Is God's non-existence provable?

Most people assume that neither God's existence, nor his non-existence can be proven, and thus is a mere matter of faith. However I think this is wrong.

At first, God's existence is obviously provable. God just needs to appear in a burning bush in Central Park, or on TV, and hold a speech. This would already prove his existence.

More difficult is the question if God's nonexistence can be proven. There are about 20,000 different gods known, with very different properties, and obviously you can not prove the nonexistence of all possible gods. However can you prove the nonexistence of a particular god?

This depends on the god. For the Christian god as described in the Bible, I think the answer is yes. But not in the sense of a scientific proof, more in the sense of a legal proof, which means "beyond reasonable doubt".

Such a proof could go 3 ways:

- By experience: the god of the bible is described as affecting nature and affecting the affairs of people. When not the slightest trace of a godly force or influence can be found in any nature's law that was discovered so far by scientists, or in any period of human history that was reconstructed so far by historians or archeologists, the existence of this god is highly unlikely for all those observed parts of nature or history.

- By logic: the god of the bible is described as being our image, and thus following the same logic. When his behavior or intention makes logically no sense, such as with theodicy or original sin, we can conclude that this god does not match his own description in the Bible, and is a self-contradiction.

- By probability: As mentioned there are 20,000 gods known today, but there were a lot more in human history, probably more than 100,000. All have different properties, and most can not exist simultaneously as they contradict each other. The likeliness of the existence of one particular god therefore is about 1/100,000. The number of worshippers of this god does not matter here, because all those gods once had a majority of worshippers at some place and time in history.

This would be 3 ways to prove the nonexistence of a particular God, in the sense of legal evidence. But maybe someone can find even more ways?

There is only one god and he has no religion!

He also has the power to create and set us free....He also showed his force once as proof what more proof do you need?

I think you don't necessarily have to prove god's non-existence because there is no evidence. No one believes in the Flying Spagetthi Monster or the Invisible Pink Unicorn, although their non-existence can't be proven either.

But I think there is a disproof for a god that is allmighty, all-knowing and perfect and influences in the universe:
If god is perfect, he won't change his opinion, because either the old or the new opinion must be wrong and thus unperfect. So we know that god, if he exists, will never change his opinion.
At the beginning of the universe, god could choose the initial state of the universe and the natural laws, which would lead all events that ever happen if god does NOT influence in the universe. So, at the beginning, god could already decide everything that ever will happen.
So if god influences in the universe, he must have changed his opinion. This contradicts to the assumption that he never change his opinion and thus that he is allmighty, all-knowing and perfect and influences in the universe.
So god either does not exist or does not influence in the universe. quod erat demonstrandum.

And even if god exists and haven't influenced in the universe since he created it, the Bible is not the word of god. Then deism would be true.

From a historical perspective it's very easy to prove how the Christian belief came into existence as a result of people borrowing lots of ideas from other religions. That in itself is evidence that the existence of that particular newly created God is rather highly unlikely.

I think God's non-existence can also easily be proven by examining the Bible too. After all, if the Bible doesn't contain lots of things that are true or have really happened, why should it be right in that a God exists in the first place?

People often talk about having faith in how their God must exist, but in reality they only really have this book they want to believe in. Of course people can't possibly know who or what God is if they never met him/her/it. Meaning believing in something that 'unknown' and 'uncertain' is rather strange, let alone truthful by definition. It's like that guy in the middle of nowhere that takes his hat off. When we never saw him, there's no way to know he ever existed and did in fact take his hat off. But no.. religious people are convinced they can know things, they can't possibly know at all.

The word delusional comes to mind.

Anyway, as we all know, the Bible is far from flawless and even has a bunch of odd contradictions and greatly exaggerated stories that have already been proven not to be historical. From global floods to Noah's Arc, there's really no good reason to assume God is real.

If projected onto our modern ideas about society it's very much an outdated book too when it comes to certain morals. Why would a perfect, flawless, all-knowing and ever-present God forget to take change into account??

The Bible didn't mention fossils or dinosaurs, nor does it give an explanation for a whole lot of other things. Inventions and so on occurred without a God being present for sure. So in essence, what would be the purpose of a God, if it's a. not present and b. has no interest or ability to influence our everyday lives?

In fact, talking about influence and control, why would a God give us 10 commandments?? When you think about it, it's really not that difficult to see that religion was invented by humans and has a very clear purpose that has nothing to do with Gods at all. Again something that should reveal how Gods in general can't exist.

@ jcl:
Your proof is no valid proof. You can say that gods (/tooth fairys/unicorns) existence is very very unlikely. But this wont make it a proof.
Example:
Your first proof:
Experience is limited to a certain amount of time, it is theoretically possible that you (or whatever) just missed the day when god was doing something. And if god is omnipotent he maybe made everyone forget for some reason.

It works the same way for the 2nd and 3rd one too.
Have you ever read Richard Dawkins "The god delusion"?
It really is worth reading (or listening to) since it works with god and atheism from nearly every point of view.

EDIT:
@ Phemox:
You disproved the bible not god i think this is a huge difference

What do you mean the Flying Spagetthi Monster doesnt exist? I've got photos!

Anyway, back to topic.
I dont know if I agree with your conclusion there Lukas, even though I do agree with your reasoning.

If god is/was "allmighty, all-knowing and perfect", then when he 'kick-started' the universe,
he put exactly enough 'spin' on it to turn out exactly as planned, like you say.
BUT, just because he is no longer 'directly' influencing us, does his influence "not count"
just because it comes to us through cause-and-effect stretching back to his initial kick?
So I feel I need to re-word you concusion slightly to
"So god either does not exist or does longer directly influence the universe. quod erat demonstrandum."

And if god put all his pre-planning into that initial kick, then the bible COULD be
the true word of god if he decided (way back when) to make it so.
(emphisis on the word COULD, we'll likely never know the truth, not till we meet at the pearly gates anyway)

That still wouldn't make such events different from pure chance or what you could call luck. Neither would it prove God's existence nor non-existence.

It's a lot like those people that claim God is trying to 'fool us' by putting fossils of very old animals in the ground. As if he has a motive to do such things.



I sort of gravely disagree here when there are a whole lot of reasons why God's existence is rather extremely unlikely and not one single reason why God's existence is likely.

If there's no proof in favor of God's existence and there are good arguments to assume it doesn't exist, then I think within the realm of our knowledge it makes perfect sense to claim God can not exist. Philosophical, logical and scientific proof combined certainly makes it ever more unlikely that there's such a thing as God.



Not really, because apart from the Biblical stories there's literally no tangible thing that suggests the Christian God must exist!! Remember how the Bible claims God has an influence or claims to know what kind of character God is, or how it talks about Jesus as the messiah?

It's the sole reason why Christians very often reply with 'because the Bible says so', instead of coming up with a logical reason why God must exist or did whatever they were arguing about. Their Bible is their answer, because according to them it is proof for the existence of their God. It defines their God.

You'd be right if you would argue that I have disproven the Christian God or God of the Bible. But from the perspective of Christianity, it makes no sense to look at God as something separate from the Bible at all.



Then you'd be assuming the world was predestined and there are even more reasons why that's incredibly unlikely. But you'd have to check the 'free will' topic. If a God truly knows the future and that knowledge affects his actions, then events in the future will be causing effects in the past This would again lead us to observing all that happens around us in search of divine intervention, which clearly never was observed.

Thats exacly what i meant.
You cant prove the existence or non-existence of god with it.
I think implying that you know everything to absolutely disproof god is just as foolish as believing in god
(Even though i absolutely dont believe in god ^^)



I think you cant say god cant exist since you are implying the same thing i said above.


This is one of the big problems in christianity.
Even most christians realize themself that there is something wrong with the bible.
Normally they only pick the "good" parts out of it

if for prove you mean the accademic definition of this term,of course the God's non existance shall never be proven

However science and in particular biology has razed to the ground several , let's say, God / religion related topics
If God exist for sure has nothing to do with the one described by the main religions

Quoting jcl.

- By evidence, finding a body?
When we find a stinking, rotting husk of what was, maybe we can finally put certain irrelevant paths to rest, and dutifully pay homage to the true deities by honoring the microorganisms which supersede and feed on the inert "creator's" shell.

No, I'm not talking about absolute disproof at all, but rather relative disproof, which to me is solid enough to consider God non-existing.

You must not confuse a proof in mathematics, and a proof in natural science. Only in mathematics you can really prove something. In natural science you can only assign more or less likeliness to a theory, based on certain criteria. One of them is experience, i.e. observation.

All pigs we've seen so far walk on the ground and don't have wings, thus we assume that pigs don't fly. Theoretically it's possible that there is a flying pig with wings that we just haven't seen yet, or have forgotten for some reason. In that sense, there is no mathematical proof that pigs don't fly. We just consider it extremely unlikely, based on our experience. It's the same with the existence of the Christian God.

he did? when? where?
gods non existance can easily be proven. because he would be a paradox. he cannot be almighty, simple as that. and usually all gods seem to be allmighty. end of story...

Hi,
Yes, the bible affirms your statement as true.
The bible says that there are many gods and many lords.

1 Corinthians 8:5
For even if there are so-called gods whether in heaven or on earth, as indeed there are many gods and many lords,

So, yes, there are many gods and lords that have power down here.



Yes, but you discount the influence of the other gods? Why is that?
What if the other gods affected nature? What if they affected history?
What if some of the other gods were evil? and if they affected nature itself?


Yes, in the garden of eden we were his image, but lost that with the fall.
The other gods are causing havoc.
Yes, i believe in hindu, buddhist, and all of that, but do not follow them.

Summary:
To summarize, you cannot judge Nitro 777's actions based upon RanMan's actions.

Also, you cannot judge Marco Grubert's actions against Doug Poston's actions either.

And, you cannot judge the Almighty's existence, based upon the lesser gods causing havoc down here right now.
btw, the lesser gods are only demonic angels, whose fall is described in the bible.

bye.

A lot of those 'other' Gods are actually contradicting your God's existence though in how in for example Hindu religion the followers believe there is no Christian or Islamic or Jewish God. They might be open-minded enough to compare those more Western Gods with specific Hindu Gods, but they do not believe thóse Gods co-exist. Which is perhaps surprising even for a polytheistic religion... but really, it sort of doesn't work the way you seem to think. I'm not saying you can't believe in what you believe though, I'm merely questioning how much sense it actually makes.

I think JCL's flying pigs example and similar ideas like the Flying Spaghetti Monster God really explain how little sense the existence of a God would make even if only as a theoretical possibility.



This sort of sounds to me like saying that even if we would discover a direct divine influence, it still doesn't mean it's the Christian God to 'blame' nor proof for it's particular existence.

I very much agree. And in my mind this also makes it even more unlikely that Gods could even exist. It's pretty easy to see that they've got a severely limited theoretical and very imaginative space in which they could exist.

For example, if even the Messiah with his magical tricks a few thousand years had trouble convincing people of his divine nature, how could a God even if it would appear in person ?? How could be determined which God it actually is? There are many many problems when it comes to proof even in the most direct sense of the word.

I always hated != proofs - tends to result in some confusion.

I don't believe you can prove non-existence.



This presupposes several things that aren't necessarily true. First, that our science, historians and archeologists have discovered enough key truths in their fields; that these discovered facts are germane to our ability to determine the existence of God and that they have actually been applied to the process in any substantive way. Personally I think you could plug 'hairdressers, policeman and chefs' into your contention and it wouldn't increase - or decrease- the possibility of your statement being true. I'm not sure that science has the tools to prove God's existence - and I'm reasonably certain that we don't know enough to disprove it.

if you prove that it does not exist, you proved its non existance.
and allmighty does not exist, simple as that. thats a fact. almighty is impossible.
there, i just proved that an almighty god does not exist.
happy now?