Talk:You can't prove God doesn't exist

Upon reading the line "If we were to apply that premise to all claims, we'd be unable to develop any useful picture of reality," I found myself looking for examples. Most likely many could be made, but it may help to illustrate the point. --BunniRabbi 20:45, 10 January 2011 (CST)

I've added this article to the "Argument for the existence of God" category. I feel there is a deeper level category that it also belongs in, but I can't figure out which one it might be. Is there one that is sort of like "Semantic arguments"? "Burden of proof shifting"? --Kazim 04:09, 31 August 2006 (MST)


 * Like Pascal's Wager, this doesn't seem to be an argument for God's existence as much as it's an argument for belief. I think the distinction is notable, but not enough to remove them from the 'for existence' category. The subcat you're suggesting is one I've tried to think of several times, I just haven't come up with a brief, descriptive label that I like. "Arguments for belief" is my current preference, so I added that subcat and included this article and the Pascal's wager article. -- Sans Deity 06:57, 31 August 2006 (MST)


 * Good solution. -- Kazim 07:19, 31 August 2006 (MST)

Better than Vishnu?
Do you think the Hindu/Vishnu thing is a good example? It was the best I could come up with off the top of my head... - dcljr 23:13, 1 September 2006 (MST)

Counter-counter-argument.
God is not the same as a teapot, leprechaun or a unicorn; because these three things take up space, consist out of matter and exist in time, so we might not be sure that there is a teapot in orbit around Mars, but it would be possible to travel to Mars and discover if there is a teapot. In other words. The teapot is described as existing in the same basic reality we exist in.

The Christian believe is that God is not part of this universe, but is separate from it and makes his presence known by creating a natural order (time, space and matter) for man to exist in, thus the existence of God is taken to be a priori and can not be verified a posteriori.

This is similar to the principles of contradiction which can not be explained a posteriori but only a priori.

This makes the idea of God a metaphysical notion which can only be disproven by another set of metaphysical doctrines that isolates and captures the notion of God, very similar to the way that the Christian God captures the Hindu God Vishnu; because Vishnu has a form, he takes part in the natural order of the universe, if he manifests directly to the human consciousness then he would exist in time, space and through matter; while the notion of God precedes the natural order and the notion of God does not directly manifest in the human consciousness but only through dialectics or intuition, he is a cause before a cause. -- Thomas

Moved the following section from the main page: [ Rival]


 * "Counter-counter-argument.
 * "God is not the same as a teapot, leprechaun or a unicorn; because these three things take up space, consist out of matter and exist in time, so we might not be sure that there is a teapot in orbit around Mars, but it would be possible to travel to Mars and discover if there is a teapot. In other words. The teapot is described as existing in the same basic reality we exist in."


 * Neither leprechauns nor unicorns exist in space/time - only in the imagination. We have exactly the same amount of evidence supporting the existence of leprechauns, and unicorns as we do for god. The stated flaw does exist in the teapot analogy, however. [ Rival]


 * But you exist in time, you exist as a material substance and you have a form and therefor gnomes, leprechauns and unicorns when expressed in there familiar forms, and when said to be dependant of human consiousness and limited to a preconceived notion fall directly under the natural reality. In fact they only stand in direct relation to other imaginairy forms and not to a-priori metaphysical constructs; like the existence of consciousness itself. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * Let me rephrase what you just said: "Leprechauns, et al, are imaginary" the implication being that god is not imaginary. Yawn. Rival 22:47, 30 November 2008 (CST)


 * Where does consciousness fall under? How do you shape your imagination? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * I know a better one. If even for the sake of theory, God can not be thought of as real then other constructs like consiousness, reality and knowledge can also be thought of as not real and therefor no real debate is possible with someone who holds that position or the other three positions on there own matter. The only proper debat would be to include every possibility and negate it with a select choice of a-priori constructs. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * But since God is build out of timeless constructs like no-time, no-space and no-matter he automatically carries some validity and since order does not exist on it's own but is dependent on time, space and matter; there could be in fact order dependent on no-space, no-time and no-matter which makes the possibility of God very strong. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * It's not clear how God not possessing those dimensions would garner the concept validity. Not requiring the traits described would allow an existence to something which would not be in conflict with reality as we know it, but the lack of conflict with other positions doesn't constitute support for a position. --BunniRabbi 21:00, 10 January 2011 (CST)

New counter-counter-argument.
God is dependant on an orderly non-existence. In fact; it is non-existence which is orderly and we are just a reflection of this non-temporal, non-material and non-spacial order. --Thomas


 * Do you have evidence to support any of this, or is this just another of your assumptions? I'm getting a "div/0" vibe from this line of thinking... Rival 00:50, 1 December 2008 (CST)


 * I have direct evidence. Imagine how the universe would look like without a line of time running through reality. It would look like all of time at once and instantaneous, but you would still be limited to the distance between objects not in direct contact with the timeless entities. Then we take away space so that all of matter is in direct contact with all other matter, and that is how matter can influence through non-time and non-matter, matter not in contact with other matter and outside the present. Then we take away matter which is just points of finite quantities atop of a infinity (not God but close), but we still hold the internal correspondance between matter but without quantity and thus we get pure order that can only be explained by math. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * Sounds like bunk to me. Non-temporal + non-material + non-spacial = non-existent = what are we even discussing? - dcljr 14:01, 1 December 2008 (CST)


 * Non-temporal + non-material + non-spacial can still hold order and correspondance. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Thomas (talk • contribs)


 * What I can read from your argument is: "The direct evidence that God exists, is that some laws of nature can only be explained by math." I have to admit I fail to see the connection. Are you trying to make a God of the gaps argument? - Soulkeeper 07:30, 25 January 2009 (CST)

Guilty until proven innocent
Perhaps a nice analogy (in layments terms) is that "believe until proven false" correlates with the principle of "guilty until proven innocent", as such, expecting something to be considered true until proven (to a reasonable degree of certainty, ofcourse) false basically equates to considering an accused in court as being guilty until the defence can prove otherwise. I would (hopefully) presume that most rational thinkers would consider any given proposition to be "innocent until proven guilty" (translation: unproven until proven) until sufficient evidence and/or logical argument could be put forward to the contrary - afterall, is this not the scientific method in a nutshell? Woops, forgot to sign (Tking 18:17, 5 November 2010 (CDT))