This section is poorly explained. Also it is unclear why transcendental arguments are catergorized as empirical, most, probably all, aren't.
In this entire article arguing the existence or non-existence of God, you don't mention the Buddhist perspective, not even as a one line blurb somewhere around agnosticism. The Buddha offered a pretty unique perspective on things for his time (or our time for that matter). He said that yeah there is an un-born creator, but don't even start to talk about that, that has nothing to do with the path to happiness. He gave a parable about a man who had been struck with a poison arrow. If this man in search for help found a surgeon that could remove the arrow, but before allowing it to be removed said, "I will not allow you to remove this arrow until you tell me, who shot the arrow, what kind of person he is, (or is it a she), why was the arrow shot, what type of poison was used, and what type of bow was it was fired with". By the time all of those questions are answered that man would surely die. That’s just about how futile our search for God and meaning are, so just give it up and find happiness. Perhaps the same idea the Buddha had, has been communicated by different philosophers but The Buddha certainly deserves at least a tiny mention in all this, if for nothing else other than starting an organised religion without acknowledging a certain god as the creator. (I can accept if for that reason you would call Buddhism a philosophy, but in my experience philosophy is perhaps too narrow a word for Buddhism, and religion is too broad a word). But now I've gone off on a crazy Buddhism tangent, and the intial reason for my comment has been lost, so I'll restate: At least think about throwing in a bit of Buddhism into this existence of God argument.
~Max Lupo~
what HINDUISM? they have many deities? Angelofdeath275 21:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
More importantly, do they have any arguments for or against their existence? crazyeddie 20:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we could add a blurb and link on deism, probably to the theism section. I think it's a legitimate subset of theism.
Also I might take issue with the statement in the section on agnosticism that suggests an automatic skepticism toward religious arguments. As an example, I offer myself: I don't consider myself wholly agnostic, but I don't really have anything against religious arguments, and I'm certainly not biased against them or automatically skeptical of them (I'm pretty much non-practicing, but I still consider myself a theist). Does anyone else think this may be worth re-wording? Othersider 06:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I think some of David Hume's arguments regarding a deity's existence would be a helpful addition to some of the arguments made in this article. In Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion he argues through the persona of Philo that it is not merely the truth of evil, but more the enormous amount of evil in the world that makes it doubtful whether or not a deity exists. Hume also argues that there is more evil than good, making the harmonizing of a belief in the existence of a God who is in control of everything. Hume appears to argue that the misery people go through is what causes them to constantly be looking forward to the future, when they hope their situation might improve. The same tendency that causes people to look forward to a better future causes them to worship, sacrifice, and pray toward some higher power than themselves. In a way people are convincing themselves that they truly believe in some higher being which can deliver them, but in reality are only believing or desiring a means of release from their despair. An all-powerful higher being, who would be capable of delivering them, would be the best possible means in answering the problem of their situation. Hume argues that what drives people to believe what they do about religion is that they are "not satisfied with life" and they are "afraid of death." Though I do not agree with Hume's conclusion on God's existence I thought his reasoning for not believing in a deity's existence was very thought provoking. Mancalf
It's what's proposed to be included in Problem of evil. User:Kenosis said he'll add something on Hume sometime, in the "history" section. -- infinity 0 00:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
If you want, add a paragraph in this article to:
If you want, add a subsection at Problem of evil. WAS 4.250 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
As to the existance of both a universe with evil and God's creation of it, it has traditionally been explained as the need to maintain 'free-will'. An alternative argument might be that the universe is a kind of open 'experiment' that could only be conducted if the possibility of evil could occur. Moreover, if this universe was 'inferered with' ie to stop evil from occuring, (ie God's intervention), this would interfere with the experimental purpose of the universe. Therefore, not only is the possibility of evil occurring a part of the fabric of the universe's existance, but also the non-interferance of such 'evil'. This argument is supported by what we know of science, and partly explains the existance of evil in a universe created by God. Furthermore, this explanation is entirely consistent with the cosmological argument, although I haven;t read too many palces which advocate the 'experiment model of the universe'.Posted by Roger McEvilly
This is turning into a wonderfully constructed article. keep it up. Just always balance it out. - 24.197.141.33
Thanks. Please help out in whatever way you can. WAS 4.250 15:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Mathematical argument redirects to Parameter. Which is not the meaning that is being referred to in this article. Either we need a disambiguation page or a different link on this page. Matt73 13:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the sentence because it is in a list of arguments that God exists in reality, like trees, not exists as a concept, like zero. WAS 4.250 15:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
POV, mathematical Platonism is very popular, I for one think that zero does not exist "as a concept". Which sentence are you refering to.
I am not sure exactly where such things should go, but if we are talking about defining exactly what god is and thus defining what proof or knowledge is, we should also point out the following 2 indesputable facts:
Just thought it worth noting. Enigmatical 04:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there not an article listing historic arguments for/against the existence of a higher power? I came across a supposed "strong argument" while reading through the 1728 Cyclopaedia (which pre-dates Darwin):
If we don't have a list, I think it would be an interesting addition, especially with respect to the historic arguments for a higher being, and which ones have been disproven as a result of advances in understanding, and which ones remain unresolved, etc. -- BRIAN 0918 22:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I would have to agree here. For every proof/disproof, a person who comes from the opposing side of the argument would say that they see something completely different in the same "data". Take the above example. That the Angle is 45 degrees only suggests to them that it shows guidance of a wise being... where as to a scientist it simply shows the natural laws of physics where all forms of energy seek to use the least amount of energy to maintain its form and 45 degrees is this very configuration. We would end up going back and forth forever. Quite frankly, I think the whole discussion about the existence of god is a subjective one and is most definately not an objective one. With that being the case there will never be a resolution as a person is not about to change their subjective opinion on something through any means of proof, fact, data or anything else. Its a matter of personal preference, not right and wrong. Enigmatical 23:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this a proof? Does it work? What category would it fit under? P: God G: Reality Assume there is no God. If there is no God, there can be no proof. If there is no proof, there can be no reality. If there is no God, there can be no proof because you can’t prove anything without making claims. You can’t claim anything without making assumptions. Assumptions are not consistent with the nature of proof. Therefore, there can be no proof. If there is no proof, there can be no reality. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics both show that reality is defined by perception. Since perception is defined by belief and belief is defined by proof, there can’t be adequate reality. Also, there can be no inadequate reality because reality is an absolute concept. Since there is reality, God must exist. If there is a God, then you can make claims without making assumptions, which means there can be proof, and therefore reality. (The definition of God is Inherent Truth. This is a good definition of God because if you prove something using an inherent Truth, all of reality is derived from that Truth, which means that the Truth is omnipotent.)
KT adds: Nit picking, but the verb "formulated" is misleading wrt the ontological argument. Anselm formulated it first, not Plantinga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.155.16.95 ( talk) 19:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
At a quick glance this entire (otherwise great) article seems to be written from the perspective there is only one divine concept worth discussing: the (Judeo-)Christian "God". Little acknowledgement is made of of all other religions. Such Eurocentricity made some sense centuries ago when many of these arguments were first formulated, at a time when culture (to Europeans) meant European culture; it makes considerably less sense for a 21st century global encyclopedia. It is fine for the article to discuss only the existence or nonexistence of the Christian god, if that is what the it intends to cover. But in that case there absolutely needs to be a sentence very early on (I'd say one of the two or three first sentences) to point out that that is all the article intends to cover. Alternatively, the article might want to direct itself to a broader question of the existence of "a deity or deities", "any supernatural forces", or similar, but that may distract from the clean structure of the article, since most of its source material is indeed from the European/Christian tradition. I would suggest the first option, to specify early on what concept(s) the article means to cover. Maybe even modify the title? - Mglg 22:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
After a slightly less quick glance I see that the problem isn't quite as severe as I first thought, given what's in the "What is God?" section. Sorry for the hasty comment. But even though that section acknowledges some diversity in divine concepts across religions, the "Arguments for the existence of God" section and most of the rest of the article is still written from a "God means the Christan god" perspective. There still needs to be at least some mention of this bias. Mglg 22:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
This is roughly half the problems I found with the articile, it desperately needs some warning signs and a peer review.
The first paragraph doesn’t make sense, to assess the “validity of any argument” for anything we need to assess it’s characteristics, this is not “one way” of assessing the validity of arguments for the existence of god, it is a necessary competent of any assessment.
The second paragraph is original research or needs a citation.
The whole first section is confusingly written. The discussion of the use theory of meaning is superfluous.
The discussion of falsifiability is just left dangling, the excessive equation of such arguments with the philosophy of Karl Popper are likely to give a slanted view.
The claim that fine tuning arguments are based on a shrinking pool is POV. The claim that ID arguments depend on fine tuning is factually incorrect, mostly they appeal to biology, not cosmology.
The epistemology section, It's POV. The author should keep his idiosyncratic opinions about a-posteroi knowledge and relativism to himself or cite them as opinions of various philosophers. Not everyone believes that “Strictly speaking A posteriori knowledge is impossible”. Except for skeptics I don’t think any philosopher holds this. I don’t understand why he posted a link to relativism just after this, I can see several possible conceptual links, but none of these are stated or explained in the text. The claim that knowledge is belief plus justification misses the third element of the traditional triad account of knowledge, truth. The link to the sociology of knowledge article is not really relevant in this context. “Knowledge in the sense of understanding or truth” sticks out as a particularly odd quote from this section.
“Knowledge can also be described as a psychological state, since in a strict sense there can never be a posteriori knowledge proper.” As I have said earlier the claim about there being no a posteriori knowledge is a little odd to say the least. Also the link between the rejection of A posteriori knowledge and describing knowledge as a psychological state is not made clear and appears to be original research. The three questions given at the end are very weird, ambiguous and confusing. Take “does subjective experience count as evidence for objective reality” that depends on the definitions you give, in one sense all experience is “subjective” ( i.e it is experience which is experienced by a subject, a person an animal etc). The claim that different definitions of truth is a major source of conflict in the debate is not warranted by the literature, wherein philosophers atheist and theist almost always share the same conception of truth, the claim that different definitions of knowledge are responsible for the confusions is perhaps half right, debates about the meaning of knowledge and religious epistemology fill the literature however the basic idea that ( subtleties surrounding the Gettier problem put aside for a moment) that knowledge is true, justified, belief is basically accepted. Overall this section is perhaps most in need of a cleanup, not much is salvagble.
The definition given of Metaphysical arguments for the existence of god is weird, it claims that such arguments are meant to be deductively valid. One of the arguments the author lists in this section, the cosmological argument, are sometimes given as inductive arguments ( Richard Swinburne is one of the primary defenders of this approach). I’ve never seen the “Pantheistic argument” before, but that might just be my ignorance. The categories basically seem made up and arbitrary.
The empirical arguments section is weird, moral arguments for the existence of god are categorically not empirical and neither are the versions of the transcendental argument which I have seen.
The subjective arguments section is very poor, an attempt to argue from miracles is not a “subjective” argument as far as I can tell, but because no statement of what the author means by subjective ( one of the English languages most ambiguous words) is here given I wouldn’t know. All the definitions of subjective in this context I can think of either render the list either inaccurate or POV ( perhaps for example the author thinks that subjective refers to experiential arguments, arguments from religious experiences, in which case the list is inaccurate, or perhaps he means subjective in the epistemologically derogatory sense, in which case the list is POV.)
The source quoted in the first section of empirical arguments against the existence of god is confused. Deism isn’t fuzzily defined under any standard definitions of fuzzy. The text seems to present a false dilemma between creationist theistic belief and deism. The source cannot be considered reliable
It’s hard to see that Sartre’s existenalist rejection of the existence of god on the grounds that man creates his own nature is an inductive argument, it’s hard to classify but if anything it’s a deductive argument.
The no reason argument is poorly explained.
The deductive arguments section includes “The counter argument against the cosmological argument” this is not an argument against the existence of god, Christians, even those who believe the existence of god can be rationally demonstrated, might use it.
To summarize, this article is filled with inaccuracies, irrelevancies, poor use of categories, original research, points of view, overconfident interjections, poor word selection, undefined terms which appear to have an idiosyncratic meaning and a tendency to attempt to bring in major philosophers when it only confuses the discussion.
How is it possible for the scientific community to challenge intelligent design? I mean, they have to believe in design at least. Even Richard Dawkins does. Scorpionman 15:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
1) This isn't the place for such a discussion. 2) I would suspect that the problem is with intelligent design. Evolution can give rise to organisms that appear to be "designed," but evolution itself is not intelligent - it lacks intentional stance, a prequisite of intelligence. crazyeddie 23:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, that was a rant, and was off-topic. :)
Yoda921 03:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Yoda
Now firstly, you claim that if there is no god, you cannot think of a reason to abstain from pre-marital sex. Firstly, what is your point? Are you claiming that as the consquences of god not existing are unpleasant/unacceptable to you, he must exist? Secondly, whether or not there is a god, morality and ethics are still possible, whether or not you, personally, can see why. We can all consider the social implications of our actions, and even trace them back to ourselves for selfish reasons if need be.
Now you claim "The idea that everything came out of 'nothing' is ridiculous." Well I agree it is ridculous. The funny thing, however, is that no one is claiming this. You obviously have no idea of the way in which evolution functions. Even to say that as evolution/the big bang don't account for everything, it is no proof of god. Simply disproving evolution does not in anyway prove god's existence. If you are invoking a god of the gaps, you are, I believe, simply deluding yourself. Just as we cannot explain the universe, it doesn't mean we wont be able to or that, in the absence of evidence, we can simply substitute a completely irrational god or deity in its temporary place. It would seem you hold on to notions of god as it is comforting and the consquences of his not existing, would be unacceptable to you. I suggest that you consider the possibilty that god does not exist. Before you suggest I do that same, let me tell you I am more than willing to, as long as you provide with proof. Proof is, however, what god lacks and is given in the place of. I apologise for the typos and grammatical errors, but I am, very, very tired. -Tim- THobern 03:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The same thing goes for a 6 foot tall, pink rabbit called Harvey. Just as something can't be disproved doesn't validate it in anyway. I think your labouring under the delusion that all propositions have equal merit, which is ridiculous; a million ridiculous things cannot be disproven, that doesn't mean we should give them any consideration.-Tim- THobern 05:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering why Euthyphro's dilemma is absent from this page.
So how is the concept of causility or "cause and effect" more justifiable than the existence of God? Both cannot be empirically tested; you can not "experience" both with your five senses. I understand that one concept can be "believed in more" than the other; for example, you COULD say that you believe in cause and effect more than you believe in the existence of God. But you can't say, from an empiricist point of view; that you KNOW casualty or God exists. So what I'm asking is how can scientists (and empiricists) believe in the concept of "cause and effect" more than they believe in the existence of God? How is causility more justified (and therefore, more readily "assumeable") than the existence of God? You can't say you know they both exist according to Hume, if you are an empiricisst, but why would anyone be an atheist (not believe in God), but assume that causility exist? 165.196.139.24 21:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that whoever put this post up has misinterpreted the Logical Law of Cause and Effect. For anyone that doesn't know, it states that "Every effect must have an antecedent cause". Now, using proper logic, God not having an antecedent cause does not violate this pillar because he is not defined as an effect but rather, the cause, because logically, everything that exists must have a starting point lest there be an infinite continuum of events that has no beginning and no end, which of course contradicts the law of cause and effect. If anyone would study philosophy, consider studying Logic along side it. You'd be surprised at how different the two really are. Prussian725 ( talk) 19:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
While this may border more on the philosophical and psychological sides than the theological side (which this article does a great job explaining), I feel that it is missing a reasons for/against an individual person believing in God or a Supreme Being. I think that the entire section, or at least its prototype, can be molded around Pascal's Wager and Paschal's Flaw, as well as more conventional thought processes as the inherent inborn need find the truth to our existence, devoting time to what is accordingly important to either the betterment of the human species and our knowledge of science or our own personal beliefs (dictated by ones belief against or in God), etc. The section shouldn't be too long, but should probably passingly mention Voltaire, C.S. Lewis and/or Bertrand Russell. -- Lord Ramco 19:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that non of the arguments against the existence of God actually argue against God's existence. Rather they are arguments for the possibility of reality's existence without a need for God. Can some actual arguments against God's existence be provided? Or is that not really possible?
-- chad 10:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that in this article often probability is used in arguments either directly or indirectly (e.g. Occam's razor). But how can one really ask the question "how probable is the existence of God?" I think not. The only way to answer such a question is if we could somehow say "of the 1 million realities in existence, three of them were created by a God. So the probability of God's existence in our reality is extremely low (0.0003% chance)." We can't say anything about probability here.
-- chad 10:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Yoda921 03:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Yoda921
Excuse me? From where do you get these statistics? While evolution is indeed an unguided process, there is still a driving force behind it. Even if your unsourced statistics are true, then its a case of the prosecutor's fallacy. As something unlikely has happened, it hasn't. try telling that to a lottery winner. -Tim- THobern 03:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, Craig is basing this on...? Anyone can reckon what they like, it doesn't make it any truer, especially when it flies in the face of the general scientific consensus. -Tim- THobern 05:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I was talking about a Evolution, not the big bang. Secondly for someone who has repeatedly submitted to ad ignoratum, you're awfully high and mighty. Thirdly, Wikipedia is supposed to reflect the general consensus, ad populum or not. -THobern- THobern 03:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure. Just after you quote me my having said that. I said that your statisitc (0.000001%) was both plain wrong and misleading. See prosecutor's fallacy-- THobern 09:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I dunno, "general scientific consensus" does nt always have positive and completely agreeable connotations. I mean, the general scientific consensus 500 years ago was that contenental drift didn't exists and before that that the earth was flat. And WAY before that, it was that maggots would spontaeneously generate on meat if left out in the sun. The problem I see is that an awful lot of scientists will call theories fact,even if they haven't proven it yet, just because it's easier or just because they so desperately want it that way. Prussian725 ( talk) 01:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I have added an entry William Hatcher's proof in the For part of the article and provided a link. I am unsure whether we can provide external link in the article itself or should use footnotes instead; if anyone wishes to edit it, please do. Also, the "proof" itself is of decent length, but not too long; should the whole proof be presented in the article, or should it have its own article? Allan Lee 23:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I removed "clearly logically impossible" to "apparently self-contradictory" because this is something of a disputed question. I removed "Epistemological problems such as the "problem of the supernatural" cause no end to the misunderstandings involved in arguments for and against the existence of God" because it seems rather odd to single out this as a point of confusion, when there are plenty of complex philosophical discussed on this page. Also, it is unreferenced. -- Beland 20:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree with arguing over the exsistence of God. The only way to prove he does exsist is if we of course die. Anker99 00:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
That is Eschatological verification. 194.80.178.1 15:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Even if you die and witness nothing for eternity it still doesn't "prove" that the universe was not created by an intelligent being. Sadly even dieing doesn't seem like a surefire way to "know" for sure. -- Jayson Virissimo 20:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
True, there is a "problem of evil." Here there is a contrast. There are millions of millionaires and countless affulent people across the US and much of Europe. Then you have people who could live on five thousand dollars a year over in Third World countries. There is an imbalance in our world. What would benevolence be if we all were equal? It would put one above another. Picture if Hollywood emptied out its collective billions of dollars, the hoarding governments of this world thousands of tons of gold and the trillions and trillions of dollars they spend finding new ways to kill their enemies. Jesus once said,"What you have been given, you have been given to share." Are we doing this? And if we assume God exists, we assume all that He is said to be. And if we assume this, a "What if all of the Bible were true, if all the Cathecism of the Catholic Church said was true?" view, challenge me on my talk page. Find a contradiction. Please. Assume it is true and look for an "innocent until proven guilty."
According to the laws of Conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. How then, does anything exist in the first place? JONJONAUG 13:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Or a philosopher. The physicists tend to dump the whole "why is there something rather than nothing" into our lap. On the other hand, there is some speculation that if you add everything up in the universe, everything cancels out to a big huge zero. Because of this, the universe could have just sprung into being from nothing, without violating any conservation laws. This is just speculation, though. crazyeddie 19:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Another idea is that all universes with all possible rule sets just exist and we are just in one of them. This at first glance anyways seems just as likely as there simply being nothing or the existence of a creator. Lonjers 22:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Asking where the energy originaly came from is like asking a Christain where God came from, they will either say that it was alwayse there or leave the chat room. 58.173.8.17 04:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Or science just makes no claims because it does not know yet where as religion makes a guess from an infinity of possibilities. Lonjers 02:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I refered to gnostics in the section on agnosticism. Ideally, the reference would have been followed by a parenthetical comment of the form, "(not to be confused with the Peruvian football club of that name.)" Only they weren't a football club, I think. more like an ancient Greek religion or philosopy. So, does anybody know what they were really? Wiploc 03:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
All of the empirical arguments against God are only arguments against the Christian God. The assumption that God does not exist because you've denied the literal translation of the Bible is false. ~ UBeR 05:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Well actually the article does make mention of different definitions of God. To people who believe God is "whatever" created the universe, telling them there are flaws in the bible isn't even a valid argument. -- Jayson Virissimo 20:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
In the 1980 case of R. v. Davie 1980, the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Canada ruled that God is not a person. The court rendered the decision in the case of alleged arsonist Morrie Davie. In that case, a policeman had overheard Davie say: "Oh , God, let me get away with it just this once," but the appeals court ruled that a prayer is not a "private conversation between two persons," (which would be admissible evidence), because God is not a person. This ruling runs counter to the argument that Jesus is God and walked the earth as a person.[11]
Basically saying "The Canadians decided there wasn't one" is a little weak against the other points. 81.129.136.254 15:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
What exactly is being argued against? The article points out in the introduction and the section Definition of God's existence that "a basic problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of God. Some definitions of God's existence are so non-specific that it is certain that something exists that meets the definition; in stark contrast, other definitions are apparently self-contradictory." So which definition(s) exactly is/are being argued against in the against section? It seems to me that arguments against all major/significant definitions of God should be presented. This would include, for example, the Christian and Muslim ideas of God, making it important that arguments against this conception of God be presented. However, UBeR maintains that the following sections should not be included.
Within the framework of scientific rationalism one arrives at the belief in the nonexistence of God, not because of certain knowledge, but because of a sliding scale of methods. At one extreme, we can confidently rebut the personal Gods of creationists on firm empirical grounds: science is sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there never was a worldwide flood and that the evolutionary sequence of the Cosmos does not follow either of the two versions of Genesis. The more we move toward a deistic and fuzzily defined God, however, the more scientific rationalism reaches into its toolbox and shifts from empirical science to logical philosophy informed by science. Ultimately, the most convincing arguments against a deistic God are Hume's dictum and Occam's razor. These are philosophical arguments, but they also constitute the bedrock of all of science, and cannot therefore be dismissed as non-scientific. The reason we put our trust in these two principles is because their application in the empirical sciences has led to such spectacular successes throughout the last three centuries. [1]
Uber, you say that "these are arguments against a Christian God, not a higher being, per se, as the article calls for." But the article is not "Existence of a higher being." The article is "Existence of God," and therefore discusses the concept that is encapsulated in the word God, which includes the Christian God. Dave Runger (t)⁄ (c) 05:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I also think the 'argument against god' should contain an argument that goes something like this: "Proponents of god fail to propose a definition of god. Because of this it is not possible to argue against the existence of god. Therefore, the conclusion that god does not exist can not be based on, and does not require, argumentation." -- 80.56.36.253 18:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
"Weak atheists don't believe god exists, but they also don't believe god doesn't exist. Explicit weak atheists find both theist and strong atheist arguments to be unpersuasive."
U think the first statement should be rewritten; it contradicts itself. The latter sentence sounds good enough to stay. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M2K 2 ( talk • contribs) 15:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
No, it makes sense. They just don't believe in either. They've never considered whether a there is a deity. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.158.122.28 (
talk)
10:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid the material on Agnosticism is not only unsourced but completelty Atheist PoV and would have every philosophical agnostic from Huxley to Kenny LOL. I can't see any way of salvaging it but in case there is some usable material I am keeping it here. It said: "There are two common definitions of agnosticism. By the first definition, agnosticism is an exact synonym for weak atheism: the agnostic neither believes that god exists nor believes that god does not exist, but rather is open to both possibilities without being persuaded of either. By the second definition, agnosticism refers to lack of knowledge rather than lack of belief. Thus, a gnostic (not to be confused with the gnostic religious moment of the early Christian era) knows whether there is a god, and an agnostic does not. Naturally, many of these sorts of agnostics are also weak atheists: Since they don't know whether god exists, they also don't hold a belief on the topic. But others are agnostic theists or agnostic strong atheists; they believe something they can't prove. An agnostic theist might say that he believes on faith rather than on proof. This second type of agnosticism can be divided into strong and weak subtypes. Weak agnostics personally don't know whether god exists. Strong agnostics not only don't know themselves, they believe that no one else knows either." NBeale 18:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
We need to be consistent on our policy for arguments and counter-arguments. IMHO WikiPedia users should be able to find both each major argument and its major counter-arguments, but in a balanced way. So I suggest that:
Consistent with this I have (with some reluctance) removed "There is also a fourth possibility that considers Jesus as myth, not an historical figure." rather than amended it to "People who dispute this generally argue that the Gospel accounts do not record Jesus's life with sufficient accuracy, either because they are distorted or becasue his was a myth and not an historical figure" since obviously the historical-but-distorted view is an additional possiblility (and unlike the "myth" suggestion is not ludicrous!) NBeale 21:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Why does virtually every argument in the "Arguments against the existence of God" section have a counter-argument embedded in the presentation of the argument? For example, the "problem of evil" section includes a statement that begins, "However, many religions have provided explanations for God allowing evil..." The "Arguments for the existence of God" section does not have built-in counter-arguments. I think this is not NPOV. Johnskrb2 01:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Massimo Pigliucci summarizes the forms of argument against various conceptions of God thus:
Within the framework of scientific rationalism one arrives at the belief in the nonexistence of God, not because of certain knowledge, but because of a sliding scale of methods. At one extreme, we can confidently rebut the personal Gods of creationists on firm empirical grounds: science is sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there never was a worldwide flood and that the evolutionary sequence of the Cosmos does not follow either of the two versions of Genesis. The more we move toward a deistic and fuzzily defined God, however, the more scientific rationalism reaches into its toolbox and shifts from empirical science to logical philosophy informed by science. Ultimately, the most convincing arguments against a deistic God are Hume's dictum and Occam's razor. These are philosophical arguments, but they also constitute the bedrock of all of science and are not dismissed as non-scientific. The reason we put our trust in these two principles is because their application in the empirical sciences has led to such spectacular successes throughout the last three centuries.
-- Pigliucci, Massimo (2000). "Personal Gods, Deism & the Limits of Skepticism". Skeptic. 8 (2): 38–45. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
So where does this belong, what argument is it, and where else in wikipedia is something similar treated? -- Merzul 14:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
"Agnostics generally do not believe in God, but do not call themselves Atheists." That makes no sense and should be altered. If you do not believe in a God, you are classified as an Atheist according to the same article so it should be changed. Daimanta 15:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Agnosts are essentially unsure of the existence of God. This means they are unbelievers while at the same time not quite atheists.
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something. -Tim- THobern 02:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't accept your analogy. While, granted, there is a hard and fast answer to the mathematical problem, the existence of god is, by definition, unprovable and therefor subject to discussion on many levels. -Tim- THobern 03:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
"God is verifiable"? Well thank god for that. I'm glad you sorted that out for us. I'm guessing everyone who contributed to this article is going to feel really silly now that you've brought this startling revelation to light. How on earth didn't we realise that before?
-Tim-
THobern
05:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Well you make it seem as if you have the correct answer to a simple yes or no question. Which, if true, would render the entire article pointless. Now would you care to share this verification with us? -Tim- THobern 15:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I always saw Agnostics as those did not believe in a religion, but had not decided upon a sentient creative force... (just my two cents) Raerth 08:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
It does no good in the context of this article (with classification being one of its very purposes), but technically every group except for atheists is agnostic. If religious faith is about BELIEVING, and agnosticism says one can't KNOW whether God exists, then even the Pope would technically be agnostic. And I say that as a deist. A religious person who says they know there's a God is either stupid or lying, because what they actually mean is that they very strongly believe. Ethereal Vega ( talk) 22:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't know why these "see eg Polkinghorne" are so prevalent in the philosophy of religion articles, but whoever is doing this, please note that no featured article uses this style. I assume that the intention is to convey the fact that there are billion other people that could be cited... but unfortunately the only impression I get is that of laziness: if there are more sources, why aren't they explicitly mentioned? It is much stronger to just add the source with as much precision as possible. And you might want to consider using citation templates, because unlike using "eg", formatting citations properly does add some credibility to the argument. -- Merzul 19:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If we let the symbols W and W* be Spain and France, and if our object x is the weather and the property P(x) is that x is rainy, then what he says is essentially if it rains in Spain, but is sunny in France, then even in France it is raining in Spain, while in Spain it isn't raining in France. It makes sense, but it's just an explanation of modal logic. I don't see how this section from Plantinga's book is demonstrative of his thinking, its just a sentence from the middle of it. If anybody has his book, would you consider picking something more self-contained, and maybe with fewer symbols and hyphens :) Thanks! -- Merzul 03:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I am suprised to note that "physical manifestation" (i.e. physical proof of the existence of God) has not been put forth as an argument. The occurences during Makarasankranti at Sabarimala ( Kerala, South India) have not yet been disproved by rationalists and God is believed to be present in the form of a bright intense light on the horizon. This occurs every year. Some believe it, some don't, but I think it should still be put forth in this article. Bhakthan 23:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
For some reason user:UBeR tagged this on 1 Jan 07. There seem to me to be 27 refs and 17 additional sources: in addition most of the substantial arguments have articles of their own. Should we delete the tag? NBeale 07:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the argument (against God) from improbability, which has not been documented. It could be merged with the line of though "Who designed the designer?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion#Why_there_almost_certainly_is_no_God http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins06/dawkins06_index.html
Although there's a lot of good material in this article overall it is a bit of a mess. I suggest we consider the following principles for improving it:
What do people think? NBeale 08:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that section contains a logical error in the part stating that the atheists' argument about God's knowledge is fallacious. Plato defined knowledge as the intersection of the set truths and the set beliefs. If God knows that something is going to happen, obviously it belongs to the truth set, and, by the generally accepted definition of truth, it is bound to happen. Free will is defined as the ability to change the future, therefore allowing one to do anything physically possible, forming a set of possible future events. If the subset future events of the set truths intersects with the set future possible events, the intersection describes obviously the future. But, assuming that no contradictory events can take place, and that there is more than one possible event, according to free will, this means only one event is possible, therefore denying one of free will. Orthologist 17:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The Witness argument article, which is linked from this one, has been languishing in a state of uselessness for a long time, and never seems to have been a particularly worthwhile article. As best as I could ascertain, it hasn't had more than two sentences of valid content in the last 23 months. I think it's best to redirect it to this article. Any objections? Tim Shuba 02:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Please merge relevant content, if any, from Mathematics and God per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematics and God (third nomination). (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. — Quarl ( talk) 2007-03-09 09:43Z
# The Majority argument argues that the theism of people throughout most of recorded history and in many different places provides prima facie demonstration of God's existence.
It looks to be argumentum ad populum, not a valid logical argument Obscurans 06:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi all: I'm sorry I can't see any merit in the most recent edits. Uber did a "minor edit" to "removed unrefed nonsense" which was in fact a point that had 2 refs and was not nonsese at all. There has also been a large insertion of WP:ESSAY material "But is that fair? (etc)" and references to non-notable websites. Could we try to justify additions rather than putting in lots of OR or removing refed material without disucssion please? NBeale 07:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Pascals wager ( see edit here) isn't an argument for the Existence of God but on how to game the system in your favour. It is the lazy way to heaven and god-knowing-all will know just how sincere you really are. In the end it also misses the fact that there have been many gods documented over the years. If the other gods are as selfish as the Judeo-Christian one then you have quite a few hells to choose from....or if you are secular then you can't remember your birth so you won't remember your death. Ttiotsw 09:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
archived chat per WP:NOTAFORUM |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
New argument against the existence of GodWhat do you think of the argument against the existence of God in this thought experiment I came up all by myself (Which is probably the same thoughts some great philosopher had before, but I don’t know who) 1.0 Let’s suppose God exists. 1.1 Let’s suppose that this is the Christian God (or any other God of your choice) 1.1.1 This might mean that the Muslim God and the Jewish God don’t exist. This means Christians are right (read: are saved, go to heaven, well at least if they behaved well), the other two religions are wrong (read: are damned, go to hell, whatever). 1.1.2 However, this might also mean that the other two Gods exist in addition to the Christian God. This means all religions are right. However, this is against the exclusivity claim of each monotheistic religion, which by definition only allows a single God. This solution is a contradiction in itself (because how can you claim that your God exists but no other Gods exist?) (Also, did the Gods form a committee to create the universe? Or was one God the boss and the others his subordinates?). 2.0 Let’s suppose God doesn’t exist. This basically means that all religions are wrong. (wrong as in their basis as a belief system, not necessarily wrong as a tool to satisfy human need/desire to know 'the answer to life, universe and everything') Long story cut short, it just doesn’t make sense. Which would be an argument in favour of Atheism. Note: For the sake of ease of argument, all non Abrahamic religions are left out of the picture as well as different denominations (like Roman Catholic Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, whatyouhavenot, also Reform and Orthodox Jews, Sunnis, Shias, Druze, Alawis,….) but the example still works the same.-- Soylentyellow 22:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Um... The Jewish and Muslim God are the same God as the Christian God, (not to mention the only God) so your argument is faulty. Bad argument. Here's a few arguments for the existence of God.
Argue against all that. MalwareSmarts ( talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
All Godbots are basically the same, except some are fundy bigots and some are halfway sensible. The Muslims did generally treat Jews better than the Christians did in the Western Mediterranean, but not with full legal and practical equality. They only ascended to the position of worst religion in the world recently. Fairandbalanced ( talk) 01:33, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
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Is anyone surprised at how unbiased this article is? Seriously, it's pretty neutral. I'm proud of us.:) -- Asderoff 02:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
so good im scared >.> —Preceding unsigned comment added by
I would also like to commend the same. 70.243.124.216 ( talk) 18:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, come now. It has been a long time since I dueled with the Godbots here, but they clearly still prevail. It's built into the Wiki design; the vast majority of proper published sources are Christian, and the arbiters of Wiki correctness insist that small periodicals are not legit. For example, the Hitler article claimed he was an atheist because many sources written by Christians said so. It was not possible to correct the bigotry in any way since the guy running the show claimed to be an "atheist" and removed anything suggesting otherwise.
Why is it "Arguments against BELIEF in God" vs "Arguments for the EXISTENCE of God"? Both sections are about existence. There are corresponding sets of arguments regarding belief, but they are not included. Why do we have the titles "Strong atheism" and "Weak atheism" instead of more descriptive titles "No god exists" and "God probably doesn't exist" or something like that. The theistic side has descriptive titles instead of semi-pejorative labels. The totally neutral stance properly belongs under "agnosticism".
And that's just the subsection titles in one section. Fairandbalanced ( talk) 00:58, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
I noticed there was no reference to the lack of scientific evidence (or presence of it, depending on your viewpoint) of God. Things like God not being scientifically possible under current theories, that sort of thing. Perhaps some of that should be put in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.132.2 ( talk • contribs) 11:17, 15 July 2007
Then, shouldn't the supernatural experiences be documented with proof for others to see? -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The section in question must be removed from the article, because it is specifically un-academic in execution, and because it contains original claims on the author's part.
It was a statement concerning the section that reads thus:
The Argument from a Proper Basis argues that belief in God is "properly basic"--that is, similar to statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain." Such beliefs are non-falsifiable and, thus, neither able to be proved nor disproved; they concern perceptual beliefs or indisputable mental states.
But allow me to, as a first year Philosophy student, destroy this pathetic 'argument,' which runs as follows:
"The Argument from a Proper Basis mentioned in the "Arguments From Testimony (For)" section of this article is in itself inherently flawed. It argues that the existence of god should be accepted despite being unprovable, because statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain" can also not be proven through scientific method, when in fact they can. Seeing a chair can be verified by asking the subject to point in the direction of the chair, whilst pain can be detected through sudden elevated levels of serotonin and adrenaline in the brains frontal cortices responsible for the sensation of touch and pain. Taking statements like "god exists" at face value is more comparable to accepting similarly unprovable statements without question, such as "pigs can fly"."
Following a POV statement, which assumes the argument's conclusion, the writer asserts that the Proper Basis argument's position is that "the existence of god should be accepted despite being unprovable, because statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain" can also not be proven through scientific method, when in fact they can." Okay, the author has revealed his/her contention with the argument. "Seeing a chair can be verified by asking the subject to point in the direction of the chair," the author asserts. This does not address the original argument, and is in truth does not follow. The argument did not concern the subject's seeing of the chair, but rather it concerns the subject's statement concerning the perception of a chair. The writer continues "pain can be detected through sudden elevated levels of serotonin and adrenaline in the brains frontal cortices responsible for the sensation of touch and pain." This, once again, fails to see the import of the argument; the non-falsifiablility of the claim "I feel pain" does not imply that pain's effect upon the person feeling it cannot be quantified, but rather implies merely the statement itself, which concerns the subject, not the subject's brain states, of which they are not wholly comprised. Xenofan 29A 07:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. It's a terrible argument. J'onn J'onzz 01:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Argument from a Proper Basis only applies to statements such as "I believe there is a God", "I can sense God's existence", "I'm sure God exists", i.e. describing personal experience. It does not apply to the statement "God exists", which doesn't describe personal experience. Therefore this argument is not relevant to this article and should be removed from it.-- Jestempies ( talk) 11:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware that Hawking doesn't deliberately seek to disprove god, but he certainly provides a lot of evidence in that direction. I'm not sure if it's been laid out by a philosopher before, but I think another argument for the nonexistence of god should be added here--. To clarify a bit... the average christian conception of "god" involves some degree of influence--we may have free will, but many people will hasten to ascribe good things to god, and bad things to the devil, and swear to high heaven (heh) that god actually hears prayer. When considered in the context of the rational world as we know it, simple concepts like that take on an unexpected level of complexity. How does he physically manifest to "hear" prayer, even silent prayer? What language does he speak? Where did the flood's water come from, and how did he get it there, and make it fall? Where in the universe, or out of it, exists the network of neurons or somesuch which forms his thought? You can quickly see, when you think about it, that gods actions only seem simple within the framework of human psychology--in our thoughts, in other words. This is not a proof, of course, but it is certainly an argument. I think there ought to be an article about this point of view. Argument from untenable complexity, anyone? Salvar 00:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The majority of the bible is illogical when looking at the history of Earth without Christian bias. Man was not created by God. Man evolved from apes. J'onn J'onzz 01:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I have recently added a new section focusing on the possible universal state of the human mind that stems religious beliefs. More precisely, on the psychology of belief. My arguments come from the book mentioned in the section. Is it possible to make a strong argument describing a belief in the existence of god from a way our brains are wired? Maybe following the same logic as Morpheus, from The Matrix, outlined in the following statement: "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merelly electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Igoruha 22:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the "deductive arguments against" mostly stem from premises few theists would accept, is that correct? Srnec 05:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Samuel Butler contended, "that if God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him." Thus however unexpected, particularly for those active on either of the opposing sides in this argument, the seemingly intractable question of whether or not God exists, and if so, the further question of whether such a reality can be knowable have both been resolved by a radical change in the existing paradigm of historical 'faith'.
First published online in late 2004, the first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the moral teaching of Christ is now a free [1.4meg] pdf download from numerous sites. [1], [2] It is titled: The Final Freedoms and this new teaching has nothing whatsoever to do with any religious tradition 'known' to history. It is unique in every respect.
This is the first ever viable religious conception leading faith to observable consequences which can be tested and judged; a teaching able to demonstrate its own efficacy; the first religious claim to insight and knowledge that meets the criteria of verifiable, evidence based truth embodied in action and experience.
This is pure ethics and both describes and teaches a single moral Law, a single moral principle offering the promise of its own proof, in which the reality of God responds to an act of perfect faith with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception. As such this teaching enters the public domain as a confirmed, existing reality entirely new to human history.
The terms by which history has conceived reality called God, in authority, knowledge, selfhood and time have been altered. Those able to think for themselves, who can escape their own prejudices and imagine outside the cultural box, who are willing to learn something new, can test and verify this new teaching for themselves. [3], [4], [5]
Goliah 21:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Goliah
I deleted the following sentence that is ill founded and illogical.
"The claim that the resurrection would validate Christianity dates from the earliest records, and it is common ground between theists and atheists that if the resurrection occurred substantially as described in the Bible then Christianity is substantially validated as true."
Many would argue that there are no contemporaneous records. The Biblical accounts were written decades after the death of Jesus. Also, there is no common ground as asserted. Have we done a survey? What percent of atheists agree to this? If the resurrection, or any miracle as described in the Bible actually occurred, it is equally possible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it all to fool us. Supernatural events can have any cause - they are unconstrained. Talkingtomypocket 05:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I think most Wikipedia intro paragraphs are quite good, even if the rest of the article needs work. But this one contains the following, which is problematic.
"Some definitions of God's existence are so non-specific that it is certain that something exists that meets the definition; in stark contrast, there are suggestions that other definitions are self-contradictory."
The first part is unclear. "it is certain"? Perhaps, if the concept of God is identical with Nature. However, where supernatural beings are concerned, not much is certain. "Suggestions"? If there is no citation, this should be eliminated. -- Talkingtomypocket 02:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
"However you cannot do experiments on God, and, if God exists, God created the laws of Physics and is not necessarily bound by them, so it will inevitably be more difficult to reason reliably about God."
I'm not sure about the phrasing of this - it seems "weaselly". For example, the existence of God does not necessitate that it created the laws of physics - there is nothing *necessarily* to deny the state of affairs that the laws of physics as they stand in our universe pre-existed in potentia any creative act by God (or perhaps there is, and I'm being foolish...) What's more, being the creator of the law of physics does *not* mean that one is not bound by them, any more than building a box around yourself means that you exist outside it. If God created the laws of physics (or, by creating, brought them about concurrently) it is as likely that it is constrained by them after this creative act. What do others think? --visualerror
70.149.127.82 22:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
This section needs a re-write. It states that theism, atheism, and agnoticim are the 'three options' of beleif and this is wrong. Theism and atheism are complementary stances, as one is defined as the lack of anouther. Any beleif that is not theistic is by definition an atheistic beleif. No matter what other beleifs you hold you are ether a theist or an atheist - you can't hold neither stances. These are independant of agnosticm which concernes knowlage not beleif. For example you can hold the position that god existance is unknown (Agnostism) and therefore not beleive in its existance (Athiesm). Agnostism is NOT a halfway point between theism and atheism. Even if agnostism is defined as 'not having made up ones mind' then this means that they havn't yet decided that god does exist, and therefore they are still an atheist. You do not have to beleive that a god does not exist to be an atheist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.236.136 ( talk) 05:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Removed this section. The ability to destroy oneself does not contravene omnipresence, and I've so far met only one person who would claim that it does. Ilkali 15:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I just want to point out that anything "roughly" explained in Wikipedia is incomplete, and should one day become more-than-roughly explained. Currently this article has a sentence that says "Spinoza and his philosophical followers (such as Einstein) use the term 'God' in a particular philosophical sense, to mean (roughly) the essential substance/principles of Nature." I (and other readers) would like to know what they actually mean, if it's anything more complex than the presented definition. I hope one day the definition becomes complete. A.Z. 07:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The anthropic argument is listed here as an argument in favour of the existence of God. Surely that's a mistake? As I understand it, the A.P. essentially says "The Universe is amazing, but we shouldn't feel an excessive sense of wonder [and hence infer a God], because, if it were otherwise, we wouldn't be here to wonder at it." Thus the A.P. is a rebuttal to the pro-God "argument-from-amazament". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.40.226 ( talk) 05:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Google for "Anthropic Argument" Jok2000 17:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
In almost every instance where a pronoun references God, it takes the masculine gender. That might be standard within most religions, but it's not an essential property of "a monotheistic concept of a supreme being that is unlike any other being". I propose rewording to use gender-neutral pronouns - it, its, etc. Ilkali 11:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Mike, here are the reasons I've reverted your edits:
I acknowledge your good faith, but your edits are not constructive. Ilkali 22:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
All respect. Wouldn't you rather direct than pin down a brother (or sister)? -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd really appreciate it if someone could put in some of the themes covered in Bertrand Russell and Copleston's radio debate about God's existence, thanks. Also Doctors Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein's debate, which is scintillating. Not transcripts, naturally, but summaries of the points made on both sides. That would improve the article, in my view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fledgeaaron ( talk • contribs) 01:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I'm not experienced enough to edit the article myself (particularly as this one obvious needs specific care and attention in its writing) but I haven't seen any reference in it to the argument that God doesn't exist because there's no reason to believe it does. This is a pretty serious argument and the most important in my opinion - why would someone believe something when nothing in all the world even suggests it might be true, let alone proves it?
If someone thinks this could be added and phrased/researched in a proper way, I think it would be good to see here. 217.154.84.2 ( talk) 15:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)dicklaurentisdead
It might be a waste of life if we all live believing what we are told without doing proper investigations? If God created us, then He created our senses and if all was made for a purpose, then, the purpose of at least some of the senses must have been to find Him. Maybe if we did we would appreciate Him more, collectively as humans... -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an EXTREMELY important argument, and is probably so extensive that it would require it's own article. Here is a similar argument: Why, for example, do things like UFOs, Bigfoot, Ghosts, etc. have physical proof of their existence, however falsified that proof may be, yet it still exists. However, God has little if any physical proof of it's existence, but far more people believe in God or Gods of some sort, sometimes even fanatically, than they believe in UFOs and such? 66.41.44.102 ( talk) 10:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Before jumping in and editing the article myself, I'd like to point out that the article really seems much too broad in scope. The "Arguments against belief in God" section is pretty good, and represents the information I came looking for in this article. However, the real meat appears after a series of arguments for belief in God (What? If I wanted that I'd go to the appropriate article) and a lot of other information of questionable relevance. I would place "Arguments against belief in God" first, with the Psychological section merged in and rephrased as an argument. I'd follow this with "Philosophical issues," and then I'd summarily delete the rest of the article. What do other users think about this? Harkenbane ( talk) 00:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Hiya, everybody and your uncles! I just felt like bringing up Douglas Adams' theistic argument from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It goes as follows (it pretty much starts off in the middle of the babelfish article):
“ | Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. |
” |
The moral here I believe is that the existence of God would contradict God's existence, and just as much as I'd like to point this example out for argumentive reasons, I'd also like to ask in what argumentive category it would belong/be sorted? 217.208.26.106 ( talk) 13:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Should we have an article on belief in God? As I noted at the talk page of {{ God Arguments}}, belief in God is closely related to the existence of God, but there are some subtle differences. Pascal's Wager, for example, isn't about whether God exists, but whether we should believe in him. You could also argue that we should believe in a deity even if they don't exist, perhaps from a consequentialist view for example. There's also Dan Dennett's concept of 'belief in belief', the spectrum of theistic probability etc. It seems to be a subject worthy of an article to me. Richard001 ( talk) 06:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
If 'God' is the name of a being, then it only makes sense that it should start with a capital 'G' like all our names, even names of pets - several people could have the same names! On the other hand, if 'god' is an item or a description of status, then the lowercase 'g' fits perfectly. -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Since the logical proof for the existence of God formulated by late mathematician and logician William Hatcher is already on Wikipedia under W. Hatcher, perhaps a link to that proof could be provided also from this article.
The category of proofs "logical arguments for the existence of God" could also be added, including an explanation that most of them have been shown logically faulty. However, Hatcher's proof of God, where God is defined minimalistically as "one", "simple", "self-caused" and "universal cause", represents the first logically seamless proof of a kind of God and, as such, worthy of mention. Hatcher's proof is based on first and second order logic as well as set theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.197.180 ( talk) 10:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
That sort of arguement would not be appropriate for the existence of God. The Logical Law of Cause and Effect, however, would be. Prussian725 ( talk) 14:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I have added a section on Vedantic views on this. The section may need to be expanded to actually arrive at NPOV. But so far article was heavy only on one side ie Western, ignoring Eastern definition of existence of God as sat of chit-ananda. Referenced additions are welcome unreferenced unsourced items will just go. Wikidās ॐ 19:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The last sentence of the third paragraph of this subsection currently reads:
"However, reliance on phenomena which have not yet been resolved by natural explanations may be equated to the pejorative God of the gaps."
It seems that it would be better to place this statement in the 'arguments against belief in God' section under Empirical Arguments. The person who disagrees with this would likely need to provide similar rebuttal-type sentences to the second and fourth paragraphs, which talk about empirical methods being unable to speak to God's existence or non-existence and the logical positivist position respectively. I'll wait a day or so and if no one responds I will move it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 13:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Please observe the way Strong Atheism is defined in the article:
"Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31] "
It seems to me that this makes the following quote applicable:
"Atheism comes from, literally, the Greek word a-, 'the negative'; and theism, the word theos for 'god' —'negative God' or 'there is no God.' It is affirming the non-existence of God. It affirms a negative. Anyone with an introductory course in philosophy recognizes that it is a logical contradiction. It would be like me saying to you, 'There is no such thing as a white stone with black dots anywhere in all of the galaxies of this universe.' The only way I can affirm that is if I have unlimited knowledge of this universe. So to affirm an absolute negative is self-defeating, because what you are saying is, 'I have infinite knowledge in order to say to you, "There is nobody within finite knowledge".' Atheism, as a system, is self-defeating." —Dr. Ravi Zacharias
I know this is not a popular opinion, but it seems logically sound concerning Strong Atheism as defined in the article. Would it make sense to mention this logical contradiction anywhere in the article? If so, where? If not, why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 13:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Unless it is logically impossible for something to exist, it is not possible to say that it doesn't exist. I realize that this leads to objections involving pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, but it seems necessarily true that in order to say that X is not in a set Y, you must have complete knowledge of all elements of set Y. If Y is existence and X is God, then you must know everything in existence to know that X does not exist. Yet a being that knows everything in Y is the very definition given to God. So perhaps the term 'infinite knowledge' is a bit misleading and would be better suited as 'complete knowledge'.Firstly, it would not necessarily take infinite knowledge to ascertain that any given entity does not exist.
It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of saying that it is the case that there is no being with 'infinite knowledge' or 'complete knowledge' or what have you. This position would require 'infinite' or 'complete' knowledge.Secondly, believing something that would require infinite knowledge to ascertain is not tantamount to believing that you have that knowledge.
If strong atheism requires complete knowledge of all things in existence, then it would.Thirdly, even if it were, that would not make it an entailment of strong atheism itself.
P1 defines God as a being with infinite knowledge, so it seems like the conclusion is logical. If P1 is valid then it seems that the conclusion is also sound.#C1 and P1 do not imply C2. The closest you get is if we assume C1 has a 'Strong atheism entails there is a being with infinite knowledge' corollary, but even then, we could not say that this being is God.
The last sentence of the first paragraph states
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
Surely this is in direct contradiction to the opening statement that defines strong atheism
Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31]
Strong atheism is not saying that it is unlikely that God exists, strong atheism is, as defined in the article, the position that a god or gods do not exist. I suggest this last sentence be removed or moved to the weak atheism subsection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 19:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
As it stands now the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous. The above proposed change would help highlight the difference between the definition of strong atheism and the reasons for an individual believing strong atheism.It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist and therefore does not exist.
And more direct to the matter at hand... many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist
The problem is that strong atheists are not asserting that it is unlikely, that is indeed the weak atheist position. Strong atheists are asserting that it is not the case that god/gods exist. I submit that the sentence is inaccurate and should be altered to better reflect the strong atheist position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 21:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)... many strong atheists would assert that ... a god described in the manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist
As Mdwh pointed out, strong atheism, as defined by this article, does mean asserting that gods do not exist. This is stated in the second sentence of the subsection.Additionally, being a strong atheist does not mean asserting that gods do not exist; it means believing that they don't.
You are correct. Having said that, the article as a whole does not seem to use words like 'affirms', 'asserts', and 'believes' with a high degree of precision. However if you want to draw the distinction between 'assert' and 'believe' then it seems clear that the subsection is dealing with assertions, not beliefs. If that last sentence is dealing with beliefs and not assertions, then it is out of place and misleading. We should either remove it or alter it so that it also deals with assertions. Alternatively, if you think the distinction is small enough that it does not warrant such treatment, then the sentence becomes ambiguous and leads to the confusion over the meaning that we are having now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 12:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)One can believe that the existence of deities is unlikely and believe that they don't exist.
We've had some discussion on this in a general sense, and I think we got off on some tangent about 'believe' vs. 'assert' which no one seemed willing to quantify. Since that distinction is rather moot in light of the article's subject (asserting and believing can mean two different things, but in either case one would have to assert/believe the strong atheist position, which the article in its current form fails to represent accurately), I'd like to propose a change. The article currentlys states
Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31] Some strong atheists further assert that the existence of some or all gods is logically impossible, for example claiming that the combination of attributes which God may be asserted to have (for example: omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence, omnibenevolence) is logically contradictory, incomprehensible, or absurd, and therefore that the non-existence of such a god is a priori true. It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
And the sentence in question is
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
I propse we make one of the following changes (slight edits)
It needs to be noted that asserting that the qualities of a particular god are contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many citation needed strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory does not exist.
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many citation needed strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even if a god were described in a manner that was not contradictory, this god would still not exist.
The following are rewrites of the sentence:
Many citation needed strong atheists assert that lack of evidence for the existence of God is a reason to believe that God does not exist.
Many citation needed strong atheists believe that the lack of evidence for the existence of God is a reason to believe that God does not exist.
I think these changes best reflect the strong atheist position (God does not exist) as opposed to the weak atheist position (either 1) no good reasons and no credible grounds for believing that gods exist or 2) neither believe that a god or gods exists, nor believe that no gods exist). Thoughts? 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 14:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
No one disagrees with that statement. The issue is the meaning of the sentence. Maybe this will make it more clear. The form of the sentenceA person can believe that God is unlikely to exist and that God does not exist.
reads like this:It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
It needs to be noted that believing [justification 1] is not the sole basis of [position 1]; [position 1] would assert that [justification 2], even if not [justification 1], is still [position 1].
160.109.120.55 ( talk) 20:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I can't help feeling that the reason for this muddle is that we are trying to pigeon hole arguments into either being strong atheism or weak atheism. Wouldn't it be better just to list the various arguments, without labelling them strong or weak? We should be listing the arguments that atheists actually make (which does include the claim that God's existence is unlikely, for example), rather than thinking we can't say that because we aren't sure if it's "strong" or "weak".
This would also help us with finding references too. For example, Dawkins makes the claim that God's existence is unlikely - but we can't cite him here at the moment, because I don't think he identifies as a strong atheist (he avoids the strong/weak distinction, IIRC). Mdwh ( talk) 22:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Consider the Atheism article - although strong and weak are obviously mentioned, the rest of the article is not constrained by trying to pigeon hole everything into being either strong or weak. Mdwh ( talk) 22:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
This section has gone way too far into WP:FORUM territory. Remember that this is Wikipedia. All we do here is intelligently summarize and juxtapose quotable sources. Editors' opinions wrt the sources they are discussing are irrelevant. Yes, the "strong vs. weak" dichotomy for some reason has a long history of being blown out of proportion at Talk:Atheism. The purpose of this article isn't the classification of various atheisms, but the presentation of various arguments pertaining to "existence" for various conceptions of "God". Note that the stance of one philosopher as to the "existence of God" may vary considerably depending on what you mean by "existence" and what you mean by "God". This is far from being a yes-or-no question. Most intelligent atheists will probably argue that "God" isn't a well-defined notion at all (except for easily debunked naive Iron Age notions), and hence the assertion of existence is " not even wrong". -- dab (𒁳) 11:06, 14 August 2008 (UTC)
This section is poorly explained. Also it is unclear why transcendental arguments are catergorized as empirical, most, probably all, aren't.
In this entire article arguing the existence or non-existence of God, you don't mention the Buddhist perspective, not even as a one line blurb somewhere around agnosticism. The Buddha offered a pretty unique perspective on things for his time (or our time for that matter). He said that yeah there is an un-born creator, but don't even start to talk about that, that has nothing to do with the path to happiness. He gave a parable about a man who had been struck with a poison arrow. If this man in search for help found a surgeon that could remove the arrow, but before allowing it to be removed said, "I will not allow you to remove this arrow until you tell me, who shot the arrow, what kind of person he is, (or is it a she), why was the arrow shot, what type of poison was used, and what type of bow was it was fired with". By the time all of those questions are answered that man would surely die. That’s just about how futile our search for God and meaning are, so just give it up and find happiness. Perhaps the same idea the Buddha had, has been communicated by different philosophers but The Buddha certainly deserves at least a tiny mention in all this, if for nothing else other than starting an organised religion without acknowledging a certain god as the creator. (I can accept if for that reason you would call Buddhism a philosophy, but in my experience philosophy is perhaps too narrow a word for Buddhism, and religion is too broad a word). But now I've gone off on a crazy Buddhism tangent, and the intial reason for my comment has been lost, so I'll restate: At least think about throwing in a bit of Buddhism into this existence of God argument.
~Max Lupo~
what HINDUISM? they have many deities? Angelofdeath275 21:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
More importantly, do they have any arguments for or against their existence? crazyeddie 20:19, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
I think we could add a blurb and link on deism, probably to the theism section. I think it's a legitimate subset of theism.
Also I might take issue with the statement in the section on agnosticism that suggests an automatic skepticism toward religious arguments. As an example, I offer myself: I don't consider myself wholly agnostic, but I don't really have anything against religious arguments, and I'm certainly not biased against them or automatically skeptical of them (I'm pretty much non-practicing, but I still consider myself a theist). Does anyone else think this may be worth re-wording? Othersider 06:27, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
I think some of David Hume's arguments regarding a deity's existence would be a helpful addition to some of the arguments made in this article. In Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion he argues through the persona of Philo that it is not merely the truth of evil, but more the enormous amount of evil in the world that makes it doubtful whether or not a deity exists. Hume also argues that there is more evil than good, making the harmonizing of a belief in the existence of a God who is in control of everything. Hume appears to argue that the misery people go through is what causes them to constantly be looking forward to the future, when they hope their situation might improve. The same tendency that causes people to look forward to a better future causes them to worship, sacrifice, and pray toward some higher power than themselves. In a way people are convincing themselves that they truly believe in some higher being which can deliver them, but in reality are only believing or desiring a means of release from their despair. An all-powerful higher being, who would be capable of delivering them, would be the best possible means in answering the problem of their situation. Hume argues that what drives people to believe what they do about religion is that they are "not satisfied with life" and they are "afraid of death." Though I do not agree with Hume's conclusion on God's existence I thought his reasoning for not believing in a deity's existence was very thought provoking. Mancalf
It's what's proposed to be included in Problem of evil. User:Kenosis said he'll add something on Hume sometime, in the "history" section. -- infinity 0 00:20, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
If you want, add a paragraph in this article to:
If you want, add a subsection at Problem of evil. WAS 4.250 00:37, 26 March 2006 (UTC)
As to the existance of both a universe with evil and God's creation of it, it has traditionally been explained as the need to maintain 'free-will'. An alternative argument might be that the universe is a kind of open 'experiment' that could only be conducted if the possibility of evil could occur. Moreover, if this universe was 'inferered with' ie to stop evil from occuring, (ie God's intervention), this would interfere with the experimental purpose of the universe. Therefore, not only is the possibility of evil occurring a part of the fabric of the universe's existance, but also the non-interferance of such 'evil'. This argument is supported by what we know of science, and partly explains the existance of evil in a universe created by God. Furthermore, this explanation is entirely consistent with the cosmological argument, although I haven;t read too many palces which advocate the 'experiment model of the universe'.Posted by Roger McEvilly
This is turning into a wonderfully constructed article. keep it up. Just always balance it out. - 24.197.141.33
Thanks. Please help out in whatever way you can. WAS 4.250 15:59, 30 March 2006 (UTC)
Mathematical argument redirects to Parameter. Which is not the meaning that is being referred to in this article. Either we need a disambiguation page or a different link on this page. Matt73 13:27, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
I deleted the sentence because it is in a list of arguments that God exists in reality, like trees, not exists as a concept, like zero. WAS 4.250 15:12, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
POV, mathematical Platonism is very popular, I for one think that zero does not exist "as a concept". Which sentence are you refering to.
I am not sure exactly where such things should go, but if we are talking about defining exactly what god is and thus defining what proof or knowledge is, we should also point out the following 2 indesputable facts:
Just thought it worth noting. Enigmatical 04:17, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
Is there not an article listing historic arguments for/against the existence of a higher power? I came across a supposed "strong argument" while reading through the 1728 Cyclopaedia (which pre-dates Darwin):
If we don't have a list, I think it would be an interesting addition, especially with respect to the historic arguments for a higher being, and which ones have been disproven as a result of advances in understanding, and which ones remain unresolved, etc. -- BRIAN 0918 22:22, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
I would have to agree here. For every proof/disproof, a person who comes from the opposing side of the argument would say that they see something completely different in the same "data". Take the above example. That the Angle is 45 degrees only suggests to them that it shows guidance of a wise being... where as to a scientist it simply shows the natural laws of physics where all forms of energy seek to use the least amount of energy to maintain its form and 45 degrees is this very configuration. We would end up going back and forth forever. Quite frankly, I think the whole discussion about the existence of god is a subjective one and is most definately not an objective one. With that being the case there will never be a resolution as a person is not about to change their subjective opinion on something through any means of proof, fact, data or anything else. Its a matter of personal preference, not right and wrong. Enigmatical 23:53, 23 May 2006 (UTC)
Is this a proof? Does it work? What category would it fit under? P: God G: Reality Assume there is no God. If there is no God, there can be no proof. If there is no proof, there can be no reality. If there is no God, there can be no proof because you can’t prove anything without making claims. You can’t claim anything without making assumptions. Assumptions are not consistent with the nature of proof. Therefore, there can be no proof. If there is no proof, there can be no reality. Einstein’s Theory of Relativity and the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics both show that reality is defined by perception. Since perception is defined by belief and belief is defined by proof, there can’t be adequate reality. Also, there can be no inadequate reality because reality is an absolute concept. Since there is reality, God must exist. If there is a God, then you can make claims without making assumptions, which means there can be proof, and therefore reality. (The definition of God is Inherent Truth. This is a good definition of God because if you prove something using an inherent Truth, all of reality is derived from that Truth, which means that the Truth is omnipotent.)
KT adds: Nit picking, but the verb "formulated" is misleading wrt the ontological argument. Anselm formulated it first, not Plantinga —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.155.16.95 ( talk) 19:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
At a quick glance this entire (otherwise great) article seems to be written from the perspective there is only one divine concept worth discussing: the (Judeo-)Christian "God". Little acknowledgement is made of of all other religions. Such Eurocentricity made some sense centuries ago when many of these arguments were first formulated, at a time when culture (to Europeans) meant European culture; it makes considerably less sense for a 21st century global encyclopedia. It is fine for the article to discuss only the existence or nonexistence of the Christian god, if that is what the it intends to cover. But in that case there absolutely needs to be a sentence very early on (I'd say one of the two or three first sentences) to point out that that is all the article intends to cover. Alternatively, the article might want to direct itself to a broader question of the existence of "a deity or deities", "any supernatural forces", or similar, but that may distract from the clean structure of the article, since most of its source material is indeed from the European/Christian tradition. I would suggest the first option, to specify early on what concept(s) the article means to cover. Maybe even modify the title? - Mglg 22:03, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
After a slightly less quick glance I see that the problem isn't quite as severe as I first thought, given what's in the "What is God?" section. Sorry for the hasty comment. But even though that section acknowledges some diversity in divine concepts across religions, the "Arguments for the existence of God" section and most of the rest of the article is still written from a "God means the Christan god" perspective. There still needs to be at least some mention of this bias. Mglg 22:38, 13 June 2006 (UTC)
This is roughly half the problems I found with the articile, it desperately needs some warning signs and a peer review.
The first paragraph doesn’t make sense, to assess the “validity of any argument” for anything we need to assess it’s characteristics, this is not “one way” of assessing the validity of arguments for the existence of god, it is a necessary competent of any assessment.
The second paragraph is original research or needs a citation.
The whole first section is confusingly written. The discussion of the use theory of meaning is superfluous.
The discussion of falsifiability is just left dangling, the excessive equation of such arguments with the philosophy of Karl Popper are likely to give a slanted view.
The claim that fine tuning arguments are based on a shrinking pool is POV. The claim that ID arguments depend on fine tuning is factually incorrect, mostly they appeal to biology, not cosmology.
The epistemology section, It's POV. The author should keep his idiosyncratic opinions about a-posteroi knowledge and relativism to himself or cite them as opinions of various philosophers. Not everyone believes that “Strictly speaking A posteriori knowledge is impossible”. Except for skeptics I don’t think any philosopher holds this. I don’t understand why he posted a link to relativism just after this, I can see several possible conceptual links, but none of these are stated or explained in the text. The claim that knowledge is belief plus justification misses the third element of the traditional triad account of knowledge, truth. The link to the sociology of knowledge article is not really relevant in this context. “Knowledge in the sense of understanding or truth” sticks out as a particularly odd quote from this section.
“Knowledge can also be described as a psychological state, since in a strict sense there can never be a posteriori knowledge proper.” As I have said earlier the claim about there being no a posteriori knowledge is a little odd to say the least. Also the link between the rejection of A posteriori knowledge and describing knowledge as a psychological state is not made clear and appears to be original research. The three questions given at the end are very weird, ambiguous and confusing. Take “does subjective experience count as evidence for objective reality” that depends on the definitions you give, in one sense all experience is “subjective” ( i.e it is experience which is experienced by a subject, a person an animal etc). The claim that different definitions of truth is a major source of conflict in the debate is not warranted by the literature, wherein philosophers atheist and theist almost always share the same conception of truth, the claim that different definitions of knowledge are responsible for the confusions is perhaps half right, debates about the meaning of knowledge and religious epistemology fill the literature however the basic idea that ( subtleties surrounding the Gettier problem put aside for a moment) that knowledge is true, justified, belief is basically accepted. Overall this section is perhaps most in need of a cleanup, not much is salvagble.
The definition given of Metaphysical arguments for the existence of god is weird, it claims that such arguments are meant to be deductively valid. One of the arguments the author lists in this section, the cosmological argument, are sometimes given as inductive arguments ( Richard Swinburne is one of the primary defenders of this approach). I’ve never seen the “Pantheistic argument” before, but that might just be my ignorance. The categories basically seem made up and arbitrary.
The empirical arguments section is weird, moral arguments for the existence of god are categorically not empirical and neither are the versions of the transcendental argument which I have seen.
The subjective arguments section is very poor, an attempt to argue from miracles is not a “subjective” argument as far as I can tell, but because no statement of what the author means by subjective ( one of the English languages most ambiguous words) is here given I wouldn’t know. All the definitions of subjective in this context I can think of either render the list either inaccurate or POV ( perhaps for example the author thinks that subjective refers to experiential arguments, arguments from religious experiences, in which case the list is inaccurate, or perhaps he means subjective in the epistemologically derogatory sense, in which case the list is POV.)
The source quoted in the first section of empirical arguments against the existence of god is confused. Deism isn’t fuzzily defined under any standard definitions of fuzzy. The text seems to present a false dilemma between creationist theistic belief and deism. The source cannot be considered reliable
It’s hard to see that Sartre’s existenalist rejection of the existence of god on the grounds that man creates his own nature is an inductive argument, it’s hard to classify but if anything it’s a deductive argument.
The no reason argument is poorly explained.
The deductive arguments section includes “The counter argument against the cosmological argument” this is not an argument against the existence of god, Christians, even those who believe the existence of god can be rationally demonstrated, might use it.
To summarize, this article is filled with inaccuracies, irrelevancies, poor use of categories, original research, points of view, overconfident interjections, poor word selection, undefined terms which appear to have an idiosyncratic meaning and a tendency to attempt to bring in major philosophers when it only confuses the discussion.
How is it possible for the scientific community to challenge intelligent design? I mean, they have to believe in design at least. Even Richard Dawkins does. Scorpionman 15:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)
1) This isn't the place for such a discussion. 2) I would suspect that the problem is with intelligent design. Evolution can give rise to organisms that appear to be "designed," but evolution itself is not intelligent - it lacks intentional stance, a prequisite of intelligence. crazyeddie 23:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, that was a rant, and was off-topic. :)
Yoda921 03:17, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Yoda
Now firstly, you claim that if there is no god, you cannot think of a reason to abstain from pre-marital sex. Firstly, what is your point? Are you claiming that as the consquences of god not existing are unpleasant/unacceptable to you, he must exist? Secondly, whether or not there is a god, morality and ethics are still possible, whether or not you, personally, can see why. We can all consider the social implications of our actions, and even trace them back to ourselves for selfish reasons if need be.
Now you claim "The idea that everything came out of 'nothing' is ridiculous." Well I agree it is ridculous. The funny thing, however, is that no one is claiming this. You obviously have no idea of the way in which evolution functions. Even to say that as evolution/the big bang don't account for everything, it is no proof of god. Simply disproving evolution does not in anyway prove god's existence. If you are invoking a god of the gaps, you are, I believe, simply deluding yourself. Just as we cannot explain the universe, it doesn't mean we wont be able to or that, in the absence of evidence, we can simply substitute a completely irrational god or deity in its temporary place. It would seem you hold on to notions of god as it is comforting and the consquences of his not existing, would be unacceptable to you. I suggest that you consider the possibilty that god does not exist. Before you suggest I do that same, let me tell you I am more than willing to, as long as you provide with proof. Proof is, however, what god lacks and is given in the place of. I apologise for the typos and grammatical errors, but I am, very, very tired. -Tim- THobern 03:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
The same thing goes for a 6 foot tall, pink rabbit called Harvey. Just as something can't be disproved doesn't validate it in anyway. I think your labouring under the delusion that all propositions have equal merit, which is ridiculous; a million ridiculous things cannot be disproven, that doesn't mean we should give them any consideration.-Tim- THobern 05:10, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Just wondering why Euthyphro's dilemma is absent from this page.
So how is the concept of causility or "cause and effect" more justifiable than the existence of God? Both cannot be empirically tested; you can not "experience" both with your five senses. I understand that one concept can be "believed in more" than the other; for example, you COULD say that you believe in cause and effect more than you believe in the existence of God. But you can't say, from an empiricist point of view; that you KNOW casualty or God exists. So what I'm asking is how can scientists (and empiricists) believe in the concept of "cause and effect" more than they believe in the existence of God? How is causility more justified (and therefore, more readily "assumeable") than the existence of God? You can't say you know they both exist according to Hume, if you are an empiricisst, but why would anyone be an atheist (not believe in God), but assume that causility exist? 165.196.139.24 21:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I think that whoever put this post up has misinterpreted the Logical Law of Cause and Effect. For anyone that doesn't know, it states that "Every effect must have an antecedent cause". Now, using proper logic, God not having an antecedent cause does not violate this pillar because he is not defined as an effect but rather, the cause, because logically, everything that exists must have a starting point lest there be an infinite continuum of events that has no beginning and no end, which of course contradicts the law of cause and effect. If anyone would study philosophy, consider studying Logic along side it. You'd be surprised at how different the two really are. Prussian725 ( talk) 19:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)
While this may border more on the philosophical and psychological sides than the theological side (which this article does a great job explaining), I feel that it is missing a reasons for/against an individual person believing in God or a Supreme Being. I think that the entire section, or at least its prototype, can be molded around Pascal's Wager and Paschal's Flaw, as well as more conventional thought processes as the inherent inborn need find the truth to our existence, devoting time to what is accordingly important to either the betterment of the human species and our knowledge of science or our own personal beliefs (dictated by ones belief against or in God), etc. The section shouldn't be too long, but should probably passingly mention Voltaire, C.S. Lewis and/or Bertrand Russell. -- Lord Ramco 19:39, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
It seems to me that non of the arguments against the existence of God actually argue against God's existence. Rather they are arguments for the possibility of reality's existence without a need for God. Can some actual arguments against God's existence be provided? Or is that not really possible?
-- chad 10:40, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed that in this article often probability is used in arguments either directly or indirectly (e.g. Occam's razor). But how can one really ask the question "how probable is the existence of God?" I think not. The only way to answer such a question is if we could somehow say "of the 1 million realities in existence, three of them were created by a God. So the probability of God's existence in our reality is extremely low (0.0003% chance)." We can't say anything about probability here.
-- chad 10:53, 18 August 2006 (UTC)
Yoda921 03:20, 22 December 2006 (UTC)Yoda921
Excuse me? From where do you get these statistics? While evolution is indeed an unguided process, there is still a driving force behind it. Even if your unsourced statistics are true, then its a case of the prosecutor's fallacy. As something unlikely has happened, it hasn't. try telling that to a lottery winner. -Tim- THobern 03:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Okay, Craig is basing this on...? Anyone can reckon what they like, it doesn't make it any truer, especially when it flies in the face of the general scientific consensus. -Tim- THobern 05:13, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I was talking about a Evolution, not the big bang. Secondly for someone who has repeatedly submitted to ad ignoratum, you're awfully high and mighty. Thirdly, Wikipedia is supposed to reflect the general consensus, ad populum or not. -THobern- THobern 03:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
Sure. Just after you quote me my having said that. I said that your statisitc (0.000001%) was both plain wrong and misleading. See prosecutor's fallacy-- THobern 09:47, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
I dunno, "general scientific consensus" does nt always have positive and completely agreeable connotations. I mean, the general scientific consensus 500 years ago was that contenental drift didn't exists and before that that the earth was flat. And WAY before that, it was that maggots would spontaeneously generate on meat if left out in the sun. The problem I see is that an awful lot of scientists will call theories fact,even if they haven't proven it yet, just because it's easier or just because they so desperately want it that way. Prussian725 ( talk) 01:56, 11 June 2008 (UTC)
I have added an entry William Hatcher's proof in the For part of the article and provided a link. I am unsure whether we can provide external link in the article itself or should use footnotes instead; if anyone wishes to edit it, please do. Also, the "proof" itself is of decent length, but not too long; should the whole proof be presented in the article, or should it have its own article? Allan Lee 23:15, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I removed "clearly logically impossible" to "apparently self-contradictory" because this is something of a disputed question. I removed "Epistemological problems such as the "problem of the supernatural" cause no end to the misunderstandings involved in arguments for and against the existence of God" because it seems rather odd to single out this as a point of confusion, when there are plenty of complex philosophical discussed on this page. Also, it is unreferenced. -- Beland 20:28, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I don't agree with arguing over the exsistence of God. The only way to prove he does exsist is if we of course die. Anker99 00:37, 1 October 2006 (UTC)
That is Eschatological verification. 194.80.178.1 15:24, 12 November 2006 (UTC)
Even if you die and witness nothing for eternity it still doesn't "prove" that the universe was not created by an intelligent being. Sadly even dieing doesn't seem like a surefire way to "know" for sure. -- Jayson Virissimo 20:33, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
True, there is a "problem of evil." Here there is a contrast. There are millions of millionaires and countless affulent people across the US and much of Europe. Then you have people who could live on five thousand dollars a year over in Third World countries. There is an imbalance in our world. What would benevolence be if we all were equal? It would put one above another. Picture if Hollywood emptied out its collective billions of dollars, the hoarding governments of this world thousands of tons of gold and the trillions and trillions of dollars they spend finding new ways to kill their enemies. Jesus once said,"What you have been given, you have been given to share." Are we doing this? And if we assume God exists, we assume all that He is said to be. And if we assume this, a "What if all of the Bible were true, if all the Cathecism of the Catholic Church said was true?" view, challenge me on my talk page. Find a contradiction. Please. Assume it is true and look for an "innocent until proven guilty."
According to the laws of Conservation of Energy, energy cannot be created or destroyed. How then, does anything exist in the first place? JONJONAUG 13:52, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Or a philosopher. The physicists tend to dump the whole "why is there something rather than nothing" into our lap. On the other hand, there is some speculation that if you add everything up in the universe, everything cancels out to a big huge zero. Because of this, the universe could have just sprung into being from nothing, without violating any conservation laws. This is just speculation, though. crazyeddie 19:48, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
Another idea is that all universes with all possible rule sets just exist and we are just in one of them. This at first glance anyways seems just as likely as there simply being nothing or the existence of a creator. Lonjers 22:56, 8 December 2006 (UTC)
Asking where the energy originaly came from is like asking a Christain where God came from, they will either say that it was alwayse there or leave the chat room. 58.173.8.17 04:50, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
Or science just makes no claims because it does not know yet where as religion makes a guess from an infinity of possibilities. Lonjers 02:57, 12 March 2007 (UTC)
I refered to gnostics in the section on agnosticism. Ideally, the reference would have been followed by a parenthetical comment of the form, "(not to be confused with the Peruvian football club of that name.)" Only they weren't a football club, I think. more like an ancient Greek religion or philosopy. So, does anybody know what they were really? Wiploc 03:22, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
All of the empirical arguments against God are only arguments against the Christian God. The assumption that God does not exist because you've denied the literal translation of the Bible is false. ~ UBeR 05:54, 17 December 2006 (UTC)
Well actually the article does make mention of different definitions of God. To people who believe God is "whatever" created the universe, telling them there are flaws in the bible isn't even a valid argument. -- Jayson Virissimo 20:38, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
In the 1980 case of R. v. Davie 1980, the British Columbia Court of Appeal in Canada ruled that God is not a person. The court rendered the decision in the case of alleged arsonist Morrie Davie. In that case, a policeman had overheard Davie say: "Oh , God, let me get away with it just this once," but the appeals court ruled that a prayer is not a "private conversation between two persons," (which would be admissible evidence), because God is not a person. This ruling runs counter to the argument that Jesus is God and walked the earth as a person.[11]
Basically saying "The Canadians decided there wasn't one" is a little weak against the other points. 81.129.136.254 15:43, 21 December 2006 (UTC)
What exactly is being argued against? The article points out in the introduction and the section Definition of God's existence that "a basic problem is that there is no universally accepted definition of God. Some definitions of God's existence are so non-specific that it is certain that something exists that meets the definition; in stark contrast, other definitions are apparently self-contradictory." So which definition(s) exactly is/are being argued against in the against section? It seems to me that arguments against all major/significant definitions of God should be presented. This would include, for example, the Christian and Muslim ideas of God, making it important that arguments against this conception of God be presented. However, UBeR maintains that the following sections should not be included.
Within the framework of scientific rationalism one arrives at the belief in the nonexistence of God, not because of certain knowledge, but because of a sliding scale of methods. At one extreme, we can confidently rebut the personal Gods of creationists on firm empirical grounds: science is sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there never was a worldwide flood and that the evolutionary sequence of the Cosmos does not follow either of the two versions of Genesis. The more we move toward a deistic and fuzzily defined God, however, the more scientific rationalism reaches into its toolbox and shifts from empirical science to logical philosophy informed by science. Ultimately, the most convincing arguments against a deistic God are Hume's dictum and Occam's razor. These are philosophical arguments, but they also constitute the bedrock of all of science, and cannot therefore be dismissed as non-scientific. The reason we put our trust in these two principles is because their application in the empirical sciences has led to such spectacular successes throughout the last three centuries. [1]
Uber, you say that "these are arguments against a Christian God, not a higher being, per se, as the article calls for." But the article is not "Existence of a higher being." The article is "Existence of God," and therefore discusses the concept that is encapsulated in the word God, which includes the Christian God. Dave Runger (t)⁄ (c) 05:19, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
I also think the 'argument against god' should contain an argument that goes something like this: "Proponents of god fail to propose a definition of god. Because of this it is not possible to argue against the existence of god. Therefore, the conclusion that god does not exist can not be based on, and does not require, argumentation." -- 80.56.36.253 18:05, 28 April 2007 (UTC)
"Weak atheists don't believe god exists, but they also don't believe god doesn't exist. Explicit weak atheists find both theist and strong atheist arguments to be unpersuasive."
U think the first statement should be rewritten; it contradicts itself. The latter sentence sounds good enough to stay. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by M2K 2 ( talk • contribs) 15:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC).
No, it makes sense. They just don't believe in either. They've never considered whether a there is a deity. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
86.158.122.28 (
talk)
10:41, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
I'm afraid the material on Agnosticism is not only unsourced but completelty Atheist PoV and would have every philosophical agnostic from Huxley to Kenny LOL. I can't see any way of salvaging it but in case there is some usable material I am keeping it here. It said: "There are two common definitions of agnosticism. By the first definition, agnosticism is an exact synonym for weak atheism: the agnostic neither believes that god exists nor believes that god does not exist, but rather is open to both possibilities without being persuaded of either. By the second definition, agnosticism refers to lack of knowledge rather than lack of belief. Thus, a gnostic (not to be confused with the gnostic religious moment of the early Christian era) knows whether there is a god, and an agnostic does not. Naturally, many of these sorts of agnostics are also weak atheists: Since they don't know whether god exists, they also don't hold a belief on the topic. But others are agnostic theists or agnostic strong atheists; they believe something they can't prove. An agnostic theist might say that he believes on faith rather than on proof. This second type of agnosticism can be divided into strong and weak subtypes. Weak agnostics personally don't know whether god exists. Strong agnostics not only don't know themselves, they believe that no one else knows either." NBeale 18:32, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
We need to be consistent on our policy for arguments and counter-arguments. IMHO WikiPedia users should be able to find both each major argument and its major counter-arguments, but in a balanced way. So I suggest that:
Consistent with this I have (with some reluctance) removed "There is also a fourth possibility that considers Jesus as myth, not an historical figure." rather than amended it to "People who dispute this generally argue that the Gospel accounts do not record Jesus's life with sufficient accuracy, either because they are distorted or becasue his was a myth and not an historical figure" since obviously the historical-but-distorted view is an additional possiblility (and unlike the "myth" suggestion is not ludicrous!) NBeale 21:45, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
Why does virtually every argument in the "Arguments against the existence of God" section have a counter-argument embedded in the presentation of the argument? For example, the "problem of evil" section includes a statement that begins, "However, many religions have provided explanations for God allowing evil..." The "Arguments for the existence of God" section does not have built-in counter-arguments. I think this is not NPOV. Johnskrb2 01:13, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
Massimo Pigliucci summarizes the forms of argument against various conceptions of God thus:
Within the framework of scientific rationalism one arrives at the belief in the nonexistence of God, not because of certain knowledge, but because of a sliding scale of methods. At one extreme, we can confidently rebut the personal Gods of creationists on firm empirical grounds: science is sufficient to conclude beyond reasonable doubt that there never was a worldwide flood and that the evolutionary sequence of the Cosmos does not follow either of the two versions of Genesis. The more we move toward a deistic and fuzzily defined God, however, the more scientific rationalism reaches into its toolbox and shifts from empirical science to logical philosophy informed by science. Ultimately, the most convincing arguments against a deistic God are Hume's dictum and Occam's razor. These are philosophical arguments, but they also constitute the bedrock of all of science and are not dismissed as non-scientific. The reason we put our trust in these two principles is because their application in the empirical sciences has led to such spectacular successes throughout the last three centuries.
-- Pigliucci, Massimo (2000). "Personal Gods, Deism & the Limits of Skepticism". Skeptic. 8 (2): 38–45. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
So where does this belong, what argument is it, and where else in wikipedia is something similar treated? -- Merzul 14:26, 4 January 2007 (UTC)
"Agnostics generally do not believe in God, but do not call themselves Atheists." That makes no sense and should be altered. If you do not believe in a God, you are classified as an Atheist according to the same article so it should be changed. Daimanta 15:22, 11 January 2007 (UTC)
Agnosts are essentially unsure of the existence of God. This means they are unbelievers while at the same time not quite atheists.
One who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God. One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism. One who is doubtful or noncommittal about something. -Tim- THobern 02:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't accept your analogy. While, granted, there is a hard and fast answer to the mathematical problem, the existence of god is, by definition, unprovable and therefor subject to discussion on many levels. -Tim- THobern 03:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
"God is verifiable"? Well thank god for that. I'm glad you sorted that out for us. I'm guessing everyone who contributed to this article is going to feel really silly now that you've brought this startling revelation to light. How on earth didn't we realise that before?
-Tim-
THobern
05:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
Well you make it seem as if you have the correct answer to a simple yes or no question. Which, if true, would render the entire article pointless. Now would you care to share this verification with us? -Tim- THobern 15:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)
I always saw Agnostics as those did not believe in a religion, but had not decided upon a sentient creative force... (just my two cents) Raerth 08:46, 24 May 2007 (UTC)
It does no good in the context of this article (with classification being one of its very purposes), but technically every group except for atheists is agnostic. If religious faith is about BELIEVING, and agnosticism says one can't KNOW whether God exists, then even the Pope would technically be agnostic. And I say that as a deist. A religious person who says they know there's a God is either stupid or lying, because what they actually mean is that they very strongly believe. Ethereal Vega ( talk) 22:01, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
I don't know why these "see eg Polkinghorne" are so prevalent in the philosophy of religion articles, but whoever is doing this, please note that no featured article uses this style. I assume that the intention is to convey the fact that there are billion other people that could be cited... but unfortunately the only impression I get is that of laziness: if there are more sources, why aren't they explicitly mentioned? It is much stronger to just add the source with as much precision as possible. And you might want to consider using citation templates, because unlike using "eg", formatting citations properly does add some credibility to the argument. -- Merzul 19:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)
If we let the symbols W and W* be Spain and France, and if our object x is the weather and the property P(x) is that x is rainy, then what he says is essentially if it rains in Spain, but is sunny in France, then even in France it is raining in Spain, while in Spain it isn't raining in France. It makes sense, but it's just an explanation of modal logic. I don't see how this section from Plantinga's book is demonstrative of his thinking, its just a sentence from the middle of it. If anybody has his book, would you consider picking something more self-contained, and maybe with fewer symbols and hyphens :) Thanks! -- Merzul 03:04, 12 January 2007 (UTC)
I am suprised to note that "physical manifestation" (i.e. physical proof of the existence of God) has not been put forth as an argument. The occurences during Makarasankranti at Sabarimala ( Kerala, South India) have not yet been disproved by rationalists and God is believed to be present in the form of a bright intense light on the horizon. This occurs every year. Some believe it, some don't, but I think it should still be put forth in this article. Bhakthan 23:16, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
For some reason user:UBeR tagged this on 1 Jan 07. There seem to me to be 27 refs and 17 additional sources: in addition most of the substantial arguments have articles of their own. Should we delete the tag? NBeale 07:21, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the argument (against God) from improbability, which has not been documented. It could be merged with the line of though "Who designed the designer?"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion#Why_there_almost_certainly_is_no_God http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/dawkins06/dawkins06_index.html
Although there's a lot of good material in this article overall it is a bit of a mess. I suggest we consider the following principles for improving it:
What do people think? NBeale 08:00, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
I think that section contains a logical error in the part stating that the atheists' argument about God's knowledge is fallacious. Plato defined knowledge as the intersection of the set truths and the set beliefs. If God knows that something is going to happen, obviously it belongs to the truth set, and, by the generally accepted definition of truth, it is bound to happen. Free will is defined as the ability to change the future, therefore allowing one to do anything physically possible, forming a set of possible future events. If the subset future events of the set truths intersects with the set future possible events, the intersection describes obviously the future. But, assuming that no contradictory events can take place, and that there is more than one possible event, according to free will, this means only one event is possible, therefore denying one of free will. Orthologist 17:12, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
The Witness argument article, which is linked from this one, has been languishing in a state of uselessness for a long time, and never seems to have been a particularly worthwhile article. As best as I could ascertain, it hasn't had more than two sentences of valid content in the last 23 months. I think it's best to redirect it to this article. Any objections? Tim Shuba 02:53, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
Please merge relevant content, if any, from Mathematics and God per Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mathematics and God (third nomination). (If there is nothing to merge, just leave it as a redirect.) Thanks. — Quarl ( talk) 2007-03-09 09:43Z
# The Majority argument argues that the theism of people throughout most of recorded history and in many different places provides prima facie demonstration of God's existence.
It looks to be argumentum ad populum, not a valid logical argument Obscurans 06:59, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
Hi all: I'm sorry I can't see any merit in the most recent edits. Uber did a "minor edit" to "removed unrefed nonsense" which was in fact a point that had 2 refs and was not nonsese at all. There has also been a large insertion of WP:ESSAY material "But is that fair? (etc)" and references to non-notable websites. Could we try to justify additions rather than putting in lots of OR or removing refed material without disucssion please? NBeale 07:26, 19 March 2007 (UTC)
Pascals wager ( see edit here) isn't an argument for the Existence of God but on how to game the system in your favour. It is the lazy way to heaven and god-knowing-all will know just how sincere you really are. In the end it also misses the fact that there have been many gods documented over the years. If the other gods are as selfish as the Judeo-Christian one then you have quite a few hells to choose from....or if you are secular then you can't remember your birth so you won't remember your death. Ttiotsw 09:06, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
archived chat per WP:NOTAFORUM |
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The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it. |
New argument against the existence of GodWhat do you think of the argument against the existence of God in this thought experiment I came up all by myself (Which is probably the same thoughts some great philosopher had before, but I don’t know who) 1.0 Let’s suppose God exists. 1.1 Let’s suppose that this is the Christian God (or any other God of your choice) 1.1.1 This might mean that the Muslim God and the Jewish God don’t exist. This means Christians are right (read: are saved, go to heaven, well at least if they behaved well), the other two religions are wrong (read: are damned, go to hell, whatever). 1.1.2 However, this might also mean that the other two Gods exist in addition to the Christian God. This means all religions are right. However, this is against the exclusivity claim of each monotheistic religion, which by definition only allows a single God. This solution is a contradiction in itself (because how can you claim that your God exists but no other Gods exist?) (Also, did the Gods form a committee to create the universe? Or was one God the boss and the others his subordinates?). 2.0 Let’s suppose God doesn’t exist. This basically means that all religions are wrong. (wrong as in their basis as a belief system, not necessarily wrong as a tool to satisfy human need/desire to know 'the answer to life, universe and everything') Long story cut short, it just doesn’t make sense. Which would be an argument in favour of Atheism. Note: For the sake of ease of argument, all non Abrahamic religions are left out of the picture as well as different denominations (like Roman Catholic Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, whatyouhavenot, also Reform and Orthodox Jews, Sunnis, Shias, Druze, Alawis,….) but the example still works the same.-- Soylentyellow 22:28, 8 April 2007 (UTC)
Um... The Jewish and Muslim God are the same God as the Christian God, (not to mention the only God) so your argument is faulty. Bad argument. Here's a few arguments for the existence of God.
Argue against all that. MalwareSmarts ( talk) 21:39, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
All Godbots are basically the same, except some are fundy bigots and some are halfway sensible. The Muslims did generally treat Jews better than the Christians did in the Western Mediterranean, but not with full legal and practical equality. They only ascended to the position of worst religion in the world recently. Fairandbalanced ( talk) 01:33, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
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Is anyone surprised at how unbiased this article is? Seriously, it's pretty neutral. I'm proud of us.:) -- Asderoff 02:47, 25 April 2007 (UTC)
so good im scared >.> —Preceding unsigned comment added by
I would also like to commend the same. 70.243.124.216 ( talk) 18:45, 27 October 2007 (UTC)
Oh, come now. It has been a long time since I dueled with the Godbots here, but they clearly still prevail. It's built into the Wiki design; the vast majority of proper published sources are Christian, and the arbiters of Wiki correctness insist that small periodicals are not legit. For example, the Hitler article claimed he was an atheist because many sources written by Christians said so. It was not possible to correct the bigotry in any way since the guy running the show claimed to be an "atheist" and removed anything suggesting otherwise.
Why is it "Arguments against BELIEF in God" vs "Arguments for the EXISTENCE of God"? Both sections are about existence. There are corresponding sets of arguments regarding belief, but they are not included. Why do we have the titles "Strong atheism" and "Weak atheism" instead of more descriptive titles "No god exists" and "God probably doesn't exist" or something like that. The theistic side has descriptive titles instead of semi-pejorative labels. The totally neutral stance properly belongs under "agnosticism".
And that's just the subsection titles in one section. Fairandbalanced ( talk) 00:58, 17 August 2008 (UTC)
I noticed there was no reference to the lack of scientific evidence (or presence of it, depending on your viewpoint) of God. Things like God not being scientifically possible under current theories, that sort of thing. Perhaps some of that should be put in. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 211.30.132.2 ( talk • contribs) 11:17, 15 July 2007
Then, shouldn't the supernatural experiences be documented with proof for others to see? -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:39, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
The section in question must be removed from the article, because it is specifically un-academic in execution, and because it contains original claims on the author's part.
It was a statement concerning the section that reads thus:
The Argument from a Proper Basis argues that belief in God is "properly basic"--that is, similar to statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain." Such beliefs are non-falsifiable and, thus, neither able to be proved nor disproved; they concern perceptual beliefs or indisputable mental states.
But allow me to, as a first year Philosophy student, destroy this pathetic 'argument,' which runs as follows:
"The Argument from a Proper Basis mentioned in the "Arguments From Testimony (For)" section of this article is in itself inherently flawed. It argues that the existence of god should be accepted despite being unprovable, because statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain" can also not be proven through scientific method, when in fact they can. Seeing a chair can be verified by asking the subject to point in the direction of the chair, whilst pain can be detected through sudden elevated levels of serotonin and adrenaline in the brains frontal cortices responsible for the sensation of touch and pain. Taking statements like "god exists" at face value is more comparable to accepting similarly unprovable statements without question, such as "pigs can fly"."
Following a POV statement, which assumes the argument's conclusion, the writer asserts that the Proper Basis argument's position is that "the existence of god should be accepted despite being unprovable, because statements such as "I see a chair" or "I feel pain" can also not be proven through scientific method, when in fact they can." Okay, the author has revealed his/her contention with the argument. "Seeing a chair can be verified by asking the subject to point in the direction of the chair," the author asserts. This does not address the original argument, and is in truth does not follow. The argument did not concern the subject's seeing of the chair, but rather it concerns the subject's statement concerning the perception of a chair. The writer continues "pain can be detected through sudden elevated levels of serotonin and adrenaline in the brains frontal cortices responsible for the sensation of touch and pain." This, once again, fails to see the import of the argument; the non-falsifiablility of the claim "I feel pain" does not imply that pain's effect upon the person feeling it cannot be quantified, but rather implies merely the statement itself, which concerns the subject, not the subject's brain states, of which they are not wholly comprised. Xenofan 29A 07:39, 26 April 2007 (UTC)
I agree. It's a terrible argument. J'onn J'onzz 01:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
Argument from a Proper Basis only applies to statements such as "I believe there is a God", "I can sense God's existence", "I'm sure God exists", i.e. describing personal experience. It does not apply to the statement "God exists", which doesn't describe personal experience. Therefore this argument is not relevant to this article and should be removed from it.-- Jestempies ( talk) 11:09, 18 July 2008 (UTC)
I'm aware that Hawking doesn't deliberately seek to disprove god, but he certainly provides a lot of evidence in that direction. I'm not sure if it's been laid out by a philosopher before, but I think another argument for the nonexistence of god should be added here--. To clarify a bit... the average christian conception of "god" involves some degree of influence--we may have free will, but many people will hasten to ascribe good things to god, and bad things to the devil, and swear to high heaven (heh) that god actually hears prayer. When considered in the context of the rational world as we know it, simple concepts like that take on an unexpected level of complexity. How does he physically manifest to "hear" prayer, even silent prayer? What language does he speak? Where did the flood's water come from, and how did he get it there, and make it fall? Where in the universe, or out of it, exists the network of neurons or somesuch which forms his thought? You can quickly see, when you think about it, that gods actions only seem simple within the framework of human psychology--in our thoughts, in other words. This is not a proof, of course, but it is certainly an argument. I think there ought to be an article about this point of view. Argument from untenable complexity, anyone? Salvar 00:37, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
The majority of the bible is illogical when looking at the history of Earth without Christian bias. Man was not created by God. Man evolved from apes. J'onn J'onzz 01:46, 27 April 2007 (UTC)
I have recently added a new section focusing on the possible universal state of the human mind that stems religious beliefs. More precisely, on the psychology of belief. My arguments come from the book mentioned in the section. Is it possible to make a strong argument describing a belief in the existence of god from a way our brains are wired? Maybe following the same logic as Morpheus, from The Matrix, outlined in the following statement: "What is 'real'? How do you define 'real'? If you are talking about what you feel, smell, taste, and see, then 'real' is merelly electrical signals interpreted by your brain." - Igoruha 22:52, 9 May 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that the "deductive arguments against" mostly stem from premises few theists would accept, is that correct? Srnec 05:42, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
Samuel Butler contended, "that if God wants us to do a thing, he should make his wishes sufficiently clear. Sensible people will wait till he has done this before paying much attention to him." Thus however unexpected, particularly for those active on either of the opposing sides in this argument, the seemingly intractable question of whether or not God exists, and if so, the further question of whether such a reality can be knowable have both been resolved by a radical change in the existing paradigm of historical 'faith'.
First published online in late 2004, the first wholly new interpretation for 2000 years of the moral teaching of Christ is now a free [1.4meg] pdf download from numerous sites. [1], [2] It is titled: The Final Freedoms and this new teaching has nothing whatsoever to do with any religious tradition 'known' to history. It is unique in every respect.
This is the first ever viable religious conception leading faith to observable consequences which can be tested and judged; a teaching able to demonstrate its own efficacy; the first religious claim to insight and knowledge that meets the criteria of verifiable, evidence based truth embodied in action and experience.
This is pure ethics and both describes and teaches a single moral Law, a single moral principle offering the promise of its own proof, in which the reality of God responds to an act of perfect faith with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception. As such this teaching enters the public domain as a confirmed, existing reality entirely new to human history.
The terms by which history has conceived reality called God, in authority, knowledge, selfhood and time have been altered. Those able to think for themselves, who can escape their own prejudices and imagine outside the cultural box, who are willing to learn something new, can test and verify this new teaching for themselves. [3], [4], [5]
Goliah 21:47, 20 June 2007 (UTC)Goliah
I deleted the following sentence that is ill founded and illogical.
"The claim that the resurrection would validate Christianity dates from the earliest records, and it is common ground between theists and atheists that if the resurrection occurred substantially as described in the Bible then Christianity is substantially validated as true."
Many would argue that there are no contemporaneous records. The Biblical accounts were written decades after the death of Jesus. Also, there is no common ground as asserted. Have we done a survey? What percent of atheists agree to this? If the resurrection, or any miracle as described in the Bible actually occurred, it is equally possible that the Flying Spaghetti Monster did it all to fool us. Supernatural events can have any cause - they are unconstrained. Talkingtomypocket 05:02, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
I think most Wikipedia intro paragraphs are quite good, even if the rest of the article needs work. But this one contains the following, which is problematic.
"Some definitions of God's existence are so non-specific that it is certain that something exists that meets the definition; in stark contrast, there are suggestions that other definitions are self-contradictory."
The first part is unclear. "it is certain"? Perhaps, if the concept of God is identical with Nature. However, where supernatural beings are concerned, not much is certain. "Suggestions"? If there is no citation, this should be eliminated. -- Talkingtomypocket 02:41, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
"However you cannot do experiments on God, and, if God exists, God created the laws of Physics and is not necessarily bound by them, so it will inevitably be more difficult to reason reliably about God."
I'm not sure about the phrasing of this - it seems "weaselly". For example, the existence of God does not necessitate that it created the laws of physics - there is nothing *necessarily* to deny the state of affairs that the laws of physics as they stand in our universe pre-existed in potentia any creative act by God (or perhaps there is, and I'm being foolish...) What's more, being the creator of the law of physics does *not* mean that one is not bound by them, any more than building a box around yourself means that you exist outside it. If God created the laws of physics (or, by creating, brought them about concurrently) it is as likely that it is constrained by them after this creative act. What do others think? --visualerror
70.149.127.82 22:24, 28 July 2007 (UTC)
This section needs a re-write. It states that theism, atheism, and agnoticim are the 'three options' of beleif and this is wrong. Theism and atheism are complementary stances, as one is defined as the lack of anouther. Any beleif that is not theistic is by definition an atheistic beleif. No matter what other beleifs you hold you are ether a theist or an atheist - you can't hold neither stances. These are independant of agnosticm which concernes knowlage not beleif. For example you can hold the position that god existance is unknown (Agnostism) and therefore not beleive in its existance (Athiesm). Agnostism is NOT a halfway point between theism and atheism. Even if agnostism is defined as 'not having made up ones mind' then this means that they havn't yet decided that god does exist, and therefore they are still an atheist. You do not have to beleive that a god does not exist to be an atheist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.236.136 ( talk) 05:37, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Removed this section. The ability to destroy oneself does not contravene omnipresence, and I've so far met only one person who would claim that it does. Ilkali 15:16, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I just want to point out that anything "roughly" explained in Wikipedia is incomplete, and should one day become more-than-roughly explained. Currently this article has a sentence that says "Spinoza and his philosophical followers (such as Einstein) use the term 'God' in a particular philosophical sense, to mean (roughly) the essential substance/principles of Nature." I (and other readers) would like to know what they actually mean, if it's anything more complex than the presented definition. I hope one day the definition becomes complete. A.Z. 07:20, 24 September 2007 (UTC)
The anthropic argument is listed here as an argument in favour of the existence of God. Surely that's a mistake? As I understand it, the A.P. essentially says "The Universe is amazing, but we shouldn't feel an excessive sense of wonder [and hence infer a God], because, if it were otherwise, we wouldn't be here to wonder at it." Thus the A.P. is a rebuttal to the pro-God "argument-from-amazament". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.187.40.226 ( talk) 05:35, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
Google for "Anthropic Argument" Jok2000 17:25, 12 October 2007 (UTC)
In almost every instance where a pronoun references God, it takes the masculine gender. That might be standard within most religions, but it's not an essential property of "a monotheistic concept of a supreme being that is unlike any other being". I propose rewording to use gender-neutral pronouns - it, its, etc. Ilkali 11:58, 21 October 2007 (UTC)
Mike, here are the reasons I've reverted your edits:
I acknowledge your good faith, but your edits are not constructive. Ilkali 22:04, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
All respect. Wouldn't you rather direct than pin down a brother (or sister)? -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:43, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
I'd really appreciate it if someone could put in some of the themes covered in Bertrand Russell and Copleston's radio debate about God's existence, thanks. Also Doctors Greg Bahnsen and Gordon Stein's debate, which is scintillating. Not transcripts, naturally, but summaries of the points made on both sides. That would improve the article, in my view. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fledgeaaron ( talk • contribs) 01:42, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi everyone. I'm not experienced enough to edit the article myself (particularly as this one obvious needs specific care and attention in its writing) but I haven't seen any reference in it to the argument that God doesn't exist because there's no reason to believe it does. This is a pretty serious argument and the most important in my opinion - why would someone believe something when nothing in all the world even suggests it might be true, let alone proves it?
If someone thinks this could be added and phrased/researched in a proper way, I think it would be good to see here. 217.154.84.2 ( talk) 15:53, 20 December 2007 (UTC)dicklaurentisdead
It might be a waste of life if we all live believing what we are told without doing proper investigations? If God created us, then He created our senses and if all was made for a purpose, then, the purpose of at least some of the senses must have been to find Him. Maybe if we did we would appreciate Him more, collectively as humans... -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:50, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
This is an EXTREMELY important argument, and is probably so extensive that it would require it's own article. Here is a similar argument: Why, for example, do things like UFOs, Bigfoot, Ghosts, etc. have physical proof of their existence, however falsified that proof may be, yet it still exists. However, God has little if any physical proof of it's existence, but far more people believe in God or Gods of some sort, sometimes even fanatically, than they believe in UFOs and such? 66.41.44.102 ( talk) 10:59, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Before jumping in and editing the article myself, I'd like to point out that the article really seems much too broad in scope. The "Arguments against belief in God" section is pretty good, and represents the information I came looking for in this article. However, the real meat appears after a series of arguments for belief in God (What? If I wanted that I'd go to the appropriate article) and a lot of other information of questionable relevance. I would place "Arguments against belief in God" first, with the Psychological section merged in and rephrased as an argument. I'd follow this with "Philosophical issues," and then I'd summarily delete the rest of the article. What do other users think about this? Harkenbane ( talk) 00:32, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
Hiya, everybody and your uncles! I just felt like bringing up Douglas Adams' theistic argument from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. It goes as follows (it pretty much starts off in the middle of the babelfish article):
“ | Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything so mind-bogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the non-existence of God. The argument goes something like this:
"I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says Man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway isn't it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves that you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don't. Q.E.D." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn't thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says Man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. |
” |
The moral here I believe is that the existence of God would contradict God's existence, and just as much as I'd like to point this example out for argumentive reasons, I'd also like to ask in what argumentive category it would belong/be sorted? 217.208.26.106 ( talk) 13:25, 4 March 2008 (UTC)
Should we have an article on belief in God? As I noted at the talk page of {{ God Arguments}}, belief in God is closely related to the existence of God, but there are some subtle differences. Pascal's Wager, for example, isn't about whether God exists, but whether we should believe in him. You could also argue that we should believe in a deity even if they don't exist, perhaps from a consequentialist view for example. There's also Dan Dennett's concept of 'belief in belief', the spectrum of theistic probability etc. It seems to be a subject worthy of an article to me. Richard001 ( talk) 06:49, 29 March 2008 (UTC)
If 'God' is the name of a being, then it only makes sense that it should start with a capital 'G' like all our names, even names of pets - several people could have the same names! On the other hand, if 'god' is an item or a description of status, then the lowercase 'g' fits perfectly. -- Kaosa ( talk) 16:56, 5 December 2008 (UTC)
Since the logical proof for the existence of God formulated by late mathematician and logician William Hatcher is already on Wikipedia under W. Hatcher, perhaps a link to that proof could be provided also from this article.
The category of proofs "logical arguments for the existence of God" could also be added, including an explanation that most of them have been shown logically faulty. However, Hatcher's proof of God, where God is defined minimalistically as "one", "simple", "self-caused" and "universal cause", represents the first logically seamless proof of a kind of God and, as such, worthy of mention. Hatcher's proof is based on first and second order logic as well as set theory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.165.197.180 ( talk) 10:26, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
That sort of arguement would not be appropriate for the existence of God. The Logical Law of Cause and Effect, however, would be. Prussian725 ( talk) 14:40, 31 July 2008 (UTC)
I have added a section on Vedantic views on this. The section may need to be expanded to actually arrive at NPOV. But so far article was heavy only on one side ie Western, ignoring Eastern definition of existence of God as sat of chit-ananda. Referenced additions are welcome unreferenced unsourced items will just go. Wikidās ॐ 19:50, 24 July 2008 (UTC)
The last sentence of the third paragraph of this subsection currently reads:
"However, reliance on phenomena which have not yet been resolved by natural explanations may be equated to the pejorative God of the gaps."
It seems that it would be better to place this statement in the 'arguments against belief in God' section under Empirical Arguments. The person who disagrees with this would likely need to provide similar rebuttal-type sentences to the second and fourth paragraphs, which talk about empirical methods being unable to speak to God's existence or non-existence and the logical positivist position respectively. I'll wait a day or so and if no one responds I will move it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 13:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Please observe the way Strong Atheism is defined in the article:
"Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31] "
It seems to me that this makes the following quote applicable:
"Atheism comes from, literally, the Greek word a-, 'the negative'; and theism, the word theos for 'god' —'negative God' or 'there is no God.' It is affirming the non-existence of God. It affirms a negative. Anyone with an introductory course in philosophy recognizes that it is a logical contradiction. It would be like me saying to you, 'There is no such thing as a white stone with black dots anywhere in all of the galaxies of this universe.' The only way I can affirm that is if I have unlimited knowledge of this universe. So to affirm an absolute negative is self-defeating, because what you are saying is, 'I have infinite knowledge in order to say to you, "There is nobody within finite knowledge".' Atheism, as a system, is self-defeating." —Dr. Ravi Zacharias
I know this is not a popular opinion, but it seems logically sound concerning Strong Atheism as defined in the article. Would it make sense to mention this logical contradiction anywhere in the article? If so, where? If not, why? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 13:35, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
Unless it is logically impossible for something to exist, it is not possible to say that it doesn't exist. I realize that this leads to objections involving pink unicorns and flying spaghetti monsters, but it seems necessarily true that in order to say that X is not in a set Y, you must have complete knowledge of all elements of set Y. If Y is existence and X is God, then you must know everything in existence to know that X does not exist. Yet a being that knows everything in Y is the very definition given to God. So perhaps the term 'infinite knowledge' is a bit misleading and would be better suited as 'complete knowledge'.Firstly, it would not necessarily take infinite knowledge to ascertain that any given entity does not exist.
It's not a matter of belief, it's a matter of saying that it is the case that there is no being with 'infinite knowledge' or 'complete knowledge' or what have you. This position would require 'infinite' or 'complete' knowledge.Secondly, believing something that would require infinite knowledge to ascertain is not tantamount to believing that you have that knowledge.
If strong atheism requires complete knowledge of all things in existence, then it would.Thirdly, even if it were, that would not make it an entailment of strong atheism itself.
P1 defines God as a being with infinite knowledge, so it seems like the conclusion is logical. If P1 is valid then it seems that the conclusion is also sound.#C1 and P1 do not imply C2. The closest you get is if we assume C1 has a 'Strong atheism entails there is a being with infinite knowledge' corollary, but even then, we could not say that this being is God.
The last sentence of the first paragraph states
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
Surely this is in direct contradiction to the opening statement that defines strong atheism
Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31]
Strong atheism is not saying that it is unlikely that God exists, strong atheism is, as defined in the article, the position that a god or gods do not exist. I suggest this last sentence be removed or moved to the weak atheism subsection. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 19:46, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
As it stands now the meaning of the sentence is ambiguous. The above proposed change would help highlight the difference between the definition of strong atheism and the reasons for an individual believing strong atheism.It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist and therefore does not exist.
And more direct to the matter at hand... many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist
The problem is that strong atheists are not asserting that it is unlikely, that is indeed the weak atheist position. Strong atheists are asserting that it is not the case that god/gods exist. I submit that the sentence is inaccurate and should be altered to better reflect the strong atheist position. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 21:00, 6 August 2008 (UTC)... many strong atheists would assert that ... a god described in the manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist
As Mdwh pointed out, strong atheism, as defined by this article, does mean asserting that gods do not exist. This is stated in the second sentence of the subsection.Additionally, being a strong atheist does not mean asserting that gods do not exist; it means believing that they don't.
You are correct. Having said that, the article as a whole does not seem to use words like 'affirms', 'asserts', and 'believes' with a high degree of precision. However if you want to draw the distinction between 'assert' and 'believe' then it seems clear that the subsection is dealing with assertions, not beliefs. If that last sentence is dealing with beliefs and not assertions, then it is out of place and misleading. We should either remove it or alter it so that it also deals with assertions. Alternatively, if you think the distinction is small enough that it does not warrant such treatment, then the sentence becomes ambiguous and leads to the confusion over the meaning that we are having now. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 12:50, 7 August 2008 (UTC)One can believe that the existence of deities is unlikely and believe that they don't exist.
We've had some discussion on this in a general sense, and I think we got off on some tangent about 'believe' vs. 'assert' which no one seemed willing to quantify. Since that distinction is rather moot in light of the article's subject (asserting and believing can mean two different things, but in either case one would have to assert/believe the strong atheist position, which the article in its current form fails to represent accurately), I'd like to propose a change. The article currentlys states
Strong atheism (or positive atheism) is the position that a god or gods do not exist. The strong atheist explicitly asserts the non-existence of gods.[31] Some strong atheists further assert that the existence of some or all gods is logically impossible, for example claiming that the combination of attributes which God may be asserted to have (for example: omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, transcendence, omnibenevolence) is logically contradictory, incomprehensible, or absurd, and therefore that the non-existence of such a god is a priori true. It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
And the sentence in question is
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
I propse we make one of the following changes (slight edits)
It needs to be noted that asserting that the qualities of a particular god are contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many citation needed strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory does not exist.
It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many citation needed strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even if a god were described in a manner that was not contradictory, this god would still not exist.
The following are rewrites of the sentence:
Many citation needed strong atheists assert that lack of evidence for the existence of God is a reason to believe that God does not exist.
Many citation needed strong atheists believe that the lack of evidence for the existence of God is a reason to believe that God does not exist.
I think these changes best reflect the strong atheist position (God does not exist) as opposed to the weak atheist position (either 1) no good reasons and no credible grounds for believing that gods exist or 2) neither believe that a god or gods exists, nor believe that no gods exist). Thoughts? 160.109.120.55 ( talk) 14:43, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
No one disagrees with that statement. The issue is the meaning of the sentence. Maybe this will make it more clear. The form of the sentenceA person can believe that God is unlikely to exist and that God does not exist.
reads like this:It needs to be noted that believing the qualities of a particular god to be contradictory is not the sole basis of strong atheism; many strong atheists would assert that, owing to the lack of evidence, even a god described in a manner that was not contradictory is still unlikely to exist.
It needs to be noted that believing [justification 1] is not the sole basis of [position 1]; [position 1] would assert that [justification 2], even if not [justification 1], is still [position 1].
160.109.120.55 ( talk) 20:02, 12 August 2008 (UTC)
I can't help feeling that the reason for this muddle is that we are trying to pigeon hole arguments into either being strong atheism or weak atheism. Wouldn't it be better just to list the various arguments, without labelling them strong or weak? We should be listing the arguments that atheists actually make (which does include the claim that God's existence is unlikely, for example), rather than thinking we can't say that because we aren't sure if it's "strong" or "weak".
This would also help us with finding references too. For example, Dawkins makes the claim that God's existence is unlikely - but we can't cite him here at the moment, because I don't think he identifies as a strong atheist (he avoids the strong/weak distinction, IIRC). Mdwh ( talk) 22:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
Consider the Atheism article - although strong and weak are obviously mentioned, the rest of the article is not constrained by trying to pigeon hole everything into being either strong or weak. Mdwh ( talk) 22:46, 11 August 2008 (UTC)
This section has gone way too far into WP:FORUM territory. Remember that this is Wikipedia. All we do here is intelligently summarize and juxtapose quotable sources. Editors' opinions wrt the sources they are discussing are irrelevant. Yes, the "strong vs. weak" dichotomy for some reason has a long history of being blown out of proportion at Talk:Atheism. The purpose of this article isn't the classification of various atheisms, but the presentation of various arguments pertaining to "existence" for various conceptions of "God". Note that the stance of one philosopher as to the "existence of God" may vary considerably depending on what you mean by "existence" and what you mean by "God". This is far from being a yes-or-no question. Most intelligent atheists will probably argue that "God" isn't a well-defined notion at all (except for easily debunked naive Iron Age notions), and hence the assertion of existence is " not even wrong". -- dab (𒁳) 11:06, 14 August 2008 (UTC)