Theists: what would be evidence for God's non-existence?

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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There isn't any, and I am not saying this to be dismissive I just genuinely can not conceive of any. Perhaps then I'll say: "I can not conceive of anything that would disprove God." This thread may very well change this answer as I see other answers though.

Of course my particular view of God can be disproven, for instance by proving a true contradiction in the Trinity or Incarnation, disproving the Resurrection, and that's about it for everything else is based on these things in Christianity. So that can be disproven.

Someone to die and come back and say. "Nope, no Gods, just sleep!"

Honestly. Idk. Never been a huge concern of mine. Proof one way or the other that is.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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It seems to me like we'd have to have pretty much exhaustive knowledge of reality to declare that there's no God(s) anywhere, of any kind.

What I think we can reasonably say is that we have no solid evidence of a God, so we have no solid reason to believe in one.

`God`, `gods`, `idols`, `images of same`, seems to be, all them represent a Supreme Spirit.

Now.....how does one plan to provide evidence of the absence of that evidence ?

I've got my box of popcorn and I'm wearing my "Ask me about unfalsifiable claims" t-shirt on..

Well to have evidence of abscence we would need to take a definition of God and see if we can find him where he/she should be. For example, Zeus is a god living on top of mount Olympus in Greece who causes lightning bolts thanks to his javelins. We have made the ascension of Mount of Olympus and didn't found him and we know that lightning bolts are caused all around the world by the friction of dust and water particle in storm clouds not by the magical javelin or wrath of a deity. Thus, Zeus, as defined as the god living on mount Olympus, master of the storms who throws lightning bolts, doesn't exist. The same exercise must be repeated for evey single deity since they all have different characteristics.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

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You'd have to settle for evidence that God had a different nature than expected. You could find evidence that a particular idea of God didn't exist. For example I could show evidence that the God who makes all of my bread perfect doesn't exist by showing you some bread that came out wrong. Therefore that God doesn't exist.

Lain said:

There isn't any, and I am not saying this to be dismissive I just genuinely can not conceive of any. Perhaps then I'll say: "I can not conceive of anything that would disprove God." This thread may very well change this answer as I see other answers though.

Of course my particular view of God can be disproven,

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I went down some weird rabbit holes and wound up with the same view.

For example, something lands in a flying saucer and demonstrates that everything we think and feel is part of a simulation. But then we get into a simulators all the way down situation and wind up in the same unfalsifyable situation as @icehorse enjoys another bite of popcorn.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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The ability to create something out of nothing or the ability to show that this is not necessary for the existence of the universe.

What we are mostly left with is a God of the Gaps. IOW for us to be here/existence one would have to show there was/no need for a God to exist.
Still I suspect people would choose to worship/honor Gods for motivational purposes.

At best I think you could show there was never a need for a God to exist.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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An interesting and thought-provoking question!

For me, my personal God concept is all tied-up with Jesus Christ

Because I acquired my God concept from Christianity

To show me Christ's bones would be proof to me that he did not ascend up to Heaven as the bible says. So for me, take away the resurrection (the divinity of Jesus) and my God concept would have a massive hole in it, to say the very least

So, in answer to your question: Proof that the resurrection and subsequent ascension never occurred - which could come in the form of the human remains of Jesus of Nazareth

Were that to happen I may very well revert to Atheism, but who knows, I might acquire a different God concept but the thing is, in the past I lived quite happily as an Atheist, although I would say that Christianity has improved my life

Brickjectivity said:

You'd have to settle for evidence that God had a different nature than expected. You could find evidence that a particular idea of God didn't exist. For example I could show evidence that the God who makes all of my bread perfect doesn't exist by showing you some bread that came out wrong. Therefore that God doesn't exist.

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Is there a point where "a different nature than expected" could no longer be reasonably considered God? Would we be able to run out of "particular ideas of God" to the point where there are no other ideas of God left?

As a believer in Brahman, my answer would best be 'a completely materialist explanation of consciousness'.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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MRI scan of where a god may reside



Evidence?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

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Off the bat, we can rule out gods whose descriptions are self-contradictory, such as a perfect god that later regrets its error and then repeats it. Perfect imperfect gods don't exist.

If we're referring to gods that answer prayer or perform miracles or leave divine revelation, the evidence is that studies show that prayer is not answered, miracles are not in evidence, and holy books have the fingerprints of human authors all over them.

Also, there's the evidence that the universe behaves as if there is nobody running it, and that it assembled itself naturalistically. When the universe could have been way A or way B had a god been running it, but only way B if there is no such god, and we always find way B, the consilience of those findings makes the likelihood of such a god existing vanishingly remote. I like to offer the example of a flipped coin that comes up tails 1000 times in a row, and never heads. If the coin were fair, it could come up heads or tails, but if it is loaded, it can only come up tails. If we see that often enough, although we haven't proved that the next flip can't be heads, which is possible if it's a fair coin that just happened to keep coming up tails 1000 times in a row, we probably shouldn't bet on it.

If we're referring to non-interventionalist gods such as the deist god, I don't think that there can be any evidence for or against such a thing, nor any means for estimating the likelihood of its existence, since no finding would make that more or less likely.

George-ananda said:

As a believer in Brahman, my answer would best be 'a completely materialist explanation of consciousness'.

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That's been provided about 60 years ago with the development of neuroscience...

Welcome to agnosticism I guess?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Is there a point where "a different nature than expected" could no longer be reasonably considered God? Would we be able to run out of "particular ideas of God" to the point where there are no other ideas of God left?

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I haven't. That is a useful phrase "Particular ideas of God." I see you as someone concerned about theology and about religiosity. Correct me about that if I'm wrong. What I think is that you can't find an argument that God doesn't exist; but you can argue that the God which no one can disprove is boring and is not what people prefer.

The philosophical way of understanding God requires two things. There are two tools the philosophers like sculptors use to find the natural shape in the wood, to find the idea of God which survives all of those fires that "particular ideas of God" cannot survive. They are the negative and the positive, called the apophatic and catophatic theologies. This is what a western philosopher uses to try and understand God who is presumed to exist, and since that is the method for understanding God in western philosophy you will never find what you are talking about -- a way to eliminate God's existence.

I think God is actually not harmful as an idea and has helped the world to escape polytheism. The trouble is that its so easy for someone to say that God is something else also lumping together the western philosophical, invisible God with particular weak ideas of God. The confidence man makes promises for God to fulfill. They say God will heal everyone or that God wants everyone to be rich or that God is going to protect us. You might expect that God would do something to stop charlatans; but no. That is not something God does, as it is a human interest.

Which is where we realize the God that cannot be disproved is also very boring. That is the truth about God. To pass all of the tests God must have very few if any human traits. Most people like to imagine God as a human in some way.

9-10ths_Penguin said:

Riffing a bit on this other thread.

Whenever I say an absence of evidence for God is evidence of God’s non-existence, theists say “absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?

If God did not exist, where would we get the evidence? How would we get it?

(Edit: and I realize that not all theists believe in God-with-a-capital-G. I was a bit cutesy with the title and the OP as a riff on the previous thread. Please feel free to answer with your particular gods in mind, whatever they are, even if they aren't called "God")

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For me there are three basic areas that constitute evidence or proof of God. These evidences are indirect proof of God but evidence nonetheless. They will not constitute evidence for you but they are sufficient in my personal estimation.

1/ God has sent Messengers or Manifestations of Himself such as Jesus, Muhammad and more recently the twin Prophets of the Baha'i Faith. While Teaching about God they have clearly lived outstanding lives.

2/ Their time on this earth has resulted for each One a book or record of their Teachings, for example The New Testament or Quran or Baha'i writings. These books are attributable to the Founders of religion and are outstanding in clearly defined ways.

3/ The combination of these outstanding Messengers and Their recorded works have resulted in a profound and positive influence on the course of human history. The influence of both Christianity and Islam on an ever advancing civilization is hard to ignore or discount for me.

Can someone can prove these Manifestations of God were just ordinary people, their teachings were ordinary and their influence has been negligible or mostly negative. That would be adequate evidence to disprove my view of God.

epronovost said:

That's been provided about 60 years ago with the development of neuroscience...

Welcome to agnosticism I guess?

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Wow, so they started off with the answer, lol?

9-10ths_Penguin said:

...
So if “that’s not evidence” what would be evidence of God’s non-existence?
...

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For example:
1. Life would not exists.
2. Earth would not exist.
3. Bible would not exist.