MadMez

Pardon my ignorance here. I'm just your average Joe cynic, and base my atheism on never having stumbled across a real God of any shape or form in my 47 years. I'll try to ask my question and not get lost or seem too stupid, and hopefully someone can post a terse link to further reading.

My question is this.

If I were to have shown to me evidence, in any form I'd find acceptable, and I find the evidence has a natural explanation - this then would prove God's non-existence. Right?

So if someone represents to me that God can be proven, and I counter that If I can explain the proof or show that this proof can be explained, then there aught to be this little 'pop' sound then I can live happily ever after. Right?

And if this deity ever, at any time, showed a sign that became explainable by nature then the 'pop' should occur all throughout the deity's cult, and the recreation industry have more people to sell stuff to for Sunday mornings. Right?

So my thought is, and as I asked up top, is it true that if God produces acceptable, rational evidence to someone not inclined to subscribe to "super-nature" then the God disproves itself instantly.

This all makes perfect sense to me. So I'm off to the pub, and will check back after a pint.

Thanks!

Jobar

Hi MadMez; welcome to Internet Infidels.

"And if this deity ever, at any time, showed a sign that became explainable by nature then the 'pop' should occur all throughout the deity's cult, and the recreation industry have more people to sell stuff to for Sunday mornings. Right? "

You'd certainly think so, wouldn't you? It's a never failing source of wonderment and disgust to me, when some cult kook predicts the world will end on a particular date, then of course the world does not end- and then the cult doesn't simply dissolve away into disillusioned individuals. Yet, they don't! Some humans, alas, seem to be so gullible that con men and kooks can milk them, like cows, for their entire lives...

I know that is not precisely your point, but I think the same answer applies. How many centuries did the Catholic Church insist that geocentrism was absolutely vital to the faith, a cornerstone which would bring on the collapse of Catholicism if it were removed? And yet nowadays they ignore all that, and carry right on shearing their sheep.

Who knows if there is a point where all the sheep refuse to come and be sheared? We can but hope that there is.

Humble Heathen

I'm confused. How can god disprove itself? How can god present evidence if it doesn't exist to begin with? Maybe I'm missing the point here.

Devilnaut

MadMez, are you suggesting that mysteriousness is inherent to any concept of God and that once it is removed this concept ceases to be God?

Lord Asriel

Sounds like the Babel Fish argument to me.

MadMez

Humble Heathen
quote:
<strong>I'm confused. How can god disprove itself? How can god present evidence if it doesn't exist to begin with? Maybe I'm missing the point here. </strong>

Good point. Well, fundamental point, I suppose. Where I was coming from was that if one were to be presented with "evidence" for a Gods existence, would this, by it's very nature, confirm that god didn't exist anyway?

Devilnaut
<strong>MadMez, are you suggesting that mysteriousness is inherent to any concept of God and that once it is removed this concept ceases to be God? </strong>

Yes, I think I am! That's a good way of putting what I conclude about gods. I mean, they have to be responsible for something, in my opinion, and if their "product" is (bit by bit) proven not to have been of their doing, then they evaporate.


Lord Asriel
<strong>Sounds like the Babel Fish argument to me. </strong>

Being a good egg, I searched II for this but couldn't find a reference. Then I found it with Copernic, oh my God! (Sorry) Yes, Douglas Adams! So I'm thinking that if I substitute any "sign" from any god for the babel fish then poof! "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. Lovely.

Thank you all for the replies!

Amos

When will we ever be done disproving God?

It seems to me that with every proof for no God we seem to find new evidence that there is a God.

Could this possible mean that God is leading science by the nose and that our world is still kind of flat and dark?

Shadowy Man

Llyricist

loves that Douglas Adams!!!

Amos,

1) When people stop asserting his existence.

2) Where is this new evidence of God??

3) ummmmmmmmmmmm.. HUH???

Amos

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I wrote:

1)When will we ever be done disproving God?

2)It seems to me that with every proof for no God we seem to find new evidence that there is a God.

3)Could this possible mean that God is leading science by the nose and that our world is still kind of flat and dark?


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I think the point was that science proves that the supernatural does not exist and that there is noting super about nature once we understand it.

True and I agree. But then I ask if and when the "many questions" will end?

I write this because I hold that while we do the science we increase the omniscience of God in that God looks at our activities with subjective vision while we look at our activities with objective vision. In other words, the 'eye of the soul' has an agenda of its own and perceives our experiences different than we do with our rational mind. The difference between these two is wherein God is omniscient and is where the many questions come from.

In the bible this is meade clear with "a pupil cannot be greater than its master." Pupil is conscious mind and master is subconscious mind.

[ November 22, 2002: Message edited by: Amos ]</p>