Justify the belief that gods do not exist.

[wiploc]

Some people believe that gods do not exist. (One can call this position "atheism" or "strong atheism" or "anti-theist perversion," anything you want. But we aren't going to argue terminology in this thread. Clarity is good, so you can explain what you personally mean by "atheist," but you shouldn't suggest that other usages are inferior.)

This thread is to make a list of arguments, of reasons to believe that theism is false.

And we can discuss the soundness of those arguments.

I'll start:

1. The Parable of the Pawnbroker.
(I'll just post titles here, so as not to take too much space at the top of each thread.)

2. Presumptive Falsity of Outrageous Claims.



Feel free to add to this list.

[KenRU]

[Replying to post 98 by otseng]

If I do, I'm afraid it's going to derail the thread. I suspect the issue would be what constitutes a miracle. A miracle for one person could just be a I-don't-know-how-it-happened for another.
If we agree that a miracle is a supernatural event, akin to having the laws of nature superseded, then we can easily agree what constitutes a miracle.

If you have evidence to support such an event, I think many here would love to hear about it.

Otherwise, I maintain my original statement: there is absolutely zero evidence that miracles happen.

[Jashwell]

Overwhelmingly and unanimously, science supports the view that there is no such thing as a soul. That the mind derives from the brain.

If a mind cannot exist independent of a brain, God does not exist.

Yes, ad hoc excuses can be made very unparsimoniously to defend the position just as the UFO abductee explains how the UFO had a cloaking device and dropped a hologram to replace him while he was away. This is not rational.

[dianaiad]

Overwhelmingly and unanimously, science supports the view that there is no such thing as a soul. That the mind derives from the brain.

If a mind cannot exist independent of a brain, God does not exist.

Yes, ad hoc excuses can be made very unparsimoniously to defend the position just as the UFO abductee explains how the UFO had a cloaking device and dropped a hologram to replace him while he was away. This is not rational.

I wasn't aware that 'science' even addressed the idea of a 'soul'...

Of course, being the pedant that I am, I'm going to keep TRYING to get this word used correctly; it's not 'soul,' but 'spirit.' The spirit and body together make one soul. This is why, when counting people on a ship, for instance, you hear 'we have 120 souls on board."

A 'soul' without a body is a spirit. A soul without a spirit is dead.

OK, got that out of my system.

Back to the topic, which is....when was the last peer reviewed paper published in which anybody attempted to establish the presence of a 'spirit?"

It's a little bit like the difference between the brain...and the mind. Now even science recognizes the difference between those two concepts, and even though there are a bunch of different definitions of 'mind,' it is recognized that they are not the same. The relationship between mind and brain seem to be similar to that claimed for the relationship between spirit and body; the mind requires a brain to express things, and a brain that doesn't produce 'mind' (at least in humans) is pretty much dead.

.......and even though scientists from all sorts of fields recognize that there is such a concept as 'mind,' they have problems quantifying it, measuring it, defining it, explaining it, understanding it....or even proving its existence.

So how can you expect science to do any of that with 'spirit?'

......and if they can't figure out a way to test for the existence of 'spirit,' how in the heck can they come up with something that disproves it?

This thread, as I have mentioned before, is chock a block FULL of folks who come up with the same-old, same-old, criticisms of specific theistic belief systems, as if proving one specific view of God to be wrong automatically proves that ALL definitions and possible iterations of God to be impossible.

The question is: give us evidence/proof that god does not exist. Any god. Proof.

Disproving any, or even many, descriptions of Him is not proving that no deity, ever, of any sort, exists.

And that was the question in the OP.

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 103 by dianaiad]

For instance, the idea of a soul that cannot be harmed is inconsistent with brain damage and drug consumption such as intoxication.

Split brain patients raise multiple issues for the idea of souls.

Temporary patient death and resuscitation raises issues with the idea of a soul that 'transcends death'.


Saying that these aren't problems is like saying that the fact noone saw a UFO abduct a person in a crowded area, and that many people saw the person during their abduction isn't a problem for the idea that a person was abducted by a UFO at that time. Ad hoc and unparsimonious assumptions are irrational.

This isn't proof, but it is evidence. The same kind of evidence that says when you find someone pulling a bloody knife out of a man with no one else around whose just died as you walked in says "He probably did it". The fact that you can make excuses does not mean they are rational excuses.

[Artie]

The question is: give us evidence/proof that god does not exist. Any god. Proof.

"The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ ... -Proof.htm

[Jashwell]

The question is: give us evidence/proof that god does not exist. Any god. Proof.

"The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ ... -Proof.htm

The proposition/assertion is that "Gods do not exist"

The topic of the thread is "Justify the belief that gods do not exist"
So, even if there was a burden on the ones denying (which there isn't - denying "Gods do not exist" isn't the same as asserting "Gods do exist") - the topic would still not require this.

[dianaiad]

[Replying to post 103 by dianaiad]

For instance, the idea of a soul that cannot be harmed is inconsistent with brain damage and drug consumption such as intoxication.

Of course a soul may be harmed by these things. It's the spirit that might not be affected...though since a spirit requires a body to interact with the physical world (according to most descriptions of 'spirit,' anyway) then of course, when you harm the body, you are harming the spirit. Harm to either body or spirit harms the soul.

(You weren't paying attention when I wrote about how picky, obnoxious and pedantic I was going to be about this, were you? )

Split brain patients raise multiple issues for the idea of souls.

Explain, please?

Temporary patient death and resuscitation raises issues with the idea of a soul that 'transcends death'.

How so? Indeed, NDE'S seem to be evidence for the existence of something 'other than' simple physical brain function.

Saying that these aren't problems is like saying that the fact noone saw a UFO abduct a person in a crowded area, and that many people saw the person during their abduction isn't a problem for the idea that a person was abducted by a UFO at that time. Ad hoc and unparsimonious assumptions are irrational.

Wait.

What?

I repeat: any attempt to disprove a theistic idea is simply an attempt to disprove a theistic idea. For one thing, I seem to have missed a huge part of the conversation, since I don't really understand what the heck you are talking about here. For another, even if you COULD disprove the idea of 'spirit,' how does that prove that there is no God?

This isn't proof, but it is evidence.

Evidence of what?

The same kind of evidence that says when you find someone pulling a bloody knife out of a man with no one else around whose just died as you walked in says "He probably did it". The fact that you can make excuses does not mean they are rational excuses.

huh?

I know I have chemo brain, but I have to admit that I don't get this. You have been asked to show evidence that no god exists, or that 'gods do not exist."

There are several theistic belief systems that don't worry much about a 'spirit' aspect of a living person. How, even if you have evidence against the existence of a spirit (and I sure don't see any here) does that prove that gods do not exist?

.............besides, things are not always what they seem; the EMT pulling a knife out of a victim so that he can administer CPR is not guilty of killing him.

In fact, you have...inadvertently I'm certain....happened upon one of my favorite analogies for a different topic.

You see a man with a knife, and he has just slashed a man's throat. Is that man guilty of murder...or attempted murder?

Maybe.

......and maybe he's the doctor who is doing an emergency tracheotomy and his knife slash has just saved a life.

So perhaps you should think about the conclusion jumping?

(grin)

[dianaiad]

The question is: give us evidence/proof that god does not exist. Any god. Proof.

"The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise. http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/socialsciences/ ... -Proof.htm

Artie, this is absolutely true.

Which is why this thread is so fun. It is aimed at those who claim, outright, that 'there are no gods." It is demanding that those who make such a claim support it, since in that case, it is they who are actually making the claim.

Nobody in the thread...even (and perhaps especially) the OP, expects that an inability to prove that there are no gods is evidence, much less proof, that there are.

[Artie]

Which is why this thread is so fun. It is aimed at those who claim, outright, that 'there are no gods." It is demanding that those who make such a claim support it, since in that case, it is they who are actually making the claim.

From the same link: "The person making a negative claim cannot logically prove nonexistence. And here's why: to know that a X does not exist would require a perfect knowledge of all things (omniscience). To attain this knowledge would require simultaneous access to all parts of the world and beyond (omnipresence). Therefore, to be certain of the claim that X does not exist one would have to possess abilities that are non-existent. Obviously, mankind's limited nature precludes these special abilities. The claim that X does not exist is therefore unjustifiable."

[Jashwell]

[Replying to post 103 by dianaiad]

For instance, the idea of a soul that cannot be harmed is inconsistent with brain damage and drug consumption such as intoxication.

Of course a soul may be harmed by these things. It's the spirit that might not be affected...though since a spirit requires a body to interact with the physical world (according to most descriptions of 'spirit,' anyway) then of course, when you harm the body, you are harming the spirit. Harm to either body or spirit harms the soul.

(You weren't paying attention when I wrote about how picky, obnoxious and pedantic I was going to be about this, were you? )

Imo, the words you choose don't really matter since you seem to understand me.

What justification can there be for this? Why is the damage duplicated? How exactly is the soul damaged when the body is damaged? Will the afterlife be full of the mentally handicapped and psychpathic?

It's all very redundant - what function does the brain actually serve?

It's irrational to believe that every time your car is damaged, that on a planet far away a rock unique to your car is damaged.

Doesn't God need a body to interact?

If we're going to be pedantic, what do you mean by physical? The only definition that fits that isn't an analogy to a body/mind divide (which would be circular in this scenario) is things which can be sensed. Is the soul incapable of sensing?

I'm actually wondering more about this spirit-physical thing. If the 'bridge' is either spiritual or physical, there won't be a connection - the spirit wouldn't be able to interact with a physical bridge and vice versa for a spiritual bridge. There has to be either an exception, a rejection of the claim or another kind of thing.

Split brain patients raise multiple issues for the idea of souls.

Explain, please?

The corpus collossum is the sole bridge that connects the two brain hemispheres.
Sometimes, because of some diseases (I think a last resort to treat a kind of epilepsy), the corpus collossum must be cut.

When the corpus collossum is cut, we get two very different people. Different people with conflicting beliefs. One for each hemisphere.

Temporary patient death and resuscitation raises issues with the idea of a soul that 'transcends death'.

How so? Indeed, NDE'S seem to be evidence for the existence of something 'other than' simple physical brain function.

NDEs are fully consistent with naturalistic models. They in no way are evidence against a naturalistic world - however - multiple inconsistent NDEs (including the absence thereof) is evidence against the reality of an NDE.


A form of hallucination is a reasonable interpretation of an NDE - just as it is an interpretation of the effects of certain drugs. An interpretation as reality is not (given the inconsistency and lack of explanatory value, it is likely a false positive).

Saying that these aren't problems is like saying that the fact noone saw a UFO abduct a person in a crowded area, and that many people saw the person during their abduction isn't a problem for the idea that a person was abducted by a UFO at that time. Ad hoc and unparsimonious assumptions are irrational.

Wait.

What?

If a person is in the streets, surrounded by 5 or 6 other people, and is observed to completely normally walk down the streets, would you say that is evidence against the idea that he was abducted by aliens and put back down while walking? If noone saw or heard the UFO, and someone actually barged past him and felt his presence during his alleged abduction?

If so, what if the UFO had a cloaking device, both optic and auditory? What if the UFO put down a kind of hologram, that used some kind of solid light technology, to make it seem like he was continuing to walk down the street, and then replaced him at the last second?

... Is it still reasonable to believe that he wasn't abducted by aliens? Yes.

I repeat: any attempt to disprove a theistic idea is simply an attempt to disprove a theistic idea. For one thing, I seem to have missed a huge part of the conversation, since I don't really understand what the heck you are talking about here. For another, even if you COULD disprove the idea of 'spirit,' how does that prove that there is no God?

The core idea of a spirit is mind body dualism.
If it's unreasonable to believe in mind body dualism, it's unreasonable to believe in most definitions of a God.

If your idea of a God is one with a physical body, then you're in the minority compared to theologians, and it's not especially godly or religious (being it isn't particularly supernatural), though it is significantly more possible.

If your idea of God requires that he be detached from any kind of body, he requires the existence of mind-body dualism.

This isn't proof, but it is evidence.

Evidence of what?

The same kind of evidence that says when you find someone pulling a bloody knife out of a man with no one else around whose just died as you walked in says "He probably did it". The fact that you can make excuses does not mean they are rational excuses.

huh?

I know I have chemo brain, but I have to admit that I don't get this. You have been asked to show evidence that no god exists, or that 'gods do not exist."

The example given is that while the evidence does point to the idea that the man was stabbed, there are many explanations you can give in which he didn't. These can be entirely consistent with the evidence. But they aren't reasonable.

.............besides, things are not always what they seem; the EMT pulling a knife out of a victim so that he can administer CPR is not guilty of killing him.

Yes, that would be a good explanation being that it'd be an assumption justified by EMT uniform/equipment or other factors.

Every additional assumption involving spirits isn't made based on new evidence - it's based on "this is required to avoid this problem".