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Philosophical arguments against the existence of God
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The first argument would focus on the burden of proof. We don't need to disprove claims that have no evidence to support them. As Bertrand Russell put it:
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
As an atheist, I am more than willing to concede that there could be a deity of some kind, but I am also willing to concede that there could be leprechauns, fairies, and a reptilian extraterrestrial race that does experiments on human subjects. At this point, I think the possibility of any of those is about equal.
I have also found affinity to this terse yet compelling statement:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.
Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
--Epicurus
The universe is indistinguishable from one where there is no God, so why would you think there is one?
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The Davian creed. A belief which states that we all are a homo sapiens whose phenomenal narratives make us think that we are in some way free to choose certain courses of action, but in reality, actually dance to our DNA, and are totally determined in all that we do. A belief that is neither testable nor falsifiable.
But let us not stop there.
Davian's unfalsifiable, untestable belief is actually self-refuting. If our phenomenal narrative does not present us with an accurate description of reality, but a false one in which we merely think we are in some way autonomous, then based on the unreliability of said phenomenal cognitive apparatuses for presenting us with an accurate description of reality, we cannot rationally conclude that our cognitive apparatuses are presenting us with an accurate description of reality when they tell us that our phenomenal narrative does not present us with an accurate description of reality, but a false one!
Davian, your views are so multiply flawed and problematic that I often times have trouble in determining which flaw should be addressed first.
Take some time and actually think about what it is you believe and just try and untangle yourself from the webs of logical inconsistency and manifestly fallacious reasoning you have fallen victim to.
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There are some interesting experiments that cast light on this subject. One has to do with tracking a Frisbee in the air. When you throw a Frisbee for a dog they will match speed with the Frisbee, keeping it right over head until it is caught. Human beings do the same thing. It is instinctual. We don't choose to do it, we just do it. It demonstrates that we may not have the free will we think we do.
Proof that we don't have free will? No. Interesting? Definitely.
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Not at all.
Some here act like they do not know what the word means when philosophers use it in the context which I have referenced.
That is my point.
Philosophers have been having meaningful and fruitful conversations about God for hundreds of centuries.
I get on this forum and it is like stepping into the twilight zone. Atheists especially seem simply clueless regarding the rich history of philosophical discourse revolving around God and what attributes He would have if He existed.
I come here and the vast majority of atheists act like they do not know what I even mean when I use the word "God"!
I have trouble discerning whether or not some people here are even serious.
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How could I possibly know what you mean when using this word?
And you could simply resolve the problem by providing the definition you want counterarguments to be based upon. Your reluctance to do so is telling.
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Davian
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That would be a misrepresentation of what I said.
Not my belief.
By all means, put the flame to that straw-man.
It wasn't when I wrote it.
How are we not autonomous? If you see something falling in your direction, are you unable to move to avoid it?
Where did I mention unreliability?
Where did you get "false" from? Is the image on your computer screen false? "Sure, it may look like a web page to you, but in reality it is only pixels in a liquid crystal matrix. Don't be fooled!"
Or how you are going to stuff even more of them in there.
An apt description of your post.
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If you don't know what a Christian means when they use the word "God" then I don't think I can help you.
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I didn´t ask you for help. I am trying to help you with your request.
Remember: You are the one who opened this thread asking for arguments against the existence of something you are unwilling to even define properly.
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Davian
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Ah, the there-must-be-a-window-because-all-of-this-window-dressing fallacy.
"Now, when I try to read the story of “The Emperor’s New Clothes” in still another way, in the context of religion rather than of human power —that is, if I try to see the Emperor as God—a really weird thing happens.
It’s like I’m standing in the crowd watching the Emperor’s parade, and I don’t yell it, but I say it: “Where is the Emperor? There is no Emperor! There’s just clothes!”
What I see is a marvelous costume, very ancient and beautiful—a halo, a triple crown, robes of white and gold—floating along the street, but nothing, nothing inside them. Empty clothes.
Now, I honestly do not think all the tailors who have made those clothes, that God-costume, so busily, for all these centuries, did it or do it deliberately and knowingly as a con game, to deceive us. Maybe in part, but mostly I think the people who sew the garments of God are busy deceiving themselves. Priests, of course, can make a good living out of it and also gain secular power. But lay believers weave those garments day and night, all over the world, and to some of them it is the most important thing they do, and they love doing it. That’s fine with me, so long as they don’t try to make me do it with them."
https://ffrf.org/outreach/awards/emperor-has-no-clothes-award/item/11980-ursula-k-le-guin
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Davian
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I do recall that the description I use - a character in a book named "God" that [allegedly] walked and talked in a garden that has no evidence of having existed, poofed people and animals into existence, and later, in a manner contrary to the modern understanding of genetics, populated the planet with a tiny group of individuals and animals that survived a global flood in an unbuildable boat, a flood that killed the dinosaurs in a manner that only *appears* to be 65 million years ago, because the Earth is really only somehow 6000 years old, yet remains, by every object measure to date indistinguishable from nothing - has pretty much lasted around here with no attempts to correct it.
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