Does anyone have a strong argument against God?

[Kuu]

I've been reading the religion section of the forum and I see allot of atheist sharing their experiences of how they came to not believe in God because they see no evidence for him and such. Howerver, just because you don't see God, it does not mean he's there. It is a logical fallacy (faulty appeal to ignorance) to say that just because we don't know that something exists, it means that it does not. So, I would be interested to hear a clear and concise (summarize it in a syllogism if you can) argument why God does not exist. Also, as you've probably guessed, I am a theist and I've included a poll just to get a feel for whether the majority of the active community is atheist or theist.

[Ajit]

Not I.

But some will.

On the note of having a good feeling of whose who, I've been on a lot of forums, and I'd say the dial definitely leans towards more atheists.  Don't really know why, but it seems common on forums.

[Bloodshadow]

Quantum theory: Nothing is real until observed. I have not observed God.

Don't ask me what "observe" means. I don't know the exact requirements for something to be a "conscious observer". I've only read a little bit into quantum theory, but nothing I've read told me the exact qualifications for observant consciousness. And when you think about it, consciousness doesn't really exist, since the brain is just an arrangement of subatomic particles. There might be some kind of "soul particle" that allows consciousness, but it's up to the physicists to find it.

How about this. God is a probability wave function. He is nether existent nor nonexistent. You Christians believe in (observed) God, so you collapsed the quantum waveform of God and made Him exist. We atheists don't believe in God and cannot observe Him, so for us God is not real. We can't prove God doesn't exist, but we can't prove He exists either.

[guy_fawkes]

please, we need to settle something else first:

does anyone have strong argouments against the Flying Spaghetti Monster?
or else i'll assume that it exists...

[Tarias]

Us atheists have nothing to prove. If you want to tell us there is a god, it's up to YOU to prove it. As our pastafari pointed out, it is rediculous to assume things true unless they are proven wrong.

Richard Dawkins refered to this idea called "Teapot Theism" in one of his lectures. He claimed there is a teapot in orbit around mars. Prove him wrong. You can't! Still we assume this is false, because it's Dawkins making a ridiculous claim, so it's up to him to prove it true, not up to us to prove it false.

Also I would like to add that all of you religious folks are also atheists. You don't believe in Thor and Odin do you? Or Zeus and Athene? You also don't believe in the tooth fairy and santaclause.. The only difference here is that we just go one further.

[QuantumT]

*snip*

Don't forget the Invisible Pink Unicorn! He gets very angry when you do that...

Also I would like to add that all of you religious folks are also atheists. You don't believe in Thor and Odin do you? Or Zeus and Athene? You also don't believe in the tooth fairy and santaclause.. The only difference here is that we just go one further.

I've liked this quote ever since I hear it.

I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
-Stephen Roberts

[funplay]

Here we go AGAIN 

Having read through some of the threads in this section, i thought this had been discussed to full extend?

Concerning your question:

Though I dont see myself as atheist ,i dont believe in god. (rather agnostic)

I dont have solid arguments or proof that god doesnt exist.

But I also dont feel there is any need at all to prove this. I cant prove, he doesnt exist. You cant deliver solid proof that he does.

Somebody believes in God. Fine with me. Somebody doesnt. Fine with me. Let anybody belive in what they want to and let them live their lives.

Concerning your poll: I dont really get the reason for this. Why is it important? It shouldnt matter...

Last, let me ask you a question: Why do you want atheists to even try? To add to Tarias statement:

I see this from a scientific point of view:

Thesis: God exists

Method: Need a reproduceable testing method.
- Agree to thesis, if results of methods always and repeatedly fit thesis.
- Drop thesis or modify thesis, if results of methods contradict thesis on a significant amount.

And of course, it also works the other way round:

Antithesis: God doesnt exist.

Method: Need a reproduceable testing method.
- Agree to thesis, if results of methods always and repeatedly fit thesis.
- Drop thesis or modify thesis, if results of methods contradict thesis on a significant amount.

Due to complete lack of reproduceable testing methods for both thesis and antithesis, afaik, your question is futile.

[QuantumT]

Antithesis: God doesnt exist.

Method: Need a reproduceable testing method.
- Agree to thesis, if results of methods always and repeatedly fit thesis.
- Drop thesis or modify thesis, if results of methods contradict thesis on a significant amount.

Due to complete lack of reproduceable testing methods for both thesis and antithesis, afaik, your question is futile.

The atheist position on god is the default position, and requires no proof. Just like how you have nothing to disprove fairies, leprechauns and unicorns, but you don't believe in them.

[Daytripper]

It has been said already, but indeed you do not need a strong argument against God. If no compelling evidence was brought forth, you can simply not believe it, regardless of the existence. That is not an absolute claim, it is simply a sceptical position.

Disproving a God that has been defined in such a way that it cannot be disproven is very hard. Bloodshadow claims he did it, but frankly I don't understand what he said. We can however, easily disprove Gods with specific abilities.

For example, it is often claimed God is the creator, transcendent and omnipresent. God is transcendent, because otherwise God is a part of reality which He created. That does not work, because theists argue God is the eternal uncaused cause, existing outside of space and time. If that was not the case God is subject to the same first cause argument. In other words, then God needed a cause to exist. So God is placed outside of reality so that he could create reality. Then, if God is outside of creation, how does He interact with creation? He can't. God cannot be transcendent and omnipresent at the same time. But if God is not omnipresent, there is no way to intefere in human life and the universe, which is exactly what people claim. That makes someting like that:

1) Everything beginning to exist needs a cause. (Which is probably false.)
2) Something eternal did not begin to exist.
3) Therefore only God the creator could be the beginning of the universe.
4) This creator is transcendent or He would be subject to space and time and He'd be a part of reality.
5) Therefore this God cannot be omnipresent.
6) God can't interact with his creation.

So the classic God image is very problematic.

[Kakerlake]

I think the standpoint of George Carlin is very solid and somewhat resembles my own thinking, even though he sais it in a funny way since he's a commedian

The christian religion just fails at logic in too many ways for me to believe in it.
But I don't mind folks believing in whatever they want to, as long as they don't feel the need to convert anyone they see/like/talk to. Religion is in my opinion a personal thing and shouldn't be bound to a believe others have.
The reson for religion to exist in the first place is that some folks just can't live with the idea that after we die there is nothing. When we are dead it's game over, simple as that. No respawn, no continue no nothing.
So if you have trouble with that, bo pray to god and believe in reincarnation or whatever, feeling comforted so you can manage your life.
Or if you don't like the theory of evolution: we are the product of purely random chance, maybe a failure that goes extinct and there is no "reason" to life (except maybe reproduction), go praying for the same reason as above.

So in my opinion it doesn't matter wheater a god exists or not, but wheater you believe in it or not. If you do, you can take comfort from that believe, if you don't... well then you don't.

[BluePriest]

I love these topics. the original question is avoided, and the only argument made is the burden of proof.

Burden of proof arguments
I've seen both theists and atheists use variations on this, and *gasp* I even used it myself before I knew better.

Essentially the person making the argument makes the claim that the other side must prove their case, and that their own side should be considered true by default unless it is conclusively proven otherwise.

In most cases this argument comes down to pure semantics, and there's nothing solid behind it.  Usually it takes  the form of something kludged together from "innocent until proven guilty" and academic debates over historical events. Occasionally people mix in elements of scientific proof into this.

Scientific proof in this case is unreasonable-unless someone designs an experiment that can conclusively prove things one way or the other all science can give us is that there are conflicting theories and no way to test between them.

Innocent until proven guilty is a convention used by many court systems, and it's used for a reason: namely, that it's generally better to let a few people get away with breaking the law then it is to allow the government to simply arrest anyone they like on whatever charges they like.

Historical proof is the closest to what we're trying to establish in a religious debate, and generally precedence is given to the older theory since it was closer to the events. But the problem here is that both theism and atheism are ancient. In fact, I'm fairly confident that they both predate recorded history.

Basically, to my knowledge "burden of proof" with regards to the existence of God has never been established, and there is no logical reason for it to go one way or another. There are many who would have you think otherwise though.

This argument does apply in the following cases:
a. If you are debating how/if a relevant historical event took place, the older record generally takes precedence.
b. If someone is accusing a person or group of a wrong doing burden of proof is generally placed on the accuser

Be careful of "gray areas" between these two: If you're arguing the crusades never happened the burden is on you for historical reasons, but if you're arguing the crusades were the fault of the church in Europe then you must also face the burden of proof, since you're making an accusation.

@OP, when it comes down to it, no, not a single person here has solid (even liquid or gas) evidence against it, and through discussions, you will see that many of them just dont want to due to misconceptions, and false anger. I have stopped being very active in this part of the forum for Christians are warned about casting pearls to swine. Until God  prepares people, it is pointless for religious people to do much other than pray.

[Tarias]

Let me put it this way:
Religion = There is a God.
Default = we can't know if there is a god or not, because the nature of god makes is so that we can't know.
Lots of Atheists = There can be no god.

If you want to prove that instead of default, either Religion or Atheism is true, the burden is on you. If you are smart you accept the fact that you cannot, and will never be able to prove OR disprove god. If you are ignorant enough to think you can prove it anyways, the burden is on you.

The reason I don't believe in a god, is not because i believe there CAN BE no god. It's because I don't think it's relevant. Also I'm in no way angry about anything related to god existing or not. The only thing that pisses me off is religious people trying to get me to believe their crap, even though I don't give a shit. This is however no different then my stephmom pissing me off by talking bullshit to me when I'm trying to study for example.

Also praying seems pretty pointless. If the god in your imaginations is as omnipotent as you believe, he probably knows what is good for people and what not. Don't you think it's rude to ask this figure to change his masterplan for the world just because you want it? When Christians in my family pray, they thank god for everything around us. I've never been able to understand this American trend of asking all kinds of shit from god when you pray..

edit: @ Blue Priest: So you believe in The Flying Spaghetti monster too? You can't prove he isn't real!!!