Test for not"God"

Omnutia

My mind was wandering and it again stumbled upon the problem of the problem that while many people believe there is/are/isn't/aren't god/gods the rational way of looking at it is that as deities are by design impossible to test for under current circumstances it is impossible to say for certain whether deities do or do not certainly exist.
Taking this into the theoretical and the proof for the existence of deities is obvious. All a deity would have to do would be appear and do something that confounds the unified field theory we should eventually have.
The problem is, in a theoretical setting, how would you get a decisive negative result? How can you show that gods as we imagine them to be couldn't exist?

chaosof99

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.

Most leading theologians claim that this argument isn't worth a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys, but that didn't stop Oolon Colluphid from making a fortune with his book Well That About Wraps It Up For God.

Hank

The problem is, in a theoretical setting, how would you get a decisive negative result? How can you show that gods as we imagine them to be couldn't exist?

You can't.

It is impossible to prove a negative. It is only possible to accumulate evidence that would force the believer to further amplify the power and craziness of their particular imaginary thingie.

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Doesn't science say "If you can't prove something is true it will be considered false until proven true or false."? I mean, lets say I come up with a very complicated thesis. We'll use the simplified version, 1+1=3. Then I have to prove that 1+1=3. But I can't. Then someone else comes and says "That's not true!" and proves that it is not true by taking one thing, and taking another thing, and counting the number of things he has. 1+1=2.

Now in the case of God (Christian one for now) there is no prove he exists, but one can prove he doesn't exist. I mean, they haven't found Noah's ark yet, they can determine the age of the earth, there are dinosaur fossils in the ground. And the bible never speaks of any dinosaur, and if they lived alongside Adam and Eve they would've been eaten.

am_dragon

You can not prove they/he/she does not exist. It's your decision. Believe they exist(theist), be unsure(agnostic), or believe the do not exist(atheist).
I am currently reading a book: God the Failed Hypothesis. The gentleman tries to prove with science that God does not exist. Most of the "evidence" he presents is based on presuppositions we have about God. In one example he builds a computer model to show that the symmetry in nature can be broken, and that shows a lack of design. One simple, or even very complex computer program can simulate breaking a pattern, but it can't simulate the entire universe. At what point did the symmetry break, can it be proven it wasn't designed to break?

Ultimately it's up to you to make the decision that you know in your heart and in your head to be correct.

Omnutia

More logical mind wanderings: If it is impossible to prove whether God exists under current circumstances then God must have no discernible effect on the universe so the existence or nonexistence isn't important; It changes nothing. Only the discovery of God is possible as he could always be hiding around the corner but when you find out it would just be a case of "so God did exist and now she is making a measurable effect of the universe; duly noted, what does this change?"

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I think if we come up with an answer in this thread that our universe will be replaced by something else more complex and mindbogglingly. Thank you Douglas N. Adams, may you rest in peace.

Apreche

You can't prove negatives. Just because a negative can't be proved doesn't automatically mean the positive is true.

You get evidence to support positives. As evidence to support a positive increases, and as evidence contrary to the positive decreases, the probability of that positive being true increases.

There are many things for which there is absolutely no evidence, for example the Flying Spaghetti Monster. To believe in such things is madness. Even worse, for something like the judeo-christian god which there is evidence against and no evidence for, it is even more crazy to believe it.

The only case where you disprove something is when it already has a pile of supporting evidence, and its likelihood of being true is very high. For example, we have a mountain of evidence suggesting that the sky is blue. If you can find just one piece of conclusive evidence that the sky is not blue, then that entire mountain of evidence is crushed. However, just because I can't prove the sky isn't red doesn't mean that it isn't blue.

Omnutia

But.. I have been touched by his noodley appendage.
I spose you're right. Even if all evidence points to the cake being a lie it might just appear one day.
Well at least one thing will never change. Dragons. With all the advances in bio-chemistry over the relatively short time humans have been around it is almost a forgone conclusion that someone picks up a book about Dragons from the remains of Earth and says "so that's what pelicans looked like" and makes a Dragon (the kind that deserve a capital D in the middle of a sentence) and at that point what remains of me will give a spiritual thumbs up to the universe.

Sail

Science never proves anything, science disproves things. A belief in a god is unscientific because it is an untestable hypothesis, meaning that it can't be disproved. Therefore, the default for science is no god.

And what the hell are you doing posting that comic without alt-text!?

Omnutia

Because the alt text isn't all that great.

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Because the alt text isn't all that great.

You do not have our taste or sense of humour, you have your own, possible similar taste or sense of humour. The alt text is part of the comic, part of XKCD.

HMTKSteve

The existence of God (or lack thereof) can never be proven with Science.

The belief in a God (or gods) is based on faith not science. You would have an easier time teaching quantum physics to a chair.