Quote Originally Posted by coqauvin View Post
it's too early for me to give a full response to gwahir, so I'm just going to tackle VS for the moment.

regardless of who has the onus of proving the existence, how exactly do you plan on proving it? Scientifically?

The scientific method is fantastic for small phenomena that we can observe closely, but is more difficult to use for things at a distance. Keep in mind that science, because it relies on what we already know, can only use what we know to describe the things we don't. There is a huge gap between what actually goes on and what we say goes on.

A good example is back in the late 1800's, early 1900's scientists believed the globe floated in a liquid they called the "luminiferous aether". Now that we've been to space, we know the universe doesn't quite work like that, but for all our accomplishments to that point, we had no better answer to give except for a wrong one. Since God is beyond our understanding, much like space in the 1800's, how do you expect to begin to prove anything?
And then, thanks to advancements in science and technology, we found out. Now we know an incredible amount about the universe and all sorts of natural phenomena. Science is also very rarely in the business of explicitly disproving things. The vast majority of times what you call disproving is simply 1. Assertion 2. Data 3. Data failed to support initial assertion.

Many people think that a lack of proof for the existence of god is proof that god doesn't exist. This is a pretty explicit misuse of the scientific method. The best you can say is that we have no evidence. You can use that to estimate how probable god's existence really is, but you cannot use that evidence to say god exists or doesn't exist. That's why I maintain that trying is a fool's errand. Maybe god is out there, floating around in the ether. Maybe he exists on an entirely different energy plane entirely.

What I can say is that the existence of a biblical god is nearly impossible, in that so many of the creation stories are just factually wrong. Wouldn't god want the story of how he made everything to match observable reality? Wouldn't people be true believers if, 2000 years ago, people were able to give accurate descriptions of phenomena they had no way to observe or understand? Like if the bible were to describe the structure of galaxies, how the sun, though it looked overwhelming and inherently different than the white dots in the night sky, that it was one of billions of stars in one of billions of galaxies in the universe. But the bible spoke in ignorance about very basic universal facts, leading me to believe that god had no part in it.

I keep going back to the biblical god, because your (coquavins) god seems very personal to me, unattached to any religion, and thus I can't address specifics because he hasn't given any. You can believe what you want. I attack organized religion because of their insistence on indoctrinating people on a global scale.

But again, god as a concept, as a lifeforce flowing through the universe, is not a concept that can be proven or disproven. If you are looking for a proof that your god doesn't exist, you will never see one. But if you take that lack of proof to mean that he does exist, your method is utterly wrong. I'm not saying you do that, but it is worth pointing out.