Isn't atheist claim of "God doesn't exist" flawed to begin with?

Question

Logically speaking, don't you need to have a premises that a thing to exist to dispute it's existance. Even if God was just an invention of men, even if God was only an imagionation to cover the fear of the unknown, shouldn't the concept of God has to exist before disputing its existance? Wouldn't it be more logical for atheists to claim "God no longer exists" or "God is dead" than "God doesn't exist?

Some of you touched up on what is "real". You have never actually have seen earth from the space and yet when you imagion the planet earth, you believe it exists in a blue marble form in blackness of the space. You did not actually see it with your own eyes but from pictures and movies.

The question wasn't about whether atheists versus theists. It was a merely a question of logic. Regarless of whether God or Santa or Easter Bunny is "real" in a sense of your reality, I merely asked logical soundness of the statement "God doesn't exist."

Let me try to simplify the question by illustration. And try to think outside of your little anti-christian bias.

Can you say God doesn't exists without using a word God or any set of words describing God? If you have never seen a ship before, wouldn't you decribe it as a floating island? Until someone invented a word "ship" the "ship" really don't exist, does it?

Answer 1

First, that's not what atheists claim.

Even if it was, it wouldn't matter. You don't need an ontological commitment to a being like God in order to speak of it (him?). If you don't believe me, I suggest you read W.V.O. Quine's article "On What There Is" and then discuss this.

Basically, the idea is that we only need a commitment to the uninstantiated property of "Godliness" or "God-ness" or something along those lines.

Answer 2

I've never personally met an atheist who claims that "God no longer exists" or "God is dead". And since the word simply means "not theist" it neither explicitly nor implicitly says someone thinks god doesn't exist. I don't believe in a Christian god or any other. That's all there is. Are you making an argument for all mythical gods?

You can cue the people who are going to cry that regardless of what they say atheists really do believe this or that atheists actually believe in god or even that the word means something completely different that they just made up.

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"It was a merely a question of logic."

The first problem with logic in this thread was yours. You generalized about a group who share only a single commonality which is a lack of belief in deities. Some atheists may make the claims you wrote. But far from all do. In fact the only atheists I've ever seen claim any of these are here.

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"
Can you say God doesn't exists without using a word God or any set of words describing God?"

No... no I couldn't. Just as I couldn't say anything without saying it. I think I know what you meant but you certainly said something entirely different. But like most atheists I don't say this or anything else you have claimed all atheists say and yet we're still atheists.

Answer 3

if a society were raised on an island completely devoid of all human contact, kinda Jungle Book style, they would have no concept of god, it is something that is implanted in your mind at a very young age in most societies. so the concept of god is not in all consciousness, it was merely started by a few and spead to the masses through fear and means of explaning the unexplainable. So if no one had ever thought to explain things they didnt understand through some omnipotent deity, then the concept would never exist in the first place. I think if we raised a group of people with access to all knowledege scientific and mathematic that we have today isolated form the rest of the world, they would be a society that believes in science, not religion.

Answer 4

just because the concept or the perception of something exists does not mean that such a thing exists in reality. an LSD hallucination is real to the person on drugs, but not real in an absolute sense.

some humans have the unique ability to grapple with concepts that they know are a convention of language or fictions, even while discussing them. unfortunately others are locked in a rigid view of things that perverts even their logic, when they finally do try and bring it out and exercise it.

you have a point with the phrasing of "god is dead", or "god no longer exists", but your point is one of grammatical or linguistic integrity, not reality. one only needs 2 people with a common understanding of the supposed attributes that a "god" would or could have to discuss such a concept.

Answer 5

Thats to presume God existed in the first place. God is an invention of man, and without man he wouldnt exist. A concept does not count as a deity. God is simply what deluded people name the emotion of hope.

Answer 6

Actually I say that I lack a belief in gods. I deliberately do not say "god does not exist" because xians like yourself like to play the semantics game.

You could apply your argument to any mythical or fictional being.

Zeus does not exist
So by your argument Zeus really does exist.
Or Voldemort does not exist. So Voldemort really does exist
How about the Invisible Pink Unicorn?
Leprechuans?
Gremlins?

No dieties have ever existed and unless you can provide (empircal) evidence to suggest otherwise I have no reason to change my view.

Answer 7

God exists in the minds of believers, but does not exist in reality. It makes less sense to say that "God no longer exists" or "God is dead, rejoice!", because it claims that God once did exist and no longer does... But God exists today just as much as God existed since the beginning of the creation of gods. No less (because God still exists in the minds of believers), no more (because God still doesn't exist in reality)

Answer 8

No, see my answer for "absence of god, absence of proof". Atheists use the absence of evidence, just as believers do, to justify their position. Believers make the mistake of constructing a god that their own references can't support, thus they paint targets on their backs.

Saying that God is dead is illogical. Only 'god dosn't exist and never has' is logical and actually supportable with linear logic.

Answer 9

No, something does not have to exist for there to be a question of it's existence. The idea of God may exist, the word God may exist, but God, as an entity does not have to.

Answer 10

Dear god ( and I use that term with the fullest sense of irony), did you really think this was a good argument? Are you really equating concept with reality?

In order for you to say that dragons (insert your chosen disbelief) don't exist, don't you first need to admit that dragons exist? NO, of course not!