Burden of Proof: Proving God's Existence or Non-Existence?

[asterias]

Excellent discussion over here.

Classical Physics is limited in its purview. And not only that many of our common day observations can't be explained by it.

For ex, all motion that we see is relative to the observer. However, by Special Theory of Relativity we know now that the speed of the light is the same for all obsevers irrespective of their motion ( counterintuitive ! )

From another view point, How can we limit mass to its classical physics' definition, in this thread ? After all mass is object centric and objects are perceived! Clearly classical physics does not deal with the question of observer. We have to switch over to quantum mechanics.

IMHO, Classical physics definition of mass ( whether well defined or otherwise) is not competent enough for this discussion and rather irrelevant in this context !

 

[physiagy]

What happens when somebody dies?
he's gone.
no, his soul has gone but his body is not.
I think we do not need any proof for the existence of god.
We don't see our soul, we don't have a proof that our soul exists although we believe that it exists.
My suggestion for all of us: we should read more & more about our religions even more than any other thing.
Because I do believe that life is a test it last 70 may be 80 years & according to this test our place in the next,second & last life will be determined in heaven or hell.
We are not finished when we die, we just finish the test and then we start our endless life.

 

[asterias]

Soul is not defined scientifically, so please define soul.

70 or 80 years of life - you said. 70 or 80 of whose years ? Time is different based on the reference frame of the observer.

Second life? Its not yet proven.

Heaven and hell are also not well defined.

We scientifically oriented people have a slight psychological disposition of not being able to accept anything that might not have evidence. Especially if it comes in the form of a warning or a threat.

May be we will evolve someday :)

 

[marcflores]

What happens when somebody dies?
he's gone.
no, his soul has gone but his body is not.
I think we do not need any proof for the existence of god.
We don't see our soul, we don't have a proof that our soul exists although we believe that it exists.
My suggestion for all of us: we should read more & more about our religions even more than any other thing.
Because I do believe that life is a test it last 70 may be 80 years & according to this test our place in the next,second & last life will be determined in heaven or hell.
We are not finished when we die, we just finish the test and then we start our endless life.

Who are you referring to when you say "we"? I don't believe in an immaterial and ethereal soul. A lot of people don't. I wouldn't go suggesting that we read more about religion than anything else. As a matter of fact, most religious texts are virtually obsolete and does not apply to modern day life. Whether one chooses to believe in a god or a particular religion has very little bearing on day-to-day life. Church was not responsible for the development of vaccines and medicine, technological development, and agricultural advances.

 

[JonF]

All religion and all faith aside, there has yet to be found any definitive evidence for a god. Nothing that can be observed, even with our best scientific instruments, has even suggested the existence of a god.

There is something wrong with this statement. You are saying you shouldn’t believe in something that by definition is supernatural because you can’t examine it by natural methods.

It is therefore a fact that a claim that god exists is an extraordinary claim. And extraordinary claims dictate the need for proof or evidence.

Presubsistion...

If I said I had the ability to levitate objects with my mind, you might ask to me to prove it. This would of course be a legitimate request, simply because science has yet to find any evidence for telekinesis.
Now, imagine that I responded by saying "hey, prove that I can't"!

This is a claim about an demonstratable ability, not about the existence of an entity. The way we verify the two claims is completely different.

With that in mind, it is my opinion that anyone who asks you for proof that god doesn’t exist, is not to be taken seriously at all.

Depends on the situation. I would say if you are trying to convince me God dne it’s perfectly legitimate. If I am trying to convince you God does exist then it’s bunk. If we are in a debate then it is legitimate, but so is you asking me to prove God does exist.

Only when there is a lack of evidence will people resort to ridiculous counter-questions such as "prove me wrong".

No, only when people don't know or understand the evidence. This shows fault with people not the claim.

 

[JonF]

unfortunately, it doesnt. When one goes on to this argument, one would ask "what do you mean by heavy?" And the argument dissolves itself promptly into oblivion.

heavyness, as a perception, and as relative, doesn't hold up to being a "standard". Lifting, likewise, is a human interpretation of what he sees. "Does something ever lift another? If so prove!" kicks the question out. One ends up accepting that he is accepting what he sees as "lifting" owing to everyday vocabulary...

No the correct refutation to this argument is to say, “Consistency is predicate of God’s nature”

 

[marcflores]

There is something wrong with this statement. You are saying you shouldn’t believe in something that by definition is supernatural because you can’t examine it by natural methods.

That's exactly right. We SHOULDN'T believe in something defined as "supernatural" because such a definition arises from ignorance and not a well-established set of observations. The fact that it is defined supernatural excuses it from any examination whatsoever. And if we cannot examine it by natural methods, what method do you suggest?

 

[JonF]

You are still arguing from presumption

 

[d_jnaneswar]

Firstly,

I strongly believe that we can definitely "examine" God through natural methods. Only that science is not the only way of "natural methods". Infact, subjective examinations and observational methods like "meditation" are all over the place as methods of discovering God's nature. Intuition is how it is described by J.Krishnamurti.

If meditation is not acceptable for today's science, its time to move science to the next level where it clearly understands about subjective experiences. Thats what I am aiming at.

Saint Catherine said "My me is God!" Thats what many mystics and saints said. All the way from the descriptions of God from Vedas to modern day mystics like RamaKrishna Paramahamsa and Ramana Maharshi said that. Even Bible also quotes "I am That I am". "Ayamatma Brahma" in Vedas is one of the four basic principles prescribed. It means "This self is God". It is also preceded by "Sarvam Khalvidam Brahma" meaning "All that exists is God". Buddha said the same thing about Dharma Kaya and Sunyata. Ramana Maharshi says "the I in all is God". Islam's Bayazid and Baha'ullah say in similar terms what "God" is.

All those claim that by meditation and righteous behaviour (path of devotion and surrender, path of discipline and investigation, etc. are all ways to get up to this level) (both physical and psychological) that God can be "realized" or "experienced". I am searching for a way to make this method close to science. But I am not sure how far I would be successful, since so far, science has mostly been objective, and rarely subjective. Experience is essentially subjective and there must be ways to make subjective experiences valid in scientific research. Until then, there's no hope of science and spirituality happening together.

DJ

 

[strings235]

hey,

I appreciate your views (and I hope all do) as they are probably the closet thing to proving the existence of god. And it is also a very unqiue concept of god (the hindu one as I assume). But the philosophy of science and mathematics and the philosophies of hinudism, buddhism, and other religions differ. Science demands that for something to be truly proved it must be able to be tested over and over without fail. Divine realization so far cannot be tested. Only the few presumably have acheived this. But what I do see in the future for this is a scientist acheiving this divine state and being able to explain in less esoteric, vague terms. That would definite establish the connection and make religion more valid.

 

[marcflores]

You are still arguing from presumption

Okay, I'll rephrase my original response:

We SHOULDN'T read from books which have been scientifically debunked. The Earth is not 6,000 years old, the universe was not created in seven days, no one flew up to heaven in a chariot of fire, no one lived in the belly of a whale, no one has turned into a pillar of salt, no one has arisen from the dead, no one fed hundreds of people with one basket of bread and one basket of fish, no one turned water into wine, no burning bush has ever had the capacity to transmit or receive any intelligence... We SHOULDN'T spend more time reading about these things than anything else.

How's that? Am I still arguing from presumption? How about this:

supernatural (adjective):not existing in nature or subject to explanation according to natural laws; not physical or material (source: www.onelook.com)

If it does not exist in nature or is subject to natural laws and it is not physical or material, it cannot be observed.

 

[d_jnaneswar]

Strings:
You hit the nail almost exactly on the head. We need someone to explain it in more "contemporary" terms.

The view I proposed is not only Hindu (because, there essentially is nothing called Hindu religion. We have so many divisions with in it that it is just a collection of philosophies. hehe. India also housed one of the first oganized atheistic religion in Charvakam.) but something that is explained by realized souls all over the world. Infact, the version of God that I am talking about is central to the debunking of many Hindu myths and ill-practices over the ages.

True that we need terms that are clear to our scientific understandings, clearly defined. I am finding "definitions" myself so that many of these terms can be defined.

I will look around for scientists who talked about this view and their versions.

DJ

 

[daveb]

Okay, I'll rephrase my original response:

We SHOULDN'T read from books which have been scientifically debunked. The Earth is not 6,000 years old, the universe was not created in seven days, no one flew up to heaven in a chariot of fire, no one lived in the belly of a whale, no one has turned into a pillar of salt, no one has arisen from the dead, no one fed hundreds of people with one basket of bread and one basket of fish, no one turned water into wine, no burning bush has ever had the capacity to transmit or receive any intelligence... We SHOULDN'T spend more time reading about these things than anything else.

Why not? Just because something does not have a scientific basis does not mean we should discount it entirely. Otherwise, why read philosophy, literature, drama or a host of other subjects that aren't scientific in nature? Even the Bible has something to teach. It can help a person udnerstand the historical context of certain things; it can help a person through a time of crisis and trauma; it can teach (sometimes - some parts are quite violent) about what it means to be moral. To igore it completely means to ignore where we as a society come from. Many people do not believe that the Earth is 6000 years old. Nor do they believe most of the tales told in the Bible actually happened. However, many do believe that many the preaching of Jesus, whether or not you believe that he actually existed in history, are good ways to live a moral life. Not having read the Koran, or Torah or other texts of the major religions, I can't speak of their content. However, I imagine they also have things to teach people, such as how to live together in harmony.

 

[marcflores]

The bible, which tells us to stone our mothers, brothers, sisters, spouses, fathers, and friends to death if they tempt us with other gods, is hardly a book for moral code. The bible, which is filled with rape, murder, revenge, temptations, and heresy, is hardly a book designed for teaching morality. The bible, which teaches of a god who kills others mercilessly for looking back at a town or touching a "sacred" box, is hardly a good moral teacher. The bible, which teaches a jealous, vengeful, and angry god is hardly one of good morale.

Yes, the bible should be discounted entirely for its lack of scientific evidence and horrible stories about inflicting a man with disease and killing his family and other atrocities. Don't compare the bible with other literature and philosophy. Whereas Homer, Shakespeare, Nietzsche, and others wrote well and taught us lessons, the bible is horrifically written with grammatical errors and historical inaccuracies. Not to mention the story jumps all over the place, is inconsistent even with itself, and holds little to no verifiable evidence. That's expected when hundreds of men wrote and revised the book over the course of thousands of years.

I've actually read the bible and you'd be thinking the same if you did, too. As far as the other books, the Koran and others do not teach morality and peaceful harmony. They teach the killing of infidels in order to attain entrance to paradise, and should one die in the course of doing so, they will get to choose friends and family to go along with them. The Koran specifically teaches no tolerance of followers of other faiths.To the original poster of this thread:
We can at least rule out God's omnipotence from the biblical text (can't say the same for gods of other religions) because the bible says so itself. It looks like even with the help of God, or perhaps God himself, iron is still a little too much:
Judges 1:19 "And the LORD was with Judah; and he drave out the inhabitants of the mountain; but could not drive out the inhabitants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron."

 

[daveb]

Hmmm..apparently some people do not read the entirety of one's post

it can teach (sometimes - some parts are quite violent) about what it means to be moral.

I never said it wasn't violent. However, the view that since some parts are bad and therefore all parts must be discounted is a rather limited viewpoint. No single thing absolutely good or bad, not even science. Do we throw out science because parts of it are bad? The rise of nuclear power gave rise to nuclear weaponry. The rise of antibiotics gave rise to biological weaponry. Assuming you believe GW to be true, the rise of industrialization gave rise to GW. I for one refuse to see only good or only bad in anything. Life and reality are far too complex to compartmentalize and categorize like that. Yes, the Bible has pretty much no scientific basis. If people want to use it to proclaim that evolution is bunk and the world was created 6000 years or so ago, well, they're smoking some serious juju. However, if they want to say that Jesus said "Love thy neighbor as you love yourself" is a way to live your life, why throw that out as well? Taht's no different than those who use the Old Testament to condemn homosexuality by discounting the teachings and actions of Jesus (as written in the Bible).

 

[strings235]

you point out a very significant loophole in these religions, esp. the koran, which talks about killing people of other religions. Many of these are outdated but the Bible is not, at least the more applicable. The old testament does have extremities (I've read the bible) but after Christ died, the supposed relationship between God and man changed, consequently the new testament was written. Presumably, God is kinder now because we are "forgiven" or at least able to be forgiven. This is evident as many positive things pervade the new testament, such as the beattitudes, lessons on virtue and morals, talks of salvation and eternal peace. We must also realize that Christ himself said that the old testament was no longer applicable.

 

[marcflores]

Hmmm..apparently some people do not read the entirety of one's postI never said it wasn't violent. However, the view that since some parts are bad and therefore all parts must be discounted is a rather limited viewpoint. No single thing absolutely good or bad, not even science. Do we throw out science because parts of it are bad? The rise of nuclear power gave rise to nuclear weaponry. The rise of antibiotics gave rise to biological weaponry. Assuming you believe GW to be true, the rise of industrialization gave rise to GW. I for one refuse to see only good or only bad in anything. Life and reality are far too complex to compartmentalize and categorize like that. Yes, the Bible has pretty much no scientific basis. If people want to use it to proclaim that evolution is bunk and the world was created 6000 years or so ago, well, they're smoking some serious juju. However, if they want to say that Jesus said "Love thy neighbor as you love yourself" is a way to live your life, why throw that out as well? Taht's no different than those who use the Old Testament to condemn homosexuality by discounting the teachings and actions of Jesus (as written in the Bible).

Jesus also said in the book of Matthew (Matt. 5:17-19) that he did not come to abolish the Old Law or the Law of the Prophets (laws of the Old Testament), but to uphold them. He also said that anyone who detracted from those laws would have their share of the kingdom of heaven detracted from them as well. Therefore, this whole idea of "saved by grace" or that Jesus taught another message is bunk.

My main point is that there are other sources out there which are far better moral guides and codes than the bible. The bible is littered with contradictions and it's nearly impossible to sort the good from the bad because of interpretations and context. I'm not a spiritual or religious person anymore, but if I wanted to find meaning, morality, and spirituality in my life, I'm more inclined to read J. Krishnamurti or others who don't subscribe to heavily dogmatic religious beliefs.

 

[strings235]

marcflores,

I have to ask you, is what you say about Jesus not coming to abolish the old law a personal interpretation or the actual words of Jesus (I honestly don't know). That would be a major and outright absurd contradiction because the only reason Jesus supposedly came from heaven was to establish the new convenant between mankind and God. If he said that the old law still completely applied, it would completely destroy the foundation of Christianity. I'm thinking that Jesus said he respected the old law but did not say it completely applied. One obvious difference is that people no longer had to sacrifice animals to be "forgiven", after the new testament, prayer was sufficient as long as one recognized the death of Christ (the sacrifice in this case).

 

[marcflores]

Yes, those words were apparently straight out of Jesus' mouth. Then again, NONE of the gospels were firsthand accounts of the man himself, so take it as you please. With that being said, Christianity is a young religion. I believe it is the youngest of the three big monotheistic religions (the other two being Judaism and Islam.)

Christianity wasn't created until hundreds of years after Jesus of Nazareth's death where he was deified and given almost god-like status during or after the first century. I can't remember. The problem with most Christians who preach this love of Christ haven't actually read the bible or are misinterpreting verses and taking sections and verses out of context. What's worse is they are unaware of the origins of Christianity. The texts documenting the life of Jesus aren't entirely reliable and are questioned by a good number of historians for accuracy.

The church wanted power, but you can't vest power to someone unless you somehow make them higher and more powerful than everyone else. Suddenly Jesus was born of a virgin mother (not the first virgin birth in folklore, mind you) and was free of "sin." I put sin in quotation marks because it was men who convened and decided what sins were going to be, sin is manufactured. The books included in the bible were voted upon by the Council of Nicea (it was apparently Constantine who had a major driving force in deciding which books appeared in the canon or bible). It was also the Council of Nicea which voted upon and decided on the nature of Jesus... that he was not made or born but "begotten" or somehow just here from another place (through the virgin birth, of course).

Someone here on this forum said earlier that we should read more about religions than anything else. While I disagreed, I will agree in a different way. We should read about RELIGION, and not from religious texts. Religious history and studies show a lot about the nature, origins, and evolution of religion. It's easy for me to see why many religious studies majors are often atheists.

 

[asterias]

I don't understand why the discussions always have to come to this.

daveb also mentinoed this:

Otherwise, why read philosophy, literature, drama or a host of other subjects that aren't scientific in nature?

Science is not everything. What we need to learn or what we enjoy is much more :)

~S

 

[russ_watters]

Locked for religious content.