Evidence for atheism

[Jenny A]

There's several different arguments for the existence of a god, i myself have created a topic in religion section about some of my own beliefs few weeks ago, so i'm not exactly going to takeover this thread to talk about those beliefs.

But in sum, and allow me the analogy, God is like an unicorn: it could exist, it's viable, it'd be very reasonable to exist. We might refute that there are unicorns on Earth in the present, but we trully can't refute the existence of a unicorn because it's an entirelly believable possibility, we have several animals with horns, i see no big reason to refute the possibility that there might be unicorns horse somewhere, even on a parallel dimension.
The same as god, it's entirelly believable that there is eternity and something trully uncreated existing, i see no reason to believe otherwise in fact. That that thing might be a god or just the "universe" in it, it's open to interpretation, but there's trully no reason to object the possibility.

It's essentially impossible to prove a negative. But some things are so improbable that we can safely treat them as disproven.

We can't disprove unicorns. A horse or deer-like animal isn't an physical impossibility. Fair enough. But that's no reason to assume that unicorns exist, merely an argument that could possibly exist. Now, consider the evidence for unicorn's existence: Narr Whale horns, contradictory written reports in bestiaries, myths. Not good. Given the lack of other evidence I can safely hold unicorns lack of existence significantly more probable than their existence.

Now lets look at the possibility of an "uncreated existing." First of all either matter and energy have always existed or they came into existence at some point in time or various points in time. Is it impossible that there was an always existing creator or a creator who suddenly sprang into existence who made everything else out of nothing? I can't disprove that notion, but it's a considerably more complicated idea than either that everything always existed or that everything spontaneously came into existence. Why? Because it presumes the eternal existence of a being infinitely more complex than atoms. It also adds a second and unnecessary step to the process. There is no evidence whatsoever of such a being. Therefore I find such a being much less probable than a unicorn. Therefore I can dismiss the idea of a "uncreated existing."

Further, even if you could prove that universe was created by such a being, you'd still have to show that it's extant today. Good luck with that.

[The Grand Nudger]

Every negative claim explicitly invokes a positive one. It's not impossible to prove/disprove a negative at all. It's just irritating.
(I'm honestly not trying to be a dick or a contrarian, simply pointing out that phrases such as the last few I've responded to are actually apologetics which have been smuggled into our collective appraisals)

[Simon Moon]

For sure there's alot of arbitrary definitions of god that might be refutable, but that doesn't mean that refutal of arbitrary definitions trully refutes the possibility of existence.

True.

But without evidence, what is the justification to believe in a god?

Very few atheists claim to know, with absolute certainty, that a god does not exist.

The thing is, there are very compelling sets of reasoning to believe on an eternal and creating existence that serves as a cosmological hypothesis to explain the universe.

Like what?

Hopefully you are not referring to any of the philosophical arguments for the existence of a god, like the Cosmological argument.

They are all flawed.

[FreeTony]

A child will come up with a whole host of excuses as to why their parents can't see their imaginary friend.

Theists tactics are no more sophisticated than those the child uses. ( And the child won't make the mistake of claiming their imaginary friend must exist because he created the universe)

[Chad32]

Actually it would be some hard evidence for Yahweh's existence if the majority of christians led great lives, while almost everyone else led pitiful lives. However that's not true. There are many christians with pitiful lives, and many non christians with great lives.

So you can't just say that Yahweh graces those who follow him, and punished those who don't. I'm pretty sure research would show that being christian or not has little to do with your life, besides societal pressures. There may be some predominantly christian city where a christian has a nice life, but a homosexual doesn't, but that's only because the other people in the town favor one and reject the other. Not some deity.

[Simon Moon]

Well, be it god or the universe, you have somekind of unexplainable fundamental complexity nonetheless, and is almost logical necessity that something always existed in order to generate something, so the argument for complexity of the uncreated cause is not exactly strong.

The 'something that has always existed, is existence.

Existence is the primacy of everything, inducing our universe in its current state.

[Madness20]

Well, be it god or the universe, you have somekind of unexplainable fundamental complexity

Unexplainable fundamental comlpexity? What does that even mean? Besides, just because something is unexplained currently doesn't mean it's unexplainable, nor does it mean you can toss on some supernatural crap which is in and of itself, unexplainable.

I said that as an answer to the argument that saying god is too complex to have been uncreated, or rather, that it is unexplainable, the same attributes do apply to our universe.

and is almost logical necessity that something always existed in order to generate something

No, it's really not. Again, you don't get to toss in an eternal cause or creator just because it 'makes sense to you'. That's not how science works.

Well it might not be, but i'm trully very very sceptical, if not against, the idea that science might prove some day that "nothing" exists and created something, and that something created everything we have. What about you?

Unless we prove that the laws of non-contradictions and tautological equality are false, i have reasons to believe this is impossible. Unless we disprove that the universe has a balance and nothing is really "lost or generated it just transforms" and several other scientifical and philosophical theories and laws that are consistent with eternity.

so the argument for complexity of the uncreated cause is not exactly strong.

Again, lots of words with a lot of baggage, might want to clarify exactly what you're trying to say here. If by "the complexity of the uncreated cause" you just mean the current state of our reality and how we perceive 'complexity' in nature, then you're out of rope. There's nothing but evidence for natural emergence of complexity, as nature is all we have the ability to measure. Again, you don't get to stick a god on top of everything. We have evidence of nature existing, and that nature has what we call complexity. There is absolutely nothing there to suggest a god or a creator.

It's actually the opposite. I'm trying to define some concievable characteristics to our universe, and call it "god" a posteriori by it's characteristics. Let's see, eternal, creative, generating all complexity, first cause, collection of everything, deterministic/logically absolute, potentially infinite and transcending (to all sets). Hmm, yeah, this fits my definition of a God.
If i can prove it? I can't, that's why they are beliefs, not knowledge. I just have "reasonable faith" the universe follows these characteristics.

[Cyberman]

The same as god, it's entirelly believable that there is eternity and something trully uncreated existing,

That you've had to resort to this sort of rhetoric to smuggle in the existence of a god entity is a massive clue that you're bluffing on an empty hand.

[FatAndFaithless]

Unexplainable fundamental comlpexity? What does that even mean? Besides, just because something is unexplained currently doesn't mean it's unexplainable, nor does it mean you can toss on some supernatural crap which is in and of itself, unexplainable.

I said that as an answer to the argument that saying god is too complex to have been uncreated, or rather, that it is unexplainable, the same attributes do apply to our universe.

No, it's really not. Again, you don't get to toss in an eternal cause or creator just because it 'makes sense to you'. That's not how science works.

Well it might not be, but i'm trully very very sceptical, if not against, the idea that science might prove some day that "nothing" exists and created something, and that something created everything we have. What about you?

Unless we prove that the laws of non-contradictions and tautological equality are false, i have reasons to believe this is impossible. Unless we disprove that the universe has a balance and nothing is really "lost or generated it just transforms" and several other scientifical and philosophical theories and laws that are consistent with eternity.

Again, lots of words with a lot of baggage, might want to clarify exactly what you're trying to say here. If by "the complexity of the uncreated cause" you just mean the current state of our reality and how we perceive 'complexity' in nature, then you're out of rope. There's nothing but evidence for natural emergence of complexity, as nature is all we have the ability to measure. Again, you don't get to stick a god on top of everything. We have evidence of nature existing, and that nature has what we call complexity. There is absolutely nothing there to suggest a god or a creator.

It's actually the opposite. I'm trying to define some concievable characteristics to our universe, and call it "god" a posteriori by it's characteristics. Let's see, eternal, creative, generating all complexity, first cause, collection of everything, deterministic/logically absolute, potentially infinite and transcending (to all sets). Hmm, yeah, this fits my definition of a God.
If i can prove it? I can't, that's why they are beliefs, not knowledge. I just have "reasonable faith" the universe follows these characteristics.

You can call whatever you want by the "God" label, just don't expect anyone, theists or atheists, to take you seriously.

Also, stop ascribing anthropomorphic characteristics to the universe. It's not "creative" and it doesn't "generate" anything. The laws of nature and physics weren't from an intent or a choice, they just are. And as to your first part about scientists proving "nothing" exists and something came from it (or whatever you were trying to say, it's very hard to folllow), nobody says that the universe came from nothing..that's a very common theist strawman of the big bang theory. Additionally, you don't get to call the universe 'the first cause', because we have no knowledge of the time=0 point or prior to that point. Unless of course you really are just spitballing vaguely-spiritual terms and dart-boarding them onto our scientific unknowns and calling it "god" for shits and giggles, in which case knock yourself out.

[The Grand Nudger]

"Something" does not equal "god" Madness. Could I go through and dispute your claim line by line? Yes....but I don't have to, I can accept the laundry list and then call it "toaster".