Can Christians prove most gods don't exist?

[Artie]

In the thread "Justify the belief that gods do not exist" dianaiad says and I quote: "The challenge from me...and indeed, from the title of the post, was to prove that gods do not exist."

Strong atheists believe that gods do not exist. The challenge from me is for dianaiad and other Christians to prove that the vast majority of gods don't exist.

Can you do that?

[wiploc]

How about a god who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful? How about a god who can be seen but can't be seen?

I find these to be pointless "gotcha" arguments. This is like your friend saying that he's got a white Mercedes with brown leather seats, and then you responding how you caught him of a lie because the seats are part of the car and therefore if the car is white, no part of it can be brown.

When someone says that God is just and merciful, they might mean, for example, that God has perfect grasp of justice, but that he can occasionally be merciful as well.

I was responding to the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven. That was a false claim, so I gave examples showing that it was false.

One example was about a god who can be seen but can't be seen. Now if you want to posit a god who, say, can be seen on Mondays but not on Wednesdays, I'll agree that your example isn't logically impossible.

But the fact that you can invent a possible god doesn't prove that I can't invent an impossible god. A god whom nobody can ever see and yet whom some people can sometimes see is impossible. That god cannot, and therefore does not, exist.

Therefore, the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven is false.

[instantc]

How about a god who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful? How about a god who can be seen but can't be seen?

I find these to be pointless "gotcha" arguments. This is like your friend saying that he's got a white Mercedes with brown leather seats, and then you responding how you caught him of a lie because the seats are part of the car and therefore if the car is white, no part of it can be brown. The former seems like a very counterproductive approach to me.

When someone says that God is just and merciful, they might mean, for example, that God has perfect grasp of justice, but that he can occasionally be merciful as well.

I was responding to the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven. That was a false claim, so I gave examples showing that it was false.

One example was about a god who can be seen but can't be seen. Now if you want to posit a god who, say, can be seen on Mondays but not on Wednesdays, I'll agree that your example isn't logically impossible.

But the fact that you can invent a possible god doesn't prove that I can't invent an impossible god. A god whom nobody can ever see and yet whom some people can sometimes see is impossible. That god cannot, and therefore does not, exist.

Therefore, the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven is false.

To begin with, I think that this whole exercise of 'this God and that God don't exist' is silly. It's only productive if we are talking about beings of fundamentally different nature. As long as we are talking about a personal creator of the universe, there is no that God and this God, there is just a hypothetical God, properties of which one can disagree on.

Suppose your friend tells you of his new Audi A4, which has a 2.2 liter turbo-engine. You'll proceed to look it up and notice that A4s of that year only come with 2.0 or 2.4 liter engines. Have you now showed that your friends Audi does not exist? I think it makes more sense to say that he was mistaken about the engine size.

Secondly, what's logically contradictory in being able to see but not being able to be seen? Nothing as far as I can see, if by seeing we mean the perceptive experience of seeing.

[wiploc]

How about a god who is perfectly just and perfectly merciful? How about a god who can be seen but can't be seen?

I find these to be pointless "gotcha" arguments. This is like your friend saying that he's got a white Mercedes with brown leather seats, and then you responding how you caught him of a lie because the seats are part of the car and therefore if the car is white, no part of it can be brown. The former seems like a very counterproductive approach to me.

When someone says that God is just and merciful, they might mean, for example, that God has perfect grasp of justice, but that he can occasionally be merciful as well.

I was responding to the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven. That was a false claim, so I gave examples showing that it was false.

One example was about a god who can be seen but can't be seen. Now if you want to posit a god who, say, can be seen on Mondays but not on Wednesdays, I'll agree that your example isn't logically impossible.

But the fact that you can invent a possible god doesn't prove that I can't invent an impossible god. A god whom nobody can ever see and yet whom some people can sometimes see is impossible. That god cannot, and therefore does not, exist.

Therefore, the claim that no gods can be proven or disproven is false.

To begin with, I think that this whole exercise of 'this God and that God don't exist' is silly.

Makes me wonder why you participate.

It's only productive if we are talking about beings of fundamentally different nature. As long as we are talking about a personal creator of the universe, there is no that God and this God, there is just a hypothetical God, properties of which one can disagree on.

As Dietrich would say on Barney Miller, "It's a point of view."

Suppose your friend tells you of his new Audi A4, which has a 2.2 liter turbo-engine. You'll proceed to look it up and notice that A4s of that year only come with 2.0 or 2.4 liter engines. Have you now showed that your friends Audi does not exist? I think it makes more sense to say that he was mistaken about the engine size.

I agree.

But it remains true that no god who always X but also sometimes not-X can exist. That's still a contradiction. You can't refute that by saying, "Ah, but how about a different god?"

Secondly, what's logically contradictory in being able to see but not being able to be seen?

Nothing. But that's not what I said.

Nothing as far as I can see, if by seeing we mean the perceptive experience of seeing.

The bible says that god cannot be seen. It also says he was seen. That's a contradiction.

You can "harmonize" that by changing the meaning of one or both statements if you want to, but that won't make the original statements correct.

Note also that you could harmonize anything else by using the same techniques. You could claim that Hitler was kind, mild, and forgiving. You could claim that the sky is always green with yellow polka dots. You could claim that you personally never made any claims about gods. All of those statements are true (for some value of "true") if you are willing to savage the meaning of the words used. But that would make all statements meaningless.

You couldn't get thru the day that way. That's not how rational people approach non-religious topics.

When people harmonize their religious beliefs by the use of techniques that they wouldn't let their children use to interpret their report cards, they are guilty of special pleading, a logical fallacy.

[OnceConvinced]

We could always use a bible endorsed test to see if a God exists. This test was authorised by Yahweh himself to disprove the existance of Baal.

1 Kings 18. Eliijah (endorsed by Yahweh himself) challenged the prophets of Baal to a test to see if they could get their God to set fire to a sacrifice on Mr Carmal. They of course failed. Yahweh then set the sacrifice alight himself to prove he was the true God, thus endorsing the test. As a result Baal was judged as being non-existant and Yahweh ordered all the prophets of Baal to be put to death.

Clearly this is a bible authorised way of determining whether a God exists or not, so we can then challenge any God we want to such a test. If that God doesn't pass the test then he can be deemed non-existant.

So we are to use the bible - a book written for the benefit of God - to prove God is real and exists?

So a Harry Potter (or pick any series of written stories) fan could use the Harry Potter collection to prove he is real and exists as well?
Is that the logic we're supposed to go with here?

I'm using the bible as an example for Christians, presuming it is a divine document. If it IS the word of God, then God endorsed a test against another God to prove its non exsistance. Thus Christians should be able to disprove any God using the same test and at the same time prove the existance of their own God.

What's good enough for Baal

But doesn't that seem to be, at best, circular reasoning? Shouldn't there be another way people can 'test for God' other than using a pro-God book?

Well this thread is aimed at Christains. "Can Christians prove...". The challenge isn't "can PEOPLE prove..." So obviously they need something that is endorsed by the bible here, so I'm just providing that bible endorsement for them.

My point is that it should be simple for Christians to disprove other Gods. Just have them perform that test from 1 Kings, which not only would prove the non-existance of other Gods, but prove the existance of their own in the process (if we go by the logic of Elijah).

[David the apologist]

In the thread "Justify the belief that gods do not exist" dianaiad says and I quote: "The challenge from me...and indeed, from the title of the post, was to prove that gods do not exist."

Strong atheists believe that gods do not exist. The challenge from me is for dianaiad and other Christians to prove that the vast majority of gods don't exist.

Can you do that?

I cannot prove it in any strong sense, but I think that I can eliminate several substantial pantheons from the picture with a reasonably high degree of probability and leave only YHWH, the Trinitarian Christian God, Allah, Brahma, the Tao, etc. on the table.

If a god exists and demands worship from its followers, it will not allow all of its followers to be converted or die off.

The ancient Greek gods, the ancient Aztec gods, the ancient near eastern gods of various sorts, the gods of the Vikings, the gods of the Celts, and a substantial number of gods are no longer worshiped because all of their followers have been converted or have died.

Therefore, the gods of those pantheons that have lost all of their worshipers do not exist.

Now, I freely admit that this leaves many gods other than the Trinitarian God of Christianity as potential contenders. However, it does make my job as a Christian apologist a whole heck of a lot easier if I want to convince somebody of the truth of Christianity. Without Odin, Apollo, Horus, Baal, Tezcatlipoca et al in the picture, the religious terrain is rather more manageable: if a religion is dead, I can ignore it!

[Artie]

The ancient Greek gods, the ancient Aztec gods, the ancient near eastern gods of various sorts, the gods of the Vikings, the gods of the Celts, and a substantial number of gods are no longer worshiped because all of their followers have been converted or have died.

Therefore, the gods of those pantheons that have lost all of their worshipers do not exist.

But if gods who don't have any worshippers don't exist then the Christian God didn't exist before he got worshippers either... and if he lost all his worshippers he would cease to exist... which sounds remarkably like what many atheists claim: that gods only exist in the minds of their worshippers...

[David the apologist]

The ancient Greek gods, the ancient Aztec gods, the ancient near eastern gods of various sorts, the gods of the Vikings, the gods of the Celts, and a substantial number of gods are no longer worshiped because all of their followers have been converted or have died.

Therefore, the gods of those pantheons that have lost all of their worshipers do not exist.

But if gods who don't have any worshippers don't exist then the Christian God didn't exist before he got worshippers either... and if he lost all his worshippers he would cease to exist... which sounds remarkably like what many atheists claim: that gods only exist in the minds of their worshippers...

Well played!

But I think that you may have bent my words out of shape a bit. I don't make use of the proposition "if god x exists, then god x has worshippers." Instead, I use the proposition "if god x exists, then god x will not allow all of his worshippers to be converted or die." After all, any god worth its salt will be capable of doing some serious smiting and other such miracles, thereby maintaining its current following, or else attracting a new following if the original community all get stepped on by a cosmic rhinoceros or something.

So no, I don't think that this argument commits me to the position that gods only exist in the minds of their worshipers. However, I must admit that your creative reconstruction of my position is quite amusing.

[Artie]

Well played!

But I think that you may have bent my words out of shape a bit. I don't make use of the proposition "if god x exists, then god x has worshippers." Instead, I use the proposition "if god x exists, then god x will not allow all of his worshippers to be converted or die." After all, any god worth its salt will be capable of doing some serious smiting and other such miracles, thereby maintaining its current following, or else attracting a new following if the original community all get stepped on by a cosmic rhinoceros or something.

So no, I don't think that this argument commits me to the position that gods only exist in the minds of their worshipers. However, I must admit that your creative reconstruction of my position is quite amusing.

"if god x exists, then god x will not allow all of his worshippers to be converted or die." God x might not care about his worshippers at all. He could just have started some religion and left the worshippers to fend for themselves. He could have played the "free will" card and not interfered at all.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 48 by Artie]

If God X is into this whole heaven thing, then he might WANT all of his followers to die.
Then again, why would a God necessarily want followers? Don't gods get rights to anonymity?

Or he could be entirely apathetic. While the hitchhikers guide says that creating the Universe has 'been widely regarded as a bad decision', I wouldn't say there's anything inherently wrong with a God creating a Universe. Might not even have intended life to develop.

[Wordleymaster1]

We could always use a bible endorsed test to see if a God exists. This test was authorised by Yahweh himself to disprove the existance of Baal.

1 Kings 18. Eliijah (endorsed by Yahweh himself) challenged the prophets of Baal to a test to see if they could get their God to set fire to a sacrifice on Mr Carmal. They of course failed. Yahweh then set the sacrifice alight himself to prove he was the true God, thus endorsing the test. As a result Baal was judged as being non-existant and Yahweh ordered all the prophets of Baal to be put to death.

Clearly this is a bible authorised way of determining whether a God exists or not, so we can then challenge any God we want to such a test. If that God doesn't pass the test then he can be deemed non-existant.

So we are to use the bible - a book written for the benefit of God - to prove God is real and exists?

So a Harry Potter (or pick any series of written stories) fan could use the Harry Potter collection to prove he is real and exists as well?
Is that the logic we're supposed to go with here?

I'm using the bible as an example for Christians, presuming it is a divine document. If it IS the word of God, then God endorsed a test against another God to prove its non exsistance. Thus Christians should be able to disprove any God using the same test and at the same time prove the existance of their own God.

What's good enough for Baal

But doesn't that seem to be, at best, circular reasoning? Shouldn't there be another way people can 'test for God' other than using a pro-God book?

Well this thread is aimed at Christains. "Can Christians prove...". The challenge isn't "can PEOPLE prove..." So obviously they need something that is endorsed by the bible here, so I'm just providing that bible endorsement for them.

My point is that it should be simple for Christians to disprove other Gods. Just have them perform that test from 1 Kings, which not only would prove the non-existance of other Gods, but prove the existance of their own in the process (if we go by the logic of Elijah).

It's not so much about PEOPLE but CHRISTIANS. Regardless, shouldn't there be another way for any person/Christian to prove what you're asking without using pro-God propaganda?
I would say YES if God is real.
But there doesn't seem to be.