There is no evidence that god doesn't exist

Maybe I should have called the thread 'philosophical evidence for god not existing shouldn't count as real evidence'

How to Argue God Doesn’t Exist

1. It is impossible to prove God exists, so it follows that there’s no reason to believe God is real.
2. If God is good and omnipotent, why does evil exist? God either must not be all-powerful or purely good. In either case, they shouldn’t be worshipped.
3. Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is often the most likely. Is a magical deity in charge of everything really the best way to explain life?

FLRW wrote:

How to Argue God Doesn’t Exist

1. It is impossible to prove God exists, so it follows that there’s no reason to believe God is real.
2. If God is good and omnipotent, why does evil exist? God either must not be all-powerful or purely good. In either case, they shouldn’t be worshipped.
3. Occam’s razor states that the simplest explanation is often the most likely. Is a magical deity in charge of everything really the best way to explain life?

"God did it" is a pretty simple explanation, only one assumption, do you really want to invoke Occam's razor?

And any other conceptual maximal custard monster.

God did it" is a pretty simple explanation, only one assumption, do you really want to invoke Occam's razor?

"God" is defined as a being with infinite aspects (omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc) and is an infinite assumption.

A generic god (ie a poorly defined deity) likely can't be disproved, but then again that which hasnt been established with evidence doesnt need to be disproved with evidence. The burden of proof lies with those making positive claims of existence.

SkepticalOne wrote:

God did it" is a pretty simple explanation, only one assumption, do you really want to invoke Occam's razor?

"God" is defined as a being with infinite aspects (omnibenevolence, omnipotence, omniscience, etc) and is an infinite assumption.

If true intelligence is mental expansion, which is to say, it involves the ability to view and understanding widely different things from multiple different perspectives, an aptitude for grasping a wide range of truths, relationships, and meanings, and the capacity for abstract and symbolic thought, then it follows logically that the contention that one can reduce reality to only one of its modes, to know it completely in only one of its forms, is an unintelligent claim.

It is often presented as "scientific", but it is not a scientific claim. Science does not contend that reality can be reduced to a single ontological level, on the contrary, science asserts that reality is in fact, multileveled, it asserts that the four dimensions of existence that we call reality, are contingent and relative to a greater reality of more dimensions, of which we cannot have certain knowledge, and which can only be expressed metaphorically.

How is this relevant to the conversation?

You claim "god did it" requires one one assumption, but "God" (the term) comes loaded with an assortment of massive assumptions.

SkepticalOne wrote:

How is this relevant to the conversation?

You claim "god did it" requires one one assumption, but "God" (the term) comes loaded with an assortment of massive assumptions.

You mean assumptions like "invisible", "in the sky", and "grants wishes to people that pray"?

I think it’s common for young children to see the Bible as a story book and to have a childish understanding of God as an invisible man in the sky that grants wishes to those who pray. Of course, as children age and mature their conception of God and their understanding of faith develops and matures beyond such childish ways of understanding things.

But apparently, that isn’t always the case. There seems to be a select group of very vocal Atheists whose conception of God and faith did not mature as they got older and who spend a lot of time ranting about how much more intelligent, rational, and mature they are than people of faith because they now reject this childish idea of God. They apparently don’t understand that no adult Theist believes in the God they don’t believe in and yet, they really seem thrilled with themselves for their intellectual achievement It just seems that they are using the faith discussion to brag about how they are all grown up now and so they don’t believe in God anymore, and when I read those posts I can’t help but recall the image of a little child I saw on vacation a few years back who was clinging to the wall of the hotel pool next to the three foot sign yelling “Mommy, mommy, look at me, I’m swimming in the deep end just like a grown up”. I’m sorry, but this type of Atheism just doesn’t appear to be all that grown up to me, and clinging to such childish ideas about God and faith isn’t what I’d call “deep”.

But that goes the other way too... philosophy alone doesnt count as evidence that god doesn't exist.

The position doesn’t require evidence because that’s the default position.

I think it’s common for young children to see the Bible as a story book and to have a childish understanding of God as an invisible man in the sky that grants wishes to those who pray. Of course, as children age and mature their conception of God and their understanding of faith develops and matures beyond such childish ways of understanding things.

Sure. As an 'adult theist' what do you mean by "God"?

That's a good point. Sure there are people with childish conceptions of god so what do atheists do? They hold god up to those childish conceptions. instead of the mature approach of asking if god is or could be real what would he be like? Basically they strawman god instead of steelmaning god

instead of the mature approach of asking if god is or could be real what would he be like?

Many atheists, like myself, are former believers who found their beliefs unwarranted after seriously evaluating them. The mature approach would be to accept a nuanced view of atheists rather than naively strawmanning their position.

In your case, thats fair. I dont see you out here making ridiculous claims about believers then tearing into it. I think a lot of your ideas are weak, but that dont mean you in particular are strawmanning opposition, and its not like people can't have different world views

I think a lot of your ideas are weak

...and they said there could be no common ground between theist and atheists! 😉

SkepticalOne wrote:

Many atheists, like myself, are former believers who found their beliefs unwarranted after seriously evaluating them. The mature approach would be to accept a nuanced view of atheists rather than naively strawmanning their position.

If it seems I’m not taking you very seriously, there’s a reason for that, at the very beginning I told you if you wanted to be taken seriously, you need to tell us what you mean when you say, “God does not exist”, is it possible that you don’t actually know what you mean?

In my very first reply I asked for clarification, regarding what you mean when you say, “God does not exist”, if you claim you can prove it, you should be able to tell us what exactly you are proving. It’s a fair question, if you want us to know what you mean, you should be able to articulate it.

Here are the questions from my very first reply.

What do you mean by the terms “God”, “perfectly loving” and especially “exists”. How do you define “exist” as it would apply to God? Do you mean physically exist? Conceptually? Exist in what form?

I tried to clarify what I’m asking in my second reply with these comments:

I’m serious about this line of questioning, it’s a sincere attempt to understand.

In the unlikely event that you guys want to be taken seriously, you need to clarify what you mean when you use the term “exist”

Are you saying you do not believe in the existence of other dimensions of reality, are you arguing that there is nothing that falls outside of our understanding of four-dimensional reality?

Do you think "space" exists, how about "time", "mathematics", "consciousness", in what way do these things exist.

What are the characteristics that something that exists must possess, that God does not possess?

From the beginning the question has been "what do you mean", and you still haven’t answered. Do you want to be taken seriously or not?

Do you know what you mean? If so, please tell us so we can actually have a rational discussion about it.

If it seems I’m not taking you very seriously,

I dont care if you got your feelings hurt because I didn't reply with bullet points on some other thread. Most of what you quoted wasnt even addressed to me.

When it comes to definitions of god(s), I typically use a default definition that applies to my former beliefs (ie. The Christian god), but I can also work with a deistic definition (an omni god) and other god concepts. I am happy to defer to believers definition of god so long as it is consistent and coherent. Generally, one of the above works.

In this thread, I asked you directly for your definition since it was pertinent to the conversation. What does "god" mean to you? Do you want to answer so everyone can determine if "God did it" really is one assumption as you claim?

Ayn Rand said, “Faith is the worst curse of mankind, as the exact antithesis and enemy of thought.” Rand emphasizes that belief without evidence undermines rational thinking and intellectual integrity. 

...one of the few things I still agree with her about.

Do you think that in the next universe things will pan out any differently?

That thinking and intellectually progressive organic beings will not create an unknown super-intelligence in their own image.

SergeantLynch wrote:

Do you think that in the next universe things will pan out any differently?

That thinking and intellectually progressive organic beings will not create an unknown super-intelligence in their own image.

Hmmm, there are too many unknowns for that questions to be answred, but rumor has it there are cultures on this Earth that dont believe in such an entity. (Pirahã)

Maybe I should have called the thread 'philosophical evidence for god not existing shouldn't count as real evidence'

...and philosophical evidence for god existing shouldn't count as real evidence along with it?

No, the default position is that God is unknown.

That’s not a default position.

When it comes to what we believe about a proposition, you can hold one of three options; for, against or neutral. When it comes to your approach and your actions, there’s only two; for or against. Natural doesn’t exist.

Think of any scenario in real life where the word default comes in; like the settings on your phone. Notice how when you go to reset, default doesn’t mean “duh I don’t know”… instead it means we’re going to choose certain settings for you and you can adjust them if you want.

In the course of everyday life we have to choose how to live. Whether to pray before we go to sleep, whether to go to church on Sundays, whether to burden ourselves with knowing what the Bible says. There’s no neutrality there. You either do or you don’t. If you don’t, you align yourself with god’s nonresistance. If you do, then the opposite.

So you can claim to be neutral, but when you live every aspect of your life as if he doesn’t exist, there’s no meaningful distinction.

Actually, that’s incorrect. You can only be for or against a proposition (you accept it or you do not accept it), neutral would be in the against category in the sense that you do not accept it.

You can be neutral on a question (does god exist?).

Simply not accepting a proposition is no different than asserting it’s false. Either way, you do not think or behave as if the proposition were accepted as true.

Double_R wrote:

No, the default position is that God is unknown.

That’s not a default position.

When it comes to what we believe about a proposition, you can hold one of three options; for, against or neutral. When it comes to your approach and your actions, there’s only two; for or against. Natural doesn’t exist.

Think of any scenario in real life where the word default comes in; like the settings on your phone. Notice how when you go to reset, default doesn’t mean “duh I don’t know”… instead it means we’re going to choose certain settings for you and you can adjust them if you want.

In the course of everyday life we have to choose how to live. Whether to pray before we go to sleep, whether to go to church on Sundays, whether to burden ourselves with knowing what the Bible says. There’s no neutrality there. You either do or you don’t. If you don’t, you align yourself with god’s nonresistance. If you do, then the opposite.

So you can claim to be neutral, but when you live every aspect of your life as if he doesn’t exist, there’s no meaningful distinction.

Science has never found a single non-spiritual society of human beings anywhere or at any time in history, everywhere and always, the vast majority of human beings have made belief in a transcendent, reality commonly referred to as spiritual, as an orienting part of how they engage reality.  Consequently, the experience of the sacred, the common experiential reality of human beings we refer to as Spiritual, is common to all peoples in all times, and it appears to have been reached independently among peoples and cultures that did not have contact with one another. This certainly leads one to logically conclude that a Spiritual orientation is the natural state of human beings.

If we are innately spiritual and if it is the case that spirituality is the natural orienting response to the human experience, then the rational conclusion to reach is that it is the default state.