Disproving God

[adherent]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but, there are only 2 possibilities about a God:
1) There is a God
2) There isn't a God
Could anybody out there prove that there isn't a God. And, by the way, please don't answer this post with another question, like: "Well... can you prove to me there IS a God?"

[wgreen]

I would strongly disagree that any "universal intuition" places the burden on those who do not share the intuition. This seems like an absurd statement. I would expect any reasonable person to conclude that the burden of proof should rest with those having an intuition.

I don't understand. Why should we doubt the intuition unless we had some reason to? If I begin with innate knowledge of something, I should not place the burden on that which is "new" and contrary. To early observers, the sun seemed to circle the earth (in fact, it "seems" so today, but for "modern" astronomical calculations, and Ptolemaic astronomers were far from ignorant of the motions of celestial bodies). Were they unreasonable to place the burden of proof on Copernicus?

How is it possible to be hostile towards something which one is quite convinced doesn't exist?

Do we always understand why we believe what we do, or why we act the way we do? All of our intellectual assertions and outward behavior, even our emotions and thoughts, are colored by our underlying, hidden dispositions and past experiences, and our sometimes unarticulated worldview. We all operate according to a paradigm which determines how we interpret the "facts" of our experience.

How do you support this extraordinary claim that we all start in the positive position? I myself must be one of the "all" you mention. How can you speak so assuredly of my position?

I support it from the Scriptures. I would not claim to speak assuredly about you (or anyone) if I did not have their testimony.

Are you saying that you never had such an intuitive sense of God? Have you always been an atheist?

From this perspective the theistic mind could only then view the atheist as an apostate who is necessarily "shuting off" the evidence right in front of him that God exists.

I agree that we view the world from entirely different perspectives. The two are mutually exclusive. From your perspective, Christianity cannot be true, because you presuppose that naturalistic explanations are required and my view presupposes that they are impossible.

Understanding that there are alternative explanations is what justifies an atheistic worldview. Given that these naturalistic explanations keep us in the material realm, the burden of proof rightly rests upon those appealing to the influence of the supernatural.

[wgreen]

I hope that you have some other authority than Paul.

Not Paul, but God speaking through Paul. Whose authority should I accept? My own? On what basis?

How is that? I do not know of anyone who knows about God until someone teaches him about it.

This is because they have suppressed and distorted the knowledge that they had. Though we have this innate knowledge of God, our natural inclination is hostility toward God. So we stuff the knowledge down, whether consciously or unconsciously, or we distort it to suit our inclinations. We often do this with other sorts of knowledge--past experiences, hurtful memories, etc.

On the other hand, the "sense of deity" is clearly universal and explains the ubiquity of religion and religious sentiment in the primitive and developed world. This sense, however, is a blurred and stripped-down version of the knowledge that we suppress.

[McCulloch]

I hope that you have some other authority than Paul.

Not Paul, but God speaking through Paul.

Given that the topic for debate is about proving or disproving God, your assumption that God is speaking through Paul is committing the logical fallacy of Begging the Question.

[Cephus]

Given that the topic for debate is about proving or disproving God, your assumption that God is speaking through Paul is committing the logical fallacy of Begging the Question.

I hope you're not surprised by that, in the end, that kind of logical falacy is all they can use in a desperate attempt to demonstrate their point. There is no way to prove the existence of any "god", hence they simply assume, a priori, that "god" is real and off they go to the races.

[harvey1]

I hope you're not surprised by that, in the end, that kind of logical falacy is all they can use in a desperate attempt to demonstrate their point. There is no way to prove the existence of any "god", hence they simply assume, a priori, that "god" is real and off they go to the races.

Try not to demean others, Cephus.

[QED]

I don't understand. Why should we doubt the intuition unless we had some reason to? If I begin with innate knowledge of something, I should not place the burden on that which is "new" and contrary. To early observers, the sun seemed to circle the earth (in fact, it "seems" so today, but for "modern" astronomical calculations, and Ptolemaic astronomers were far from ignorant of the motions of celestial bodies). Were they unreasonable to place the burden of proof on Copernicus?

The intuition that we speak of here is an intuition held by men of a previous era in which no knowledge of evolution was held. In such times the only possible explanation for the provenance of life and habitat was by drawing an obvious analogy to mans own capabilities. If we planned and created things then it would have been highly intuitive to imagine something greater than us doing the same.

Now we have a greater knowledge and in the same way that, for a brief moment, the burden of proof was on Copernicus -- Darwin has also had his say. Both Copernican and Darwinian revolutions are now well established so intuition has been replaced by certain knowledge. In the light of such knowledge anyone wishing to revive the Ptolemaic or creationist worldviews most certainly would have to bear the burden of proof.

How do you support this extraordinary claim that we all start in the positive position? I myself must be one of the "all" you mention. How can you speak so assuredly of my position?

I support it from the Scriptures. I would not claim to speak assuredly about you (or anyone) if I did not have their testimony.

Are you saying that you never had such an intuitive sense of God? Have you always been an atheist?

No, of course not. To begin with I was a skeptic. Being an atheist means being certain that there is no God. First, like all others born to this world, I had no knowledge of greater things other than my immediate surroundings and family members. My earliest recollection of being offered the idea of God would be in primary school at an age where I was also busy taking in facts about the world. By this age I remember being interested in what magicians could and could not do. It is in our formative years that we establish all the basics like what sinks or floats on water. So yes, the moment I was introduced to the Christian mythologies I was nothing other than sceptical.

In my opinion atheism is something that one should only arrive at after much deliberation: Does the world need a cosmic draughtsman/engineer to make it as it is? Does the popular account of God's interests and concerns match-up with the life experiences we witness? Are people infallible when it comes to their use of intuition and reason especially when it comes to believing in something attractive? Getting the right answers to these questions takes time and patience so the move from skepticism to atheism is something that should not be hurried.

[Cephus]

I hope you're not surprised by that, in the end, that kind of logical falacy is all they can use in a desperate attempt to demonstrate their point. There is no way to prove the existence of any "god", hence they simply assume, a priori, that "god" is real and off they go to the races.

Try not to demean others, Cephus.

That's not demeaning anyone, it's simply a statement of fact. The argument that God is real because someone claims that God is real is ludicrous on the face of it. You can fill in anything for the word "God" and still have the same ludicrous argument. Allah is real. Vishnu is real. Ghosts and UFOs are real. Just because someone tells a story or writes a book and you choose to believe it doesn't make it so.

You should know that.

[harvey1]

That's not demeaning anyone, it's simply a statement of fact. The argument that God is real because someone claims that God is real is ludicrous on the face of it.

A careful reading of Bill's argument is that every human being has an intuitive belief in God. This is not an argument that God is necessarily real, so you could argue his point on two fronts. One, God might have an intuitive appeal to humans, but that doesn't mean God is real; or two, there's no way to know if humans have an intuitive appeal without a scientific study that studies thousands of babies from all sorts of homes and belief systems, etc..

In any case, you choose to demean by saying, "that kind of logical falacy (sic) is all they can use in a desperate attempt to demonstrate their point...." I think this is uncalled for because it is demeaning to an intelligent man who came to discuss his views here. Even if you do not agree with those views, I would hope that we can all show some measure of respect.

[Cephus]

A careful reading of Bill's argument is that every human being has an intuitive belief in God. This is not an argument that God is necessarily real, so you could argue his point on two fronts. One, God might have an intuitive appeal to humans, but that doesn't mean God is real; or two, there's no way to know if humans have an intuitive appeal without a scientific study that studies thousands of babies from all sorts of homes and belief systems, etc..

Be sure to let us all know when those scientific studies are done, won't you? Until then, an argument based on wishful thinking is a bit silly. Anyone who expects to walk in here and demand that because they believe something, everyone must treat it as a fact is asking to have their "faith" readjusted. I can prove the above untrue right now, however. I have no intuitive belief in God whatsoever. I don't need one. Neither do billions of people who have no belief in the Christian God. Bill is wrong.

In any case, you choose to demean by saying, "that kind of logical falacy (sic) is all they can use in a desperate attempt to demonstrate their point...." I think this is uncalled for because it is demeaning to an intelligent man who came to discuss his views here. Even if you do not agree with those views, I would hope that we can all show some measure of respect.

People may deserve some modicum of respect but their views do not. Whether or not he's intelligent or not has nothing to do with it, he came here and tried to spread a view that was plainly fallacious and got called on it. You might not like that fact but that's the way reality falls.

[harvey1]

You might not like that fact but that's the way reality falls.

Oh brother.