an idea that can never be disproven or proven simply because it doesn't ever admit to proof or disproof. Proof and disproof simply do not apply. Try it; it's stupid easy!

Now, does that mean the idea is somehow rilly, rilly profound or does it just show how clever we are? It seems pretty clear it is the latter.

One can yap on endlessly about realms of existence, extra-dimensional "possibilities," and other vague, oft-times meta-physical, fluffy understandings that all really amount to "you can't prove it's not true, so nyah!" That's really on a par of teasing your Alphabits into a swear word and giggling like a pre-schooler.

One can also relentlessly drone on about undefined "spiritual" feelings and sensations, all of which exist only in the individual, private realms of those who want to think the idea is somehow profound and are desperate to convince others of it too. Those desperately clutching at steam and vapours of meaning and willing to stake their emotional selves in it.

When it comes down to it, "God" is just a word, cleverly designed to look profound. Nothing more.

 

[Piggy]

Piggy, defining God as “everything” is not uncommon, I hear it all the time. You say it’s the definition of the Universe, I say it’s the definition of the Universe, and some say it’s the definition of God. You can dislike it all you want, that definition is not going away anytime soon. And yes, it could also imply the existence of Santa Claus… who knows, he seems to be around during Christmas. It doesn’t make a difference, if we don’t have anything concrete to investigate, we are stuck, and ideas will fly high.

I hear nonsense all the time, too. I'm hearing it now.

And no, we're not stuck. At least I'm not.

I don't care if ideas fly high. Because we're not asking whether the idea of God exists, but whether God exists.

If God may be real under those conditions which also allow Santa Claus to be real, you're talking nonsense. And as I've said, no one is required to concede that nonsense may be true.

 

[Piggy]

It’s my understanding that we are always at point zero when discussing this phenomenon. Whether someone claims that God exists or claims that God doesn’t exist is an exercise in futility if no common definition is under scrutiny. And to my knowledge no such common definition has ever surfaced.

Well, that's the point, now, isn't it. A thing which has no definition is a non-thing. Non-things aren't real. So if God has no definition, God is not real.

Yet people talk about God (or some other name) as something they experience, something other than what we currently know via scientific inquiry, the universe, consciousness etc. God has come to be a unitary term for some reason – we never know what people mean by God (even though the wording might be the same). Failing to provide an unacceptable definition is just reality for this particular issue.

What issue? Experience of what?

Now you say that not only can the definition be anything you like, but the word can be anything you like as well. You've just removed the clothes from a melted snowman.

Yet the whole phenomenon involved in this process does not go away with the absence of a definition. That’s why I personally think arguments for or against is pointless (except for entertaining discussion on an internet forum).

What phenomenon? You have not yet described any phenomenon. You're still talking about precisely nothing.

 

[Piggy]

If the point of this tread is about it being possible to disprove God once and for all, but we still don’t have definitions about the thing called God, then how an earth are we supposed to do that? Here, in this thread, the onus is on the one who intends to disprove something that no one seems to know what is.

Sorry. Doesn't work that way. You can't claim the existence of a thing by not claiming it. And if you never make the claim, then there's nothing to disprove. Because there's nothing there.

Here's a scene:

Moe: Larry, I'm thinking of something, and you gotta admit, it might be real.
Larry: Ok, Moe, I'm with you. It might be real.
Moe: Then you're an idiot, because I was thinking about a boiled invisible pink icecube.

No claim can be founded on a game of what's-in-my-pocket.

If no claim is made, you cannot demand that anyone concede that the claim may be true.

 

[Piggy]

We're disagreeing over whether we can make the leap outside of reason and rationality.

Told ya this would come up.

The condition for God being possibly real is that the term "real" must cease to have meaning.

Ergo, God is not real.

 

[Piggy]

Spirituality, is not a method that science follows and vice versa. A religious man believes in god because he has felt the effects of prayer, not because he has seen god.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, the "other way of knowing" routine.

This is another one of the most common false arguments of the theists.

It goes like this: There is another way of knowing, which is not logical, rational, or scientific, but rather "spiritual", which we may use to know God.

The trouble with this "way of knowing" is that -- like the "no definition" ploy -- it is incapable of distinguishing what is real from what is not real. Using this other way, one is utterly free to come to any conclusion one wishes. It has no truth value.

Once again, God becomes possibly real only if we move into a realm where real and unreal cannot be distinguished.

God may be real only if "real" ceases to have meaning.

It's nonsense.

And no one is obliged to concede that nonsense may be true.

 

[Piggy]

It is very much possible to believe in god and science. Though it is impossible to believe in any religion or bible, and still understand that science has disproven every single religion.

Two points here.

First, most folks speaking as representatives of science -- people like Sagan and Dawkins, who preface many of their remarks with "as a scientist" -- indeed stop short of claiming outright disproof. But that is because they are limited by the restraints of their particular discipline.

However, as I'm prepared to show, the wider field of rational inquiry does indeed allow us to reach the conclusion that the assertion that "God is real" is nonsensical. It is not true.

Second, we do not need to disprove every religion in order to establish that the claim "God is real" is nonsense. As we've seen, the empty definition ploy allows theists to play the game forever if we indulge them.

However, we can cut that game short merely by observing that where no claim is made, it makes no sense to request that anyone accept the claim. Therefore, the effort of disproof is not even required, any more than it would be required to "disprove" that a right angle is louder than yesterday.

 

[Beleth]

The condition for God being possibly real is that the term "real" must cease to have meaning.

Ergo, God is not real.

Or, perhaps it simply has a meaning you disagree with.

I'd refer to my old Mare Muscoviense argument. MM is the largest dark spot on the far side of the moon, and thus we had no way of detecting it until the Space Age. According to your narrow definition of "real," MM did not exist before 1957 or so... which is nonsense.

Likewise, Io didn't exist until Galileo saw it. And likewise, nonsense.

All we know about a Universal Creator is that He hasn't been observed yet. In that sense, we have no reason to believe He exists. But to declare that He definitely doesn't exist is to cross the line into irrationality.

 

[Piggy]

I'd refer to my old Mare Muscoviense argument. MM is the largest dark spot on the far side of the moon, and thus we had no way of detecting it until the Space Age. According to your narrow definition of "real," MM did not exist before 1957 or so... which is nonsense.

It would indeed be nonsense. Which is why I never said anything of the sort.

There are all kinds of things that we have not yet sensed which must be real.

I can propose an imaginary object which others would reasonably have to admit might be real -- a piece of space junk, a bolt, with a number on it which begins with 7. Perhaps there's no such thing out there. But there might be.

It might just be real.

Now that we've dispensed with that.... What is this "God" you mentioned?

 

[Piggy]

All we know about a Universal Creator is that He hasn't been observed yet.

What do you mean "universal creator"?

If God were to equal "anything which might be cited as the cause of the creation of the universe, whatever that may turn out to be", then yes, you'd be safe.

But that would mean that God could be any number of things which no one intends by the term "God", like a quantum field fluctuation that can no longer be said to exist.

FIRST DEFINE GOD.

Until that is done, no claim for God's existence has been made, and there is nothing to refute.

 

[Piggy]

It is telling that the strategy of the theists is to declare that they are undefeatable, then attempt to demonstrate this by refusing to take the field.

So far, no one has been able to say even what God might be.

They tell us that people have thoughts about God.

They tell us that people talk about God.

They tell us that people have mental experiences and attribute them in some way to God.

But the issue is not whether ideas about God exist, or whether talk about God exists.

The issue is whether God exists.

When someone claims that God might exist outside of our universe, we are forced to ask "That what might exist outside of our universe?"

When someone says that language falls short of God, we are forced to ask "Falls short of what?"

Clearly, this "God" is a notion -- and nothing but a notion -- so vague and incoherent as to not even merit being called an idea in the first place.

God is an I don't know what in an I don't know where at I don't know when doing I couldn't guess which.

Such a concept cannot be disproven only in the sense that no non-concept can be disproven.

But clearly, any claim of reality for such a non-thing is pure bunk.

Therefore, the claim "God may be real" is shown to be nonsensical.

Therefore, the reality of God is disproven.

 

[The Grave]

which was 'what caused god'? (i haven't been able to see the debate yet)

xcept the burden of proof isn't 'ours'.

this is a law which we've ascribed to the universe, and has so far held true. besides, if god created the universe, he is not part of the universe and hence not bound by its rules.

what observations are you talking about?

how do you do that? and more importantly, how do you demonstrate the more complicated universe made up of all these particles has no thought?

your first assertion is as yet unfounded. secondly, your deduction that god is therefore impossible because of our lack of a complete understanding of how consciousness occurs is invalid and is the same tactic creationists use (we don't understand this phenomenon, therefore god did it).

EGARRET... you're definitely on to something here ...But here we see Lordcow playing the - Get out of jail card - viz...god is not bound by the rules...

This is a complete and utter nonsense-ical fallacy, in that if god (IT) is not bound by any rules, then by definition that would make IT exist in a state of total CHAOS!

AND further...if (no) BECAUSE god has to be bound by rules (even if IT made them up) then ipso-facto (don't know what that means but I like it!)...then...IT is not the all powerful, megalomaniac we take IT for.

So it's your choice...faithers...either god is bound by rules (even IT's own) or else IT exists in a CHAIOTIC meta-place....

I hope this helps kill god....

Griff....sending a shock to the (solar) system.