Proof there is no God

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Fanman
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Joined: December 14th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Fanman »

Jack D Ripper,
I would say that it is worse for the believer than just having blind faith, which is bad enough. I would say it is more "mad-dog" faith, belief against the evidence. Really, the only reasonable way to deal with the miracle stories in the Bible is to not believe them. Even believers commonly have some inkling of this fact when they think about miracle stories that supposedly prove that other religions are true, or when one brings one of the miracle stories into the modern era, like claiming some woman today is a virgin and pregnant and one knows she is a virgin because of a dream in which an angel tells one that she is a virgin.
I agree. Which is why I find that belief in anthropomorphized deities is quite the ridiculousness. I believe that natural occurrences caused existence - what else could it be? I don't know if the BBT is right, because it encounters problems like infinite regression, but I think it is likely something along those lines, as redshift implies that the universe is expanding.
As for god in the Bible, I think some of the claims that suggest that god is omniscient very much contradict some of the stories where god seems to not know things (like where Adam and Eve are hiding). There are other such kinds of things, so I don't think god is consistent among the various books.
That’s correct. If he knew everything, how could he not know what was going on in his own back yard? Why would he let the snake into his garden, when he knew dangerous it was? That is either malicious or careless.
Theists believe, agnostics ponder and atheists analyse. A little bit of each should get us the right answer.
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Jack D Ripper
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Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Jack D Ripper »

Fanman wrote: October 31st, 2020, 2:50 am... I believe that natural occurrences caused existence - what else could it be? I don't know if the BBT is right, because it encounters problems like infinite regression, but I think it is likely something along those lines, as redshift implies that the universe is expanding.

...

Two things (one of which will keep this from going completely off topic).

First, I don't see a problem with an infinite regression with the Big Bang Theory. If the universe collapses back again, with everything crashing together again, making a new big bang, and this happening over and over infinitely, that seems unproblematic to me. That there was always something, going back infinitely in time, seems less problematic than to say that there was a beginning of the universe, before which there was nothing. Because in that case, we have the universe coming from nothing.

The second thing is (and this keeps us from going completely off topic), if one does not know how the universe came to be as it is now, that does not imply that God did it. Saying "God did it" is a pseudo-explanation, something that takes the place of an explanation, but does not really explain anything. Primitive people regarded a rainbow as a sign from god, which some regarded as an explanation, but it does not explain how god did it; it does not explain how it came to be or what it is. It only answers the question of who did it, and does not explain how it came to be at all. It is kind of like someone asking how this stone arch was made:

Image

And someone replies that it was made by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. That tells us who did it, but it does not answer the question that was asked, of how it was made.
"A wise man ... proportions his belief to the evidence." - David Hume
Fanman
Posts: 3258
Joined: December 14th, 2011, 9:42 am

Re: Proof there is no God

Post by Fanman »

Jack D Ripper,
First, I don't see a problem with an infinite regression with the Big Bang Theory. If the universe collapses back again, with everything crashing together again, making a new big bang, and this happening over and over infinitely, that seems unproblematic to me. That there was always something, going back infinitely in time, seems less problematic than to say that there was a beginning of the universe, before which there was nothing. Because in that case, we have the universe coming from nothing.
I don’t know which is more likely regarding the origin of the universe. For me, infinite regression, however it occurs, and the universe coming from nothing, don’t seem right to my rudimentary understanding. Perhaps if I was more educated on the subject I could give a more solid opinion, but given what we currently know about the nature of reality (or what I'm aware of), it simply has to be one of those two possibilities.

That God created the universe or “God did it” is not something I accept as the cause of the universe either. I don’t have a firm position on the reason for the existence of the universe or even a clear idea. I just file it as something that I don’t know. That I hope will be discovered in my lifetime.
Theists believe, agnostics ponder and atheists analyse. A little bit of each should get us the right answer.
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