Proof God doesn't exist?

Craig Hamilton · 2011-04-25T21:22:00

I've been thinking about this over the past few months and I believe its turning me into a bit of an atheist (which is kind of scary) but anyway, it all stems from this phase: "Cogito ergo sum" which means.... "I think, therefore I am" I keep wondering if there is a god and if he/she acknowledges that they exist then how do they know that they are in turn not being monitored by some higher power (i.e. god's god). No matter what dimension or place god is existing within there will still be that acknowledgement of existence and therefore the uncertainty: are they really the apex entity? This goes on forever (god's god's god etc.) until you realize that the current portrayal of god just does make any sense. Maybe because I'm human I just cant conceptualize an awareness of one's own existence at that level (i.e. god), but, really, even if god is omnipotent, what if one day he finds out that everything he has ever known is false and that there is this higher power. Is religion really just the answer to man's fear of death?, I mean we've been dead before and we kind of know how that went... just nothing.

GDNet Lounge Community

Started by staticVoid2 January 20, 2011 11:50 PM

401 comments, last by nilkn 13 years ago

way2lazy2care

793

January 24, 2011 01:23 PM

No, it's about 3 petabytes data. Most of it porn and spam. Most information is the same repeated thousands times over.

the point was that the internet is not at all infinite. There are more countries in the world than almost everyone will be able to reasonably visit in a lifetime. There is not an infinite number of countries. There are more planets in the solar system than anyone will be able to visit, and there are less than 10 of those.

Absurdly large =/= infinite.

Even if there was only one terabyte of unique and informative text on the internet you would never be able to read it all in an entire life time... If you don't believe in a magic man in the sky then what do you believe in? Do you believe that the earth rides on the back of a giant turtle or perhaps you believe in ghost and spirits? Oh I know you're a Satan worshiper, right?! I suppose that means you believe in the magic man in the ground!

I do believe at one point mike wrote out quite clearly what he believed in; that being love. I think that was mike anyway

edit: That's a smiley?! This is the only forum I've been on where is a smiley.

krez

443

January 24, 2011 05:33 PM

I don't get why atheists are atheists. You have nothing to lose by believing. and if you are wrong, you have everything to lose.

Pascal's Wager is completely invalid. Feel free to look it up if you care.

Plus theres a study that shows People of faith are actually happier in their lives than atheists..

If you read further on, it had more to do with the social aspects of meeting at a church regularly than it did with the specific beliefs of the individuals.

--- krez ([email="krez_AT_optonline_DOT_net"]krez_AT_optonline_DOT_net[/email])

Tachikoma

575

January 24, 2011 05:35 PM

If you make an assertion about the existence of anything, onus is on you to provide observable and repeatable evidence for it. This is a fundamental principle that can not be overlooked. You may faith in something, but do not ever confuse 'belief' with 'fact'. You may have experienced something that leads you to believe in something, but do not confuse 'experience' with 'evidence' either, as personal experiences can not be observed objectively. Many people make the mistake of mixing up these concepts. Worse still, some people deliberately blur these distinctions to convince others.

Latest project: Sideways Racing on the iPad

way2lazy2care

793

January 24, 2011 05:43 PM

If you make an assertion about the existence of anything, onus is on you to provide observable and repeatable evidence for it. This is a fundamental principle that can not be overlooked. You may faith in something, but do not ever confuse 'belief' with 'fact'. You may have experienced something that leads you to believe in something, but do not confuse 'experience' with 'evidence' either, as personal experiences can not be observed objectively. Many people make the mistake of mixing up these concepts. Worse still, some people deliberately blur these distinctions to convince others.

[media]

[/media]

awwwwwwwwww tachikoma

Jarwulf

223

January 24, 2011 11:19 PM

If you make an assertion about the existence of anything, onus is on you to provide observable and repeatable evidence for it. This is a fundamental principle that can not be overlooked. You may faith in something, but do not ever confuse 'belief' with 'fact'. You may have experienced something that leads you to believe in something, but do not confuse 'experience' with 'evidence' either, as personal experiences can not be observed objectively. Many people make the mistake of mixing up these concepts. Worse still, some people deliberately blur these distinctions to convince others.

The way I understand it. Occam's Razor doesn't apply to Entities with no beginning (which God is sometimes presumed to be) because there is no associated set of events leading up to God's existence which would make it a more unlikely event than God's nonexistence. IE its not the same thing as an assertion stating that your cup broke because you dropped it on the floor vs your cup broke because of a CIA conspiracy with the Loch Ness Monster.

Now it CAN be applied to God intervening in any way but being omnipotent and omniscient and all that God may have found some sublimely simple ways to do anything.

doombunny3

102

January 24, 2011 11:27 PM

You have three things to lose by believing:

A lot of time and effort. If you're purely theistic, rather than religious, then the time thing might not be so true for you, but it takes more effort to think something than to not think it. There are some people for whom believing in a god takes less effort than the alternative, but those people have a deeper problem: they need to learn that it's OK not to be able to explain something (yet).
The drive to answer the great unanswered questions of the world. Why try and figure out what the best way is to live, or how the universe works, if you think you've already got the answer (in one convenient God-shaped bundle).
Intellectual consistency. If you believe in God, why don't you believe in fairies, or homeopathy?

1. I'm not purely theistic. But the brain is a magical thing isn't it? I can think to myself at extremely fast rates. I do not take time out of my day to pray to god or to worship. I'm not very religious, and I don't believe you have to be to be deemed a trip to heaven (If heaven exists). I usually pray at night, falling asleep in my bed.
2. I have a love for science. Computer science as you can see, but I am a big physics and chem guy. I love learning about the universe how it works, why it works, why it does the things it does, from a purely non-religious stand point. I am not the kinda guy that fogs everything up with god and thats my excuse for everything.
3. Fairies are quite unimportant to me so is homeopathy. I do not deny the existence of either but until I find a need for the answer of their truths I will not search for them.

Again, we are all different and it's all a matter of personal preference.

superpig

1,826

January 25, 2011 06:58 AM

'Tachikoma' said:

If you make an assertion about the existence of anything, onus is on you to provide observable and repeatable evidence for it. This is a fundamental principle that can not be overlooked. You may faith in something, but do not ever confuse 'belief' with 'fact'. You may have experienced something that leads you to believe in something, but do not confuse 'experience' with 'evidence' either, as personal experiences can not be observed objectively. Many people make the mistake of mixing up these concepts. Worse still, some people deliberately blur these distinctions to convince others.

The way I understand it. Occam's Razor doesn't apply to Entities with no beginning (which God is sometimes presumed to be) because there is no associated set of events leading up to God's existence which would make it a more unlikely event than God's nonexistence. IE its not the same thing as an assertion stating that your cup broke because you dropped it on the floor vs your cup broke because of a CIA conspiracy with the Loch Ness Monster.

Now it CAN be applied to God intervening in any way but being omnipotent and omniscient and all that God may have found some sublimely simple ways to do anything.

Occam's Razor has nothing to do with causality. It is simply: You should prefer the explanation that makes the least assumptions.

(Exactly how you count assumptions isn't defined, but it doesn't need to be for the principle to be solid).

Richard "Superpig" Fine - saving pigs from untimely fates - Microsoft DirectX MVP 2006/2007/2008/2009
"Shaders are not meant to do everything. Of course you can try to use it for everything, but it's like playing football using cabbage." - MickeyMouse

ChaosEngine

5,385

January 25, 2011 08:52 AM

To add my $0.02, I do not deny the possibility of a god-like being or force, any more than I deny the possibility of a giant pink teapot orbiting a nearby star. Both are simply vanishingly improbable to me and the tiny possibility that I am wrong does not weigh against the moral and intellectual wrongness I feel from believing in a god.

As for the abhramic god and associated religions, they're in dire need of some serious psychological counseling.

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
-Dawkins

Dawkins verbosity aside, it's a pretty accurate list of accusations.

if you think programming is like sex, you probably haven't done much of either.-------------- - capn_midnight

way2lazy2care

793

January 25, 2011 02:26 PM

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
-Dawkins

Dawkins verbosity aside, it's a pretty accurate list of accusations.

I don't think Dawkins is the best person to go to for any sort of unbiased picture of God.

tstrimp

1,798

January 25, 2011 04:12 PM

'ChaosEngine' said:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.
-Dawkins

Dawkins verbosity aside, it's a pretty accurate list of accusations.

I don't think Dawkins is the best person to go to for any sort of unbiased picture of God.

So which of those descriptions do you dispute? Once again based off the old testament.

Proof God doesn't exist?

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Proof God doesn't exist?

This topic is closed to new replies.

Popular Topics

Recommended Tutorials

Reticulating splines