Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
No I didn't think it was a low blow, but I did pause before I wrote it, because I realised you might take offence. I guessed that you wouldn't and I'm sorry that you did.
I was not offended, so don't feel bad. You are right, I did put them into this discussion.

You then call upon believers to produce evidence which is satisfactory. I think you are wrong to do this because, as you know, there can be no such evidence.
Actually, I don't care if believers cannot provide evidence. Their faith is their own concern. It's only when they try to push their religions into the public arena, such as government and science classrooms, that I demand evidence. Especially in science classrooms, because the theists try to intimate that their "theory" of God is just as valid as any other theory of creation. But the scientific explanations are based upon an immense body of data and evidence, while the theists theories are based on nothing but holy books and wishful thinking. If they could provide evidence, then they could claim some kind of parity with science in the classroom.

Oh, and I will also ask for evidence when someone asks me to provide proof AGAINST the existence of something. If they can't prove it exists in the first place, how can I hope to prove it doesn't? All I can do is provide enough evidence to make such an existence highly unlikely. I've done that, to a degree. Scientists have done it a hell of a lot more effectively.


It is necessary to consider the question on a higher plane than mere physics, because deities are not physical beings.
That would be fine if we could find any evidence for the existence of this higher plane. We cannot, or at least we have not. But in my opinion, this is just a case of moving the target. Theists have always claimed that God interacts with the world on a physical level, creating storms, floods, plagues, all those Biblical catastrophes we've heard about. Science comes along and provides thoroughly natural explanations for such disasters, and have been able to provide pretty accurate predictions about them, all without relying on the existence of gods. So now the theists want to say that God exists in a higher plane? And what happens if, someday, science finds a way to tap into this higher plane, and there is still no God? Will the theists admit they were wrong? Or will they simply explain that God is in an even higher plane?

I think the level at which the question should be pitched is the subject of belief itself. Is it reasonable to believe in a god who claims to be perfect, yet has to test his creations to see if they are also perfect; is it reasonable to believe a creator would destroy his creations in a flood because of their faults ... which are HIS failings. And even if it is, should that god be honoured or despised?
I've been trying to do this all along, I think. I'm a little more crude about it, comparing such beliefs to myths and fairy tales, and I've been lambasted for it. Creationists, many of them, will claim that the Bible is the literal, inerrant Word of God, and is to be taken verbatim. But when you point out the discrepancies within the Bible, they will claim that "this passage is allegorical", or "that law was nailed to the Cross." The frustrating part is that it is THEY who determine which parts of the Bible must be taken literally and which parts not. Without any justification.

If a god (let's say Jehovah) doubts his own perfection, does that not prove that his is not perfect. If he is not perfect, he is not at all what the Bible says he is. That makes him a liar too, because the Bible is his word. You still won't be able to prove God doesn't exist, but you can undermine his credibility to the extent that only the unreasonable continue to believe, and so far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter much what the unreasonable believe. Just so long as we don't give them too much power.
This is almost exactly the kind of thing I've been arguing all along. The evidence shows that Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah CANNOT exist as He is defined in the Bible/Qur'an/Torah. It is unreasonable to believe in such a god. He has been relegated to the same limbo as the ancient Greek, Roman, Egyptian, etc., etc., etc. gods. He is irrelevant. Or should be.

For those who are interested, there are two books I have read in the past year which deal with this exact problem. One is "God: The Failed Hypothesis" by Stenger. The second is "The God Delusion" by Dawkins. Dawkins, especially, is far more blunt and intolerant than I, and there are some things in both books which I disagree with, at least in part, but overall they explain very well what I've been fumbling to explain.