I often hear that we can't really assert that God does not exist because we don't know everything. I think we can't really say it because we can all be fooled by something supernatural, or even natural. But does saying that "God is imaginary" have good enough philosophical grounding?
2007-11-29 08:37:10 · 20 answers · asked by chem sickle 3 in Society & Culture ➔ Religion & Spirituality
Actually, depending on what you mean by "does not exist" the the first is defensible. There are times when an event or thing is considered non-existent for practical purposes.
For instance when talking cosmologically before the big bang for instance it's often said nothing existed not even time. That's because nothing we would recognize and for the sake of the math nothing existed.
It depends on how you mean it. However since no one here ever clarifies what they mean by anything they say I usually assume people mean it in a literal sense. And therefore yes it's indefensible in that sense.
A good portion of the disagreements here are simply because we refuse to communicate with one another and the format makes dialog nearly impossible.
2007-11-29 08:42:58 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its simply not true that you can't make provable statements about the non-existence of God.
The basic assertion is that you cannot prove a negative, but this is not what you are trying to do. If I state that there is a God but it has no consequences - ie it is not observable, the God does nothing, means nothing etc then clearly I can say nothing about it. In the same way I cannot say anything about an invisible teddy bear circling Saturn - there probably isn't one, but if there is it would have no observable conseqeuences and hence it makes no difference.
If you say there is a God and that God has certain characteristics and that these ahve consequences - which is what religious people do say - then these things absolutely can be tested. And if they fails these tests then it is reasonable to say that that version of God is false - it does not exist.
An example of this is prayer. It is easy to test whether prayer works, and it is central to religion that it does. In fact, prayer has been shown not only not to work, but to have negative consequences. When sick people were prayed for and knew it they fared worse than either people who were not proayed for and people who were prayed for but did not know. Tis result is put down to "performance anxiety". In other words prayer provably does not work, but the expectation that it should is harmful.
2007-11-29 16:47:15 · answer #2 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Maybe. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, true, but I would say that contemplating a concept without any evidence requires imagination. I may have no evidence that god does not exist, but if I were to contemplate his existence, I would have to use my imagination. Could you argue that god or another concept does exist in the mind of the person doing the contemplating? I think I may have read some religious arguments for the existence of god that are very similar to that. But, perhaps this is all just semantic gymnastics - my favorite sport.
2007-11-29 16:52:56 · answer #3 · answered by zero 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Technically, we can observe the brain functions of a person "communing with god(s)." That would make god(s) at least on some level a part of their believer's consciousness.
So I suppose it would not be safe to say god(s) are ONLY imaginary. But it would be OK to say that god(s) are a function of their believer's minds, if nothing else.
2007-11-29 16:41:18 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I think that if something is imaginary, then it is implied that that thing does not exist.
That being said, although I'm not an atheist, I do think saying "God does not exist" is a defensible position.
2007-11-29 16:41:22 · answer #5 · answered by R 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There is a difference between experiencing revelation and experiencing your imagination. In the former, you are the spectator. In the latter, you are the performer.
Because we who believe claim revelation, you would miss the point by claiming "God is imaginary". A stronger point for you would be "God is illusionary".
2007-11-29 16:53:21 · answer #6 · answered by Tommy 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Gods are supernatural . Anything supernatural does not exist except in the superstitious imagination .
2007-11-29 16:42:25 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No, it's no better because that can't be proven either. Many sane and highly intelligent people have actually had experiences that made them believe in God. And you can't prove that they did not see or experience what they did.
2007-11-29 16:42:58 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
I don;t like the statement "god does not exist". I prefer " There is no god"
2007-11-29 18:22:32 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
basically it's the same thing, what you can say it is that there is no and there will be no proof of god existing neither that he does not exist, so believing in him is pure faith
2007-11-29 16:43:08 · answer #10 · answered by originalquene 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋