"Prove to me god doesn't exist"

[TanithDaUnicorn]

This argument is usually used in a debate when you've backed a religious person into a corner, and they can't answer. They always have this in their arsenal. Right next to "Mysterious ways" And "That's just what I believe"

How arrogant that you (Talking to someone who would use this argument) Think it is MY job to prove to YOU that your god doesn't exist. Prove to me Pink unicorns don't exist. Can't? Then you should believe it because you can't rule it out!

You may think that example is a little extreme but I see no difference between "Prove to me god doesn't really exist" To "Prove to me lord voldemort doesn't really exist"

What are your thoughts on this argument? Do you use it? Has someone used it on you? Do you get as frustrated as I do?

@MariEllie

What happened to you that you are so full of hate?

I’m showing as much tolerance for other people’s beliefs as they are mine. When someone says that belief in God is equivalent to belief in Santa or Superman do you find that ‘tolerant’ or a convincing intellectual or scientific argument? Yes we believe in dinosaurs science evolution and all that stuff and also there is abundant evidence for God in this wonderful universe if only some of you would open your eyes and look at it. The dating can never be proved to exist because it’s quite obvious that it does for anyone who opens their eyes and gets out of their materialistic narrowminded modernistic mindset which blindingly wrongly sets science against God. It is interesting that the Bible itself (nor most religious books) never seeks to prove God because it is so blindlingly obvious that the universe had a creator once you open your mind.

Or perhaps the Bible does not prove the existence of God because for a more obvious reason - it cannot prove what does not exist.

You find the comparison to Santa offensive because of your faith. But to those who do not share your faith it seems a logical comparison.

I did not mean my post above to come over as disrespectful but I understand that it could seem
a demeaning comparison. Please accept my apologies MariEllie.

It is an interesting debate but all too easy to inadvertently give offence when discussing religious beliefs.

"I’m showing as much tolerance for other people’s beliefs as they are mine."

No one here has called you unthinking or simple minded.

I know this is an old thread but just wanted to say that I am a pretty fundamentalist Christian. My husband doesn't believe. Most of my friends don't believe and nobody in my family does. I was a latecomer to the game.

I used to think Christians were absolutely bonkers and hated being preached to. I fully understand why anyone would hate it so I dont do it. I share my faith if someone asks or the topic comes up. I dont try to convert anyone. I do t have discussions about whether God exists or not because if you don't believe, then a conversation won't change that. It's such a personal thing that it's difficult to explain. I don't even try, unless I think someone has genuine questions.

My conversations are always very respectful, light hearted, agreeing-to-disagree kinds of affairs. I can't prove God exists. The other person takes that as proof that he doesn't. It would just go around in circles.

For anyone interested, I suggest 'The Language of God' by Dr Francis Collins. He is an evangelical Christian who came to faith while studying Science. He later set up the Human Genome Project which paved the way in global DNA research and advancements. The scientific world has lots of scientists! One lady in my church worked for a huge pharmaceutical company,had a PhD in her field, and did her undergraduate in Natural Sciences at Cambridge. Another used to work for a global Aritificial Intelligence company. There is also a great website called Reasons to Believe, which was set up by an astrophysicist who sees science as an expression of God's creation, not something in opposition to it.

Thanks for the recommendation Shandy, I might look into that.

Although I’m not a believer, I’m sometimes envious of friends who are. They are unshakable in their beliefs (not that I would ever try to dissuade them or even debate the point) and it must be a comfort to know/believe in the hereafter and being part of God’s ineffable plan.

I find religion fascinating - it is both the source of great kindness and charity but at the same time has often caused widespread suffering and misery. Much like humanity in general I suppose.

@Shandyinthejarro Thank you, that's very interesting.

@Discovereads Judaism pre-dates the Greek Myths, so I don't think you can say things have been 'borrowed'.

@FortunesFavour Thanks for being so respectful. 💛

Biologos.org is another great website for the theologicalically minded scientist!

No problem @Vincitveritas, some of the loveliest people I know are committed Christians and everyone is entitled to their beliefs.

I struggle to have faith without hard evidence, but maybe that’s my problem. Who knows, I could be wrong. If I am then I’m going to look a right wally explaining myself to St Peter at the pearly gates!

Agree but then all beings would have still their own timeline. That's my point.

If there was hard evidence for the existence of a diety then you wouldn't require faith to believe it.

Newbie here, joined just to comment on this thread.

Personally find it a great tragedy when the topic of God, belief and faith comes up for discussion, that even a fair minded person in all sense seem to take up extremist opposing views, either for or against God and religion.

Contrary to what many people believe, I have not come across any organised religion where someone is forced to believe in God?

It is utterly nonsensical that one can force someone to believe in something they are not inclined to do it freely without compulsion.

What possible purpose can that serve?

Surely, if God exist, He will make His existence know to all those who would want to find Him?

And those who freely and willingly search for God, they will recognise God's signs, evidences and will be satisfied that God exists.

Equally, those who desires not look for God's signs and proofs will not be satisfied with what they see or read and therefore will not believe in God.

So, why would secularist/atheist extremist want to impose their unbelief onto those who freely choose to believe in God?

And what good is there for a religious extremist trying to force their view onto those who choose not believe in God?

At the end of the day, one thing is for certain and no one can deny, which is that both, believers and unbelievers will die.

For those who believe in the Darwin's theory of evolution will probably say, after death they will evolve into something else?

And those who believe in God will probably say, it is God who takes away the soul at the time of their death for the final Judgement.

I guess, it is only after death that we all will find out who was right.

It will be too late for those who did not believe in God and did not live according to His commands. And if Darwin's theory of evolution is correct, those who believed in God hadn't lost anything as they simply evolve into something else.

So, why can't we all be happy with our beliefs whatever they maybe without resorting to extremist views, banning teaching subjects, clothings etc.?

Ah, we are humans after all. We cannot live in peace willingly because we always want to dominate others to have power over them.

So, it is the humans destroying the planet by their choice and they blame the consequences onto other beings! What a cheek.

I don't think you know what the theory of evolution actually is.

😂😂😂😂 what are you hoping to evolve into after death?

I have not got the foggiest idea of what Darwin's 'theory of evolution' is.

Last time I watched David Attenborough's nature documentaries he clearly showed Apes and Monkeys still exist today as they did many moons ago so, clearly I'm not one who subscribes to the notional that we humans evolved from them.

That's my understanding based on my reasoning and evidences I see around.

Of course, others don't agree or share with me and that's fine.

We are not all alike.

My central argument remains the same. Don't forget your unproven beliefs of none belief on to others as fact, it is clearly not otherwise we wouldn't be talking about dies God exists.

Perhaps, you could enlighten us what does what happen when we die in Darwin's theory of evolution? And where does our conscious soul or spirit or whatever you want to call it go?

Okay.

We didn't evolve from monkeys we share a common ancestor with them and chimps are our closest living relavtive that we know of currently. Evolution is a slow gradual process its not like a chimpanzee gave birth to a human.

Evolution is a scientific fact its as established as gravity its not a faith based position because we can see and test it for ourselves.

The theory of evolution has nothing to say about death or the afterlife but most atheists would consider themselves naturalists (I do) so in essence I think when we die that is it, game over.

What you refer to as the conscious soul or spirit is purely electrical impulses in the brain so when the brain dies we no longer exist in any sense.

Hi I just wanted to put my opinion that the OP unicorn didn’t sound aggressive. I think as a Brit watching the USA must be a scary place if you don’t agree with religion. I once worked at sainsburys and I always chatted when I worked on checkout and this American lady Christian said they run a church in the U.K. now but they find that the U.K. is full of heathens if that’s how you spell it. I couldn’t believe that she said that, but I think to us brits we don’t get it as many of us are not that religious if you look at statistics America is more religious than us .
Anyway whether god exists or it doesn’t why should ideology be forced on people people on here say it’s not but it really is. You have people standing with banners saying in the name of Christianity or Islam etc being gay trans etc isn’t acceptable and that’s wrong. You can believe in what you want but ultimately laws etc seem to be from Christian laws in the U.K. they do anyway

We don’t have a soul it dies that’s what happens dead you guys are lucky to have that crux of thinking there’s something else but there isn’t life just goes in and on that’s it

Hypocrisy of the highest order in my opinion.

The fact that neither can empirically prove their position, should mean that there's room for equal debate and reasoned argument.

Your fine distillation of religion as 'bullshit' is not going to convince anyone sitting on the fence, and by the same token, door-to-door religious salesmen are never going to convert you, you are never going to convert them - surely you must see that you are both equivocally deviated from the central point of equipoise?

Armed with that knowledge that zealots (on both sides of the coin) will never deviate, why is it necessary, or even worthwhile or productive to debate with them at all, simply state "my mind is already settled, thank you, have a nice day"

I'm an atheist btw but tending little by little toward a form of agnostic questioning, for example - there's no reason why creationism and evolution need to be exclusive - in fact, logically, If I was going to colonise or terraform a planet, it'd be far, far easier to shoot a load of bacteria with the ability to evolve to the environment and form balanced ecosystems, than it would to design each fully formed organism from scratch and hope it all melds seamlessly.

A 'God' or a creator doesn't need to be an undefinable spirit being, they simply need to in possession of technology and knowledge that far exceeds our own, in order to appear that way.

The Theory of evolution doesn't say anything about what happens to us when we die, why would it? Neither does the theory of gravity, or germ theory, or string theory.

With all due respect. You surely can't expect anyone to expect figure out for themselves what happens to the soul when we die?

And Darwin doesn't have an explanation for it?

It can't then possibly be true what Darwin theorised, can it?

If I'm not mistaken, Darwin was a man just like us who lived not more than 200 years ago and came up with his theory by observing nature in action?

He didn't discover anything original nor did he have any other special knowledge other than what he observed. So, why should we trust in his theory or pretend he has the answer to the question of 'where did we come from?' and 'why are we here on this planet?'

A more profound case would be if humankind were to think about their own creation, yes creation.

Men have been created from a single drop of mingled sperm mixed with worthless water gushed forward.

Yet, men do not have the knowledge of who creates that sperm so that he could be born in his mother's womb.

That is how God describes men's creation for those who believe in God.

Just like how you were nothing to be mentioned and were created, thus you shall die and brought up alive again.

And that is easy for God to accomplish.

Did he not create you when you didn't exist?

Of course not everyone agrees with this and that's fine. We all have our own set of beliefs and none. That's what makes us human.

But, there's no need to fight over it.

Darwin's theory of evolution has absolutely nothing to do with the afterlife or what happens when we die. I don't know where you got the impression that it does.

My apologies, perhaps I'm not making it clear.

I understand that Darwin's theory of evolution tries to explain how we supposedly evolved.

But, my lack of knowledge can't figure out what happens to the soul that we posses whilst we are alive, that gives us life.

Where does it go or what happens to it?

Whereas, those who believe in God, well at least the Abrahamic faiths anyway, believes the soul returns back to God just as He gave it in the beginning and there will be final individual accountability for our actions or inactions according to God's commandments, give or take few differences between Judaism, Christianity and Islam.

So, those who believe in God at least know where they came from and where they will go.

Whereas, Darwin's theory doesn't explain this then surely his theory can't be complete?

Hope it makes bit more sense.

It's not about who is right or who is wrong, it's about what makes logical and understable sense.