Why is it so hard to disprove the existence of God?

Question

Say for example the claim that God created life on Earth. All you would have to do is show that life arose from inanimate matter in a sterile environment with no outside interference or manipulation. Why is that so hard to do?

Lucid - Really? An EPT test can prove that a woman is NOT pregnant. In fact the results show up as a Negative. Is that also a logical fallacy?

Answer 1

because it is hard to disprove the truth. as a matter of fact it's impossible.

Answer 2

That's not all you have to do, you know. Even if you start from base elements and generate unicellular organisms in a laboratory (hope you have a few billion years to spare), you have still not proven that God doesn't exist. All you have demonstrated is one means by which life on Earth may have arisen.

You have not demonstrated that the laboratory method WAS, in fact, the means by which life got its start. But let's assume that the laboratory method is exactly how life arose. You have still not shown that this is proof that God doesn't exist. In order to do that, you must devise an experiment with quantitative results that gives an objective measure of supernatural involvement. As with any scientifically acceptable test, this test must be repeatable, and the results must be reproducible and independently verifiable.

Good luck with that.

See, science cannot prove or disprove the existence of God because there is no objective way to test the supernatural. Therefore, the proper role of science is to determine HOW life arose on Earth and leave the question of WHO did it (or did not do it) up to faith or the lack thereof.

Answer 3

Well, you generally can't prove a negative. In a technical sense, you're right -- you can't absolutely disprove God. You also can't disprove unicorns, fairies, Santa Claus, celestial teapots, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or thousands of other things. Still, just because you can't disprove something doesn't mean you should believe in it.

Also, there's the idea that since various things ascribed to God (creation of life and the universe, primarily) can be explained through natural causes (the big bang, evolution, and so on), God would merely be an unnecessary entity. Does it rule out ALL possibility of his existance? No. However, Occam's Razor states that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity, and since the creation of the universe can be explained without a supernatural entity, such an entity is superfluous and very *likely* non-existent.

In short, we can't technically disprove God's existence as you can't really prove a negative. However, we can put forward the case that God's existence is rather unlikely.

Answer 4

Dear,

God does not only created life on earth. God created the universe and govern the universe. God Created Adam and Eve in Heaven, not on earth. Due to the Satan who disobey God and was chase out from the heaven mislead our forefather Adam and Eve which cause them to descend towards earth our world. God have Killed all those who disbelieve God by making the World Flood during Prophet Noah' time. All disbelieve God are dead. Only the followers of Noah that believe God aboard on Noah'Ark alive. With the little note, now that you disapprove the existence of God. Do you want another world Flood for those who disbelieve God and die in the flood!. You can't deny God. There must be someone who created the Star. No human can hang a Star in the Galaxy. Can you make a Star and hang it at the Galaxy?

Answer 5

First of all we'd have to come up with a universal definitive definition of what "God" is. In order to being to attempt to disprove something, we'd need a valid starting point. We cannot as yet even do that as it seems every major religion, if not every person, at least believers, may have their own idea of what God is. Another stumbling block is the idea that it's somehow wrong or insensitive to question someone's beliefs and this of course is propagated by religion for just this reason. It's ok to question someone's politics, but not religious beliefs, thereby making it that much harder to get a valid starting point as to what people believe God to be.

Answer 6

Actually, it's exceedingly easy to prove that God does not exist.

The existence of life arising from inanimate matter in a sterile environment with no outside interference or manipulation would not disprove the existence of a deity. It would prove only that life could arise from abiogenesis.

So you're asking for the wrong proof.

By its very definition, theism posits the existence of a deity which has in some way, shape, or form revealed itself to the universe. For such a revelation to be of any significance, there must be self-aware structures capable of free will. That is, these self-aware structures must be capable of producing some action in violation of causation, or for which there is no anticedent. If self-aware structures exist, but do not have free will, then the revelation is irrelevant.

Thus, the existence of any theistic deity must naturally and of necessity have the consequence of free-willed self-aware structures.

For free-will to exist, the self-aware structure must have some cognitive component which is non-tangible, and not subject to the principles of physics. Any tangible component is subject to physics, and thus violates the principle of non-causation. This principle of non-tangibility is, in psychology and philosophy, refered to as 'dualism'.

However, various studies have shown that without exception, every component of the mind and consciousness arises from the actions of the nervous system. These studies, in various ways, all involve selectively disabling portions of the brain or preventing communication between them -- split brain studies (where the corpus collosum has been cut or damaged), stroke victim studies (localized or regionalized brain death), and partial brain anasthesia. This establishes with high confidence, beyond reasonable doubt, that the mind is in fact monistic, or entirely tangible.

As stated, a free-willed mind must have a non-tangible component. Since the human mind has no non-tangible component, it is incapable of free will.

Since free will is a requirement of theism, theism is provably impossible, beyond any reasonable doubt.

This method of proof by modus tollens can be summarized:

[A Theistic Deity Exists] THEN [Free Will Exists].
NOT [Free Will Exists].
THEREFORE NOT [A Theistic Deity Exists].

Assign these as follows:

A = "A theistic deity exists."
B = "Free will exists."

Then the standard format is:

A⇒B.
¬B.
∴¬A.


I yield this allows for deism, and a deistic deity. But it does disprove any revealed deity, including the Abrahamic YHVH fellow.

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Actually, EPT cannot prove a woman is not pregnant.

Ever heard of false positives and false negatives?

EPT simply provides a very high confidence in its answer, but not an absolute.

Answer 7

If something is not there you cannot prove it is not there but you can draw a reasonable conclusion from the lack of evidence for God that it is highly probable that God doesn't exist ... at least not around here where we exist anyway ... lack of evidence is in itself evidence of absence.

The probability that something exists when there is a complete lack of evidence for it as with God is not 50-50 it is 99.99999999 (into infinity) against. There may be a distant asteroid where God lives, we can never know unless we check every speck of the universe but without measurable God effects here where we exist it would have no meaning to us anyway, and there are no measurable effects.

It is reasonable to assume that God like Santa does not exist as anything but a fictional character.

Answer 8

The same reason that it is hard to disprove that life on earth was created by the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Or magical invisible gnomes.

Or a talking bottle of mustard.

Answer 9

The mere claim that God created life on earth is not enough to conclude that's the case, since the claim is not based on anything of substance.

So, the absense of a ready answer for how life arose, would in no imply a god did it. It would merely imply we don't know how it happened...yet.

Answer 10

In order to prove that god isn't real, you need an exact accurate deffinition of god. And that's pretty hard since religions keep contradicting one another. But you have a point, we do know what he did NOT do

Answer 11

Why is it so hard to disprove unicorns? All you would have to do is explore EVERY square inch of the universes and multi-verses. Down to atom or pre-atom level.

To be able to state a universal negative, you have to know the universe and then some.

(We can disprove their creation story, but they can simply say, "It's metaphorical. God exists." Nothing has changed.)