A test to prove God doesn't exist

Originally posted by forkedknight
You don't want evidence, you want undeniable proof. There is no undeniable proof for god, and there is no undeniable proof for the big bang theory. Different people come to different conclusions based on their own personal experience and reasoning.

No, I don't think scottishinnz is asking for undeniable proof, I certainly don't. All I ask for is evidence for which the best explanation (based on other evidence, reasoning and logic) is that God exists. Generally, I take the best explanation to be the most parsimonious one.
For example, I find an apple on the ground under an apple tree. The best explanation is that it fell off the apple tree. There are of course many other possible explanations, and in fact whether or not the above explanation is the best may change as new evidence comes to light (eg it is not apple season).
So, do you have any evidence for which the best explanation is that God exists?

Originally posted by vistesd
... little pixies that live under the flowers...

Moon flowers of course!

But seriously, some very nice posts in this thread vistesd - it's nice to "see" you again, btw. Nice to see that you are still chugging along with the "totality of existance" universe!

Originally posted by twhitehead
I don't think scottishinnz is asking for undeniable proof

As we say in Japanese, "sonotori", or in English, "exactly".

All I am asking is unequivocal evidence of God. Your apple example paraphrases it nicely.

Many theists would posit the apple as proof of existence of God. It is not. It is proof of the existence of apples though! And quite probably apple trees too... but not God.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Moon flowers of course!

But seriously, some very nice posts in this thread vistesd - it's nice to "see" you again, btw. Nice to see that you are still chugging along with the "totality of existance" universe!

Nice to see that you are still chugging along with the "totality of existance" universe!

Wonder where I got that... 😉 Dualism—natural or supernatural (twhitehead has convinced me that that is a spurious distinction)—just doesn’t work.

Hope all is well with you, Scotty. I’m only on here infrequently these days.

Originally posted by vistesd
[b]Nice to see that you are still chugging along with the "totality of existance" universe!

Wonder where I got that... 😉 Dualism—natural or supernatural (twhitehead has convinced me that that is a spurious distinction)—just doesn’t work.

Hope all is well with you, Scotty. I’m only on here infrequently these days.[/b]

Hi vistesd,

Yeah, I think we all fluctuate in our patronage of thse fine boards. As I'm sure you realise, I tend to go a bit overboard here at times then sod off for a few months because I can't take the mind numbing tediousness of watching a new fundy come along and make the same old ridiculous claims again.

Still, things are well with me, now, at least. Things have taken a decided upturn in my life recently, after a stinker of an '07. In Japan now, in case you hadn't realised - I think you'd appreciate the shrines and temples here.

Originally posted by vistesd
Why is “I don’t (yet anyway) know” not a valid answer? [Granted that there are a number of theories about human morality...]

If someone asks, “Who/what create/caused ‘God’?”, the answer is generally that God is causa sui. That is, there is no who/what/or why permitted when it comes to God. The causal/explanatory chain is truncated—by no more th ...[text shortened]... Why is there something rather than nothing at all?” or "Why is there God?" type of questions.

So your explanation for these things is "I don't know or care to try and explain it". I'm totally fine with that.

Other people need more than that in life. They need to take their best shot at explaining 'why', so they turn to religion or spirituality of one kind or another.

As far as that is concerned, I'm not sure why some people are so up in arms about religion. One explaination (god/deity) is just as valid as another ('I don't know' or 'it just is'😉; neither are provable, and there's really not better evidence for one way than another.

I think if religions stuck to doing what they're good at -- explaining the unexplainable, and providing a comforting community for people in hard times -- the world would be a much more tolerant place.

It's when religion tries to stick its nose into places it doesn't belong (read science and logic) that people get upset.

Originally posted by twhitehead
No, I don't think scottishinnz is asking for undeniable proof, I certainly don't. All I ask for is evidence for which the best explanation (based on other evidence, reasoning and logic) is that God exists. Generally, I take the best explanation to be the most parsimonious one.
For example, I find an apple on the ground under an apple tree. The best expla ...[text shortened]... pple season).
So, do you have any evidence for which the best explanation is that God exists?

"Best explaination" is a subjective term. If there really was an absolute best explanation, everyone (*edit* read: majority) would agree, don't you think?

On the otherhand, what percentage of the world's population is religious vs non-religious? and how many different major beliefs about deities are there?

All religions and non-religions are a minority on the world scale.

Originally posted by forkedknight
If there really was an absolute best explanation, everyone (*edit* read: majority) would agree, don't you think?

Why?

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Why?

Can you name another phenomenon in which there is an obvious "best explanation", and yet 92% of the world's population doesn't buy it?

(Assuming 92% is a correct number -- it's at least approximate.
from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html)

Originally posted by forkedknight
So your explanation for these things is "I don't know or care to try and explain it". I'm totally fine with that.

Other people need more than that in life. They need to take their best shot at explaining 'why', so they turn to religion or spirituality of one kind or another.

As far as that is concerned, I'm not sure why some people are so up i ...[text shortened]... se into places it doesn't belong (read science and logic) that people get upset.

So your explanation for these things is "I don't know or care to try and explain it". I'm totally fine with that.

No. First, that wouldn’t be an “explanation”. Second, I didn’t say anything about “don’t care to try”—something either has a reasonable explanation, that fits the facts, or it doesn’t; or among otherwise reasonable explanations, there is a best one (currently) or there is not. Third, I really have no problem with speculation about possible explanations, as long as realizes and admits that one is engaging in speculation.

My only point in that aside is that sometimes “I don’t know” is a valid answer, indeed the best answer, even in cases where someone has an interest in the subject.

Other people need more than that in life. They need to take their best shot at explaining 'why', so they turn to religion or spirituality of one kind or another.

I have no problem with taking one’s best shot, for whatever reason. But everything I said about reasons and soundness still applies to the explanations. That is not to say that such things as stories and myths and such do not have an aesthetic value—in terms of the aesthetics by which we also live our lives, including the spiritual—even if they are not taken as propositional assertions.

I am mostly a Zen Buddhist, by the way. My spiritual life is by no means dry. That does not mean that I accept all the metaphysics (“explanations” ) of Buddhism, such as reincarnation. In line with twhitehead’s apple-tree analogy, what conditions would have to be there for reincarnation to be a reasonable explanation? (I don’t know offhand; that’s really a rhetorical question.)

I think if religions stuck to doing what they're good at -- explaining the unexplainable, and providing a comforting community for people in hard times -- the world would be a much more tolerant place.

Explaining the unexplainable is, by definition, not possible. However, pointing to the ineffable (again, through story, myth, parable, poetry, Zen koans) is. In that sense, religious language is really iconographic, and need not become idolatrous.

I see no reason to assert, however, that the grammar of our consciousness is exhaustive of the syntax of the totality in which and of which we are. If we insist on making up explanations for the mystery in order to think that the mystery is no longer mysterious, that is illusion. If a reasonable explanation presents itself, then that aspect of the cosmos may no longer be mystery; but that ought not to be taken as meaning that there is no longer any mystery. How will you know if you understand everything? How will you know if it is possible to understand everything? (Rhetorical questions, again.)

However, again, how that is done may have rich aesthetic value—no small thing, since the aesthetics of how we live our lives, and view the world of which we are, is what adds richness.

___________________________________

Sit quietly. Become aware of your surroundings without naming or thinking about them. Become aware of your place in them. Become aware, perhaps, that—just as there is no perceivable figure without a ground—there is really no strict separation between yourself and your surroundings: all is inseparably entangled. Those are just words, and words and thoughts and names are not the thing. Do not force your awareness anywhere, let it move as it will. If you become aware of thinking, just notice how your thoughts arise in the field of your awareness, as do birds or clouds or the sound of an airplane. Sense the non-separability, the wholeness, the coherence of everything just-as-it-is in its just-so-suchness, of which you also are.

Then you are in touch with the real, which is prior to thinking about it. Then think about it however you wish; wonder about it. Make whatever mental, conceptual thought-maps are helpful, that seem reasonable. Just don’t confuse the map with the territory; or insist that the territory conform to your maps, rather than the other way around.

That is the beginning of spirituality (for lack of a better word). It begins, not with thoughts and explanations, but with aware-fully touching the real that is prior to any of your ideas about it. And, after all your thinking, or my thinking—good or bad—it ends with touching the real as well.

Be well. 🙂

Originally posted by forkedknight
Can you name another phenomenon in which there is an obvious "best explanation", and yet 92% of the world's population doesn't buy it?

(Assuming 92% is a correct number -- it's at least approximate.
from http://www.adherents.com/Religions_By_Adherents.html)

Something like 70% of the population in the US don't accept the best explanation for the diversity of life on the planet.

Originally posted by forkedknight
"Best explaination" is a subjective term. If there really was an absolute best explanation, everyone (*edit* read: majority) would agree, don't you think?

No, not necessarily. Human psycology is complicated and people in general do not act rationally. What I consider to be one of the biggest irrational behaviours is the lottery factor. Essentially, if a prize is big enough, we have a tendency to try for it, even when the odds are correspondingly miniscule. There are also of extenuating circumstances which increase this effect such as seeing other people win.
From a strictly logical point of view, nobody should enter a lottery. Yet most of the worlds people do so regualarly in many different forms. This is not simply loteries I am talking about but also religion and superstition. How many people do you know who will 'touch wood' or throw salt over their sholder even though they do not believe it has any effect? They do it 'just in case'. How many people stopped flying on aeroplanes for a while after 9/11 even though it was still safer to fly than to drive?
We are all guilty of this mistake. We do it far more often than we realize.
Many people on these forums apply the same flawed logic to God.
Doing so is known as Pascals wager, and even though even a basic examination will lead any sensible person to the conclusion that the logic is flawed, they frequently do not accept the conclusion and still cling to the concept.

However when people are educated both in terms of knowledge and logical ways of thinking, the vast majority accept as fact most scientific findings.

Originally posted by scottishinnz
Something like 70% of the population in the US don't accept the best explanation for the diversity of life on the planet.

Please inform

*edit*
I will presume you mean evolution in general, and where do you get your data? I am interested to know which parts of evolution people don't buy.

As a side note, however, I will submit that the US population, which sits below 300 million, is too small a population to consider it a worldwide phenomenon.

Originally posted by shavixmir
"Why not?" is the obvious answer.

However, what I'm trying to make clear is that if someone has any reason other than a "hunch" that God exists, then he or she is clearly as mad as a hatter on LSD and in serious need of help.

In a world where it is "sane" to make war to bring peace and ravage the environment with no thought for the future then I'm quite happy to be mad and completely off my trolley. I have tasted , heard , felt and experienced God ......oooer! Blubllquesryn suaae ssnkqk bbeebblylblub ummumtutuuu🙄🙄🙄