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?

[David the apologist]

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.

These are possibilities, I grant you. However, I can't help but think them slightly contrived. Surely, it's reasonable to think that if god x would be willing enough to intervene to start a religion, then god x would also be willing to intervene in order to keep it going. Moreover, if I am seeking a religion, I would not be interested in choosing one such that the god in said religion was indifferent towards his worshippers! Surely, I'd prefer to choose one with a god that "has my back" in some sense?

[Zzyzx]

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Moreover, if I am seeking a religion, I would not be interested in choosing one such that the god in said religion was indifferent towards his worshippers! Surely, I'd prefer to choose one with a god that "has my back" in some sense?

How would / do you KNOW the attitudes and intentions of any of the "gods" worshiped, loved, feared, promoted by religionists? How do you KNOW the "god" will "have your back?"

Do you take the word of people who have a vested interest in promoting their favorite worship system? Do you have psychological episodes based on believing in one of the "gods?"

[David the apologist]

[Replying to Zzyzx]

I freely concede that I neither do nor can know that a particular god will have my back without detailed analysis of the claims his religion makes.

However, if god x allows his religion to go extinct, I think that the balance of probability favors the proposition that he will be fairly apathetic towards me if I worship him. Not certainty, I grant you. But it's good enough.

If I might make the query, what exactly is so unreasonable about disregarding a god that disregarded its worshippers?

[Zzyzx]

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If I might make the query, what exactly is so unreasonable about disregarding a god that disregarded its worshippers?

I can't help you in that query -- I've been asking Christians for many years -- "If you can't show / know / prove that your favorite "god" has done anything positive in your life, why do you worship it / him? So far there hasn't been a rational answer. Evidently people tend to worship because they were taught to do so as children and they are afraid to risk punishment in a proposed "afterlife" if they do not worship correctly.

Beats me why people believe as they do.

[David the apologist]

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If I might make the query, what exactly is so unreasonable about disregarding a god that disregarded its worshippers?

I can't help you in that query -- I've been asking Christians for many years -- "If you can't show / know / prove that your favorite "god" has done anything positive in your life, why do you worship it / him? So far there hasn't been a rational answer. Evidently people tend to worship because they were taught to do so as children and they are afraid to risk punishment in a proposed "afterlife" if they do not worship correctly.

Beats me why people believe as they do.

I personally believe that I have seen God at work in my life, though it consists in the sorts of things that you would describe as "coincidences." However, my question wasn't about why you think that believers believe one thing instead of another. Insofar as you have an idea, you think that it's due to cultural upbringing primarily, though you seem open to other explanations.

My question was rather one more to the point of the overall topic of this thread. Given that many, if not most, of the major pantheons of historical paganism seem to have more or less allowed themselves to fall into obscurity, is it not reasonable to think that they have effectively disregarded their worshippers? And that, therefore, if I want to find a religion that can connect me with a being that will help me, those pantheons are quite definitely not the place to look? That they can be disregarded for the purposes of finding a religion?

[Zzyzx]

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Given that many, if not most, of the major pantheons of historical paganism seem to have more or less allowed themselves to fall into obscurity, is it not reasonable to think that they have effectively disregarded their worshippers? And that, therefore, if I want to find a religion that can connect me with a being that will help me, those pantheons are quite definitely not the place to look? That they can be disregarded for the purposes of finding a religion?

What evidence suggests that any "god" has interest in being worshiped or even acknowledged by humans (or would care if a religion died out)? Desiring or demanding worship by followers seems to be a human characteristic imposed upon anthropomorphized "gods."

Even if "gods" displayed human-like emotions and attitudes, and if one could sort out "real gods" by insisting that they be currently popular (worshipers did not die out), there are still hundreds of proposed "gods" to consider. Just within Hinduism there are evidently many currently popular.

Presently we have many gods and goddesses in Hinduism. Although numerically they were said to be hundreds and thousands, Hindus worship chiefly a few gods namely Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, Sarasvathi, Lakshmi, Parvathi, their manifestations, incarnations and emanations.

Chief among the incarnations of Vishnu are Rama, Krishna, and Narasimha. His prominent image formations (arcavataras) are Lord Venkateswara, Ranganatha, Pandarinatha, Vittalnatha and Jagannatha. Prominent manifestations of Siva are Dakshinamurthy and nine Jyotirlingas. The goddesses also have various aspects.
Prominent among the attendant deities are Lord Ganesha, Kumara, Nandi, Hanuman, Garuda. Apart from them, Hindus also worship many saintly persons such as Dattatreya, Chaitanya, Mantralaya Raghavendra Swami and Shirid Baba.
http://www.hinduwebsite.com/hinduism/pantheon.asp

That gets us through some of Hinduism, now on to thousands of other religions and other currently popular gods.

http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/gods.htm

[instantc]

That gets us through some of Hinduism, now on to thousands of other religions and other currently popular gods.

http://www.lowchensaustralia.com/names/gods.htm

Why exactly should anyone go through the effort trying to disprove all these God-hypotheses?

[1213]

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?

God is really like title for something. It is similar as king, but higher. People can keep many things as their god. In history some have kept for example golden calf as their god. I can easily believe that the golden calf exists. Nowadays it seems to be on Wall Street. I just wouldn’t keep it as my God.

I have no reason to deny existence of other “gods�. I think many of them could have existed. The thing is that I just wouldn’t keep any other than Bible God as my God.

And I also think that all people really have something that is god for them, the highest authority that defines for example good and right for them. For example, if person is willing to lie for money, money seems to be his god.

[Cephus]

[Replying to post 1 by Artie]I think a specific god can be disproved, but it has to be very specific. An ambiguous vague god of some unspecified nature probably can't be disproved.

Some Christians demand that strong atheists should prove gods don't exist like in the OP. I think it's only fair that one should demand the same of them. Can Christians prove that no gods exist except theirs?

First, they'd have to prove that their god exists and they've utterly failed at that one, asking them to prove that any other god but theirs isn't real is far too difficult, I'm sure. But we can't let the hypocrisy get in the way of their faith, can we?

[myth-one.com]

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?

Man fears the unknown, and oftentimes created specific "gods" to explain that which he did not understand. But as knowledge increased and we came to understand these unknowns, the associated gods vanished away. They no longer existed because the unknown associated with that particular god had become known.

Thus, the majority of gods thought to once exist, no longer exist. I guess it gets down to the definition of "exist." They "existed" only in the minds of those who believed in those "gods."

Mankind will always have at least one unknown, as no man can understand infinity.

Consequently, there will always be some subset of mankind with a need for at least one God.