Hypothetically if there was undeniable evidence that God doesn't exist....
- Thread starter CosmicPanda
- Start date
explained by a Christian to themselves not to convince someone else
You don't even need to reach the burden of proof; it isn't a hypothesis unless it's falsifiable.
Most people in the Abrahamic faiths believe in a pretty vaguely defined god. You can falsify more specific aspects of religion, but as you do so people just accept those parts are wrong and change their idea of god to one that doesn't require them.
This is also why seriously arguing we're in a simulation is bullshit and really just a new age religion. It's completely unfalsifiable.
Evidence has nothing to do with it.
Fuck you and your stupid avatar
What would evidence God doesn't exist even look like? It's a non-falsifiable belief. Whatever reality you perceive can always be the veil hiding a more mysterious reality.
It's the same question as "How would you prove the Matrix isn't real?"
It's the same question as "How would you prove the Matrix isn't real?"
You could give me undeniable evidence that i'll never be a millionaire and yet i'm sure some part if me would still believe that one day i'll be that rich.
You can't really prove this the same way you can't prove there isn't a ghost teabagging you right now.
Is it incredibly unlikely to the point that it's not even worth wasting time thinking about? Of course.
could you still be walking around with ectoplasmic ballsweat on your brow? maybe
Is it incredibly unlikely to the point that it's not even worth wasting time thinking about? Of course.
could you still be walking around with ectoplasmic ballsweat on your brow? maybe
It may well be but the comparison with the success rate of the 'no intercessory prayer' model is hard to imagine.
I did not provide an anecdote, that was an example.
To make your argument for you, I suppose what you mean is that if you made a study of the prayers of the relatives of cancer sufferers for their survival and that showed there was no difference in survival rates between those who prayed and those who didn't then that shows that empirically that prayer doesn't work. That's your point yes?
Which is fine. But it's not proof. Because we don't have a commitment from God to intercede. Or perhaps he intercedes whether people pray or not. Or how do you control 'no intercessory prayer' - how do you know there is no intercessory prayer? Or perhaps God deliberately refuses to intercede when a study is taking place because if prayer can be shown to work, then there is proof of God and proof precludes faith. Or a million other things that come into play when you're dealing with an omnipotent, omniscient being. At best you have evidence. Never proof.
There are people who believe the Earth is flat. There is empirical evidence proving that that isn't the case. And yet, they believe it vehemently.
When we talk about explanations, we refer to using things we have established and understand to describe how other things work or why they happen.
Your use of the word doesn't really apply there
That is proof for the original claim. All these caveats are goal post moves changing the original claim and making it much narrower.
Here's an example that might help.
If something moves and you don't know why.
I come and say the explanation is: it was a ghost.
That's not an explanation.
We don't know if ghosts exist.
We don't know how ghosts interact with physical objects.
We don't know if ghosts move objects.
We don't know what ghosts are made of.
Etc
How can something that requires more explanations be an explanation for something else? It's not an explanation.
We've recognized the problem of evil for a long, long time now.
But people want to believe. Like ancient aliens.
But people want to believe. Like ancient aliens.
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"There is no god. Fuck it, imma do whatever I want."
Kind of like the purge I guess.
People have the right to believe whatever they want. It's disrespectful to attack someone's views just because it doesn't align with yours.
I don't believe in anything without evidence. This is why I don't believe in life beyond earth.
God was created to keep the people in check, without it I guess some would turn pretty immoral.
we do have undeniable evidence but religious people, to use the english phrase "move the goal posts" all the time because of how full of holes their beliefs are
nowadays what the few religious people in europe say, at least in germany where i live, is that evolution is real and a fact, as you learn in school, but they say this is part of god's creation, the evolutionary process.
so yeah they will always come up with dumb shit to try and have "faith"
nowadays what the few religious people in europe say, at least in germany where i live, is that evolution is real and a fact, as you learn in school, but they say this is part of god's creation, the evolutionary process.
so yeah they will always come up with dumb shit to try and have "faith"
It always fascinated me how much it bothers other people that society has faith in their religious beliefs. Like we get it, you don't believe, leave us alone already lol.
anyway if this was somehow proven l, I would think nothing would change for the majority. People would still believe and live the happiest lives they could.
anyway if this was somehow proven l, I would think nothing would change for the majority. People would still believe and live the happiest lives they could.
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I think the opposite. Believers push their beliefs on others.
That evidence already exists
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/06/ukip-nigel-farage-plane-crash
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/06/ukip-nigel-farage-plane-crash
It goes in both directions. Religious people have a large, quiet portion of the population being fairly cool with whatever other people believe, and a smaller but very loud and angry population that likes to get in everyone's faces about how they are wrong for not sharing their beliefs. These are the ones who hard sell their religion and generally give religious people a bad rep.
On the atheism side of things, a lot of atheists don't care what anyone else believes, but a small subset of them love to show off how woke they are by publicly pissing on religion every chance they get.
Era skews heavily towards atheism, which is why you see the latter way more often than the former.
you would have to first define the meaning of 'god'
I assume that's a perception view, would humans seem godlike to ants for example, would a monkey view a computer as having godlike powers?
I'm not really arguing that god exists, I just mean what if the concept of god came from something like a higher intelligence that we cant define given our understanding of a place in the universe or reality.
You could prove there is no ''God or gods'' that is defined exactly as humans interpret via religious texts but not be able to prove we aren't living in some simulation theory like many physicists believe.
Overall point is I think its very hard to prove or disprove something like this that's such a nebulous concept
I assume that's a perception view, would humans seem godlike to ants for example, would a monkey view a computer as having godlike powers?
I'm not really arguing that god exists, I just mean what if the concept of god came from something like a higher intelligence that we cant define given our understanding of a place in the universe or reality.
You could prove there is no ''God or gods'' that is defined exactly as humans interpret via religious texts but not be able to prove we aren't living in some simulation theory like many physicists believe.
Overall point is I think its very hard to prove or disprove something like this that's such a nebulous concept
It's impossible to produce undeniable evidence for or against the existence of God (or really anything for that matter). But assuming that it's happened I honestly don't think a whole lot would change in society aside from a few more people "converting" to atheism.
All thoughts and ideologies get contorted and people will follow whatever they wish to believe.
People who want to hate will hate.
People who want to love will love.
That's regardless of "religion", which is again an ideology.
Admittedly, it's been a very useful set of ideologies that have been used to justify corruption and hate, so I do understand where you're coming from. I'm just saying it peace won't happen.
If God will intervene or not without prayer, there's no point in prayer anymore. And he refuses to save people because of an experiment taking place? That's not very loving of him
And God used to show himself quite often to people, according to the Bible. Why would it all of the sudden be different?
I'm not saying a prayer experiment is perfect but what you said is fairly problematic.