The negative I struggle to prove is the non-existence of god(s). Has anyone a simple way of proving this?

Question

I get impatient with folk who insist I should believe in god, it's they who should have to prove the existence and there is no proof.

Answer 1

I don't believe it can be proved either way. With or without a God, we are all here on earth. Can't we just get along with the important stuff and stop concerning ourselves with things that have no answer???

Answer 2

Neither you, nor anyone else on this planet can either prove or disprove the existence of God, so give it up. I get impatient with people who are adamant either way. I cannot see the point of being absolutely committed to one point of view or another when it is impossible to prove. That's why religion is called Faith - you have to believe without being able to prove. I find a more useful stance it to accept all as a possibility. Trying to prove that God does not exist makes no more sense than insisting that he does.

Answer 3

I think this one will run and run!

There is no 'simple ' way of proving the non-existence of god. If there were surely there would be far fewer believers out there?

However one 'traditional' method is to apply what is called 'Occam's Razor' (see link, especially the Religion section) which allows you to pare away irrelevance until you are left with the truth. In theory!

The razor says (in a nutshell) that if a simple explanation for the facts works there's no reason to make it more complicated by introducing anything else!

Consequently if one can explain the existence of the Universe, Man etc (ie all of 'God's' creation) satisfactorily without the concept of God, then God is effectively irrelevant. Therefore, without compelling reason to do otherwise, disbelief should be preferred to belief.

Of course Occam's razor is just a philosophical approach rather than an actual proof! Therefore you'll need to expect a lot of 'yes, but...'! Good luck!!!

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Answer 4

Things don't just happen by chance; everything has a cause and a consequence!

Questions to contemplate:

Why is there so much beauty in the universe?
(Beauty doesn't just happen by chance - you as everybody else are not born by chance!).

Is there anything you know that can be proved beyond doubt? (All you can do is weigh things up with the evidence that's available to you, either for or against).

Why do you need to know if there is or isn't a god? (Do you feel insecure?).
Can we both agree with the truth? - You and I, "I don't know!".

It's a possibility, and after you take away all the garbage that man has said and written about, all the evidence points to a good possibility! But you must start from the point of "I don't know!".

That is the only truth you or I have! There is know such thing as false, because if you see the so called false, then you have seen the truth!

And the truth is, I don't know! Start from here and don't let anyone tell you, find out for yourself. Realising your own ignorance is the beginning of great intelligence!

Answer 5

I think you'll struggle to disprove any existential statement. This is why it is so difficult to prove a universal law.

A universal law (eg "all swans are white") can always be re-cast as a negation of an existential statement ("no swan any other colour than white exists"). The problem is you would have to trawl through the entire universe, past present and future, to ensure that there isn't, never was and never will be a swan of any other colour. See one black swan in Australia and you have disproved the "all swans are white" by proving "there exists a black swan". To disprove a "there exists a blue swan" (existential) you would have to prove the mirror-image universal "all swans are either white or black", which you can't do.

The split is as follows:

Universal statements - all swans are white - disprovable - not provable

Existential statements - a black swan exists - provable - not disprovable

What you can do is disprove certain statements about God where the believer "oversteps the mark" and starts claiming universal laws derived from their concept of God. An example is the verse in the Koran which promises a happy life to a believer and an unhappy one to an unbeliever. Find one unhappy believer or one happy believer and you may not have disproved the existence of Allah but you have certainly disproved this bit of the Koran.

On the Christian front you could argue that Jesus' statements about the birds and the beast (that God looks after them and will look after you) amounts to a universal law "God will look after you". The flip-side existential is that "there exists no person who God has not looked after" - you should be able to find plenty of people forsaken by God.

Answer 6

I'm agnostic, but I believe in God/Gods, magick, karma, miracles, etc.. I had a discussion with an Athiest about this. Which he did get the answer he wanted, but I didn't finish giving the other half. He closed the question after I said I believe there is more to it. He didn't want the truth.

It is possible for both no God/Gods to exist and God/Gods to exist. People seek God/Gods or no God/Gods for meaning. Both God/Gods and no God/Gods coexist because they are both about finding meaning. Basically to make this short, what is one thing we know for sure everything is made of? What is this thing we know without, nothing would exist? What is this thing that is the building platform, the foundation?

It is so simple it sounds stupid. Energy.

This means the reason we never see God is because it is everything. Energy can be viewed as God because it is in everything, which means God is in everything. Think of everything as a river energy. In essence, both God/Gods and no God/Gods coexist in this form. There is so much more to this, I would rather not waste your time.

Edit: Energy is never wasted, it just changes. It is the closest thing that is unseeable, unspeakable, unthinkable etc., yet at the same time isn't. This comes to the point where two concepts coexist into one concept that coexists with reality. The reason behind this is in the first half of the concept I didn't provide. I might post it later in a couple of days after I have written it on paper and thoroughly evaluated it.

Answer 7

First off never let anyone pressure you into believing in the ridiculous notion that there is a god . You are not alone even though you may feel like it sometimes . The arguments against are all based on science , the arguments for are all based on faith in the fact that people are sheep and will believe in something so out there because they are scared not too . Although there are many good messages in the bible most of those are common sense , most of the rest is borderline lunacy. You do not have to be a believer to be a good person , and lead a good life .

Answer 8

I agree that the onus of proof is always on those who believe in the existence of god/s. As stated above, you cannot prove a negative, so you cannot prove non-existence........its the same for UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster.

But why get impatient with those who insist you should believe?

You are really wasting your time in trying to prove non-existence. I recently spent 2 weeks overseas with a colleague who happens to be a creationist - he believes God created the world 6000 years ago. No evolution and the only changes since then have been man-made.

Now we spent 2 weeks worth of evenings in the bar and the restaurant with me bringing up all sorts of (I thought) water-tight arguments as to why his belief must be wrong - geology, astronomy, evolution, palaeontology, Einsteinian and Newtonian physics, etc. Whereas he would often conceed that my logic was faultless he would never agree that his belief system was in error - "thats just the way it is and the way that God wants you to think" he would say.

Logic and religion are not happy bed-fellows. You should respect their beliefs and they should equally respect yours.

Answer 9

Sure...proving the God of the Bible doesn't exist is easy!

Most people go about it using subjective and weak arguments like "religion has caused so many wars & deaths God can't be real." This is a pants argument.

Base your arguments in logic and you'll be in the money.

Right, it goes something like this:

First, you MUST ask this question: "Do you believe what the Bible says is true?" The immediate response is YES, of course.

Then you have them!

The Bible says that God is omnipotent. (Actually, the word omnipotent didn't come into the English language until the 1530's, it actually says Almighty which was used for omnipotent in Biblical times)

If God is omnipotent then he MUST know EVERYTHING that has ever happened, is happening now and everything that ever will happen. If this is true, he MUST have planned it out.

If he planned it out, you don't have free will. If you don't have free will then how can God send you to hell for something you had no control over?

The usual counter argument is something like: "Well...God does know everything but it's like your kid. You know what they are going to do but you give them the choice to do it." But you don't KNOW what your kid is going to do because you are not omnipotent. You might have a very good idea, but you don't KNOW.

If God knows everything you are going to do you don't have free will. If you do have TRUE free will, God doesn't know 100% exactly what you are going to do. Either way, the Bible is wrong.

This, of course, doesn't prove that A God doesn't exist. It just proves that the God of the Bible doesn't exist. It also proves the Bible is a load of shite!

Hope this helps!

Answer 10

There is sadly a fairly basic reason why you cannot 'prove' God which I believe that Douglas Adams in the Hitchhikers Guide mentions.

Those who believe in Him have no proof, He just wants their belief and if you have proof then you don't need to believe. You know. If there was proof that He existed then there would be no need for faith, He'd be self evident.

The logical conundrum for this is that if you don't believe in Him then you cannot be given proof He exists nor can you prove he doesn't exist to anyone else. And if you do believe in Him there is no logical way to have Him disproved to you nor for you to prove him to anyone else.

Basically logic and belief are not compatible.

Answer 11

Wow, I hope you make it down the page as far as my humble effort. This is a philosophy thread and so that is how I will tackle it.

People, when searching for happiness often stumble upon a major hurdle to do with the Ego's ability to take a back seat. Its a complete catch 22. These people do not believe it is possible to be truly happy unless they have conquered the clutter in their head and come to peace but the very thing telling them that they need to do this is the clutter in their heads. To get this little circular argument to end after it has started is near impossible and is what allot of eastern philosophy tries to do.

This is where God is supposed to come in. By surrendering yourself to a grater will, to a higher power you are defeating the ego at its own game. Only by accepting that you are not capable of achieving enlightenment can you achieve it as it were.

So to cut a long story short, people be live in God because they have to, it makes them truly happy and that is what we are all here for (in my humble opinion). The real question here is, does it matter if God is real or not? And is your answer to that dependant on your need for something to make you happy? Further more does it make you a lesser or a grater person for needing God?