Can science disprove the existence of God?

[Crypto2015]

First you set out to complain about hight calibre scientists saying they can prove God does not exist, complaining that it is not a scientific question. Then you proceed to prove God exists with philosophical argument. If one is forced by science to a conclusion either way, or philosophy, it is all the same forcing, and does not constitute faith, which faith requires freedom. It is hypocritical for you to complain about science proving, when you are philosophically proving.

It is very obvious that Dawkins, Coyne etc. have a problem with faith in general, not just faith in God. The faith element must be made explicit and demonstrated as valid, while you really just assume, and take for granted, the faith element.

Science and philosophy are not the same thing. I am not saying that I can prove God's existence using scientific methods. Science has nothing to do with God. However, I can present good arguments for theism and Christianity. You are completely wrong about faith being an irrational choice. In Christianity, faith is supported by reason. It is still faith in the sense that you do not see what you are waiting for (God and heaven), but it is nevertheless supported by logic, morality, and history. As I said before, any faith that is not supported neither by morality, nor by logic, nor by history is foolishness.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

This is a just dishonest misrepresentation of Christianity that demonstrates that atheists are either not honest enough to argue against real Christianity (because they know that they stand no chance against it) or too ignorant to properly describe their opponent's beliefs.

It's a bit glib, but it reflects the Christian idea that God is responsible for everything, including the standard that we're judged by and our inability to meet that standard.

There's a Biblical analogy about God as the potter and people as pots that God can do with as he sees fit. The flipside of this that Christians seldom acknowledge is that when a pot cracks or leaks, this is a reflection on the potter. If God is ultimately responsible for us, then ultimately, our failures are God's failures.

The truth is that God came to this earth to pay for our sins because God is both just and merciful. Since He is just, he had to punish our sins. Since He is merciful, he wanted to save us in spite of our sins. That's why he decided to pay for our sins with his own suffering, satisfying in this way both his justice and his mercifulness.

Punishing an innocent person for someone else's crimes is neither just nor merciful.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The burden of proof is not inherently on the theist because we are not talking about a spaghetti monster here, but about an entity, God, that has been of colossal cultural importance for virtually all cultures at all times. Atheists are a cultural and an intellectual rarity. So, it seems to me that atheists, as the cultural minority they are, should provide some very tangible evidence for the non-existence of a being that has been believed in by most of humanity throughout the history of our species.

You're glossing over important differences between different cultures' gods. Pick any god from the long list of gods that people have believed in and the vast majority of humanity will agree that THAT god doesn't exist.

 

[Mohammad Nur Syamsu]

Science and philosophy are not the same thing. I am not saying that I can prove God's existence using scientific methods. Science has nothing to do with God. However, I can present good arguments for theism and Christianity. You are completely wrong about faith being an irrational choice. In Christianity, faith is supported by reason. It is still faith in the sense that you do not see what you are waiting for (God and heaven), but it is nevertheless supported by logic, morality, and history. As I said before, any faith that is not supported neither by morality, nor by logic, nor by history is foolishness.

But how is that not just saying that choosing is wrong, and in stead of choosing, a course of action must be sorted out, using some logical, moral, historical, precepts as sorting-criteria. Any decision can turn out several different ways in the moment, and this is what you call irrational, and therefore wrong. What else is your complaint of irrationality about then if not that?

And despite what you say my impression is the overwhelming majority of Christians have no idea about such philosophical arguments, and just choose from their heart.

 

[Demonslayer]

This is a just dishonest misrepresentation of Christianity that demonstrates that atheists are either not honest enough to argue against real Christianity (because they know that they stand no chance against it) or too ignorant to properly describe their opponent's beliefs.

LOL. Stand no chance against what? The absurd notion of "original sin" or the convoluted and unncessary plan to kill Jesus to cleanse us of this sin?

The truth is that God came to this earth to pay for our sins because God is both just and merciful. Since He is just, he had to punish our sins. Since He is merciful, he wanted to save us in spite of our sins. That's why he decided to pay for our sins with his own suffering, satisfying in this way both his justice and his mercifulness.

You know a religious person is about to lay down some serious horse poo when they start the sentence with "the truth is."

I guess we should start with this...do you believe literally in the story of Adam and Eve? Because these "sins" I've been saddled with are none of my doing. I've been accused of crimes so bad that I'll burn in hell for eternity for them, and these horrible crimes againt God are...someone else ate an apple a billion years ago. LOL.

So God, who knows everything that will happen ahead of time, sets up Adam and Eve, allows the Devil, posing as a talking snake, to trick them, knowing they wouldn't be able to resist the Devil's trickery. Then God blames the rest of the human race...every single innocent pure baby that is born is blamed for this...for the rest of eternity. A baby born next week will come out accused by God of terrible sin. Sin so bad the baby will burn in hell if it doesn't learn to worship properly. A newborn baby. Guily of sin.

This is like putting a bowl of cookies on the low coffee table, leaving your dog alone in the room, and then when you come back and the cookies have been eaten, not only do you beat your dog for the crime of eating the cookies you knew it would eat, you beat all the dogs in the neighborhood, and when your dog has puppies, you beat those dogs too, and 100 years from now you keep beating every dog you see because once upon a time your dog ate some cookies you left out on purpose to tempt it. 1000 years from now, you keep beating every dog every born, because 1000 years prior, your dog ate some cooking you intentionally left on a low coffee table.

So then...if that initial set up job isn't absurd enough...now we get to the beautiful redemption part. God can't forgive us for some reason, for what amounts to one ancient dog eating cookies off the coffee table. Who knows why he can't just forgive us...he sure can hold a grudge it seems. Because he's "just" I guess? Apparently..."just" means you never forgive anyone, even a little, for stuff their ancestors did. Anyway, instead of just forgiving us, in the ultimite passive-aggressive guilt trip, he for no decernable reason, sends himself in human form to Earth to be murdered. THEN he forgives us, but only if we spend the rest of our lives groveling at his feet and praising him for this great "sacrifce" that we never asked him to commit which inexplicably washes us clean of crimes we didn't commit.

Imagine this! Let's say my wife burns dinner. No, better yet, let's say my wife's great, great, great, great grandmother once burned dinner. I'm so pissed off about this that I threaten to kill her every night. "Your great, great, great, great grandmother burned the roast that time, one of these days I'm going to throw you in the furnance!" I say. She begs "what can I do to make it better" and I say "nothing, I can never forgive you...unless I chop off my arm!" So then I chop off my arm and I scream "look at how you made me suffer, I suffer because of you, I suffer do you see me suffer, gaze on my bleeding stump that I chopped of for you!" Then...thankful to the point of tears she says "oh you're so great I can't believe how I made you suffer, you are the greatest husband ever because you chopped of your own arm so that I could be forgiven!"

The absurdity of this story is off the charts. I know it's sacred to a lot of people, but it's really barking mad. And this is the foundation of what half the world lives their life around...this story of guilt, blame and tenuous conditional forgiveness.

 

[Crypto2015]

It's a bit glib, but it reflects the Christian idea that God is responsible for everything, including the standard that we're judged by and our inability to meet that standard.

There's a Biblical analogy about God as the potter and people as pots that God can do with as he sees fit. The flipside of this that Christians seldom acknowledge is that when a pot cracks or leaks, this is a reflection on the potter. If God is ultimately responsible for us, then ultimately, our failures are God's failures.


Punishing an innocent person for someone else's crimes is neither just nor merciful.

It is not just glib, it is a straw man fallacy that reveals a huge intellectual dishonesty from the atheist side. This fallacy was authored by Christopher Hitchens and used in a debate against his brother Peter. It goes to show that Christopher Hitchens cannot be taken seriously when it comes to Christianity. He deliberately uses these fallacies and never addresses the real tenets of Christianity. Regarding your passage about the potter, this passage says that some people are going to end up in hell and God knew it from the start, before he even created them. Now you are telling me that God is responsible for these vessels' sins (you call them failures). However, you forget that the passage also says that these vessels that were destined for hell serve a purpose: to show God's power and justice. God will punish these vessels, His enemies, thereby showing that He is powerful and just. He punishes the wicked. So, these vessels' "failure" is actually God's success.

 

[Crypto2015]

You're glossing over important differences between different cultures' gods. Pick any god from the long list of gods that people have believed in and the vast majority of humanity will agree that THAT god doesn't exist.

Another misrepresentation of what theism is. Take all of humanity, except for the small atheist minority, and all of them will agree on the fact that there is a God. People may disagree on who this God is and what are his attributes, but they believe that there is a God. That's what matters. Atheism is going against the flow in denying the existence of a being that has always have a place in mankind's collective mind. Hence, the burden of proof is considerably on the atheist's side.

 

[Crypto2015]

But how is that not just saying that choosing is wrong, and in stead of choosing, a course of action must be sorted out, using some logical, moral, historical, precepts as sorting-criteria. Any decision can turn out several different ways in the moment, and this is what you call irrational, and therefore wrong. What else is your complaint of irrationality about then if not that?

And despite what you say my impression is the overwhelming majority of Christians have no idea about such philosophical arguments, and just choose from their heart.

The arguments do not have to be philosophical in nature. However, you must have a reason to believe and your faith must be rational. You should not believe in something that is patently false from a historical, philosophical, logical or scientific point of view. Your faith must be based on reason. This is what the Bible teaches us. What do you understand for a Christian?

 

[Crypto2015]

LOL. Stand no chance against what? The absurd notion of "original sin" or the convoluted and unncessary plan to kill Jesus to cleanse us of this sin?



You know a religious person is about to lay down some serious horse poo when they start the sentence with "the truth is."

I guess we should start with this...do you believe literally in the story of Adam and Eve? Because these "sins" I've been saddled with are none of my doing. I've been accused of crimes so bad that I'll burn in hell for eternity for them, and these horrible crimes againt God are...someone else ate an apple a billion years ago. LOL.

So God, who knows everything that will happen ahead of time, sets up Adam and Eve, allows the Devil, posing as a talking snake, to trick them, knowing they wouldn't be able to resist the Devil's trickery. Then God blames the rest of the human race...every single innocent pure baby that is born is blamed for this...for the rest of eternity. A baby born next week will come out accused by God of terrible sin. Sin so bad the baby will burn in hell if it doesn't learn to worship properly. A newborn baby. Guily of sin.

This is like putting a bowl of cookies on the low coffee table, leaving your dog alone in the room, and then when you come back and the cookies have been eaten, not only do you beat your dog for the crime of eating the cookies you knew it would eat, you beat all the dogs in the neighborhood, and when your dog has puppies, you beat those dogs too, and 100 years from now you keep beating every dog you see because once upon a time your dog ate some cookies you left out on purpose to tempt it. 1000 years from now, you keep beating every dog every born, because 1000 years prior, your dog ate some cooking you intentionally left on a low coffee table.

So then...if that initial set up job isn't absurd enough...now we get to the beautiful redemption part. God can't forgive us for some reason, for what amounts to one ancient dog eating cookies off the coffee table. Who knows why he can't just forgive us...he sure can hold a grudge it seems. Because he's "just" I guess? Apparently..."just" means you never forgive anyone, even a little, for stuff their ancestors did. Anyway, instead of just forgiving us, in the ultimite passive-aggressive guilt trip, he for no decernable reason, sends himself in human form to Earth to be murdered. THEN he forgives us, but only if we spend the rest of our lives groveling at his feet and praising him for this great "sacrifce" that we never asked him to commit which inexplicably washes us clean of crimes we didn't commit.

Imagine this! Let's say my wife burns dinner. No, better yet, let's say my wife's great, great, great, great grandmother once burned dinner. I'm so pissed off about this that I threaten to kill her every night. "Your great, great, great, great grandmother burned the roast that time, one of these days I'm going to throw you in the furnance!" I say. She begs "what can I do to make it better" and I say "nothing, I can never forgive you...unless I chop off my arm!" So then I chop off my arm and I scream "look at how you made me suffer, I suffer because of you, I suffer do you see me suffer, gaze on my bleeding stump that I chopped of for you!" Then...thankful to the point of tears she says "oh you're so great I can't believe how I made you suffer, you are the greatest husband ever because you chopped of your own arm so that I could be forgiven!"

The absurdity of this story is off the charts. I know it's sacred to a lot of people, but it's really barking mad. And this is the foundation of what half the world lives their life around...this story of guilt, blame and tenuous conditional forgiveness.

You don't know anything about Christianity. The Bible says that sin passed from Adam to all men because ALL men have sinned.

"Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned" (Romans 5:12)

Notice that sin is not some sort of congenital disease, but a bad decision that all of us have taken. So, it is for YOUR sins that Jesus has paid.

 

[paarsurrey]

Why? Apart from God seeming to be necessary to some people, there isn't any empirical evidence that supports the existence of God. Assuming that a designer is necessary and that designer is God is based on speculation, not verifiable evidence.

Is there any empirical evidence against the existence of G-d?
Regards

 

[Demonslayer]

You don't know anything about Christianity.

I was raised in a devout Christian household, studied it in college, and have read the Bible cover to cover twice. Just because you have one idea about a faith that millions share doesn't mean you know more than others. Get over yourself, pride is a sin.

The Bible says that sin passed from Adam to all men because ALL men have sinned.

The Bible says bats are birds and that we should beat our slaves too. You still need to read it and ask yourself if it makes sense. The Bible says sin passed from Adam to all men...because all men have sinned? Has a newborn baby sinned?

 

[leibowde84]

Is there any empirical evidence against the existence of G-d?
Regards

That is an illogical question. Empirical evidence cannot exist for the absence of anything. So, you have pointed to something that is completely irrational to ask for.

Think about this ... is there empirical evidence that proves that unicorns don't exist? No, of course not. The absence of verifiable evidence that they do exist is sufficient to assume that they do not exist. The same should be acknowledged when it comes to God, which is the major point of atheism. For some reason the existence of God demands far less supporting evidence to believe when it comes to certain people.

 

[viole]

A morality-based reason is that without God, there are no moral absolutes. However, we know that there are moral absolutes: some things are absolutely wrong and we know it. Therefore, God must necessarily exist. This doesn't prove God's existence, but it makes faith much more reasonable than disbelieve. A historical reason is the ton of evidence supporting Jesus' resurrection, as well as the fact that the prophecies contained in the Jewish scriptures closely match the events and teachings of Jesus. Another reason is the fact that the book of Daniel predicts the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple with great accuracy. Another reason is that God coming to the Earth to pay for our sins is the most moving story ever and gives meaning and purpose to our lives. Again, this last reason does not prove that God exists, but it makes believing in Him much more reasonable than not believing in him, since in a universe without God, life has no purpose and no meaning. In addition, the fact that the universe cannot be infinite (because infinity is just a concept and has no real existence) tells us that the universe must have had a beginning. Since nothing comes out of nothing, the cause that originated the universe must be outside of the universe (i.e., outside of time and space). For such an atemporal cause to have caused a temporal consequence (the universe), the cause must be personal (i.e., a being) because impersonal atemporal causes can only originate atemporal consequences. There are many other reasons that either prove the existence of God or make believing in God much more reasonable than not believing in God.

So many?

Which one would you like to address first? Maybe the strongest one or the one that makes the other almost superflous, if any. You can choose it.

Ciao

- viole

 

[Demonslayer]

Is there any empirical evidence against the existence of G-d?
Regards

There is plenty of evidence against CLAIMS people make about God. For instance, every day someone claims God cured them of cancer because they prayed and their prayers were answered. Yet we can, and have, proven that the rate of cancer survival is no greater among people who pray to be cured than among people who don't. They have done studies on this in multiple ways...sometimes they did it where certain groups were prayed for by others and didn't know, sometimes they people being prayed for were aware of the prayers, etc. In every case there was no difference in survival rates.

So we can't prove your God doesn't exist, but we can prove he's not curing cancer when people pray for it. That's just one example of things about God we can prove aren't true.

 

[Crypto2015]

I was raised in a devout Christian household, studied it in college, and have read the Bible cover to cover twice. Just because you have one idea about a faith that millions share doesn't mean you know more than others. Get over yourself, pride is a sin.



The Bible says bats are birds and that we should beat our slaves too. You still need to read it and ask yourself if it makes sense. The Bible says sin passed from Adam to all men...because all men have sinned? Has a newborn baby sinned?

Well, I am sorry to say that in spite of all of that, you didn't learn anything about Christianity. I said that sin passed from Adam to all men because all men have sinned. This is exactly what's written in the Bible, word for word. The fact that you didn't know that just proves that you don't know anything about Christianity. Regarding the doctrine of original sin, it is not central to the message of the Gospel. There are different opinions on the subject (Arminianism and Calvinism). According to the Arminian view babies are not accountable for Adam's sin. So, you could have been an Arminian Christian. Regarding bats, taxonomic classifications are human conventions. Did you know that Russians don't consider birds to be animals? That's because they have a different convention. Regarding beating our slaves, if you knew something about Christianity, you would know that Christianity actually says that all are equal before God. Slaves are treated as free men in Christianity. The Old Testament protects the serfs (they were not slaves in the US sense of the word). Anyway, it is curious that an atheist such as yourself is trying to demonstrate that the Bible is immoral, when in fact a wholly logically consistent atheist would be forced to acknowledge that in a universe without God there is no such a thing as evil or right or wrong. According to a true atheist rape and murder are not evil. At the most, they are unfashionable.

 

[paarsurrey]

That is an illogical question. Empirical evidence cannot exist for the absence of anything. So, you have pointed to something that is completely irrational to ask for.

Think about this ... is there empirical evidence that proves that unicorns don't exist? No, of course not. The absence of verifiable evidence that they do exist is sufficient to assume that they do not exist. The same should be acknowledged when it comes to God, which is the major point of atheism. For some reason the existence of God demands far less supporting evidence to believe when it comes to certain people.

It is a very reasonable question. Can't one prove that a certain person is not in the house?
Regards

 

[Demonslayer]

Well, I am sorry to say that in spite of all of that, you didn't learn anything about Christianity.

Or your too dim to understand my point.

I said that sin passed from Adam to all men because all men have sinned. This is exactly what's written in the Bible, word for word.

Yeah I know what it says. What I'm asking you to do is stop and think about what it says, and what those words mean. If all men sin, why would sin need to pass from Adam? If all men sin why not just say "all men have sinned?" Why bother with the "Adam passed it down" bit? If all men have already sinned, what does Adam have to do with anything? What sin is being "passed" if everyone already has their own sin to worry about.

Also, tell me again how a new born baby has sinned?

The fact that you didn't know that just proves that you don't know anything about Christianity.

That fact that you can't articulate an explantion for what the Bible says, or hold a discussion that involves more than repeating a nonsensical quote over and over and then insulting my knowledge on the subject, proves you couldn't think your way out of a wet paper bag.

 

[Crypto2015]

So many?

Which one would you like to address first? Maybe the strongest one or the one that makes the other almost superflous, if any. You can choose it.

Ciao

- viole

Please address the historicity of Christ's resurrection. It is the most interesting one. Ciao!

 

[paarsurrey]

Please address the historicity of Christ's resurrection. It is the most interesting one. Ciao!

Jesus did not die on the Cross, so there is no question of his resurrection from the clinically dead.And Jesus was never a god.
Regards

 

[leibowde84]

It is a very reasonable question. Can't one prove that a certain person is not in the house?
Regards

A house is a closed system. The cosmos and existence/reality is certainly not. Unless you can specify where God would be found, necessarily (like your house example), your question is illogical.

Can you prove that unicorns don't exist? What is your evidence?