Thread: Atheists

Originally Posted by gwahir

I'm not sure what would suffice as proof; perhaps the whole universe would have to pass some kind of Turing test to prove that there IS a higher agency. As for evidence, some well-documented examples of supernormal phenomena would be a good start. If you believe in God-the-abstract-being, presumably you believe It has some effect on our physical world, no? That's why physical evidence is needed. It's pointless to argue about an abstract god that has NO effect (and never has) on our physical world, but nobody really seems to think that. If the God you're talking about has no physical properties, It still has to physically manifest itself (even if only in the creation of the universe) to be worthy of any debate.

Even with supernatural phenomena, how would you link said occurences irrefutably to God and not to statistics or impossible odds that actually happened? This is what I mean about physical evidence - a prerequisite to being capable of linking said events (or whatever) to God in order to prove God exists first requires a comprehensive understand of how God operates and/or what God is. We lack that kind of knowledge. We have hazy old history books with who knows how many editors, in which case the word of God must be considered compromised, because there is no way of telling truth from fiction aside from intuition and/or reason.

So it's not exactly impossible for a God-in-the-abstract to operate in the world without us being able to recognize it for what it is. Simply because that's a possibility, it further muddles whatever truth or fact we look for to link and therefore prove God's existence.

I feel I should stop here and point out that I am a fence-sitter of the highest magnitude and in no way endorse the existence or non-existence of God.

Originally Posted by gwahir

I'm still not understanding the objection. "There's no evidence for God or gods, and there's no evidence for unicorns, therefore each is as likely as the other" is my argument. You're saying the comparison is false. Then what, if not evidence, makes God more likely than unicorns? Or, if something satisfies the criterion of evidence to you, what is it?

First, I should point out that the existence of beings is not based on whether or not we have evidence of their existence. Let's look at, say, goblin sharks in the 1600's. They had no evidence of goblin sharks existing (well, we have no evidence that they had evidence, but this is tangental), but the sharks did then as they do now. A similar parallel can be drawn between Northern European tribes in the 800's and the people who lived in Indonesia. Neither had knowledge or proof of the existence of the other, yet both still existed. Our lack of evidence has nothing to do with whether or not something exists, only whether or not we've documented it. We have not catalogued the world, yet, nor have we catalogued the universe. We are operating with incomplete information and extrapolating possibilities based on what we have, but, without another set of knowledge to compare mankind's collective knowledge with, we have no way of really knowing how much we know, which directly influences the accuracy of the projections made on our data.

Think of cavemen trying to figure out how a watch works.

That aside, there are, in my argument, 3 states of existence for God. First as a physical being only, second as an incorporeal being capable of expressing Itself physically and third as an entirely incorporeal being. The unicorn can only exist in one of these states; it can only exist physically. If God were only a physical being, and perhaps we just haven't found Him yet, then, yes, there is equal probability for the existence of the unicorn and God. Otherwise, there isn't equal probability between the unicorn and God because it is equally likely that God exists incorporeally (either purely or with occasionaly physical manifestations), in which case there are more scenarios where God exists than there are scenarios where the unicorn exists.

I have no criterion of evidence because I have no idea where to look or what to look for. Pride in my own ignorance, I suppose.

Originally Posted by gwahir

It strikes me as hubris to say that God is all powerful and all knowing, and then presume to know His desires. I'm not saying that's you -- it's more of a religious thing. I'm just saying.

It probably strikes you as that because it is that. There is a relative basis of truth to it, however, operating on the assumption that if God created us, he wouldn't wish us destruction (an all-powerful, all-knowing God would have ended us already if that had been the case). So we can assume he's either absent (absent and watching or absent completely) or actively working for us, and determining how the last one works, even on a simpler level of, say, raising a child, is completely beyond human comprehension at this time.