Neil DeGrasse Tyson on Disproving God

[Mister Agenda]

 It just a simple question, your lifetime is finite.  Do you disagree with this ?  If no, then do you really exist ?  The amount of time that will lapse by between your birth and death is so small compared to the billions of years that universe will exist, you really think you exist ?

No matter how short the interval, I really exist right now. What's the minimum duration for something to exist before it really exists?

And in a trillion times infinity years I won't exist anymore, but I will always have existed. Think about that.

[Nonpareil]

Now you are making this ant more than it really is.

I am making the ant what it has to be for the hypothetical to have any relevance at all. If you want to claim that the ant can't think, that's all well and good, but the situation ceases to be comparable to the one that exists for humans.

Regard the objective characteristics of God.  If what I see and touch etc around me in this universe as part of God, then God is quantifiable.

That is a very large "if".

The difference between the ant and human is that we have the cognitive skill to know God

Oh, good. So you do have evidence, then.

Let's see it.

Only stupid for those who can not think past a human lifetime.

No, it remains stupid however you think about it.

Having a short, finite existence is not equivalent to having no existence, no matter how large you make your scale.

[Mister Agenda]

No matter how short the interval, I really exist right now. What's the minimum duration for something to exist before it really exists?

And in a trillion times infinity years I won't exist anymore, but I will always have existed. Think about that.

 
You keep pushing the point you exist from your point of view but on the large scale it is nothing
 What is the significance of your existence in the small fraction of time and what value is your existence ?

It's very significant and valuable to me. What additional value does my existence need? What point of view am I supposed to have besides my own?

[Nonpareil]

What you are trying to do is make your argument legit by creating hypothetical that really does not make sense.

Erm... no, tiger. I was trying to help you to make a hypothetical that made some sort of sense. You're the one who brought up the ant scenario as a parallel to how humans might interact with God, but if the imaginary ant can't think and draw conclusions, then it isn't actually a valid comparison. You are the one who needs the ant to be sapient in order for your argument to even potentially carry any weight, not me.

It is not a big If.  I would have worded as follows.  Everything around me that I can see, touch, etc is a part God.

You have said this. You have not actually established that it is true.

Until and unless you do, no one cares.

[masterofpuppets]

You do realise that saying "this Universe is a being and that being is God" is pointless in actually proving that God exists, right?

If you define God as something that actually exists, and then claim that God exists, you haven't actually proven anything. All you have done is define words in your favour. Please demonstrate that a DEITY actually exists, instead of merely CLAIMING it.

And your argument that "we can't know God doesn't exist because it is beyond the scope of our knowledge" is arguing from ignorance, which is a logical fallacy. Simply replace "God" with anything else and you'll see why it doesn't make sense. No one believes anything just because it COULD exist, and we haven't even demonstrated that it's possible that a god exists. We haven't demonstrated that it's impossible either, but it does not therefore follow that it is.

Also, if God is "separate to the Universe", then that to me is essentially synonymous with non-existence. Existence is DEFINED as having some kind of manifestation in the physical universe. If not, it's only a concept.

[Nonpareil]

 No moron, I did not use the ant as a sapient insect in my argument.

I did just say this. That is why I said that the ant needed to be sapient. Otherwise, your argument doesn't work, as it is not an appropriate comparison.

It is at this point that I really have to ask whether or not English is your first language. You seem to be having extreme issues with it.

If you read it again the ant is small and its physical limitations would not allow it to know a human exists.

It would, if the ant were capable of thinking and assessing evidence. Humans are, so unless you want to say that the hypothetical ant can also do so, the parallel doesn't work.

Of course, once you do that, you have to admit that the ant could actually learn what a human is, so the argument fails anyway - but then, that's not my problem, is it? It's not my argument.

How is my statement untrue regarding the universe as part of God?

You have not established it to be true. You do have to actually back up what you say, irontiger, if you want anyone to take you at all seriously.

Before the so called enlightenment of the West, the universe was called Brahman in the East.  The word Brahman (which is different to Brahmin which refers to a person so don't get confused like you usually do) would refer to the universe and God as one.  So basically this universe is a being and that being is God.

And they couldn't establish it to be true either. 

So no one cares.

[Nonpareil]

What has not been established ?

That "the universe is God" is coherent and true.

As ma5t3r0fpupp3t5 has already pointed out, simply defining "God" as "the universe" is pointless, and establishes exactly nothing. If you want to worship the universe as-is, that's all well and good, but saying that "the universe is God" presumably means something. If the universe is, indeed, God, then you should be able to point to some aspect of the universe that makes you think that. There has to be some definable aspect that would be different if the universe were not God. Otherwise, it is incoherent and meaningless, and no one cares about it.

In the case of the Brahman concept, it falls into the "incoherent" category. There is no concrete definition of the term available anywhere. This is deliberate, and characteristic of many similar religious and philosophical concepts from the region, but unfortunately, being deliberately incoherent does not make a concept any less unworkable and unsupportable.

[RoadRunner79]

[quote='Nonpareil' pid='1523213' dateline='1489176727']Just seems like an odd way of laying it out, and especially from your first post on the issue which would have stated that said nonpareili doesn't exist.

None of my posts would have resulted in that conclusion.

However I don't see the distinction from my first statement quoted above.

At this point, it has been stated as clearly as it can be stated, and it is not a complicated issue. I must simply ask that you re-read my posts.

Thanks, I understand now....
You are really not stating anything more than X didn't occur. Not making a conclusion or arguement yet.

[masterofpuppets]

You can not establish the conditions to prove the existence of something which can totally subjective to you.  In your mind there is no Deity because you already pre-decided the conditions of what deity is or is not however, the deity can be totally different in its characteristics and not fit your conditions.  Therefore you always continue to deny its existence because it does not meet your conditions which you establish yourself.  If I tell you that this universe is God, it will not meet your conditions and therefore you would deny it.  What you are looking for is a miracle.

This argument just doesn't work because you can replace god with anything on the grounds of it being subjective.

However, existence is an objective phenomenon. By objective I mean not subjective; that is, not contingent upon any one mind. We can demonstrate that something is objective if we can verify it with material evidence, and the results are consistent. Claiming something exists "subjectively" is meaningless because that to me is equivalent of saying "it's a figment of my imagination".

Sure, in the end whatever I perceive is indeed subjective; at the extreme end I cannot prove that I am not a brain in a vat. However, I have to make some presuppositions about logic/reason and the general nature of the world in order to even know and learn anything. These presuppositions continue to produce effective results in knowledge acquisition and there seems to be no known better way, so I have no reason to think I might be wrong, even though I cannot prove that I am not.

[Nonpareil]

Thanks, I understand now....
You are really not stating anything more than X didn't occur.  Not making a conclusion or arguement yet.

Yes.

This is something that often takes some time for people to adjust to, when speaking with me. I mean exactly what I say, and my terms are concretely defined. I am methodical and straightforward. I do not necessarily agree with all the implications and side-arguments that others often bring up when discussing the things that I discuss, which sometimes trips people up - they assume that I am making some sort of argument towards a conclusion other than what is included in my post, and have to progressively walk their assumptions back, because what I am saying is often so simple that, for some people, it doesn't look as though it could possibly be the entire point.

It usually is, though. People often underestimate how important simple things are.

When engaged in discussions with me, it would probably be helpful to discard any sort of preconceptions about what I may or may not believe, or may be "ultimately" arguing towards. Just understand that I mean exactly what I say, no more and no less.