I have absolute proof that there is no God.

[seeker]

I've just seen in our local paper that a little girl who lives in our town has died. She has been the focus of much prayer since she was taken ill last year. Her parents were thoroughly good Christian people who trusted God absolutely.

The is no way that a loving, omnipotent, beneficent God who notes even a sparrow falling would not have answered these people's prayer.

So, if I had even a scintilla of doubt, it is now gone. There is no God.

BBB for sometime I was in no mans land. Didn't know what was what but as I thought more about it logically the possiblility melted away. My position is that there is no evidence for an interventionalist god. And there is no evidence of a supernatural realm.

Interestingly one of the events that helped me along my deconversion was getting into a discussion on a paranormal board. It was an AOL messsage board and there was one prolific poster there called Dodgyox I think. Neither of us believed in ghosts and were almost the only posters who held that view amonst a raft of posts like: 'I saw a ghost at the end of my bed while falling asleep' and 'I put my keys down in the hall and they turned up in the kitchen, I clearly have a poltergeist problem'.What fun we had!

Only one day I let slip that I was a Christian and Dodgyox turned his skills on me and I had to admit I didn't have a bloody leg to stand on. He made me realise that if I believed one thing without any evidence I had absolutely no reason to refute anyone elses beliefs, which meant I was screwed. (If you've somehow stumbled across this post Dodgy, thank you!)

If you can send me back in time to August, 2002, I might believe. But seeing as that will never happen, don't waste your time on me.

Yes, but some Christians do believe they have experience of God and that they do have evidence of their experience. Since I haven't experienced it I can't write it off. I think science is used a reason for not believing but that science is often based solely on the values and workings of the earth science where things are replicable and every time you look for evidence you get the same evidence. Atoms, molecules, rock gases etc, they all react the same way for a certain set of circumstances.

The life sciences like biology and experimental psychology don't have the absolute answers. Things can't be replicated the same way. I can't live my life twice in parallel to see what happens in one set of circumstances and not another. Because of that I can't say for sure that ones person's experience that they believe to be related to God is false just because I don't have the same experience or react the same way. This kind of science only works on probabilities and therefore leaves room for doubt and uncertainty.

I also don't believe that science has all the answers. There is still an awful lot of work to be done on what actually makes consciousness, which can't be solved simply by looking at how the brain works. Anything emotional can't be explained fully by electrical impulses in the brain or we would have been able to replicate in inanimate objects. Computers can't have consciousness or feel love not matter how close an approximation humans can create.

Because of that gap in what is provable and what is not, there is room for a God. I don't see him, I don't feel him, I have no knowledge of him but I can't discount the possibility of him being there.

That was probably really badly put but I don't get the idea that only science has all the evidence, that it has any absolute certainties as far as humans are concerned.

And yes it is different believing God to believing in the spaghetti monster in the sky or whatever patronising nonsense some people trot out because of the experience of some people who belive they have felt God. Nobody, well not enough to make it a relevant sample, has felt the existence of the spaghetti monster, plenty more believe they have evidence of God which for the reasons stated above cannot be entirely discounted.

There are no facts about atheism because there is nothing to believe surely? Not difficult for atheists to agree when you only have one point to agree on. Not very much up for discussion there is there? You can't prove there is no God, as you have said many times before, you just don't believe the evidence of the other side (believers) because it doesn't conform to your individual criteria for evidence.

This isn't necessarily true. There is plenty to believe in that doesn't involve god, but which may well be (and is) challenged by those who only take a scientific evidence-based approach. I mentioned Buddhism and Taoism upthread. Neither require a belief in god, but both have elements that cannot be proven scientifically. It is quite possible to be a spiritual atheist.

Yes, but they aren't arguing about the atheism and the existence of God, are they? You are arguing about spirituality which is a completely different issue surely?

I was thinking (should be hoovering as I have guests coming and I know God won't do it) that what I am trying to say that science isn't black and white as far as people are concerned (or any complex living thing). There are shades of grey to any knowledge which is where there is room for apparent miracles. If 999 in a 1000 would die with a particular set of symptoms but one miraculously recovers for no apparent reason a Christian might say it is a miracle. A scientist can't prove it isn't a miracle because there was no apparent reason why that person recovered and the other 999 didn't. That is where there is room for God if you chose to believe that he can intervene. Similarly, if they all died and some people who prayed recovered quicker and were generally more accepting who can say that isn't because God is watching over them. Statiistics, for those fond of such things, seem to show that those with faith do recover quicker on average. I can't discount God not being present.

To many unknowns to discount anything.

Mixing my pronouns there in the first paragraph Change you to they I think. I am not tragetting anybody.

I mentioned spirituality to show that there is plenty atheists can disagree about. Re your last post, the trouble is that if you put an interventionist god in the gaps that science can't fill, each time science makes a discovery then god diminishes a little bit more - god of the gaps.

It is quite possible to be a spiritual atheist.

I agree with this, Molly, and would add that you don't need any precepts at all to be so. If you watch a very young child being lost in wonder at something - or struggling with a concept - you can see that 'spiritual' capacity is naturally present in us. I don't really mind if anybody wants to name this capacity God, Reiki, Prana or Teaspoon, as long as they don't subvert it for purposes of control.

BBB, agree with nearly everything you wrote, especially about prayer.

Amillion - You sound like a lovely person and your faith is clearly solid. While the other posters on this thread respect your right to hold your views and your desire to spread the word, you're not really affording the same respect to them. It rankles after a while. I gather that you feel we're all in grave danger and want to save us, which is nice of you. But do you not, even in a small way, understand where the rest of us are coming from?

I realise that was a pointless question! I'm asking it anyway.

Statistics, for those fond of such things, seem to show that those with faith do recover quicker on average.

Yeah, but faith in anything. I made an unexpectedly fast recovery from major surgery - I used self-hypnosis.

I can't discount God not being present.

On the situation under discussion, I can.

I also don't believe that science has all the answers I know science doesn't have all the answers. It's still looking.

And yes it is different believing God to believing in the spaghetti monster

How do you determine when it is okay to accept someones experience without any evidence and when it isn't okay to accept someone's experience? How about people who have been abducted by aliens, seen ghosts, seen vampires, ufos, elvis, fairies? Would you be more likely to accept someone's testimony of feeling Jesus' prescence as possibly some sort of proof but not someone who swears blind that an alien stuck a probe up their bottom?

Imagine you have three people in front of you. One says Jesus talks to them, one says they can communicate with Elvis and Princess Diana and the third says vampires are real. Would you give all their claims the same credence?

RedMolly - I don't care if the idea of God diminishes with every scientific discovery. You say that it does like it is a problem. It isn't. I don't have any particular desire for there to be a God, I just don't have enough answers to say one way or another.

Headinhands - I am more accepting of the testimony of those with a belief in God because there has been people claiming experience of God going back thousands of years and there are many more believing in it than there are of any of the other examples you quote. Being abducted by aliens - relatively few have claimed to experience it and probably not at all before the last couple of hundred years. Seeing Elvis or Diana - only the last 35 years. Believing in ghosts I think is all tied up with religion - aren't ghosts supposed to have come back from The Other Side because they haven't made it into heaven or are waiting for some sort of justice for a grisley death or whatever. I am probably no more or less likely to believe in ghosts than I am to believe in God tbh. I don't believe in either though.

To put it into context, my subject, if I have one, is psychology (based on qualifications not job). That is what I have studied the most. I know from that there are no concrete answers when it comes to people. That in any given set of circumstances there can be more than one experience and more than one explanation. Psychologists studying behaviour or emotions don't have black and white answers. You never get 100% result for anything and consequently I don't think science has all the answers when it comes to faith and the explanations for it. Not everything can be explained and that leaves enough room for doubt.

I don't understand why anybody would call themselve a spiritual atheist. They are two different things surely? One defintion has no bearing on the other, does it?

I put all three in the same category, but understand that often the religious person is likely to have been brainwashed but the other two (Elvis and vampire followers) are just idiots. In a way, I just feel a little bit sorry for the religious follower.

Amillionyears - how old is the earth?

"I put all three in the same category, but understand that often the religious person is likely to have been brainwashed but the other two (Elvis and vampire followers) are just idiots".

Probably true but not definitely. There are an awful lot more brainwashed people than idiots though which makes the probabilities different but in a way I agree with you. Sort of. Just wish I lived in black and white land but I don't. Life would be so much simpler in black and white.

BBB

RedMolly - I don't care if the idea of God diminishes with every scientific discovery. You say that it does like it is a problem. It isn't. I don't have any particular desire for there to be a God, I just don't have enough answers to say one way or another.

It is problem if you are putting forward an argument that god exists in the spaces that science can't explain. It doesn't matter if you care about it or not, as each gap closes, god diminishes, and so does the argument.

I don't understand why anybody would call themselve a spiritual atheist. They are two different things surely? One defintion has no bearing on the other, does it?

They are of course separate entities, which is why someone can be both. Spirituality does not require a belief in god (nor a rejection of god for that matter). I would quite happily identify myself as a spiritual atheist - it can be quite hard defining yourself if you are not a memeber of a mainstream faith, and by simply saying you are an atheist you are implying you have no beliefs at all, which may not be the truth.

Read it again RedMolly, I said there was space for God to exist. I didn't actually say he did.

I read it fine. We are speaking hypothetically since you didn't actually say you believed that god is in the gaps, and neither do i seeing as i don't believe he exists. However, if you are making the argument you should try and understand the flaw in it.

Sorry you are making no sense whatsoever. I think you are picking arguments where there are none tbh.

There is no flaw in my argument because I said nothing about what happens in the future. I don't have a crystal ball. Presumably at some point scientific knowledge will progress and it will lead to more certainty about God not existing but I still don't see why that is a flaw. Surely it is obvious.

If that is what you meant of course which isn't clear.

I don't know how much clearer i can be. If god is in the gaps, 500 years ago say, there were a lot more gaps in scientific knowledge than there is now, so there were a lot more places god could be. Before we knew what a rainbow was it would have been attributed to god. There are now fewer gaps than 500 years ago so there are fewer places god can be. We know what makes a rainbow. It is not unreasonable to think in another 500 years we will know a lot more than we do now - there will be fewer things that caan be attributed to god. You do not need a crystal ball. I am not picking an argument. I am having a discussion.

But you aren't saying anything I haven't already said. OK so I didn't go on about the size of the gaps but that wasn't the point and it certainly isn't a flaw. You called my argument flawed rather than elbourating on it which is what you appear to be doing now. How is that having a discussion rather than an argument. Still

Blimey - I think the thread has dried up after 5 days of frantic debate.

And I never got to find out how old the planet Earth is from amillionyears!

BBB said I am more accepting of the testimony of those with a belief in God because there has been people claiming experience of God going back thousands of years and there are many more believing in it than there are of any of the other examples

Two logical fallacies there I'm afraid. Argumentum ad antiquitatem and Argumentum ad populum. You're saying the first example is more valid on account of it being a, a more commonly held belief and b, a long standing belief although I should point out that the art of trying to communicate with the dead and belief in mythical creatures possibly predates the bible. Anyway back to the fallacies, a belief being widespread and/or long held is of no evidence in itself when ascertaining the validity of said belief.

techno I had to drive across country today, That's the only reason I shut up for a while.

"Teach it's own beliefs as much as possible in church settings, and have controversial questions reserved for private meetings with church leaders"

• doesn't that sound a bit dodgy to you Sciencelover - a bit like propaganda ?

Where is the space for an open discussion and dialogue ?