After life

(Repost; I think the system ate my previous attempt!)

“The existense or non- existense of God cannot be proved”

I think there’s a mistake in there somewhere. :slight_smile:
Why would someone who lacks belief in God even be required to prove God’s non-existence? We don’t usually expect the negative to be proven; we also don’t usually accept that something is equally likely to exist as to not exist on the basis that nobody has proven that it isn’t there. So… why have the normal rules been changed here?

Ok Friedmann :slight_smile:

It looks like my first post in this thread did show up after all. Perhaps I should have had faith. :wink:

Hi Ivana! :slight_smile:
I’m not sure what you are asking me, coz I think you might not understood why I was stressing the “non-existence can’t be proven”. I wasn’t insisting on it because I feel obligated to prove it :), but because I was stressing my point that existence of the omnipotent entity is not a scientific question (since that was the whole point of me being an atheist who doesn’t say ‘yes, I’m 100% sure god does not exist’).

By the way, I agree with you but you shouldn’t be asking me “Why would the non-existence of God even be required to be proven?” - ask those believers who, upon hearing that you are atheist, tell you “But you don’t have any proof that god doesn’t exist!” :slight_smile:

@Friedmann
"In fact the great Richard Feynman once said that we can never prove a theory ultimately “right”, we can only prove it wrong. The latter would then require to modify or reject the theory. The same is true for the theory that God Almighty exists. "

emphasis on the last sentence. Simply saying that the same is true doesn’t make it true :), I’d like to know ‘how?’. In all I’ve ever read and discussed on the subject, I still didn’t encounter a scientific way to definitely prove wrong the hypothesis ‘the god almighty exists’. I wrote in my last post why I think Dawkins’ god hypothesis is not the best approach to the problem.

Hi Aineko,

I’m sorry for the misunderstanding. None of what I said before was addressed to you; I was addressing this quote:

“The existense or non- existense of God cannot be proved”

… which I’m absolutely sure was posted by someone else called “locofoco” who also said agnostics hold the only true position in the existence debate. I disagree with the basis of the argument and further more with the conclusion. Many (in fact, I dare say most) believers and atheists alike also do not claim to have absolute knowlege and will admit to some degree of uncertainty (however much it varies), so I think that argument was a complete misrepresentation and that’s why I took issue with it.

I think I should state where I stand on it just to be clear. I’m an atheist, yet I make no claims about the non-existence of any deity, I simply lack belief in any of the claims that they exist. A lack of belief is not a “black and white belief system”; saying it is is like saying that “bald” is a hairstyle. :slight_smile: My mind could change on the basis of evidence (not on the basis of claims alone), but as of yet, I see no reason to hold a positive belief in any claims God or gods. There. I think that just about covers it.

Saludos :slight_smile:

@Ivana

haha, I’m sorry! :smiley: I wrote so much on this topic, many times in hurry (and also repeated myself few times :/) that I thought I must have written that sentence somewhere in my posts, since I’ve been the ‘loudest’ one about this whole ‘scientific question’ story :slight_smile: (I see now which locofoco post you are talking about).