Alright, after a long time off of this wonderful sight, I decided to come back on and pose a question from a different debate I'm participating in.
I would like to ask: Is/Are there any studies, experiments or otherwise known physical laws, mathematical formulas or the like which explicitly prohibit and exclude the existence of a god (which one is not important for this question) or explicitly prohibit all things in existence being the result of a god?
this is the quote from one of the theists on the thread. so the question is: does any formula or theory disprove/prove a god in any way?
Since I was part of that other debate I will just restate what I said here.
This would seem to depend on how God is being defined. If we are speaking of a god that can negate any laws of physics this question would seem rather pointless as anything that could be pointed to would just be excused away with "MAGIC!". I would say any god that requires magic as an explanation for how they did what they did would fall under the category of a god that would be prohibited/excluded in the context of the question.
We have pantheistic gods where people define god as being the universe or some other object such as the sun. I myself would reject these things as being a god as we have a perfectly good definition of what these are without having to inject any sort of divinity to them. Of course if we are to accept this definition (even if just metaphorically so) as a god then the answer would be no, there is nothing that prohibits/excludes such a god.
We could also get into the definition of a deistic god or any god of the gaps. In this case the answer would also be no. But I'm not sure such a god is reasonable to believe in as we are just taking an unknown and inserting god as the answer instead of being intellectually honest and saying that we don't know.
does any formula or theory disprove/prove a god in any way?
No, but we can apply our knowledge base to the claims made by theists. Creationism is a good example - all of our theories directly contradict a young universe, instant creation, and divine intervention. We have absolutely no evidence for Creationism at all, and a whole lot of evidence to the contrary.
You can't prove the nonexistence of something. It's logically impossible. You can, however, evaluate claims and come to a rational conclusion on whether that is plausible or not. When we do this for any claim of the supernatural, the answer has always been one of two things - a different cause and explanation than first provided is found to be the truth, or we cannot replicate results in any way. In either case, the supernatural cannot be proved or disproved because it lies outside natural laws.
I can't prove there are no such things as unicorns. There are no theories or laws that preclude the existence of a horse with a swirly horn and vibrant colors. However, we don't have any existence of them either aside from old stories and personal testimonies, which when evaluated, always turn out inconclusive or to be hoaxes.
The idea of an all powerful, all loving, ominipresent being that transcends natural laws and exists outside of time and space is WAY more ridiculous a claim than unicorns exist. At least we can find horses and horns and glue one to the other for comedic relief.
We have pantheistic gods where people define god as being the universe or some other object such as the sun. I myself would reject these things as being a god as we have a perfectly good definition of what these are
there are many things we dont know about the universe. some1 that would believe that god is something we dont know yet like dark matter. or some other form of energy that we dont know about yet. you cant reject that probability, right? i know logically there is no god, but to state that we have a perfectly good definition of what the universe and all its elements are. and that we know god isn't among them, sounds a bit to certain for. we cant know what we dont know.. =/
I will define A as "something which can only exist if B does not exist". I then define B as "something which must exist".
A is therefore proven to not exist.
there is nothing (A) that can only exist if god (B) does not exist. because god is supposed to have created everything that exists. without god nothing can exist.
there are many things we dont know about the universe. some1 that would believe that god is something we dont know yet like dark matter. or some other form of energy that we dont know about yet. you cant reject that probability, right? i know logically there is no god, but to state that we have a perfectly good definition of what the universe and all its elements are. and that we know god isn't among them, sounds a bit to certain for. we cant know what we dont know.. =/
That's not what I'm saying. I'm referring to things we know exist that get pointed to and people say "that's god". What you're talking about here, about things that we don't know would fall under the third point where I included a god of the gaps.
Why would anyone insinuate that God was dark matter/energy? No one even knows what dark matter is
its not about why they have their believes but about how their believes prove/disproves gods existence, right?
I've heard no argument from any creationist insisting God is some kind of mysterious energy we've yet to understand and is not an argument itself because there is nothing in the Bible or any religious text that dignifies God as an 'energy'.
not all spiritual believes are religious believes. altho the majority is, it is not a demand to follow some kind of religion to have spiritual believes
this is the kind of grasping at straws that I hate having to talk about because there is nothing to base that argument on.
your correct that it's a baseless argument from me cause i do not hold these believes. i was just popping in this option cause i know someone who has. you call it, grasping at straws. and i would do so aswell if i didn't know her. but now i have to call it, open minded enough to find their own truth. (this person has much scientific Knowles aswell )
about things that we don't know would fall under the third point where I included a god of the gaps.
its a good point, to bad creationists rather say "god did it" =. but "god did it" doesn't work here now. it's not about something god did but about god himself. arg, i came up with this myself and now i dont have arguments... so this is how it feels to be a creationist. xD haha.
You can't prove the nonexistence of something. It's logically impossible
i agree with this argument. something doesn't exist is impossible to prove, because you can't prove it using nothing and assume that it is something that does not exists. let me show you an example:
in mathematics, we learn about the infinite symbol, which is produced whenever any number is divided by 0. i was later informed that the infinite number doesn't exist, rather it is just a figment of our imagination. the proof? here you go
mathematicians recognize that the existence of an actually infinite number of things leads to self contradictions (unless you impose some wholly arbitrary rules to prevent this). For example, what is infinity minus infinity? Well, mathematically, you get self-contradictory answers. For example, if you subtract all the odd numbers {1, 3, 5, . . . } from all the natural numbers {0, 1, 2, 3, . . . }, how many numbers do you have left? An infinite number. So infinity minus infinity is infinity. But suppose instead you subtract all the numbers greater than 2â"how many are left? Three. So infinity minus infinity is 3! It needs to be understood that in both these cases we have subtracted identical quantities from identical quantities and come up with contradictory answers. In fact, you can get any answer you want from zero to infinity!
well then you know that an infinite number is only a figment of our imagination, how do you prove that an infinite number DOES NOT exist? you can't prove neither the existence nor the nonexistence of an infinite number. the numbers that compose the natural number, real numbers and so forth is only potentially infinite rather than true "infinite"
The use of this logic by creationists is so infuriating because it is a logical fallacy that applies no structure to the original argument in the first place
you forgot something don't you? religion based itself on believing, not logic. the structure is the belief itself, it was also justified with belief. trying to apply logical reasoning to religion will deny just about anything the bible throws at you.try reading the bible for once, and try explaining why does Moses got a lucky break when trying to cross the vast ocean by logical reasoning. logically, it is almost impossible for the people and mother nature touch to converge so precisely at the moment of time.
as of such, religion is all about believing; science is all about questioning. try bringing the two together and you're in for a nasty surprise, they don't match together.
well then you know that an infinite number is only a figment of our imagination, how do you prove that an infinite number DOES NOT exist? you can't prove neither the existence nor the nonexistence of an infinite number. the numbers that compose the natural number, real numbers and so forth is only potentially infinite rather than true "infinite"
No. The infinite is not an imaginary construct. We do not have a proper "number" for it because numbers relate only to finite values.
you forgot something don't you? religion based itself on believing, not logic. the structure is the belief itself, it was also justified with belief. trying to apply logical reasoning to religion will deny just about anything the bible throws at you.try reading the bible for once, and try explaining why does Moses got a lucky break when trying to cross the vast ocean by logical reasoning.
This is irrelevant. The question is not of how valid a mythology is. We are discussing the use of logic to make some conclusion about the existence or nonexistence of a divine entity.
