existence-of-god, aliens, agnosticismI am an agnostic because I have no enough information whether or not God or Alien really exist.
For me, I just need to do humanistic activities and if god really exist, she/he must be a wise object. She/he will not judge me based on whether or not I believe him/her.
I think both atheists or god believers have no proof. :-)
There is no “proven fact” that definitively demonstrates God’s non-existence.
Rather, the question of God’s existence has been reduced to a matter of parsimony. No well-documented observation requires God’s existence, so God is, at best, not needed to explain anything we’ve seen in this Universe. Therefore, atheists argue that the lack of any sufficient reason to believe in God is reason enough to disbelieve in God.
I think both atheists or god believers have no proof. :-)
But this is not how proof works. Atheists don’t need to provide any proof.
Do you have any proof that there isn’t a leprechaun with a pot of gold sitting at the end of the rainbow? Why are you still sitting there! Search for the next rainbow, there may be a pot of gold waiting for you.
This logical fallacy is known as “Russel’s teapot” (can you prove that there isn’t a small teapot in orbit around Mars?) and I’ve got an extremely cool t-shirt with it.
If that isn’t enough to convince you, then consider this as evidence:
So, there have been numerous attempts to support the existence of a god, and all have failed. The accumulation of so much failed evidence is very powerful evidence to the contrary. (In fact, this is exactly how clinical studies work.)
Why is it my job or anyone’s to prove an utter absurdity to be false?
“Prove to me that the world isn’t secretly resting on top of giant cupcakes!”
“Well, here are pictures of the earth from space.”
“Fakes and lies. Now prove what I said! See, you can’t.”
Yeah well, that still doesn’t make the cupcake theory real. The person asserting the crazy, ludicrous and insipid nonsense that there’s a giant invisible father figure in the sky meting out punishment and granting wishes and killing babies - THAT person needs to provide some evidence.
Once the stars were holes in the curtain of night through which the light of heaven shone. Then when stars and planets could be understood to be something else entirely, heaven retreated to some place else, out beyond the planets, but at least the earth was still flat. When the earth became round, they took solace in knowing that at least it was the center of the universe. Then shockingly, that too was disproven. So now, having shredded lie after lie, myth after myth, the rational thinker is left standing in a hugely powerful place.
“My universe doesn’t need your lies, fabrications, dogma, hatred, torture, and ignorance to run. YOU need to provide evidence that that crap is true, not the other way around.”
The position that omniscience is required to prove a negative assumes that the concept discussed is logically coherent. If the concept is logically incoherent like, for example, a square circle, one is logically justified in not believing in its existence.
Most people who label themselves as atheists are agnostic atheists in regards to the existence of a god itself. That is, they don't believe in any god but won't go as far as saying that there is no god. However, when it comes to the existence of a particular god, then they will claim that such a god does not exist if that concept of god is logically incoherent.
For example, the problem of evil could justify one's disbelief in the Christian god:
In a court of law, the burden of proof lies with the person making the positive, not the negative, statement.
If I say, “You killed John” and you say, “No I didn’t,” the burden of proof of the positive is on me and not you. If I can’t demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that you did it, then the courts will agree with you.
Now take away the accusation of murder and replace it with evidence of the supernatural. There is none, even in places where it has been claimed. As long as god resides within the supernatural, the burden of proof lies with the person claiming supernatural, not with the lack of it…
Come to think of a favorite quote:
About religion: What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof. ~ Christopher Hitchens
I think it says it all…
Aside from the issue of proof, there is the misconception of what “atheist” means, and what atheists believe and claim to know.
A simple quiz:
Do you believe a god exists?
If you answered “1” then you’re a THEIST.
If you answered anything else you’re an ATHEIST.
AGNOSTICISM is NOT some midpoint between these, you are either one or the other (at any point in time). You can determine the separate question of GNOSTIC vs AGNOSTIC the same way but replacing “believe” with “know”.
Everyone is either a theist or atheist, AND ALSO either a gnostic or agnostic, in any of 4 combinations.
Unfortunately some people mistakenly take the atheist position to be that of GNOSTIC ATHEISM - the claim that one knows there is no god. But the rational, skeptical atheists are generally agnostic atheists.
How do you define “God”? That’s the crux of the question. If by “God” you mean the god of the Deists, who “created” (in some undetectable way) the world but then left it alone, so that no trace could ever be found of “him”, then there’s no way to prove “he” doesn’t exist, but then again there is no need for “him” to explain anything either.
If you define “God” in the way the theists do, as a being who acts in the world, then you must answer why there is no trace of any action by any non-natural entity. Why is it that the world appears exactly as it must if there were no gods? Why is it that no “miracle” has ever been reliably documented? That god is an unnecessary hypothesis, one that, just as that of the Deists, adds no explanatory power to that we can devise through reason alone. Is “God did it” really an explanation of anything? “God did it” is almost always synonymous with “I don’t know how it happened, but I don’t have the courage to say that, so I’ll lie and attribute the event to some deity”.
Absence of evidence is usually not evidence of absence; but where evidence should be found, and is yet absent, absence of evidence is indeed evidence of absence. And that is precisely what is the case with the “God” question.
I think you will find the answer you're looking for if you properly reposition the burden of proof.
Scientists are often put into the position where they feel compelled to "disprove" some commonly held belief, even though there may not be any evidence to support the belief in the first place. A few examples:
What each of these phenomena have in common is that they captured the imagination of the public, and were believed by many, many people, despite being completely made up. Even though they have all been debunked, the truth is that these ideas never really should have been given any credibility at all, because there was very little (no?) evidence to support them in the first place. True skeptics who questioned these ideas could very quickly find that there was no real evidence to back them up, but that doesn't mean the theories were "disproven". They were just exposed as fraudulent or imagined.
It is only because it has become common-place for people to believe in deities that we feel compelled to "disprove" their existence. If we zero in on the heart of the discussion, it is clear that there is no real scientific or mathematical evidence to support deist beliefs. It is unnecessary to "disprove" them, as they have never been even partially proven in the first place. They are just as unlikely to be true as any other theories that are pulled out of thin air with no evidence to support them, regardless of how many people believe them to be true.
Let’s be blunt: proof is irrelevant. Why?
Because proof is not possible outside a very confined set of axioms and/or postulates, i.e. outside mathematics or logic. You can’t prove or disprove the existence of god? Well neither can you prove or disprove the existence of invisible dragons in garages. Yet, you are not agnostic about garage dragons.
What then is relevant? Empirical evidence, scientific analysis. We don’t believe in garage dragons because there is no empirical evidence supporting the existence of garage dragons. Neither is there empirical evidence supporting the existence of god.
There is no proof for the existence of Flying Spaghetti Monster either.
Think about it.
A view I took on recently was to discount the need for proof, as mentioned above. But to do this you can look at why / what religion is - an artificial construct created by ancient rulers (and modern sci fi authors) to enable simple population control and governance. By starting at this point, anything about “evidence”… Noah’s ark found up a mountain, the Turin shroud… they become null and void and you move to the outside of the religion, and discount it instantly as a tool. No need to go anywhere near disproving anything.
I think that your question is incorrectly stated:
Atheists don’t believe in gods (plural). Theists believe in a particular god (singular), and do not believe in the other gods (plural). So, what is a particular reason why theists believe in one god, but not the others? Ask a Muslim for a good reason not to believe in the Christian god and a Christian for a good reason not to believe in the Muslim god :-)
Atheists, strictly speaking, do not believe that gods exist - compare this with the statement “Atheists believe that gods do not exist”. A lack of belief does not need any proof.
truth is that which can be proved.
faith is that which cannot be proved.
therefore, anything that requires faith is the opposite to truth.
therefore the existence of god is false
Which god?
Some gods can be show to exist - the god of pantheists is the universe, which exists (unless you’re a solipsist).
It can be demonstrated that some gods do not exist - a god that that has the characteristics of omnipotence and benevolence does not exist because such a god would not allow excessive suffering, and yet excessive suffering occurs.
With some gods, you can’t know - there isn’t enough evidence to test for the god (it is unfalsifiable). There is no rational reason to believe in something that is unfalsifiable.
Once you narrow your godly scope, then you can start trying to determine if it exists or not.
Please. Prove that I am not holding an apple.
There is no proof either way. The Bible agrees with this:
… he that cometh to God must believe (Hebrews 11:6)
The Bible makes no effort to prove itself, it simply states:
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. (Psalm 14:1)
Then it becomes a question of which option makes the most sense. Did all we see come from nothing? Or did God do it as He said?
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