Atheists is this strong or weak argument "God does not exist because there isn`t any evidence" ?

Question

In my opinon this is weakest argument for atheism. It`s presupposing that if a God existed there would be evidence of his existence, and since there is no evidence of his existence he does not exist. What constitues as evidence? This argument loses all its force and is easily refutable when talking about the God of the Abrahamic religions. Christians, Muslims, Jews all contend that God exists outside of space and time. Posteriori propostions i.e. empircal evidence can only be found in spacetime. If a being exists outside of spacetime then obviously there would be no evidence. Plus theists believe that God created everything so the evidence is all around us. This argument is equivalent to when theists say, well you cant disprove God. Duh! How can disprove something in spacetime when it is said to exist outside spacetime. Same thing with ferries and pink unicorns. Out of all the great arguments for atheism it amazes me that people frequently use the weakest one.

Dylan - Im not a Christian you idiot Im an atheist.

Everd G - Of course God is an illusion. What led you to think I believe in such a thing. But that is besides the point, it was my claim that this particular argument is weak

Answer 1

There is no reason to assume a deity in general would fall within an empirical domain. Of course, if it does not fall within an empirical domain, that means it produces no measurable effect within space/time, and is therefore irrelevant.

But the Abrahamic deity, and most of not all of the others that have been proposed, are represented as producing effects, none of which have been observed. This is a problem. There are also effects we should expect from a being defined as many define God; all loving, all powerful, etc. Such a being should be able to show itself, and should wish to (informed consent does not violate free will). This is not what we see. Failed hypothesis means...

Answer 2

"In my opinon[sic] this is weakest argument for atheism. It`s presupposing that if a God existed there would be evidence of his existence"

LOLz
Listen kid, I've been round the block a few - I hope you don't mind if I totally and absolutely disagree with you.

I can assure you that if you think and question whether or not god exists without the emotion of FEAR driving you, you too will agree he's an illusion.

Look logically at what life would really be like if there was a god.
Would he kill and maim innocent children?
Would innocent children suffer starvation or molestation?
Would he do bad things to good people?
Would he do good things for bad people?
Would slavery have existed 2000 years ago and been condoned?
Would a god half his salt, have screwed up so many times in making such an imperfect product such as we who he had to all but wipe out with a flood?
Would not a perfect all-knowing being have made us all perfectly so's he could have us all worship him perfectly?
AND what's this Satan character doing trying to get god's worshipers?
Why isn’t god wiping him out (and don’t think he can’t – I thought your god could do anything – I thought your god made everything – I thought everything existed because it suits your god)?
The WHOLE Abrahamic religious sect is steeped in Bronze Age ignorance where men weep over the inconsistencies of god's punishments.

Epicurus: Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?

Seneca: Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.

Richard Dawkins: A universe with a God would be very different to one without.
.

Answer 3

I've noticed a few examples when Atheists have won the argument and the christian just twisted it out of the blue... babbling like you did in the argument above... When you argue keep it simple to the things you understand... the Atheists seem to not even understand that they won and the christian will bring the argument out in the twilight zone before they realize it... It's ok to say I don't understand... not all the information is out yet... we've just begun to get free from religion on earth... the hippies were the first culture to be loud outside religion... and an example as to the christians ability to fight those who would bring information or change behavior outside of religion... they can't claim their god is all knowing when the people bringing in the information is outside their religion... many hippies were murdered... the peace marches often turned to blood baths... it was horrible... but the message of peace stuck.. and the hippie symbols stuck... when this generations passes... the christians would absorb the symbols and re introduce them as christian... that's how it works... they aren't burning us at the stake but they certainly can be dangerous... Our strength will be in giving credit and correcting information as the christians try to take credit for it... they are already trying to use evolution papers written by non famous people changing some of the information... they wait till we are dead then claim the information came from their god... we need to start looking at what they are using and saying what began outside the church...

Answer 4

Weak,since there are effective counter-arguments. The incredible sophistication of the human brain is far beyond our understanding and as revealed since the invention of the PET and CAT scanning technology,has led many brain specialists away from agnosticism and toward the conception that the human brain at least is indeed a product of intelligent design,whatever you may think of the rest of the physical world. The brain is essentially a super-computer and to suggest that it developed by chance circumstance is tantamount to suggesting your home is a natural feature such as a mesa.

Answer 5

Saying god exists outside of space/time is funny. There is no space for god and not time for god I guess.

It is just a lame rationale for not having evidence of a god.

However, I prefer to consider that there is no evidence of a god insofar as the judeo-christian-muslim conception is concerned.

The notion that a god sent his revealed scripture to humans at a time when most were illiterate, to a place where the languages and cultures are, one might say, unusual, to a place where the majority of the human race does not live and has no communications with the people of the revelation, whose revealed writings are ambiguous, incoherent and inconsistent. There were no international dictionaries of hebrew-chinese or arabic-chinese, let alone latin, french, spanish, portugese, english, russian, uzbek, tajik, navajo, laotian, khmer or any of thousands of other languages. A real omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent god who wanted to make his/her presence and love made know to the entire world could do so much better. That is god "light", not god.

Answer 6

I'd say it's more of a middle-of-the-road argument if you're making the affirmative statement that there is no God.

However, most atheists don't say that they know with 100% certainty that there isn't a God, they just say that they don't believe there is a God, and that they have no reason to believe there is a God. In that case, it's an excellent argument for not *believing* that there is a God.

Answer 7

I was right along with ya there until you said "If a being exists outside of spacetime then obviously there would be no evidence." There is evidence, but it is not measurable in scientific terms discovered todate.

Give the scientists time to figure it out, they've come so far in just the last 100 years! Just today I saw an article in Yahoo about them finding (not yet confirmed, just potential) "cold" spaces in deep space that seem to indicate the universe cooled faster than they thought after the Big Bang.

Give them time, they have to do it in their own on their own terms. God doesn't have a problem with that :)

Answer 8

ok then how about this: nothing can exist outside of space and time. Time is an illusion it is simply change and memory of that change. So if a being were to exist outsite of change it would either have absolutely no memory and therefore unable to do anything or it would not change and therefore unable to move or even think. If something were to exist outside of space it therefore would be unable to interact with anything within space. And if a being were to exist outside of space and time it would be essentially useless to the universe and might as well not exist. So there how do you respond to that?

Answer 9

It's really a straw man variant on the idea of not believing in God due to the absence of evidence. It derives from Occam's razor in which you do not need assume the existence of entities in the absence of evidence. This is the point of Russell's teapot. It is not an argument about the existence of God, so much as "default theism".

Answer 10

That is not the argument that atheists make. They are saying that they do not believe in the existence of God because there is no real evidence of his existence. They are not saying that God does not exist. They are saying that you cannot form any valid arguments predicated on the assumption that God does exist without there being any real evidence to support that.

And your argument supporting a being that exists outside space and time while directly influencing all things within space and time is ridiculous.