Is it possible to prove the non-existence of God?

[Polybius]

Agnostic or Atheist...or maybe theist. Which to choose..I'm probably the most neutral you can get. It's hard to decide what to really believe in since i must admit i don't know. I used to believe in a God but i lost my faith. I became an agnostic and realized no one really knows. Then i contemplated..Why is there a God? Why did people come to realize there has to be something more out there?

Firstly how do you define 'God'? The omnipotent. Most merciful.

What really is a God? He is not an infinite being who created the Earth or Adam and Eve. He does not reside in his kingdom in heaven. So what is God? God is merely a thought. A part of culture. Knowledge. Language. Information. God was created by Man and God's birth date is the day Humans invented the word God. Before our time, millions of years ago, there were dinosaurs. Did the dinosaurs believe in God? Very doubtful. God literally did not exist in those times, not until Humans invented such an idea. There was no need for a God so such a being did not exist. For 13,7 billion years the concept of God did not exist. Not until very recently.

So the fact is that we created God. Does this not prove that he is just a part of our wild imagination?

[mkirkpatrick]

Agnostic or Atheist...or maybe theist. Which to choose..I'm probably the most neutral you can get. It's hard to decide what to really believe in since i must admit i don't know. I used to believe in a God but i lost my faith. I became an agnostic and realized no one really knows. Then i contemplated..Why is there a God? Why did people come to realize there has to be something more out there?

Firstly how do you define 'God'? The omnipotent. Most merciful.

What really is a God? He is not an infinite being who created the Earth or Adam and Eve. He does not reside in his kingdom in heaven. So what is God? God is merely a thought. A part of culture. Knowledge. Language. Information. God was created by Man and God's birth date is the day Humans invented the word God. Before our time, millions of years ago, there were dinosaurs. Did the dinosaurs believe in God? Very doubtful. God literally did not exist in those times, not until Humans invented such an idea. There was no need for a God so such a being did not exist. For 13,7 billion years the concept of God did not exist. Not until very recently.

So the fact is that we created God. Does this not prove that he is just a part of our wild imagination?

Thanks Polybius, and welcome to the forum, I remember an argument years ago when some professor "proved" that we are really not here! God is a reality thats exists whether we know about it or not, that we are here or not here is by its nature irrelevent.

regards michael.

[Polybius]

I would have liked to hear him prove that.

Alright. If we put this another way. If God did exist, it would be in a kind of infinite state. He knows all, sees all, hears all, is all. But if a being is in an infinite state it cannot then think since thought is a process where we reach an idea or conclusion. A being who knows all conclusions, the past the present and future can't think. If God is infinite then he does not want or feel need since he already has infinity. This God wouldn't need to create this world or us Humans. God would have no need for us.

Heres an extract from Robert Green Ingersoll's Why I Am An Agnostic:

"We are told he is infinitely wise. If he is, he does not think. Thought is a ladder - a process by which we reach a conclusion. He who knows all conclusions cannot think. He cannot hope or fear. When knowledge is perfect there can be no passion, no emotion. If God is infinite he does not want. He has all. He who does not want does not act. The infinite must dwell in eternal calm."

[mkirkpatrick]

Polybius,in the last analysis its down to us whether we accept or reject God,you are right
God does not need us,rather as many would say we need God,each of us arrives at our own place of acceptance or rejection,depending on our individual experiences,mine have
lead me to accept the reality of an absolute ONE/being/God,yours however seems to be
quite different.


Some when we are "within" the ocean it is difficult to see the water?



regards michael.

[Polybius]

Well i was brought up in an Islamic country where i was taught about God and Islam in school. I started to believe in it all but as time moved on i started to think for myself (mostly due to the freedom i had at home-i wasn't bombarded with religion or God which is a good thing.As Robert Green Ingersoll said "Our environment is a sculpture") Then i move to a Christian country and figure out that religion is a lie. But then again religion and God are two separate entities. It's really an on/off thing for me. I've come to realize a God, then I come to realize his non-existence. There's always something bringing me back to God but then something else telling me it's not right. I have experienced being Monotheist, experienced being Agnostic and Atheistic. Right now it's just very confusing. I again have always been neutral. I can't say that i know for sure God doesn't exist. But i just have to for some weird reason try and prove it. If i fail I'll know then that it can't be proved and can move on.

[jim barlow]

Evolution states that whatever walks the earth has evolved by small steps. Each creature, no matter how "developed" is a kaleidoscope of miniature trials and errors, their successes and failures. If we could find a creature for whom this is not true, so the IDs argue, then we can deduce some kind of "manufacturer" who made this creature which exhibits this "jump" in its evolution.

If we could find a creature sporting a set of wheels, they continue, that would be proof of ID. A nice set of wheels or some kind of rollers would come very handy but don't exist because it cannot evolve in smaller steps where every trial out shoot makes some evolutionary sense. A wheel is an all or nothing proposition.

Our good friends at ID did actually manage to find a bacterium with wheels which turned out not to be but this is not what I want to mention now.



What I want to say is that the WHEEL is here. If you don't believe it look around and you'll see quite a few in a hurry. Is that proof of an intelligent designer of wheels?


Well yes and no. From strictly the wheel's point of view its evolution too had to be like that of rabbits, cockroaches and all other creatures. (This will be clearer in robotics.)



So what are those small increments where every step had to make sense? Well, to start with, the mental conception. This seems to be the continuation of the road from nature's laboratory. Therefore even if we could prove an "intelligent designer" it wouldn't help the superstitious because it wouldn't give them the kind of trump they're dreaming about.

[Play_Dough]

Agnostic or Atheist...or maybe theist. Which to choose..I'm probably the most neutral you can get. It's hard to decide what to really believe in since i must admit i don't know. I used to believe in a God but i lost my faith. I became an agnostic and realized no one really knows. Then i contemplated..Why is there a God? Why did people come to realize there has to be something more out there?

Firstly how do you define 'God'? The omnipotent. Most merciful.

What really is a God? He is not an infinite being who created the Earth or Adam and Eve. He does not reside in his kingdom in heaven. So what is God? God is merely a thought. A part of culture. Knowledge. Language. Information. God was created by Man and God's birth date is the day Humans invented the word God. Before our time, millions of years ago, there were dinosaurs. Did the dinosaurs believe in God? Very doubtful. God literally did not exist in those times, not until Humans invented such an idea. There was no need for a God so such a being did not exist. For 13,7 billion years the concept of God did not exist. Not until very recently.

So the fact is that we created God. Does this not prove that he is just a part of our wild imagination?

Your 'argument' is emotional and illogical.
The 'conclusion' (a logical process) of either the existence or non-existence of God cannot be proven logically.
Absence of proof is not proof of absence.
Nevertheless, you seem to be jousting with cultural windmills because your descriptions of 'God' are typically Western... i.e., God is 'he', and if God exists then 'God' is an external event rather than an internal awareness.
Perhaps we need a new "Model of God", because what you are attacking (it seems) is the Western cultural definition of 'God'.
It could be said (logically) If God exists, then 'God' seems to be a paradox.
If 'God' is a paradox then 'rationality' is of little use to us because of the nature of 'paradox'.
The other faculty available to us then, in a quest to discover 'God', is the heart and emotions.
If 'reality' is a projection of consciousness then 'God' must first be 'resident' in consciousness before 'God' appears in the external reality.
In other words, 'belief' must (typically) preceed manifestation.

Another line of argument is 'evolution'.
Perhaps an awareness of 'God' or of other dimensions of reality is an emergent characteristic of consciousness which is not, as yet, fully implemented in our (relatively) primitive species.

Perhaps the main issue is 'Western cultural (pathetic/of pathos) depictions of God'.
A 'reasonable' person would say (opinion) O.K., I can suspend disbelief and consider that my cultural decriptions of God (given/taught to me) are pathetic. I will now consider alternative theories/cosmologies in an attempt to discern (rationally) if 'God' could possibly exist.

Another reasonable/logical possiblility is to presume that if 'God' exists then everything is an expression of that 'God'.
This approach confronts the Western Christian cosmology because it (Christianity) parses 'reality' into 'good=God and evil=dEVIL'; and does so despite Genesis depicting 'good and evil' as the two natures of 'God'.

What if it is 'God' who is looking out of our eyes but is 'blended' into the human ego... so we get a temporary 'hybrid'.

If God is looking out of our eyes (masked) then, from that perspective, the Christian cosmology can begin to make sense.... i.e., 'God' has become temporarily 'enveloped' in a material form (the cross is an ancient symbol of 'matter') and the human being, then, is a type of 'egg' that can (possibly) 'hatch' and release the indwelling spirit/God as a 'spiritual' (non-corporeal) resident of eternity(?).

Perhaps, just as in physical evolution, there are 'evolutionary laws' pertaining to consciousness. Not un-like (metaphor) a caterpillar entering the chrysalis to become a butterfly... a 'transmutation' of its previous nature.
Does 'caterpillar' comprehend 'butterfly'? (I need a more 'macho' metaphor!).
Does my two dimensional screen name 'grock' its four dimensional creator?

Anyhow, your 'rationality' and your decision that 'you exist and God does not' has, it seems, earned you your place on 'death row'!

'Perfect Justice' anyone?

.

.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Nothing can be proved for which which it is stated beforehand that evidence is not even conceivable.

I suppose mankind wished to have a purpose, not realizing that no purpose at all gives the ultimate freedom to be, with no strings attached.

One can still guess, but that is not a lot to base one's whole life upon.

Would a God expect to blame the average wo/man on the street for not sensing His invisibility?

ETs are invisible now, too, either because we haven't found them or they are of another form, but at least there is some more equal probability of possibility for them since life did arise on earth via stardust.

[dleviwing]

Polybius is absolutely correct in saying god is nothing more than a human thought or concept. No logic nor test can prove either the physical or spiritual existence of such a being. When someone proclaims that something exists, it is their responsibility to provide the proof of their claim and not the responsibility of others to provide the proof that their hypotheses is wrong. Believing is politics and religion; knowing is science.

[austintorn@aol.com]

Good one, Dave.

There must be something in the way humans think—to make guesses and assumptions into possibilities and then into beliefs and then further saying to all that it 'is'.

I guess some of that type of thinking is beneficial in the real world, where we don't have to waste time and dwell on every underlying aspect of, say a wild beast approaching, but for the guessed invisible it doesn't work so well.