Disproving the Existence of God

[plekhanov]

Consider a bus. The bus has comfy seats and is going on a trip. The driver says the bus can do 100 miles per hour.

 

You can prove conclusively that the bus cannot do 100 miles per hour. Indeed you can prove that it is impossible for any bus to go that fast.

 

So you stand in the road declaring there is no bus.

 

This is analogous to your position. God is the bus, and the claimed speed is omnipotence.

You have disproved the speed (omnipotence), but you have said nothing about the bus (god). Meanwhile the passengers are having a nice trip.

 

You may be right. There may be no bus. The passengers might be imagining the trip, but does that matter?

Only if they start attacking the people on another bus for being on the wrong bus. Or fighting over what to play on the radio, or the curtains, or...

 

And yes, they will fight over those things, people are like that. That is not necessarily the fault of the bus.

This analogy fails in pretty much every way. Buses demonstrably exist and even if the proprietor of an individual bus makes unrealistic claims about the bus's performance you can easily perform a variety of tests to demonstrate that the bus whilst it might not be able to do 100mph it's still quicker than walking. Whether or not you'd want to board a bus being driven by someone with such a tenous grasp of reality is another matter.

 

In contrast no gods have been demonstrated to exist.

 

Some proposed gods, such as the popular abrahamic ones discussed in the OP can arguably be dismissed because their claimed properties are internally contradictory and furthermore are extremely difficult to reconcile with a world filled with suffering.

 

Other proposed gods are defined (often recently by religious apologists) with great care taken so that they are internally consistent and more compatible with suffering. There's still no evidence that they exist.

 

As to whether or not it matters whether or not people believe in gods, if people were content for those beliefs to remains a personal matter it wouldn't however all too often theists are anything but content for their beliefs to remain personal but instead seek to impose them upon others.

[Hairyloon]

This analogy fails in pretty much every way.

Do you actually understand the meaning and purpose of an analogy?

[HeadingNorth]

Do you actually understand the meaning and purpose of an analogy?

 

If he did not, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to point out all the flaws in this one.

[Hairyloon]

If he did not, he wouldn't have gone to such lengths to point out all the flaws in this one.

At least he is not alone in his ignorance.

[HeadingNorth]

At least he is not alone in his ignorance.

 

Given that he is not ignorant, that couldn't be the case at all could it?

[plekhanov]

Atheists vary radically in their approach, beliefs, attitude etc- they are not all aligned along the noble lines you claim.

So if you weren't making yet another slanderous strawman attack upon 'New Atheists' which atheists specifically were you talking about when you said:

 

"Let's suppose that the atheists succeed in their quest to eliminate religion, might they be tempted to turn their attention to art, and insist that to qualify as 'art', an item must be measured by 'art scientists' who can measure the artistic value of the object?"

 

Please bear in mind you had mentioned "Dawkins supporters (and possibly Dawkins himself?)" a little earlier in your short post.

 

<snip long winded concern trolling displaying an astonishing lack of shame considering your personal posting history and the post it is part of>

Don't you think all this holier than though self righteous guff would be slightly more persuasive if it hadn't not only come from someone with your history of making one dishonest attack after another upon atheists but as part of a post attempting to justify yet another dishonest attack upon atheists?

 

Your concern trolling is even less convincing than your absurd attempt to depict New Atheists as would be Mary Whitehouses.

[redwhine]

Atheists, and especially you redwhine, never say anything worthwhile.

I take that as a compliment, going on its source.

[redwhine]

How about not belittling people redwhine.

How about apologising for falsely accusing me of misquoting you, Grahame, before offering me advice.

 

Who was I belittling (in your opinion), and how?

[redwhine]

Good luck Karis and keep in touch, open mind and all that.

[redwhine]

For one, that is a stupid definition, and for two, if that were the definition, then all that would prove is that it is not a bus.

So if the bus represents god, then god is disproved.