My Inquiry

[onmytablet512]

Hello all! I was scrolling through the Internet tonight and I got on the topic of the existence of God, and ended up stumbling across this site. I'm currently looking for any evidence I can find that God does/does not exist (I'm a Christian), so it would be awesome if you guys would post your best rebuttals against the existence of God here for me to look at. I realize that sometimes I only see one side of an argument so I would like to put this out to you guys so I can see this argument over the existence of God from both sides. Thanks!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Wow. Well, the entire forum is replete with arguments about this, so my advice would be to lurk and read through some of them. You'll find loads in the atheism and religious sub forums.

To be parsimonious and to the point, the most compelling evidence against a god (however defined) is the current lack of any evidence for a god. Remember, there is no onus whatsoever on the audience to disprove a claim when the proponent has no evidence in which to falsify. Rather, the person saying "there is/are a god/gods" needs something more than "because I believe it!" to make anyone take notice of their claims.

And that something, as a very minimum, would have to be something testable, verifiable, and repeatable. Maybe, just maybe, if those can be satisfied to a good degree, there is something worth investigating in the claim. Otherwise, there's a large scrapheap of god claims where it can be consigned.

Welcome to the forum my friend. Hope you find what you're looking for ^_^

[onmytablet512]

Wow. Well, the entire forum is replete with arguments about this, so my advice would be to lurk and read through some of them. You'll find loads in the atheism and religious sub forums.

To be parsimonious and to the point, the most compelling evidence against a god (however defined) is the current lack of any evidence for a god. Remember, there is no onus whatsoever on the audience to disprove a claim when the proponent has no evidence in which to falsify. Rather, the person saying "there is/are a god/gods" needs something more than "because I believe it!" to make anyone take notice of their claims.

And that something, as a very minimum, would have to be something testable, verifiable, and repeatable. Maybe, just maybe, if those can be satisfied to a good degree, there is something worth investigating in the claim. Otherwise, there's a large scrapheap of god claims where it can be consigned.

Hmmm. And I suppose that would bring us back to the whole there is no proof for the existence of God but there is also no proof against the existence of God. Thank you for the advice on lurking, I will get right to that

[Longhorn]

Biggest argument against god: no evidence for his existence.

What you're asking is too general. Present a specific argument and we'll rebut it. Or search for it on the forum.

[Fidel_Castronaut]

No problem buddy

Well, again, if there's no proof for the existence of a god then why believe in it? Personal choice of course but I'd feel weird personally if I believed in something I knew there was no evidence for.

[Cyberman]

First of all, it's not the 'standard' atheist position that "God" doesn’t exist, but that the case for the existence of such a thing hasn't met it's burden of proof. Likewise, it's not up to us to prove the non-existence of anything, even if that were possible. It's not reasonable to expect a person to come up with a definition of something in which they don't believe and then make the case for why it doesn't exist. You don't need to do that for anything else, from leprechauns to zombies, and that doesn't change just because the word "God" is plugged in there.

[onmytablet512]

Well I do believe there is quite a bit of evidence for the existence of God personally, however it is 2:30 AM so I shall go more into this come morning!

[Fidel_Castronaut]

Ok that's cool. My advice however would be to concentrate on one thing at a time. You're likely to receive a lot of rebuttals from various members on the forum, so it will be daunting keeping on top of them.

Also remember that most likely we've seen every argument out there for a deity, so likely the rebuttals and responses will make reference to other threads/discussions where themes have been brought up.

G'night ^_^

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

I have definitive proof that a personal God doesn't exist.  Consider:

I am an exemplary person.  Seriously, I'm an outstandingly good guy.  If God existed, he would clearly have rewarded me by now.  But have I won the lotto?  No.  Am I the benevolent dictator of a large country, where people sing my praises and erect massive statues to my glory?  No.  Is Lupita Nyong'o in my kitchen cooking me pancakes in the nuddy?  No.

Therefore, no God.

Boru

[robvalue]

Hello, welcome

Atheism by default is about reserving judgement. We're not convinced there is a god. We're not necessarily convinced there isn't either, although some atheists will state this.

We find no more need to try and disprove God as to disprove the tooth fairy, Bigfoot, UFOs or invisible punk unicorns that secretly control the planet. There are an infinite number of things that could be defined, and a limited amount of time in life. So it makes sense to concentrate on and worry about only those things which have evidence for them.

On the whole, proving something doesn't exist, especially something as abstract and poorly defined as God, is impossible. But that alone is not a rational reason to believe it does exist, or else you'd have to believe in everything that can't be proven not to exist for the same reason.

As has been stated, feel free to bring what you feel is evidence for God but try and stick to one thing at a time. And for starters, you might like to try defining what God is, and how we would be able to identify it even if it was somehow found. How could we tell it apart from a super powered alien? At what point does a powerful creature become a god?