Proof of God's non-existance

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Jordan's picture
This is always my Solution to

This is always my Solution to the question 'well if god didn't created the world, who did?': my answer: 'I don't know' that is a perfectly viable answer.

But what I DO know is thatch was not
God. Why? Because religious people cannot accept that the world cannot have simply been created, someone had to have made it.

So my answer: "If god created the world, who created god? There are only two answers: either god simply 'came to be' (thus contradicting them that things cannot 'simply come to be') OR there was a god who created god who created god who...

Alan D. Griffin's picture
Before the Big Bang there

Before the Big Bang there was no time or space so you cannot ask what happened before the big bang because since time did not exist there can be no before.

Travis Hedglin's picture
Actually we only know that

Actually we only know that OUR observable time and space originated with the big bang, it does NOT mean that there couldn't be pockets of space-time outside of ours, we just don't know.

Mike De Fleuriot's picture
Rather Time was not

Rather Time was not progressing as we know it to be doing now. It was not moving consecutively, it was just progressing in the same instant, which allows for an eternally ancient universe.

dpasek's picture
"Time was not progressing as

"Time was not progressing as we know it to be doing now."
If the "before" condition was that all matter and energy was crushed into a singularity by essentially infinitely intense gravity so that it occupied zero volume, violating the Pauli exclusion principle for all known conventional states of matter, there would have been no relative motion by which to measure time. We cannot know anything about the nature of such a singularity or what it was "before", we can only make inferences by hypothetical extrapolations of our observations of the known universe.

D_Trimijopulos's picture
"However whenever I try to

"However whenever I try to convince people about the non-existence of God, I can not find any substantial proof."

There is proof but you have to employ scientific methodology and hard work.
An example will demonstrate my point.
Suppose you are asked to provide proof that the cosmic teapot of Russel’s does not exist.
What will you do? You will read Russel’s books, you will find out that that the teapot is only the objective reality of a joke and your research would be over.

The God idea is also a joke: the gods became heavenly beings because it was said that they climbed a ladder each and went to live in the sky. Relevant evidence at:

https://www.academia.edu/6955695/The_making_of_heavenly_gods

Unfortunately one has to prove that the gods described by the ancients were real people otherwise we are not dealing with a joke but with some primitive theological idea.
In other words, the methodology to follow is the same as with the teapot but when it comes to the gods one has to spent many years studying and finally to fight against the academy which refuses to disclose vital information.
The Egyptologists have been intentionally mistranslating ancient texts for years and one has to be able to do his own translation in order to know what is written in the ancient texts.

The non-existence of the God can be proven, but not so easy in this religion dominated planet.

Mike De Fleuriot's picture
Is it not amazing, that no

Is it not amazing, that no one since Bertram Russell mentioned the china teapot, has figured out that there are in fact a couple billion teapots actually orbiting the sun.
-- Carolyn Porco.

Rodrigo Pimentel's picture
The whole cause-and-effect

The whole cause-and-effect debate is a fallacy, it refers more to our categories of thought than to the nature of the universe itself. Natural processes happen or not, spontaneously when underlying certain conditions are met, things transform themselves into others, but the assumption that for everything you can name a 'cause' is childish and simplistic. A 'cause' is our attempt of understanding things, not the things themselves.

Also, 'beginning' is a mere supposition. Physics have exhaustively collected evidence to demonstrate that time is only our perception of a very more complicated dimension of space. Time is not linear, it deforms according to relative position of the observer, it flows slower according to speed and proximity to gravitational fields. Time flow literally stops on the edge of black holes, a singularity of sorts of the Big Bang doesn't have a 'before' or even an 'outside'. That infinitesimal fraction of second may have never had one mark zero, the concentration of everything known in a point smaller than one atom, time may be so absurdly deformed there that eternity fits in the blink of one eye.

The universe is not a chain of causalities. This is a medieval mental image and it doesn't lead to an improved comprehension of nature. It illudes us like a riddle. Shoot an arrow aimed at Achiles, who is running at a distance of one hundred yards. When it reaches the point where he is now he will have already moved a few more yards, so when the arrow moves to this point again Achiles will have moved. Thinking like this you'd assume the arrow would never reach his heel. The primordial cause is just like this. A wrong approach to a problem.

Bonnie Kay's picture
If a god did exist, we would

If a god did exist, we would come to understand and maybe forgive his revealing of himself to ancient people based on their understanding at the time. We would also expect to see more and more of God as our understanding of the universe grew ; feeding thousands of starving children, healing children's leukemia. But as our understanding of the universe grows, God becomes more and more hidden. It is this exact hiddenness that is proof that all gods are nothing more than an attempt of ancient, very ignorant people to explain a universe they knew nothing about. It becomes obvious that as that small gap of ignorance reduces, the chance to fill it with fanciful fairy tales reduces as well.

Kevin Rohm's picture
Remember, without "time"

Remember, without "time" there can be no "cause". A "cause" is a temporal event in time that precedes and produces an effect that follows the cause in time. There was no time until the big bang inflation, so without time, the big bang could not have had a cause preceding it in time. There wasn't such a thing as a "before" the Big Bang. So, it was the big bang, and not a god, that was that very first uncaused cause, and all that has followed since is a direct result of that first cause, the big bang. That right there is evidence enough that there is no god.

gcibulka's picture
The existence of a god isn't

The existence of a god isn't falsifiable, so you're not going to find conclusive proof for either side of the issue. There is no proof of the non-existence of a god. However, the burden of proof is on those making the claim, in this case the theist. This is why I don't claim a god doesn't exist, I reject the claim one does. I can therefore make the pragmatic assertion that a god doesn't exist, and I live my life accordingly. I essentially make use of Hitchens' Razor: that which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.
As far as how the universe began, we don't know. It would seem to need a cause, but we don't know for sure. Cause and effect relationships operate differently on a quantum level than in our everyday lives, so it wouldn't be a stretch to say they would also operate differently before the existence of the universe. Especially if there wasn't time before the universe, as crazy as it sounds, the cause could happen as a result of the effect. When dealing with this sort of thing, your intuition will betray you; humans didn't evolve to understand the secrets of the universe. In any case, we simply don't know enough. That isn't proof a god had to do it, it's only proof that we don't know.

Ric Yancey's picture
Obviously you can't prove a

Obviously you can't prove a negative, as most have pointed out, but in attempting to prove or disprove god, it's important to define what god is. I've never heard a good definition of god. I've heard that god is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevelent. These seem like a good starting place, because if god is not all knowing, all powerful, and all loving then is he worth worshiping? Is he god?

The problem is, it's logically impossible for those traits to exist together. To be all knowing it's to be completely impotent. A slave to the way things must occur for your knowledge to be correct. Nothing can change. Not being able to change anything is the opposite of being all powerful. Omniscience means god is little more than a cog in a machine. A force that plays its part to produce the outcomes that it knows will happen. This also means an all knowing god cannot be all loving. A god that knows everything would have to be indifferent. It would know what would happen and not change it. It would look on the suffering of the innocent as necessary for "the plan." I guess you could make some argument about a higher form of love in not intervening in human affairs, but functionally it's no different than if god weren't there.

What good is being omnipotent if you don't know what will happen when you use your power. How dangerous is an all powerful creature that has emotions and limited knowledge? Is that entity worth praise?

I can't prove god doesn't exist, but that's like saying I can't prove squircles don't exist. First you have to tell me, what is a squircle? And you can't because it doesn't make any sense.

Sky Pilot's picture
The problem is that when

The problem is that when dealing with a God creature such as you describe you could be making a serious mistake by thinking that all of the people you interact with are real and have "souls". Most, if not all, could simply be illusions or androids whose purpose is to set how you react when faced with certain issues.

Consider the story of Lot. His first family and servants were killed simply to see how he would react. Were they real people with real "souls" worthy of their own lives and destinies? Or were they simply illusions to see if Lot would stay loyal to his favorite deity? Why should Lot have been more valuable than all of them?

As a political matter it's important for people to believe in the biblical God because if they don't then they will stop believing that Jews are special and destroy them. That's the sole point of the biblical fairy tale and it has worked for centuries. Muslims and Christians buy into it because it serves their own purposes. That's why there's so much pressure to convince everyone that the fairy tale is true.

ProgrammingGodJordan's picture
('A')

('A')
As an atheist, I can express that atheism has become akin to theism. (well, atheists tend to be more open to data [http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1088868313497266], but let me explain)

('B')
Atheists may ridicule theistic god view, but there is a plot twist.

Creation [though probably not the typical theistic creation story] may not be impossible, and may rather be likely.

I can be an atheist and express this, because the "impossibility" of creation (that is, the contrast of such impossibility, where there exists the probability that creators (i.e. ourselves) are probable) is viewable with science, and fortunately, we don't need to believe in science, as science is true regardless.

('C')
(1) Modern science may prove that the universe is information bound/some form of computation. (Digital Physics, Adinkra Physics...)

(2) We have already began to create our own sophisticated (although still crude) information driven simulations of our own cosmos. (See illustris)

(3) As time passes, technology improves. Simulations may approach contexts that include conscious beings.

(4) There is no reason to ignore the progression/trajectory above; no law of physics that forbids the simulation of detailed universes.

('D')
Now, (4) is not to be confused with argument from ignorance. In contrast, we see viable scientific indications that the cosmos is perhaps computable, adinkra physics etc.

Many skeptics have become blind to data, in ironically theistic like manners....

xenoview's picture
Necromancy at work!

Necromancy at work!

Converse02's picture
"What or who caused the Big

"What or who caused the Big-Bang??" We don't know as science has not revealed it. Was it quantum fluctuation? Fracturing of hyperspace? Some scientists (string theory) now think we live in a multiverse . Notice the possibilities scientists are considering builds on what we know about science (a "crane" explanation), the answer isn't going to be an invisible being (a "skyhook" explanation that isn't built on anything) who cares about you sex life, listens to your prayers, and tries to communicate to you with a book .

When you say the Big Bang was cause by God, you are answering a mystery with a mystery, answering nothing. This is the God of the Gaps argument, "Goddidit." This argument is also flawed because then you have a ask, "Who created God?" A meta-God. "Who created the meta-God?" the meta-meta-God, going on and on. If they say God always existed and not created, you can just save yourself a step and say the cosmos (which includes more than our universe and the big bang, but everything "outside" of it too) always existed and was not created.

If you want proof of the non-existence of God, visit a children's cancer hospital. God is either powerless to help, doesn't know, or an asshole (take your pick). This is the problem of evil, which I found convincing.

Originating with Greek philosopher Epicurus:

If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not.
There is evil in the world.
Therefore, an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God does not exist.

RedleT's picture
"If an omnipotent, omniscient

"If an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent god exists, then evil does not."

I find that premise problematic. Why can't a God allow evil for a greater good? This also assumes an all powerful and good God would be required to stop all evil, but this God would also be free and would not need any more goodness outside of himself to be perfect.

Thumbs up for being the only poster to try to answer the OP :)

Steven Cook's picture
Read this yesterday... I

Read this yesterday... I think it covers what you are looking for...
http://www.atheistrepublic.com/forums/debate-room/causal-dilemma-refutat...

xenoview's picture
Necromancy at work!

Necromancy at work!

RogueChimp's picture
So because you think you

So because you think you cannot explain why you love your wife, you conclude that your love is therefore proof of god? There's a lot that can't be explained with today's knowledge. Taking such ignorance as proof of a god is illogical in every way.

MCDennis's picture
What caused the big bang? I

What caused the big bang? I have no idea. I am not a cosmologist. Why don't you go ask one. But since we are on the topic of causes.... What caused gods to exist?

cvt3393's picture
I am writing from the

I am writing from the perspective of an evangelical Christian. The Bible teaches that there is only one God who is an absolute being with no beginning and no end. Therefore, my response would be that by definition, God was uncreated.

Since we are talking about causes, God would be considered the "unmoved mover" in Aristotelian terms and He was responsible for the first cause initiating movement within the universe. In the biblical worldview, however, God is not "unmoved" or distant, but intensely personal and involved in the universe. While you may not agree with this belief, the Bible teaches that God created the world that we live in. Whether it was through a "big bang" is a different question.

What is your belief of how the world came into being?

mykcob4's picture
@ Faith seeking truth

@ Faith seeking truth
1) You can't find "truth" through faith.
2) You have to prove your god exists.
3) You have to prove that there needed to be and was an "unmoved mover".
4) Then you'd have to prove that your god was the so-called "unmoved mover".

We all know what the bible teaches, and BTW the bible doesn't teach anything. People use the bible to profess whatever they fucking want. The bible is a book originally published in 325 ADE for the purpose of consolidating power to Emporer Constantine. Since it has been extremely modified to fit the narrative of people wielding power. It has nothing to do with reality.

cvt3393's picture
I appreciate your comments.

I appreciate your comments. Please see my questions and comments below.

1) You can't find "truth" through faith.
Why do you believe this is the case? Please provide your rationale.
2) You have to prove your god exists.
What would be examples of proof that would establish the existence of God? What would be examples of proof that would prove the non-existence of God?
3) You have to prove that there needed to be and was an "unmoved mover".
4) Then you'd have to prove that your god was the so-called "unmoved mover".
My previous response to MCD was intended to briefly address: 1) the question about what caused gods to exist; and 2) how the universe came into being. For clarity, I will rephrase my belief. I believe a first cause was necessary for the creation of the universe and that God was behind that first cause. Are you saying I need to first prove that a first cause was necessary and then prove that God was behind that first cause? If God was not responsible for creation, please share your own beliefs on the topic.

While you may not agree with its teachings, to say that the Bible doesn't teach anything seems to be an overstatement. Therefore, I am curious what you mean when you say that the Bible doesn’t teach anything. Can you please elaborate?

Also, I would encourage you to look deeper into your claim regarding the Bible’s publishing date and Constantine's power play. In church history, 325 AD is remembered as the year when Constantine convened the First Council at Nicaea. However, that ecumenical council is known for its dealing with the Arian controversy and the development of the Nicene Creed, not the publishing of the Bible.

mykcob4's picture
@faith seeking truth

@faith seeking truth
1) Faith is an excuse for not having evidence, therefore you can't find truth through faith. You must have evidence to find truth.
2) You have to prove your god exists to make ANY claim about christianity to be true.
3) You believe that there has to be a first mover. You can't just simply say that you have to prove it. I don't see any evidence that dictates that the HAS to be an "unmoved-mover."
4) You say that you believe that your god was the unmoved-mover. You'll have to prove that, just saying it isn't reasonable or believable.

Finally, I don't profess to know how the universe came to be, but I am not going to accept a god theory that has no basis in fact and no evidence to support it.
Saying that the bible doesn't teach anything is accurate because the bible has been used to subgegate people not teach them. there is nothing in the bible that is remotely factual. It is a book of hearsay testimony written centuries after the so-called events it describes. There is corroboration. Take a look at it. It is obvious that only is written with 2nd-century knowledge by persons that only knew the Roman Empire known world of the time. Why doesn't the bible know about the Americas? It doesn't because it is a book written by men they could only describe what they knew. But that isn't exactly what they did, did they? They wrote a narrative for the political reason to consolidate power for the Emporer and they set those events in only what they knew. There are a great deal of problems with the bible, but even more with christians in general. I don't have the time nor energy to describe them all.
Basically you can't find TRUTH through FAITH PERIOD!

AJ777's picture
Mycob4, maybe you don’t

Mycob4, maybe you don’t understand what biblical faith is. Faith is trust based on evidence. Christianity is testable if you cared to have an open mind and move beyond your anger. If Jesus did not rise from the dead Christians should be pitied. As I said before you would benefit from researching the council of Nicea, and the dating of the new and old testaments so you have correct information.

mykcob4's picture
@AJ777 "Faith is trust based

@AJ777 "Faith is trust based on evidence."

BULLSHIT! faith isn't based on evidence, it's based on a myth.

"Christianity is testable" You don't think that I have tested christianity. You are sadly mistaken. I have exhaustively tested christianity before I ever considered rejecting it. My mind is open. It opened as soon as I realized that christianity is a myth.
I have researched the Counsel of Nicea. In the last month or so I have all sorts of sources some christian based.
You can't produce anything verifiable that an intact new testament existed before 325AD. Just a bunch of scattered letters, fables, myths, written by who knows who but attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

AJ777's picture
So are you then admitting

So are you then admitting that the gospels existed prior to 325 A.D.? The Bible is made up entirely of letters written by different authors. What do you mean by verifiable?

Here is a quote from a trained historian on the existence of Jesus. The linked article contains references to books and quotes by atheist and theist historians none of which deny Jesus existed.

“Mark Allan Powell, a professor of NT and chairman for Historical Jesus at the Society of Biblical Literature puts it harsh stating: “Anyone who says that today [i.e. that Jesus didn’t exist]–in the academic world at least–gets grouped with the skinheads who say there was no Holocaust and the scientific holdouts who want to believe the world is flat.” -Mark A Powell, Jesus As a Figure in History: How Modern Historians View the Man from Galilee. 168.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/chab123.wordpress.com/2012/03/28/quotes-on-...

mykcob4's picture
@AJ777

@AJ777
Thinkapologist? REALLY? You think that that MIGHT be a little questionable as a source? Do you even know what an apologist is? It is a LIAR!
Why do I give a fuck what Mark Allen Powell "THINKS"? I don't, I assure you. He has an agenda, he isn't interested in facts OR history. He is a religious nut that works for a nutty religious school that shouldn't even have accreditation.

BTW he doesn't prove that a jesus lived, he only insults people that don't believe him!

dpasek's picture
AJ777, No, you are mistaken.

AJ777, No, you are mistaken. Your assertion that "Faith is trust based on evidence" is not accurate at all. The biblical definition of faith is given in Hebrews 11:1. One explanation for this passage given by some theologians can be found here:
https://www.gotquestions.org/definition-of-faith.html
and they conclude that: Simply put, the biblical definition of faith is “trusting in something you cannot explicitly prove.”
This is just another version of Bertrand Russell's definition that faith is belief without evidence.

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