Is the statement "god exists" true?

[_barrelomonkeys]

People of faith can't prove God exists to anyone else. Why would you ask them to?

this is my next point and speaks to the utility of knowing Vs the utility in belief. Why is it useful to believe something that is unprovable? We can prove that Electrons exist by turning on a light switch or (indirectly) by measuring the speed of light.

I guess I'm beating a dead horse here and not being specific enough in my approach. There is so much animosity to those in the religious camps when we tell them the emperor has no clothes.

Hi Mercury, Of course there is animosity. You are telling people that something they believe in is false. Not just a belief, but sometimes their entire philosophical outlook on life is being put on the chopping block.

Why is it useful to believe in something that is unprovable? My very best friend died 2 years ago. She left behind a 13 year old daughter, a 7 year old boy and her husband. I sat at her funeral with a newborn in my lap furious that she was gone and unable to understand the senselessness of her death. I watched her family and other friends rally about the belief that she was safe with God. I didn't believe that for a second. I was stunned at the finality of it and angered that someone so amazing, and giving died. She was diagnosed with cancer and died within a month. I sat at her bedside as she prayed with her priest and watched as she found comfort as she slipped away from her children and husband. She cried and worried who would raise her children, as she didn’t believe her husband would be able to handle it. She was terrified of what would become of them, but was not terrified in the least for herself.

She was given comfort by her faith. Her family, community, and many of her friends were comforted that there is a plan. This is the comfort, I believe, of Christianity. I wish I had that. Do you really not understand that?

[_Mercury]

She was given comfort by her faith. Her family, community, and many of her friends were comforted that there is a plan. This is the comfort, I believe, of Christianity. I wish I had that. Do you really not understand that?

I do understand that. I totally understand that. My point I am trying to make with this is that it is not authentic. The story that they use as the center for their peace is not true. This is a complicated issue but very straightforward in parts, in that the peace one can feel is, I believe, real peace. That being said, this peace is induced by tricking the brain into finding resolutions to questions such as what happens after we die, justice for wrongdoers, etc. What if instead of a religious outlook the popular feeling is that there is no method for knowing what comes next and that when we die we have no control over our destiny. Do unto others that which is ethically correct and let the individual determine their own destiny.

Religion and belief are old ideas, like hunting and gathering. Eventually we moved onto that thing called Horticulture and then theat new fangled Agrarian way of life that progressed beyond even that into the Industrial revolution. It is time to drop this idea that imaginary friends in the form of personal gods are the single force in the universe that one must care about. God is another word for excuse.

[_Gadianton]

I think it can be proven the Stegasaurus doesn't exist anymore. So apparently we can prove negatives. And God could in principle be proven to not exist if the deductive formulation of the problem of evil holds.

Can you? How do you know that there are no stegosaurs? Have you surveyed every square foot of space on the earth and determined a stegosaurus does not exist there? Adn what of the possibilities of stegosaurs on the moon? I believe the quakers might be herding them on the moon.

You have pretty high standards for proof, careful, you'll sound like an LTG apologist :) My question will be, can you prove a positive? Ah - let's qualify that though. You can prove a positive like, "there is a Stegasaurus in my back yard". But then to be fair, you can prove a negative just as easily like "there is no Stegasaurus in my back yard". However, you're asking if we can prove a universal negative. And it's just as true that we can't prove a universal positive.

The statments "there are no white ducks" (a negative) and the statement "all ducks are white" (a positive) are equally unprovable.

Since we have to deal with universals in science, we have to make some assumptions and lower the bar a little for what constitutes proof. If we don't ugh..see tal's thread in the Celestial forum.

Somehow, somewhere, someone linked the problem of induction to a mythical problem of "proving negatives" and it's unfortunate, because it's one of those (few) cases where atheists have perpetuated a myth without satisfactory analysis rather than theists.

[_Sethbag]

Book of Mormon, I'm kinda with Mercury here on this one. I do understand how your friend's family was comforted by their religion. But still, they were comforted with false hopes and false promises, and in the end, it's all false.

I am not 100% sure I could tell you what comfort there is to be offered by an atheist in a situation like that, only I'm convinced that there is a good philosophical approach to it out there somewhere. Perhaps Richard Dawkins can help. I've heard him say that we are the lucky ones who can die, because we've lived at all. The unlucky ones were all those potential people who could have been created from every possible permutation of our genes, who in fact are never created, and never live, and hence who never will die.

I am finding more and more comfort in the idea that there is this, forgive me the Walt Disney reference, "circle of life" that I'm part of. It's natural that I came into this world, and it's natural that I will someday leave it again, and that all I can ask for is that I make a good run of it and try to leave behind some family and friends who were better because I was around, and who will remember me fondly. I'm OK with that.

So while I understand the comforting nature of your friends' religion, it's all a false comfort - a promise that will never be fulfilled, a check that their priest writes which the Universe will never cash. And once they die, they have lost the opportunity to try to have a crack at any kind of real accomodation with the real universe that actually exists, and come to a real appreciation of it, and come to terms with it.

[_Mercury]

To my sista in the south, what would be MORE comforting:

The belief that Marduk has your back in the afterlife or the belief that Jesus Christ has your back in the afterlife? What i'm getting at is that they are both fantasy, therefore tehy are equally comforting but equally contrived.

Hope this helps. In retrospect I think im just confusing myself further.

[_barrelomonkeys]

Mercury, Sethbag,

I don't believe it is false comfort. If it comforts them then it comforts them. There is nothing false in that. Their belief is not false, their belief is a reality. They believe it. So what? I just don't understand why it matters. I don't believe and yet I don't take it as a personal affront if others do.

Sethbag, my husband is an atheist and talks about the "circle of life" too. He hums the lion king theme when I get too freaky in my agnosticism for him. :D

It probably boils down to being polite for me. I'm too polite to tell someone they're wrong in their religious beliefs. I just won't do it. I don't see the point in it.

[_asbestosman]

And God could in principle be proven with near mathematical certainty to not exist if the deductive formulation of the problem of evil holds.

It does not because the premises are invalid (namely that God must be good / omnipotent / knowledgeable in the way that the PoE assumes). At most it disproves certain conceptions of God--something there is not universal agreement on.

[_barrelomonkeys]

To my sista in the south, what would be MORE comforting:

The belief that Marduk has your back in the afterlife or the belief that Jesus Christ has your back in the afterlife? What I'm getting at is that they are both fantasy, therefore tehy are equally comforting but equally contrived.

Hope this helps. In retrospect I think I'm just confusing myself further.

To me it doesn't matter what one believes in. I don't care if they believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster (which happens to be my screensaver). I do NOT care! I just don't take it personally if someone takes comfort in something that I do not take comfort in.

I read early political tracts, quite a bit of them, and find myself lounging about wild eyed with contemplation sometimes. I love Thomas Paine and read political scientists and get euphoric. These early political philosophers bring comfort to me. Does that offend you? I am not offended that people find comfort in the Oogi Boogi Woogi Monster. I just don't care!

[_Gadianton]

Asb,

I was giving an example. Under the common conceptions of western theism, if the argument is successul, then it would prove God doesn't exist. But you are right, it doesn't prove that any and all conceptions of God don't exist. Defining God - now that's a tough one. Maybe the notion of "God" is meaningless on further inspection? I'll be honest and say I'm tempted to think so.

[_Some Schmo]

Mercury, Sethbag,

I don't believe it is false comfort. If it comforts them then it comforts them. There is nothing false in that. Their belief is not false, their belief is a reality. They believe it. So what? I just don't understand why it matters. I don't believe and yet I don't take it as a personal affront if others do.

Sethbag, my husband is an atheist and talks about the "circle of life" too. He hums the lion king theme when I get too freaky in my agnosticism for him. :D

It probably boils down to being polite for me. I'm too polite to tell someone they're wrong in their religious beliefs. I just won't do it. I don't see the point in it.

I have to admit, I agree with this. I've often said that faith is just existential aspirin. If the goal is to "alleviate pain" then who cares how it happens? If the goal is to "find truth" then there's definitely an issue, but for pain relief, "faith" (however it's defined) seems to work for some people. Not me... but others, for sure.

My real beef with religion has to do with the way it truly harms people, not with how it helps people (although a case can be made that the current pain it masks could come back to bite you worse later... but I don't feel like developing that case at the moment). I tend to vascillate between not caring about it to wishing it was wiped from the Earth entirely.