Evidence That the Absence of a God is Not Possible

[Nakosis]

I would here define God as the fundamental source of the physical existence.

Ok, IOW, physical existence is evidence of God's existence. (again you can believe whatever you want) However the idea here to convince someone else of your conclusion. Therefore you would need to also provide evidence that "physical existence" could not exist in the absence of a God.

Otherwise there would be no reason for anyone else to conclude that God is the source of physical existence.

 

[George-ananda]

Ok, IOW, physical existence is evidence of God's existence. (again you can believe whatever you want) However the idea here to convince someone else of your conclusion. Therefore you would need to also provide evidence that "physical existence" could not exist in the absence of a God.

Otherwise there would be no reason for anyone else to conclude that God is the source of physical existence.

As I said I am using the word 'Source' and not 'God'.

And there is no proof of anything. I'm just making the best argument.

 

[Balthazzar]

No. Without proper evidence, it's completely dismissable.

That sounds a lot like Hitchen's stance. Hitchen's razor: "what can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence". I think we are prone to do this anyway, but this doesn't always make for an honest exchange. Maybe Kants method would be beneficial, which follows along similar lines of reason.

" In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant summarizes his philosophical concerns in the following three questions:

1. What can I know?
2. What should I do?
3. What may I hope?[64]

The Critique of Pure Reason focuses upon the first question and opens a conceptual space for an answer to the second question." From Wiki


I'll suggest that the 3rd offers something of value to the conceptual space provided for the answer of the first, and that the scriptures offer another answer: "Look and you will find, knock and a way will be opened for you".

So, the easy dismissal isn't always the honest or most beneficial, nor most reasonable stance to adhere to.

 

[Nakosis]

Believers can do neither. Nor have they any incentive to falsify their faith-based beliefs. God beliefs aren't acquired using evidence and can't be modified by evidence. That's the nature of faith. Faith is belief divorced from evidence.

And yet, I am continually bombarded by people providing evidence for God.

Nor does it become real just because one wants it to be.

The goal of the critical thinker is to accumulate only demonstrably correct beliefs and to avoid false and unfalsifiable beliefs. Claims that can neither be ruled in or out aren't believed or disbelieved. They remain in a separate category from things deemed correct or incorrect. Like known false beliefs, they don't affect decision making. That's why agnosticism for gods leads to agnostic atheism. The agnostic atheist doesn't claim that gods don't exist, nor need he to live as if they don't.

When a god, if any exist, manifests itself unambiguously, then I will become a theist. Until then, there is no reason for the atheist to become one and no value to him to start thinking about gods as if they exist. Even if they do, so what? How is knowing that useful? How should one's life change the day he becomes aware that a god exists? I'd say not at all.

It's kind of like learning that dark matter exists. The information, though interesting, has no practical value. Nothing changes in the typical life knowing that.

I'm just helping the folks who do or plan to provide evidence of God. Pointing out that supplying evidence for God is not enough. And, I get you would probably dismiss the evidence. I'm getting to the "why" you would dismiss the evidence, whatever they provided, of which itself could be self-evidently true.

They'd also have to show how the opposite of their conclusion based on their evidence could not be true. Otherwise their conclusion can be as you said, dismissed.

 

[Nakosis]

As I said I am using the word 'Source' and not 'God'.

You were defining God.

And there is no proof of anything. I'm just making the best argument.

In an argument you provide a statement and a conclusion based on that statement.
To provide a convincing argument you must show that given your statement the opposite of your conclusion could not be true.

Of course it your are not interesting in making a convincing argument then you are free to ignore the latter.

 

[Nakosis]

Is this a play on Kant or the other guy? Kant was the "ought" guy who suggested something similar, I think. I honestly don't know much about him, but read something of him the other day. Anyway, it seems evident that the universe in some form must have always existed. Can I prove this? I don't think it matters, but it may "ought" to be evident enough to accept.

If morality is about what's right (truth) and what's wrong (error), then we ought to understand morality to be necessitated in our intellectual discourses.

It's funny, I was just thinking about relativity as it might pertain to less tangible fields of matter. It's obvious that morality is necessitated in our intellectual discourses. How could it not be? This ought to be evident, if only based on how we perceive truth and error ourselves, each having an equal and opposite play on this particular field.

No, it is just me. Kant maybe something I should look into though. Maybe he explains the idea better.

Morality, a different subject I think which is a bit more fluid.

Newton's 3rd law of motion as applied to Einsteins theory of special relativity, via Kants understanding of morality through the Word the Greeks termed the logos.

Ha ha

Sound's complicated.

 

[Nakosis]

Only if you are convinced a god does not exist.

I'm not convinced that God doesn't exist.

I don't think there is any way to give good evidence that a god cannot exist.

The point I'm trying to make, to all it "good" evidence for your conclusion requires you to show a correlation between your evidence and your conclusion. IOW, even given that all of evidence you provide is self-evident, you'd also have the show that in light of your evidence, the opposite of your conclusion is not possible.

IOW, you say "A" your evidence is true then "B" is true. That only works if you can also show that "B" cannot be false while "A" is true.

 

[Balthazzar]

To provide a convincing argument you must show that given your statement the opposite of your conclusion could not be true.

I think this is a matter of opinion and a personal requirement as opposed to anything universally shared as being accurate. Typically, I would agree but the windows to other possible realities still exist. Hermetic philosophy, for example, suggests a law of correspondence and a law of rhythm to be truth's. As above, so below relates to correspondence and pendulum swings relate to the tides of life, the in's and the out's, the this way's and that way's concept connoting fluid type dynamics, constant in life ... Newtons proportioned 3rd law, or maybe Einsteins special law of relativity combined.

These are old and some would say irrelevant and "outdated" philosophical teachings by a guy named Hermes Trismegistus, which oddly enough correspond nicely with some of this world's greatest scientific thinkers.

Anyway, true and untrue can both be true simultaneously, without dismissing the other as completely irrelevant. This embodies the hermetic law of polarity, suggesting that they are in actually both true and both untrue and the same.

If you're at all interested in where this is taught and how it can be applied, you can find it here.
.

 

[PureX]

People are free to define God however they want.

A person provides whatever evidence for God and that evidence is self evidently true. Therefore "God", however they define God must also be true.

IOW, the claim if A is true then B is true must also include evidence the while A is true, B cannot be false.

So whatever evidence one is providing to conclude God's existence they must show that the evidence being provided could not exist if God did not exist.

It is the only way one can appropriately agree with the conclusion.

"God" is it's own evidence. Or rather, it provides it's own evidence depending on how one chooses to envision it. If "God is love", then love is the evidence. If "God is justice" then karma is the evidence. If "God is righteousness" then our moral ethicality becomes the evidence. If "God is our personal friend" then the feeling of our not being alone is the evidence of it. And on and on it goes. We can define God however we need to or want to, and we will then perceive God as being that in our reality. And no one can contradict us because no one knows what God is, or isn't, apart God being the ultimate source of 'what is'.

It's rather an amazing thing, really, that so many people can envision God in so many different ways and yet somehow God can becomes all those things for all those people.

 

[PureX]

The pendulum swings from one side to the other side like clockwork. God is and God isn't, and God is both evidenced and without evidence, both ever present and never present.

What fascinates me is how both of these 'sides of God' actually work together. It's the fact that God cannot be captured and nailed down as an idea that allows us to envision God however we choose without suffering any valid negation. And that freedom is what makes the idea of God so important and so effective in the lives of so many people. We each get the God that we need. And to me that is an amazing thing.

 

[Nakosis]

I only hope that you (and others) are aware that the OP you authored has zero relevance to the title you chose. Perhaps you should take your own words to heart, i.e.,

"Remember, you can't just make a claim."​

The logic ought to be self evident.
One's conclusion can be accepted as true given the evidence to support it only if the opposite the that conclusion cannot also be true using the same evidence.

Lets say the claim is the existence of life proves that God exists. To support that conclusion you'd also have to provide evidence that life could not exist in the absence of a God

IOW, Evidence That the Absence of a God is Not Possible in light of the evidence provided.

 

[Nakosis]

"God" is it's own evidence. Or rather, it provides it's own evidence depending on how one chooses to envision it. If "God is love", then love is the evidence. If "God is justice" then karma is the evidence. If "God is righteousness" then our religious righteousness becomes the evidence. If "God is our personal friend" then the feeling of our not being alone is the evidence of it.

Can love, justice, karma, righteousness or a personal friend exist without God?
Unless you can show these things can't existence in the absence of a God, the conclusion implied by these statements can be dismissed.

And on and on it goes. We can define God however we need to or want to, and we will then perceive God as being that in our reality. And no one can contradict us because no one knows what God is, or isn't, apart God being the ultimate source of 'what is'.

It's rather an amazing thing, really, that so many people can envision God in so many different ways and yet somehow God can becomes all those things for all those people.

Yes, it only becomes important if you want to convince someone else of your conclusion. If you don't care whether your statement is convincing or not then sure you can say anything you want which can be easily dismissed.

 

[amatuerscholar]

For God's existence to be accepted scientifically or logically, first you would have to come up with a means to test for God's absence.

Whatever claims you make about God, you would need to come up with a method to test whether the opposite is not true. Evidence for God is not enough. You'd also need to provide evidence that a God's absence in the universe is not possible.

So generally you are going about it the wrong way if you are trying to provide evidence for God. What you'd need to do is provide evidence that the opposite of God's existence, the absence of a God is not true.

IOW, in your daily life, what would it be impossible for you to do or impossible to happen if there was no God.

Remember, you can't just make a claim. You also have to provide evidence to back up your claim that the absence of a God is not possible.

The question of God is not a scientific question, so attempting to address the question at all with science is silly. Even if one would find some sort of being that could be defined as God, science still couldn't point to whether or not that being was God, or just some sort of alien. Because the question of God is not one of science, but faith.

 

[Nakosis]

The question of God is not a scientific question, so attempting to address the question at all with science is silly. Even if one would find some sort of being that could be defined as God, science still couldn't point to whether or not that being was God, or just some sort of alien. Because the question of God is not one of science, but faith.

Then there should be not be any claims of evidence for God.

Do a Google search for "Evidence for God". If you find no results then certainly there is no reason for this thread.

 

[Dimi95]

This assumes "God" is a "thing." Not everyone agrees that it is.

Since when consensus is the measure of importance?

 

[amatuerscholar]

Then there should be not be any claims of evidence for God.

Do a Google search for "Evidence for God". If you find no results then certainly there is no reason for this thread.

Some people make up bad arguments. But creating a bad argument to counter that first argument gets no one anywhere.

One can make an argument that belief in God isn't irrational, or at least it doesn't need to be. One can make an argument that the possibility of God isn't negligible, and one can build on this by providing philosophical proofs.

But relying on science, in either way, is silly as the question of God is not a scientific question.

 

[Nakosis]

Some people make up bad arguments. But creating a bad argument to counter that first argument gets no one anywhere.

One can make an argument that belief in God isn't irrational, or at least it doesn't need to be. One can make an argument that the possibility of God isn't negligible, and one can build on this by providing philosophical proofs.

But relying on science, in either way, is silly as the question of God is not a scientific question.

Here we are relying on logic, not science.
We are relying on what is self-evident, not something that needs the support of scientific theories.

 

[Balthazzar]

Since when consensus is the measure of importance?

Democracy?

I would think a consensus has some measured importance associated with it. I do agree that this wouldn't dictate an absolute truth, but it would be suggestive of a truth and an understanding of it.

 

[Valjean]

For God's existence to be accepted scientifically or logically, first you would have to come up with a means to test for God's absence.

Whatever claims you make about God, you would need to come up with a method to test whether the opposite is not true. Evidence for God is not enough. You'd also need to provide evidence that a God's absence in the universe is not possible.

So generally you are going about it the wrong way if you are trying to provide evidence for God. What you'd need to do is provide evidence that the opposite of God's existence, the absence of a God is not true.

IOW, in your daily life, what would it be impossible for you to do or impossible to happen if there was no God.

Remember, you can't just make a claim. You also have to provide evidence to back up your claim that the absence of a God is not possible.

No!
Logically, claims are not accepted until evidence is presented. Claims remain unsupported -- not believed -- till positive, supporting evidence is adduced.
The reasonable position is to defer belief in something until the claimant has met her evidentiary burden.
Lack of belief is the default. No countervailing evidence need be presented.

...and who's claiming God's not possible?

 

[PureX]

Can love, justice, karma, righteousness or a personal friend exist without God?
Unless you can show these things can't existence in the absence of a God, the conclusion implied by these statements can be dismissed.

Nothing can exist in the absence of God, because God is the source-agency that makes all that is possible, possible, and leaves all that is not possible, not possible. Without this source-agency, NOTHING is possible.

Yes, it only becomes important if you want to convince someone else of your conclusion. If you don't care whether your statement is convincing or not then sure you can say anything you want which can be easily dismissed.

Why would anyone want to convince anyone else that how they envision God is the 'one right way' to envision God? All that would do is cheat the other person out of their own vision and experience of God.

This is also why I think atheists are wrong for constantly demanding evidence for God when they could easily develop their own vision of God and thereby experience their own evidence. Chasing after someone else's vision and evidence is just cutting them off from having their own. And for what? Just so they can disclaim someone else's? What silly nonsense that is!