Another Proof That God Does Not Exist

[RedEye]

Definitions:
God - the creator of the universe.

Syllogisms:
P1: Something can only be created if time exists.
P2: Time is a fundamental part of the universe.
C1: The universe cannot have been created.

P3: It is not possible for the universe to have a creator (from C1).
P4: God is only necessary as an explanation for the origin of the universe.
C2: God, as defined, does not exist.

Support for Premises:
P1 - For something to have been created there must be a moment in time where it did not exist and then a moment in time in which it did. Creation is a temporal (time-related) concept. The word "created" is incoherent without time.
P2 - We know from the work of Albert Einstein and the physics of the 20th and 21st centuries that we live in a universe whose fabric consists of space-time. The only time we know is part of our universe and again, it is incoherent to talk about the passage of time without the universe already existing.
P3 - Follows from conclusion C1.
P4 - Follows from the definition of God.

Can anyone fault this logical proof? Which premises (if any) are wrong?

Note: To refute this proof you must show that either it is not valid (the conclusions do not follow from the premises) or that it is not sound (there is a problem with one or more premises). For the latter, please nominate a premise and then carefully explain why we cannot accept it. Only by invalidating a premise can you invalidate the argument as a whole. (Unless you can show that one of the syllogisms has a conclusion which does not follow from its premises).

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 300 by rikuoamero]

Well, I am not always persuaded by everything that is written in the Bible. My position on the world is that God created it, however indirectly, and that because He loves us, He created the best possible world for all of us. If we then choose to foul it up, that is our moral decision to do so, not His. Whatever, I do not see God and the world to be so separate as the scriptures you quote suggest. A creation speaks volumes on behalf of the creator.

As for Christians engaging with non-Christians, I think this to be a wholly 'good thing'. For the Christian, it stops creeds becoming what JS Mill called 'dead dogma' and requires their constant rejuvenation and renewal of relevance within the understanding of the believer. For the non-Christian; well, likewise. The complacent assumption that this life is the only life, and all that matters is this life, does need to be challenged every so often, I think, just to occasionally unsettle what would otherwise be an entirely materialistic approach to transcendent ideals such as goodness, truth, beauty, honour, justice, righteousness, kindness etc., which are more precious than any material currency.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[2ndRateMind]

[Replying to post 297 by 2ndRateMind]

And should anyone claim that is not objective proof, only subjective opinion, then they are entirely correct. And why we refer to belief in God as 'faith', and not 'knowledge'.

So am I at liberty to reject any (and all) claims of knowledge of God, including that of the Christian deity?

Yup, absolutely. I do not think that God will ever be proven objectively to exist; if that could happen in some way, it would make a complete nonsense of any claim humanity might propose as it's 'freedom'. The philosopher's 'omnimax' version of God, (omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, etc) would make any dissent wholly futile and entirely foolish. Meanwhile, those of us who see God as infinitely perfect in His goodness, and love Him for that reason, would not be inclined to dissent, anyway. Our freedom is not compromised by our faith; it is only those who have not (yet) discovered God whose liberties would be curtailed.

Best wishes, 2RM.

[Clownboat]

To the bold... can you not do better than scare tactics? ...

...If you had a god behind you, I submit you could do better than this. I say, let's leave the scare tactics to the terrorists. Your mileage may vary...

Hmmm. Not sure why advocating universal, unconditional love might be considered a scare tactic. Or, indeed, deploying the notion that those who do not love necessarily cannot know a God who is love. Perhaps you can explain?

Best wishes, 2RM.

How easily you forget your own words, even when provided in bold to you.

Copy/paste: "And if this lies outside your experience, then truly, you do not know God, and will not recognize Him, come the end of days."

Why you invent some unconditional love to be the scare tactic you think I am addressing seems disingenuous to me.

Hmmm. I am not sure why the commonplace idea that God is love, and expresses Himself by unconditional love, seems disingenuous to you.

That is not what was disigenuous.
What was disigenuous was pretending I was commenting on some unconditional love claim when clearly I was addressing:

Once again, copy/pasted for you: "you do not know God, and will not recognize Him, come the end of days".

That is a scare tactic, not your empty claim about a gods love. You failing to address the scare tactic and instead referring to a gods love was disigenuous.

[shnarkle]

Definitions:
God - the creator of the universe.

Syllogisms:
P1: Something can only be created if time exists.
P2: Time is a fundamental part of the universe.
C1: The universe cannot have been created.

P3: It is not possible for the universe to have a creator (from C1).
P4: God is only necessary as an explanation for the origin of the universe.
C2: God, as defined, does not exist.

Support for Premises:
P1 - For something to have been created there must be a moment in time where it did not exist and then a moment in time in which it did. Creation is a temporal (time-related) concept. The word "created" is incoherent without time.
P2 - We know from the work of Albert Einstein and the physics of the 20th and 21st centuries that we live in a universe whose fabric consists of space-time. The only time we know is part of our universe and again, it is incoherent to talk about the passage of time without the universe already existing.
P3 - Follows from conclusion C1.
P4 - Follows from the definition of God.

Can anyone fault this logical proof? Which premises (if any) are wrong?

Note: To refute this proof you must show that either it is not valid (the conclusions do not follow from the premises) or that it is not sound (there is a problem with one or more premises). For the latter, please nominate a premise and then carefully explain why we cannot accept it. Only by invalidating a premise can you invalidate the argument as a whole. (Unless you can show that one of the syllogisms has a conclusion which does not follow from its premises).

It works fairly well using classic logic, but fails when using quantum logic. Classic logic cannot describe the state of being of the universe, you, or anything else for that matter. Finkelstein proved this with his parabolic lenses experiement.

The problem is in the way we think and the fact that words, language, symbols etc. are insufficient to describe the world around us. There is nothing more fundamental than reality itself, and classical proofs are useless in proving or disproving what only experience can grasp. A symbol, by definition can't be what it signifies. Therefore it isn't what it signifies. Using classic logic doesn't address the fact that you aren't dealing with what you want to deal with in the first place.

The simple fact is that you can't even prove you exist. The best anyone can do is to associate ideas with bodies which doesn't prove anything.

Things exist because existence exists, but God is not a thing. There is no referent for God, but more importantly, there is no referent for you either.

Most reading this would then object by asking, "Well Mr. Smarty Pants, just who is reading this then?"

I can assure "you", it isn't who you think it is.

[Goat]

Hmmm. I am not sure why the commonplace idea that God is love, and expresses Himself by unconditional love, seems disingenuous to you. I am merely repeating what most Christians, of whatever denomination, have said and will tell you, if you only ask them and listen to their answers.

As for experiencing and recognising love, then this is not meant as a scare tactic, just the report of reality as I find it to be. By analogy, if you have been blind since birth, you will not comprehend what is meant by 'red'. Similarly, if you have never loved, wholly, deeply, utterly and completely, you cannot expect to realise the joy of that love reciprocated. Or recognise it, when it is freely gifted.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Well, it's not that idea alone, it is the other concepts that get entangled with a number of the Christians that go along with that. For example, the concept of Satan and Hell, and eternal punishment for not believing. "God loves you unconditionally, and you are going to be eternally tortured if you don't love him back" seems to be the attitude of a significant number of Christians. Another one is the 'God is an all powerful, all knowing, being that loves you, and lets natural disasters wipe out hundreds of thousands all at once. Reconciling a 'God is love' , and 'God is all powerful and all knowing' is hard when such disasters as the 2004 day after Christmas tsunami happens.

I would say that the concept of Hell, and the concept of 'God is love' is in direct opposition to each other.

[RedEye]

It works fairly well using classic logic, but fails when using quantum logic. Classic logic cannot describe the state of being of the universe, you, or anything else for that matter.

And yet scientists do it all the time. I take it you cannot attack any of my premises?

Btw, quantum logic applies to the quantum level and has nothing to do with the question of the existence of God. Unless you are suggesting that God is a subatomic particle?

The problem is in the way we think and the fact that words, language, symbols etc. are insufficient to describe the world around us.

Actually they do a pretty good job of describing the world around us. That is their job after all! (If we follow your reasoning then we should ignore the words of theists too since they are also using language. Right?).

There is nothing more fundamental than reality itself, and classical proofs are useless in proving or disproving what only experience can grasp.

Nonsense. It has nothing to do with "experience" (if by that you mean personal experience) and everything to do with observation. The latter is how we know the world. In the case of God there is no observation so all we can do is fall back on logical disproofs. The lack of observation alone is enough but mine is an attempt to show the contradictory nature of the concept of God put forward by theists.

The simple fact is that you can't even prove you exist. The best anyone can do is to associate ideas with bodies which doesn't prove anything.

If you don't believe that I can prove I exist then you should have no problem with a proof against the existence of God.

Things exist because existence exists, but God is not a thing. There is no referent for God, but more importantly, there is no referent for you either.

I see claims. From whence does your knowledge come from? Weren't you just telling us that "words, language, symbols etc. are insufficient to describe the world around us". Yet here you are using words and language to describe what you believe exists in the world around us. Hoisted with your own petard?

Most reading this would then object by asking, "Well Mr. Smarty Pants, just who is reading this then?"

People are reading my post (as you have agreed). I have no problem with that. I would suggest that most of these people would have no such objection since it is inane.

I can assure "you", it isn't who you think it is.

It's not people? Aliens perhaps? LOL.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 302 by 2ndRateMind]

What I do not understand is your willingness to agree with me that God cannot be proven to exist, and yet

Meanwhile, those of us who see God as infinitely perfect in His goodness, and love Him for that reason,

for some reason, you talk about this God and about trait/qualities/properties it has.

It's not the same thing as talking about a character both you and I acknowledge is fictional. It's not like saying "Oh, Dumbledore is old and wise and mysterious, but also somewhat of a Machiavellian plotter".

I'd like to pose a question to you.
Pretend you and I are out on the street, and there is a pram hurtling down the street, with a baby in it, a few months old. If no-body rushes in to grab it, it will crash into a tram, and the force of the collision will in all likelihood kill the baby.
Just to make things even more fun, let's imagine the tram has a bomb on it that is set to go off if the tram stops (like say, if the driver tries not to hit a baby in a pram).
Will you call your god "infinitely perfect in His goodness" and love him for that reason, regardless of if he intervenes to save the baby and the people in the tram.
This is an important question from an atheist skeptic towards a Christian, because invariably, whenever I have touched on the topic of God and love, the response I get is almost universally something along the lines of God is love, or I would love God, or God is good, or perfect or whatever... no matter what they believe this God does or does not do. We only have to look at the young earth, Noachian flood types for the most blatant example of this - God is good, and they love God, for (not despite) flooding the entire planet and killing virtually all life.

[Deleted]

Replying to post 1 by RedEye"

You present in P2 that time is a fundamental part of the universe. I dont believe that Einstein proved it was a component part of the universe, but a quality the universe has " that it obeys time. That allows for time to be separate from the universe.

The problem with #2 is in finding that place or that locus where time ticks out its interval as an absolute. And there is no such place. Even Einstein did not go this far.

What is shown in relativity is that velocity in relation to a time reference changes the feedback one gets from that reference, which can be slower if travelling away, faster if travelling toward.

The problem is where is the locus? And in the above it has to be somewhere for velocity to change the reception of feedback from it.

If one proposes that it is inherent in every molecule and in every space of the universe, then the experiment about velocity would never result in different times, because the standard would be everywhere that velocity takes the observer. No distortion caused by direction and speed.

Lacking that, a chronometer travelling at a velocity away from a fixed master reference gets slower because the person or device is referring back through the medium of light to some fixed reference for setting its own interval. If chronometers dont possess some capacity to look out through the medium of light to such a place, then it must be their physical properties that are distorted by velocity.

Velocity or enough to approach the speed of light significantly, must affect the constitutional nature of the mechanisms or the electric properties of the circuitry and components of an electronic chronometer.

Later experiments beyond the Bohr model, explain that relativity effects bear more on the changes to the orbits of electrons, as accounting for Einsteins prediction of greater masses.

None of this shows that time is a fundamental component part of the universe. In fact it makes the component part thingy obligate objects to have the capacity to refer to that part in relation to their own sense of time.

So until you can prove that P2 is true and not an inherited quality from something pre-existing, it cant be a premise.

[RedEye]

Replying to post 1 by RedEye"

You present in P2 that time is a fundamental part of the universe. I dont believe that Einstein proved it was a component part of the universe, but a quality the universe has " that it obeys time. That allows for time to be separate from the universe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe

• The Universe is all of space and time[a] and their contents,[10] including planets, stars, galaxies, and all other forms of matter and energy. While the spatial size of the entire Universe is still unknown,[3] it is possible to measure the observable universe.
  
  a. According to modern physics, space and time are intimately intertwined and physically meaningless if taken separately from each other.

The definition of the Universe encompasses space-time.

The problem with #2 is in finding that place or that locus where time ticks out its interval as an absolute. And there is no such place. Even Einstein did not go this far.

I haven't made the claim that time is absolute so you seem to be attacking a strawman. (Rest of such argument snipped).

None of this shows that time is a fundamental component part of the universe. In fact it makes the component part thingy obligate objects to have the capacity to refer to that part in relation to their own sense of time.

You may need to take this up with physicists. While what you say may be true for a separate and distinct entity which we call time, space-time certainly is a fundamental component part of the Universe (by definition). For the purposes of my argument I am only interested in the time element of space-time.

So until you can prove that P2 is true and not an inherited quality from something pre-existing, it cant be a premise.

See above. (Pre-existing has no meaning without time).

[shnarkle]

It works fairly well using classic logic, but fails when using quantum logic. Classic logic cannot describe the state of being of the universe, you, or anything else for that matter.

And yet scientists do it all the time. I take it you cannot attack any of my premises?

Scientists have never been able to describe the state of the universe using classic logic. Classic logic relies upon symbols, and while one can represent the universe with a symbol, this can't be the universe. By definition a symbol signifies something else. In other words, symbols are not what they signify. They can't be without negating the definition of the word. I didn't attack your premises. I simply pointed out that they only work with symbols, and God is not a symbol. The fact is that you can't prove symbols don't exist when you're using them in your proof.

Btw, quantum logic applies to the quantum level and has nothing to do with the question of the existence of God. Unless you are suggesting that God is a subatomic particle?

Quantum logic applies to the world as it exists, not in symbolic terminology. Quantum logic deals with quantum theory which consists in considerably more than just sub atomic particles.

The problem is in the way we think and the fact that words, language, symbols etc. are insufficient to describe the world around us.

Actually they do a pretty good job of describing the world around us. That is their job after all!

Words refer to meanings, definitions, descriptions, etc. which themselves are just more words. Words can never actually refer to anything other than other words. Assigning a word to an object doesn't actually convey the object to us; just a referent. For example, the word or idea of water can never quench one's thirst.

(If we follow your reasoning then we should ignore the words of theists too since they are also using language. Right?).

Yep. They are speaking of gods of their own imagination. There can be no referent for God other than the word itself. Hence the introduction to John's gospel states: "in the beginning was the word". He never says anything approaching the ideas of "In the beginning was God".

There is nothing more fundamental than reality itself, and classical proofs are useless in proving or disproving what only experience can grasp.

Nonsense. It has nothing to do with "experience"

It has plenty to do with experience. If it weren't the case, then science would be just as ridiculous as religion. As it stands today, this is quickly becoming the case as way too many people are accepting the dogmatic assumptions of so-called scientists simply on faith.

(if by that you mean personal experience) and everything to do with observation.

Yep, observation is one of the cornerstones of science. The problem isn't in what is observed, but the process of observation itself which is subject to fallibility.

The latter is how we know the world.

You seem to be elevating the intellect to a superior position above the other senses. Here again this spotlights what I'm talking about in that you are positioning the intellect as fundamental to reality when it can only reflect reality. It is to place one's understanding as standing under reality itself.

In the case of God there is no observation so all we can do is fall back on logical disproofs.

The problem here is in not comprehending the definition of words. God, by definition is omniscient, therefore he cannot be known in the first place. A god that is known, even partly can never be omniscient. Most of those who profess a faith in a god do so without comprehending their own religious documents. For example, the authors of the bible point out that God is like nothing else, "there is none beside me". God, or rather the term "God" is synonymous with the definition of transcendence, therefore God transcends anything and everything, but for purposes of this discussion, most especially existence. Frankly, it is idiotic to ask for proof of what transcends existence. There is nothing to prove.

The lack of observation alone is enough but mine is an attempt to show the contradictory nature of the concept of God put forward by theists.

The concept of God is not God. Proving a concept doesn't exist is pointless as concepts don't exist as anything other than concepts. Theists can only believe in their own concepts of God, but to then suppose that a concept can be proven is pointless. To attempt to disprove what, by definition, can't exist in the first place is just as pointless.

The simple fact is that you can't even prove you exist. The best anyone can do is to associate ideas with bodies which doesn't prove anything.

If you don't believe that I can prove I exist then you should have no problem with a proof against the existence of God.

Other than the fact that proving nothing doesn't exist is pointless and blatantly ignores the accepted meaning of words, no.

Things exist because existence exists, but God is not a thing. There is no referent for God, but more importantly, there is no referent for you either.

I see claims. From whence does your knowledge come from?

It's not my knowledge. I don't own knowledge.

Weren't you just telling us that "words, language, symbols etc. are insufficient to describe the world around us".

Yep, and until you prove me wrong, I will continue to stand by that claim.

Yet here you are using words and language to describe what you believe exists in the world around us. Hoisted with your own petard?

No, I never made any claims to beliefs, or anything existing other than the things themselves, and God and you are not any thing.

People are reading my post (as you have agreed).

I haven't agreed to that assumption. One could just as easily point out that it is literally eyes that are viewing these posts. Unless you are an eye, it isn't actually you that is reading this post. Your brain is processing what the eyes read. There are all sorts of other processes going on that allow all of this to occur, but none of these processes are who you are. These are all happening within your body, and it is grammatically incorrect to equate you with your body. The second person singular verb to be is not equivalent to the genitive of possession.

You are not a human having or a human doing, but a human being. That is what you are, not who you are.

It's not people? Aliens perhaps? LOL.

On a conscious level, yes. Your identity is alien to who you are in that your identity is nothing more than an abstract construction of the mind. This is the one and only thing that you can identify with your body. This alone doesn't tell us who you are, or if you even exist.

As closely related as identification is to identity, identification is not identity. More to the point, an identity is still something that one has, therefore it can't be who one is, or even prove one's OWN existence.