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God Does Not Exist: Logical Statement?

God Does Not Exist: Logical? Scientific?

  • Scientific but not logical.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    41
What version of god are you talking about...

An unmoved mover or first cause which manifests itself as an ineffable force that permeates and unifies the entire universe; sensed in the remotest peripheries of the human consciousness.

...and how is it a plausible explanation?

Seems like it's a 50/50 probability. Either God exists or It doesn't. There's nothing to suggest that it's implausible, is there?

And what makes the garage dragon a random and nonsensical claim?

Because I can't think of a single model or theory or quandary which would logically point to the existence of an invisible garage-dragon.

If I tell you that not only do I have a dragon living in my garage, but that he also created the universe, does my claim become MORE or LESS plausible?

How did you come to this conclusion? What's the reasoning? What model or theory or quandary lead you to conclude that God is in your garage and that's he's an invisible dragon?

Can you honestly not see the difference?

I think the purpose of Sagan's example was to pick something that people DON'T commonly delude themselves into believing. But garage dragons aside, there ARE many other examples of widespread delusions that have nothing to do with religion: Ghosts, UFOs, astrology, homeopathy, magic, prophecies, etc.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.
 
If, as you say, God is a hypothesis of the structure of the universe rather than a being in the universe, then there must be a way to empirically test this hypothesis.

Why does there have to be?

So let's first clarify what exactly we're talking about here: What would the existence of God tell us about the structure of the universe, that could not possibly be true without a God?

Depends on which version of God you believe in. But in most cases the difference would be more spiritual than physical, and thus can't really be tested.
 
God is like a Ray-o-vac Battery--a life force--not a guy in a G-string, and flowing beard.
 
An unmoved mover or first cause which manifests itself as an ineffable force that permeates and unifies the entire universe; sensed in the remotest peripheries of the human consciousness.

If that's your definition of God, one could say that God exists without even the remotest belief in anything non-scientific. The Big Bang could be the first cause, which permeates the entire universe in the form of microwave background radiation and unifies the entire universe in the form of four fundamental forces. And some sort of spiritual experience is obviously sensed in the remotest peripheries of human consciousness, as scientists have identified which regions of the brain are active during religious experiences.

Ethereal said:
Seems like it's a 50/50 probability. Either God exists or It doesn't. There's nothing to suggest that it's implausible, is there?

Just because there are two options doesn't mean it's a 50/50 probability. Either a meteor will wipe out civilization in the next ten minutes, or it won't.

Ethereal said:
Because I can't think of a single model or theory or quandary which would logically point to the existence of an invisible garage-dragon.

Can you give me an example of something that would logically point to the existence of a god? (Might wanna revise your definition of god first so that we're actually talking about something non-scientific.)

Ethereal said:
How did you come to this conclusion? What's the reasoning? What model or theory or quandary lead you to conclude that God is in your garage and that's he's an invisible dragon?

Can you honestly not see the difference?

No. What model or theory or quandary led someone else to conclude that God lives in the sky or mountains or outside the universe, and that he's an invisible man (or whatever other kind of entity their religion tells them).
 
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"God does not exist" is an opinion (no evidence given) yet is being stated without such qualification and is being asserted as a fact. Therefore it is illogical.

"In my opinion God does/does not exist" would be a logical statement, as there is no way to completely disprove the statement.
 
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Why does there have to be?

If God is a hypothesis about the structure of the universe, then it essentially says "A universe logically must have Characteristic X if there is a god, and would not have Characteristic X without a god" (or vice versa). Therefore there should be a way to either test whether Characteristic X exists in our universe and/or disprove the claim that God is necessary/impossible in a universe with Characteristic X.

Dav said:
Depends on which version of God you believe in. But in most cases the difference would be more spiritual than physical, and thus can't really be tested.

Then it's not really any more logical than the garage dragon. I could claim that the garage dragon answers my prayers and is the source of morality and will send me to heaven when I die, or some other religious/spiritual claim.
 
If God is a hypothesis about the structure of the universe, then it essentially says "A universe logically must have Characteristic X if there is a god, and would not have Characteristic X without a god" (or vice versa). Therefore there should be a way to either test whether Characteristic X exists in our universe and/or disprove the claim that God is necessary/impossible in a universe with Characteristic X.

Characteristic X is order. Does the universe have order?

Does order come from chaos, or does it come from intelligence?

What is god, if not an intelligent being?
 
Characteristic X is order. Does the universe have order?

Does order come from chaos, or does it come from intelligence?

What is god, if not an intelligent being?

So you're saying that order can only exist in a universe which was created by an intelligent being? On what basis do you make this assumption?
 
Characteristic X is order. Does the universe have order?

Does order come from chaos, or does it come from intelligence?

What is god, if not an intelligent being?

Depends on how you define order. Does it have apparent order, meaning do we see things as orderly? Sure, but that's more to do with how our brains are wired than with actual order. If you're looking at thermodynamic order, then certainly the universe is getting less ordered as time goes on because of heat loss.
 
Depends on how you define order. Does it have apparent order, meaning do we see things as orderly? Sure, but that's more to do with how our brains are wired than with actual order. If you're looking at thermodynamic order, then certainly the universe is getting less ordered as time goes on because of heat loss.
Heat loss?
 
Depends on how you define order. Does it have apparent order, meaning do we see things as orderly? Sure, but that's more to do with how our brains are wired than with actual order. If you're looking at thermodynamic order, then certainly the universe is getting less ordered as time goes on because of heat loss.

The universe is a place of order. Once natural laws are understood, then events are predictable. When we don't see the order, it is because we don't yet understand the natural laws that exist.

Look at our own Earth, the place man best understands. What an complex and well ordered web of life we have here, one that we're only just beginning to understand totally.

Consider the [ame="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci_number"]Fibonacci sequence[/ame] and the ratio that it produces. That order is seen in everything from the arms of a spiral galaxy to the shell of the nautilus to the proportions of the human body. How could such a thing be if there were chaos rather than order?

Heat loss? Matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed.
 
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Heat loss?
'
The 2nd law of thermodynamics. In this universe we go from low to higher entropy, going from hot to cold, as in losing energy. Even though there are events that "store" energy, such as photosynthesis and eating, etc. the overall output of energy is always more than that which is stored. For example, the sun spent more energy that photosynthesis can ever store.

This, although at first seems chaotic, is actually very orderly.


EDIT: Well, the process goes in an orderly fashion, but what I think cephus meant was that in the beginning where energy was more concentrated, it had more "order". By the time all heat is loss, it would appear to have loss it's "order."
 
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Is this a logical or scientific statement?

God does not exist.
Neither.

If God exists and is omnipotent, then He transcends logic (by at least one version of 'omnipotence'), making any statement about God an illogical one (including this one. How recursive!)

Scientifically disproving the existence of anything is impossible, as inductive reasoning/the scientific method is never absolute. All science can tell us is that God isn't conclusively anywhere that science has so far looked, by the methods that science has so far employed. To paraphrase Dogbert - it's like using a metal detector to find if there are unicorns in your sock drawer. Absence of evidence =/= evidence of absence.
 
Heat loss?

The most perfectly ordered thermodynamic system was at the point of the Big Bang. Since then, we've been thermodynamically degrading as available energy is being lost through heat.
 
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