Does anyone have a strong argument against God?

[BluePriest]

@Flying Speghetti monster

Im stealing from ratcharmer again.

The Invisible Pink Unicorn

I borrowed the title for this one from Scaredgirl, and I hope that's okay.

The basic argument goes something like this: I can't see/hear/feel God, and God can't be verified independently . . . so I can make up any wacky thing I like, call it God, and there's nothing anyone can say do against that.

This is most often used when pointing out that a lot of religious beliefs are structured such that they can't be easily disproven, and that similar arguments could support some very strange things. It's also used to try to make theological discussions seem silly by arguing that people are spending time debating characteristics of an entity they cannot perceive, and haven't even established if it exists.

My initial response goes something like this: I'm sorry you can't see the unicorn, but the rest of us can.

That's sort of a silly way to phrase it, but in all seriousness a great many believers from a great many different faiths will tell you stories of the multitude of ways they have directly experienced God or gods. It's always sort of hard to talk about this with someone who hasn't experienced it. Almost like trying to describe your favorite painting to a bind person, it's difficult to find a basis to start from. If anyone really wants to hear my own accounts let me know and I'll PM you some of the stories.

As to the unicorn analogy, it's somewhat misleading. If someone approached me on the street and told me an invisible pink unicorn was following me, my reaction would probably be to step back out of their reach, in case they decided I was made of delicious candy and tried to eat me.

But one person approaching you on the street is not accurate to the situation. Consider this:

You take a random sample of 100 people from around the globe. They aren't given a chance to speak to each other before speaking to you, and each of them is given a lie detector test, so your 90% certain that they, at least, believe what they're telling you.

Out of that 100 people:
60 tell you there's an invisible pink unicorn following you
10 say it's an invisible purple unicorn
10 say it's an invisible pink pegasus
1 says it's an invisible blue rhinocerous
10 say they aren't sure if there's an invisible quadruped following you or not
9 say there is no invisible quadruped

Maybe this wouldn't convince me to go buy the unicorn a saddle, but it certainly isn't a strong argument against invisible unicorns.

Those figures roughly follow statistics taken from the pew test and a few other sources about worldwide belief in God. It's admittedly very difficult to find trustworthy data on this subject, and most sources disagree at least a little.

And as Artois points out here http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6523.0.html there are some rather remarkable similarities between many religions (hence unicorn vs. pegasus and not unicorn vs. salamander or goldfish). The resurrection motif is just one of many examples.

Prayer is a test of faith. God will do something because you pray, not because he doesn't know whats best, but because he is answering your faith. He knows what is best, but will intervene at times he wouldnt normally because of your prayer/faith. Btw,

"Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done."

, There is nothing unbiblical about praying for something, as long as you remember that God has the master plan.

Saying that the existence of God isnt relevant, is not true either. If it wasnt relevant, there would be no such thing as evangelistic Christians.

[Glitch]

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

Quantum theory:  Observing something changes the result.

I'm atheist, but I thought I'd point that out =P

[Daytripper]

I am seeing this is pretty pointless, but indeed it won't do to turn the argumentation around. If you want to go with ''You cannot disprove God, therefore God could very well be there and you are at best agnostic,'' I can likewise say: ''You cannot prove God and therefore you must at most be agnostic.''

A claim simply asks for backup. Without that anything goes. The other replies make that clear. If God is not the same as the FSM because many people apparently see/hear God, that is a form of backup. It isn't very good backup. Many people have also seen UFO's. The shape of the UFO's even changes with the advancement in technology. Reported interactions with the Christian God or Christ are time dependent also. There are no historical accounts of it that are several thousands of years old. Real evidence is independent. You may not like it but personal revelations are only good enough for the people involved. That and I don't know a single Christian that can talk to God myself. These sightings may be strange, but religious experiences can arguably all be attained by stimulating certain parts of the brain, such as with drugs or electrical charges. 

Every study that says prayer works is statistically not significant. An exception would be the prayers that were done in hindsight or ''to the past,'' that is for people who had already been cured. That is not a very fair way of research.

The only statistically significant study performed by believers who were scientists, showed no difference after praying. An exception would be the people that knew people were praying for them. They were doing worse, possibly because of anxiety associated with the severity of their situation.   

If you want to prove your claim, you must do your best to support it and to falsify it. That means you must foresee possible objections and explain why your hypothesis is the only possible one, or the best at least. Researchers are ruthless in this regard. If an idea can't hold under scrutiny, it is not a serious theory. I want to add to that that many hypothetical Gods have been logically disproven. As such, the OP is lacking. This is like saying '''there cannot be any BLEEP.'' You can't disprove something undefined! You should present your case, then people can check it. There is no way you can simply not present your case and then ask others to disprove it. That is exactly what some Christians ask atheists to do. ''Disprove God to me.'' Do you have anything else to explain your case? ''Well no, this time simply disprove it or there is a quite possibly if not certainly a God.'' 

 

 

[BluePriest]

I just think things like this are funny. "Many Studies on prayer have been performed" Where are these studies? Were these people Christian? Were the prayers done as a direct test of Gods power? What were these prayers about?

One time in this forum I asked where the evidence of these studies were, and just got the remark "Well, there arent really any... But if there were then the result would be that they dont work." and that whether or not the studies were performed, doesnt matter.

[Kael Hate]

I'm agnostic amd looking for the, "Don't care, doesn't matter" option in your poll.

[Daytripper]

I ought not speak to people who address me in this manner, but oh well. I believe this is the article that reports on the proper study I spoke of. I would simply have to check the actual book to be sure. I predict I am not inclined to do that.  I have magic powers. 

Also 10 studies in 6 years it says at the writing of that article, but controversial research in most cases. If prayer worked I think you can offer something better than controversial results! But objectively, we should say there was no solid evidence found in favour of prayer working.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/31/health/31pray.html

[killybob]

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.

this is not entirely accurate. if God were real he would surely have observed himself and therefore inevitably would be classed as real. additionally the double slit theory added with the Schrödinger's cat thought experiment merely states that you cant know what is happening to something without it being observed. this argument is complex and can never truly be solved to one person or another unless God himself comes down and says something about ti.

[killybob]

I just think things like this are funny. "Many Studies on prayer have been performed" Where are these studies? Were these people Christian? Were the prayers done as a direct test of Gods power? What were these prayers about?

One time in this forum I asked where the evidence of these studies were, and just got the remark "Well, there arent really any... But if there were then the result would be that they dont work." and that whether or not the studies were performed, doesnt matter.

some people did get together actually. it was on the news about 5 or 6 years back. they got a group (large) of people suffering from the same heart disease. they split them into two groups at random and half of them were prayed for by a local church. the results showed that the group that had prayer had a much higher recovery rate. whether or not this is true i don't know but it is interesting.

[Daytripper]

You are referring to this study I think.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/03/070314195638.htm

Conducting a meta-analysis takes into account the entire body of empirical research on intercessory prayer. Using this procedure, we find that prayer offered on behalf of another yields positive results."

In other words, the researcher compiled several non significant studies and extra polated a significant result from the total.

In other words, it is fraudulent statistics, because such a method does not exist.

On second thought, I don't think this was the one you meant. Can't know which one you mean without details. But these are some of  the more recent articles no doubt.

[SeddyRocky]

I believe that the power of prayer (or lack of such)  doesn't really answer the OP's question regarding strong evidence against God, one way or another. Plus any study on subject will probably not change any opinions anyway. Theists will state that (regardless of the outcome) God exists. If the praying group got better results, they'd say "Ha, told you!" and if they got worse/same results "God works in mysterious ways/Doesn't use his powers on command/etc". And at the same time, atheists will say (if prayer group got better results) "That's because of factor A (for example, people actively striving for something have shown to recover better than those who passively wait for recovery), not because of religion." or if the results are same/worse: "See, nothing happened!". Confirmation bias rules strongly in this case. The clearest answer to the OP in this topic would be (in my hastily put together opinion) the quote that QuantumT showed:

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

[Daytripper]

You are completely right. We don't even have to assume a God that answers prayer. Instead the OP should state what is acceptable as a falsification. If you can not offer a way to falsify your theory, it is a pretty unfair question. (Though no doubt this was not intentional.)

[Kuu]

Wow, sorry you guys were under the impression that I expected you to prove God doesn’t exist when I myself didn’t have any evidence for his existence. I just expected to hear some kind of argument such as the classic “the world isn’t fair (usually stated “just” instead of “fair”) or something of the sort.

Of course unicorns existed! But they were all girls (and pink), so now they’re extinct

HAHAHA! I loled at “the flying spaghetti monster”. Perhaps he does exist in some place fantasy lovers like myself call “Elfland” but I highly doubt he exists on earth, of course I doubt it, but I can’t prove that he doesn’t because I can’t be in all places at once to look for him. He is also (I think) a physical being and not a spiritual one, so that complicates things even more and takes it from a scientific observation level to a philosophical level.
So, now onto why I believe in God.

I.   The Moral Law

I will now describe a phenomenon that is not a unique observation to myself, but rather one that others have observed and brought to my attention. There is a kind of unwritten code that all people have, and the disobeying of this code is the cause of quarreling. Here I will quote C.S. Lewis because he, having been an oxford professor and a studier of literature, is a much better writer and explainer than I:
“Every one has heard people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kinds of things they say. They say things like this: "How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?"--‘That’s my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed.” (Lewis, Mere Christianity)
There, that should describe it well enough (this is me again, not Lewis). We all have a conscience (though we sometimes ignore it) too that tells us when we are disobeying this moral law. This moral law is not an instinct; in fact, it often has to fight our instincts, especially those of self preservation and the instinct to reproduce. This moral law could not have come by evolution, and as I have said, it is not an instinct. The existence of this moral law suggests to me some sort of intelligent deity, not necessarily the Christian God, but a powerful being who cares about right conduct.

II.   Intelligent design

We live in a very complex world, it is undeniable. Things that seem simple (like a table for example) are actually (apparently) filled with countless little things called atoms. Living organisms are extremely complex. I am not very good at science, but I took a Biology class in high school (last year) and the extraordinary complexity and engineering of things left me astounded.

III.   Experience

I have experienced God, and you cannot deny me that. I have experienced change in myself of the kind one cannot simply will into existence, and I have experienced the blessing of God and the guidance of the Holy Ghost. I have seen miracles, the kind of things the word calls coincidence, and what extraordinary coincidences they are. I know of someone who had been unemployed for a while. One day they were sitting in church when an offering was being taken. They talked to God (prayed) and felt called to write a check for $27 dollars, which happened to be their entire bank account. Next day, they got a job. Boom. Magic. Coincidence. Anything but God you say?! I have heard of and known people who have had miraculous healings (disappearing cancers a couple times).

Now yesterday I had a conversation with my little sister. I experienced her. If you were to walk up to me and give me an argument for why my sister didn’t exist, I don’t think I’d quite trust it no matter how convincing it was or even if you said that you had not experienced her.

IV.   The Bible

The Bible is a reliable source of truth. Prophecies such as the ones about Christ’s birth and the prophecies of Daniel predicting the rise and fall of civilizations (Persian empire, Rome, etc.) have all come to be historically true. I trust the Bible. The Bible is also a relevant book that continues to teach me truths and lessons today.
So, I asked for an argument against God that could  (preferably) be summarized in a syllogism. I did not get that, only outraged cries of “it’s your job, you do it!”. However, I would not ask you to do something that I could not do myself, so here are my basic arguments in syllogistic form:

All things that are not natural are super natural.
The moral law is not natural.
Therefore, the moral law is supernatural.

All things that could not have come by natural means must have come by divine means.
The moral law could not have come by natural means.
Therefore, the moral law must have come by divine means.

All things of extreme complexity are things that suggest design (machines, technology, etc.)
The universe is a thing of extreme complexity.
Therefore, the universe is a thing that suggests design.

All something do not come from nothing. (do baby’s pop out of thin air?)
The universe is (obviously) a something.
Therefore, the universe did not come from nothing.

All things that are experienced are real.
God is experienced (by me and millions of others).
Therefore, God is real.

All things that are reliable can be trusted.
The Bible is reliable.
Therefore, the Bible can be trusted.

My term paper is now finished. I rest my case (for now *rubs sore wrists*)