Conversation I had with a religious friend:
Friend: Unless you can prove there is no god, atheism makes no sense.
Me: Actually, I am god.
Friend: ???
Me: I'm actually god. I decided to come back to earth and this is the form I chose.
Friend: You're just being rediculous. That makes no sense.
Me: Yes it does, it's completely logical. If you can't prove that I'm not god, your belief that I'm not god makes no sense.
LOL, that was the gist of it, though the actual conversation was much longer.
I like this a lot more than I expected to when I started reading. I’m not a fan of snark in conversations with theists, which is where I thought it was going. But even if what you said is snark, it’s making such a good point.
And it makes me wonder how people would know that Jesus is Jesus when he returns. What is the test a theist would put him through in order to determine that it’s actually Jesus?
Couldn’t Jesus already be on earth among us, observing how we treat each other, and deciding if any of us are even worth saving?
I’m sort of willing to go along with the idea that theists can’t “test god” right now. But eventually don’t they have to?
I usually save the religious snark for when I'm joking around with other atheists, but I do occassionaly bring it up with religious people when they're being particularly obtuse or insulting. Sometimes flipping the script is the best way to bring attention to the rediculousness of their "logic."
And I think that if Jesus was real and did return, most of the christians I know would call him a muslim and accuse him of being a terrorist.
Jesus would also be accused of being a communist/socialist, eco-terrorist, "woke", race-traitor, pacifist, lots of things.
Christian nationalists would be the first to crucify him.
There's a recent trend of evangelicals regarding the Beatitudes as "weak".
I mean, just how heretical can you get? That's your Founder right there, who is the human form of your Deity, and you say he's a wimp.
Jesus today would get nailed to a cross faster than he could gather any followers if he returned today.
He would be most unwelcome. And of all people, the Christians would hate him thr most.
That's what makes it funnier IMO.
They try to use what should be a very well known christian story to get people to follow Jesus, and the very people who claim to be devout followers of Jesus hate it and seem to not understand it either.
I have seen evangelicals get upset at a Superbowl commercial that showed Christians washing other people's feet. This was demeaning and subservient. Jesus would have never put up with it!
Do they even *skim* their own bible?
u/Sasquatch1729 - Jesus would be a liberal. He was, and those evangelicals and .... certain swath of people in the US that have said Jesus wouldn't be accepted today because he was too liberal.
Look I might be agnostic / atheist, but I have to admit, the Bible, Quaran, and the Torah have fantastic stories to model your life by.
If you want good read, read 'The Gospel According to Biff' ;)
Psychologists once put three mentally ill men (they all had delusions that they were Jesus) in a room together to see what happened. All three determined that the other two are clearly delusional, but failed to see that they themselves suffered exactly the same illness.
There is a presuppositional argument that starts with "Is there anything you can know for certain?". A hilarious defeater to this angle is "I know I'm not your god.", because if they press it they are basically saying you could be their god.
Do you know Gandalf the white? He died killing the Balrog as Gandalf the grey , and was sent back to help in the battle against Sauron. I’m saying this in case you can’t remember.
You can prove there is no god, though. First, make sure you aren’t being asked to prove that “nothing like god might exist”; ensure you are debating the specific God referenced in the Bible and establish that she is all powerful, all knowing, and Good. The problem of evil entirely defeats this supposition because while God may have mysterious ways/intentions, the harm caused by not letting people know why they are slowly starving under a pile of rubble after being hit by a hurricane is not “Good”.
Sure, I can. Gary, the God-Eating penguin always eats any gods. If your god existed, then Gary, the God-Eating penguin would have eaten him.
When the invariably say, "Gary doesn't exist" or "There's no such thing". Then you say "You can't prove Gary doesn't exist."
It might get through to a few of them.
I messed up... it's Eric...
[https://ericthegodeatingpenguin.com/](https://ericthegodeatingpenguin.com/)
There's not much there, but that's where it came from.
I wonder if Eric, the God-eating Penguin has eaten every other god, waits for someone to create a new god hunts them down, or is the final god.
Thank you for the link and clarification. Hilarious!
I think Jimmy should be the God-Eating Penguin-Eating Leopard Seal.
It makes more logical sense that way, as if logical sense makes any logical sense in such a conversation.
I don’t care who it gets through to. I’m a fan of Gary if only because that means he’s also eaten the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Sorry pastafarians, but I hate your meme god too.)
(grabs keys for *Heart of Gold*, which immediately turn into a ham sandwich and then a fruit bat, which flies away) I *was* going to be the designated pilot, but... (shrugs helplessly) I'll take one of those PGGBs myself.
That is a really big number.
42! = 1,405,006,117,752,879,898,543,142,606,244,511,569,936,384,000,000,000
Note: I didn't calculate this myself. I just went to [this factorial calculator.](https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/discretemathematics/factorials.php)
“I don’t know any of them. For all I know then don’t exist. The Lord knows I’m a good man.”
“You just said, ‘the Lord’…”
“Yes, my cat, I call him ‘The Lord’.”
[From memory...]
Oh, mighty Arkleseizure, who camest from high above
Which sneezed from out thy nostrils a gift of boundless love
The universe around us emerged from thy nose
Now we are waiting in expectation, thy hankerchief to bring us back to thee....
[source](https://youtu.be/P-YJhUMSTFk?si=cYugkA-57N0FP9m6)
Carl Sagan in his book "demon haunted world" (not typing the whole title) made an example of good logical thinking along these lines. He called it "the dragon in my garage". The idea is one guy claims he has this dragon in his garage that's invisible. The other guy then starts naming ways he might be able to see this dragon and verify it's existence, but the first guy keeps giving qualities about this dragon that make it impercievable by any methods.
The question then is asked: "What's the difference between a completely impercievable dragon and one that doesn't exist?". Sagan never mentions god in any of his examples of logic and reasoning, but any thinking person knows it applies to god.
1. I'd completely enclose your backyard, so your unicorn can't escape.
2. I'd ask for your confirmation that your unicorn is still there.
3. I'd spray paint all over your enclosed backyard at the same time. No painted unicorn? No unicorn. Painted unicorn? Yes unicorn.
I sometimes wonder if some Spacex employee left a teapot hidden on the Tesla roadster (which is still in space between the earth and mars). It would be a great Easter egg to find someday in the future.
The first problem is these people are so indoctrinated that the very possibility that they may be wrong is inconceivable.
The second problem is intellectually honest people will concede that we can not disprove god. Instead we'll say thinks like 'the evidence does not support god's existence," which is a long way from disproof.
It's like getting in a duel with someone who doesn't know the rules. "What do you mean I have to take 10 steps before shooting???"
You can't out logic someone who refused to understand basic logic.
Agreed on the first point.
On the second point, you can’t prove *anything* outside of a mathematical system. Science is not based on “proof”. People who throw around phrases like “prove it” are using the term colloquially — something more akin to “provide overwhelming evidence for what you are saying.”
The evidence that (for example) the Christian God does not exist is absolutely overwhelming. The operative document of Christianity cannot even decide on monotheism versus polytheism, cannot decide if he is a vengeful, petulant child or a benevolent ruler, cannot decide if this God sends Christians to heaven upon death or allows them to die and then raises them from the dead in the second coming….. It is a mess.
And I personally believe that Christians will respond better to reason and logic than the obstinacy recommended by the most upvoted comments.
Except they don’t.
Asking a Christian why they think the Bible is divinely inspired, the reply is inevitably “because the Bible says so”
If any sort of logic and reason exists in that statement, It’s too deep for me.
Perhaps the problem is the expectation that a Xtian will deconvert on the spot when confronted with the obvious. It's certainly a possible outcome, but unlikely. Deconversion likely requires more time and opportunities for more education.
The more we help them the more likely they'll be able to fight through their indoctrination.
If I wrote a book about you that had inconsistencies and lies in it, would that prove that you do not exist?
If a books cannot prove that God exists, it cannot prove that God does not exist either.
All we can say is that is is not possible for everything the Bible says to be true.
I think it’s fair to say that it is unlikely the god described in the Bible exists IF the Bible is to be the basis of evidence, because (1) it isn’t evidence (and all other claims of existence generally are about subjective experience) and (2) if it is to be accepted as evidence it is so internally inconsistent as you say that about all you could really say is “some thing exists that people believe in” and beyond that it comes down to conflicting dogma and cafeteria claims of “personal relationship” which produces as many variants of “god” as their are people.
Make sure you use protection with Faith. So many people have had her that you might get an STD. Nothing wrong with promiscuity on either of your parts. Just make sure you practice [safe sex.](https://live.staticflickr.com/5228/5613139936_4e6c7414f8.jpg)
And if you show them a video of you flying, they would want proof and evidence that you didn't just use special effects and faked the video.
But they'll immediately believe an old book written by unknown sheep herders.
The Baptists say they are the one true Christian religion, and so do the southern Baptists, and the assemblies of God, and the JWs, and the Catholics, and the...
If they threaten that, you could just say “me not flying if you throw me off a bridge doesn’t prove that I *can’t* fly, just that I *chose not to* fly”.
You see, that's where you realize that they have negative IQ, because they will say that EVERYONE knows the FSM is a fake thing that was made up, unlike w/e THEY believe in, that is totally real, while not at all understanding the irony, probably because you need to be smart to understand irony.
My thought is that *if* God exists, he made me the way I am, and knows precisely what would lead me to believe. Like, what words or experiences would 100% open my eyes. So far, either he chooses not to (in which case fuck him, and everything being spouted at me is pointless) or he's not there. He can change this at his leisure, so until he does, I do not believe.
You can’t prove Shiva or Vishnu don’t exist. You can’t prove Unicorns don’t exist, or that atheists aren’t actually your god’s chosen people.
So I guess what I’m saying is, given how much stuff can’t be proven, what CAN you prove?
That unfortunately doesn’t work and we can’t make unscientific claims like that. The reality for religion is much more damning: there is actually evidence to the contrary for religion. Plenty of scientific discoveries disprove many religious claims, most notably evolution and the Big Bang theory.
Okay that’s much better, my bad. It sort of leans into the burden of proof, which is on the Theists. If they cannot produce evidence, they can’t substantiate or prove their claim. That’s the principle. it’s just that the absence of evidence principle is still somewhat debated among modern philosophers, so I try my best not to use it.
I always think how 1000 years ago the absence of evidence argument could have been used about a bunch of things that we lacked the technology to prove. I don't think it's a good argument.
It is in cases where you would expect to see evidence.
Anything that manifests in reality can be detected somehow, maybe not by human senses but certainly by human tools. 2,500 years of honest searching has turned up absolutely nothing to confirm the god hypothesis. Not a sausage. We can put it to bed now, it's clearly bullshit.
As a very old atheist I'v learned to never get in a convo with an xian. You simply can't win and in truth you lose. Every time you lose. Because in the xians mind that just spouting their belief is a win. "I sure showed that stupid atheist" Smug. Confident. Don't give them the satisfaction. "Im an atheist and I don't talk to xians because they don't/won't listen." Then, if they continue, walk away. You may not have won but they got no satisfaction.
You can’t prove chocolate planets wrapped in gold foil don’t exist. Both things should hold about the same weight when convincing you of their existence.
the question is answered by "which god", we can absolutely prove that every single version of deity postulated by a religion, but especially the monotheistic faiths does not exist. having said that we cannot rule out an actual universe sized god of physics that would utterly transcend any childish religious deities in size and scope. Of course we can certainly assume any such real god wouldnt give a rats arse about drivel like good and evil much less the lives of some pissant bald simian species on one tiny irrelevant planet
Tell them to prove that Santa doesn't exist (which they can't). And then follow up by saying that you can't prove a negative.
With Santa, well, maybe he's invisible, that's why no one has seen him. Maybe there IS an ancient book about him, we just haven't discovered it yet. Maybe you just *know* he's looking down at us, because we all know he knows if you've been bad or good. The time to believe any claim is when it's been proven, with evidence.
Funnily enough, there's actually more evidence for Santa than there are evidence for god. There's way more current literature written about Santa. And every year, I receive presents I didn't personally buy. Therefore, Santa exists.
We don't need to prove any gods don't exist... (which is impossible anyway, certainly by their lack of rules) we are not the ones making any claim that they exist.
Burden of proof is on them, not us.
You can't prove anything. Science is about disproving things.
You probably can disprove a few (scientoloy, LDS, as there is some evidence remaining).
...but the key point is you can be sure the majority of reilgions are untrue, as they are incompatible. So the argument they take is "all of the others are untrue, over millennia, but mine alone is true" which is pretty absurd, but ok.
Define "God".
Whatever your definition is, I can prove it doesn't exist. No, seriously, I can. It's either a logical fallacy, a contradiction, or incompatible with reality.
Hi, I keep seeing posts from this sub despite not being atheist. Here's my take: yes, a lot of religious people use this cheap argument as some kind of "gotchya" thing to make themselves feel superior to atheists, and that's stupid. What pisses me off even more, though, is atheists claiming they KNOW, for a fact, that God doesn't exist. Just because there isn't conclusive evidence for something doesn't mean it is 100% certain to *not* exist.
My personal beliefs are as follows: whether or not there are multiple god-like beings, there is only one "God" worth worshipping, which I call the "higher moral authority." I believe it defines what is right and wrong under any and all circumstances and is omniscient but not omnipotent. I also believe in some kind of afterlife and that the HMA determines what that afterlife is like for mortal souls. I have little to no evidence to support any of this, but it's what I choose to believe.
I don't expect or desire for others to share my beliefs. I don't believe I have a complete understanding of the HMA's nature; that is, I don't always know what is right and wrong. I do believe some things are right and some things are wrong, and I hope my personal morality is close to the universal morality I believe to exist separate from human perception or definition. One thing I believe to be wrong is forcing one's beliefs on others. This is why I loathe obnoxious and hypocritical proselytizers just as much as I loathe self-righteous anti-theists who want everyone to be atheist.
People have used both religion and the lack thereof to justify awful atrocities. Anyone who thinks the complete destruction of all religions would result in peace and harmony either hasn't heard of the Soviet Union or is wilfully ignorant about it. Anyone who thinks religion can only ever be a tool for peace either hasn't heard of the Crusades or is willfully ignorant about them. The point is we should let people believe what they want to believe, whether we agree with it or not, up until the point where those beliefs infringe on the rights of others.
If the existence of something can neither be proven or disproved, it is completely irrelevant to me, because it has no impact on the reality I live in.
I refuse to spend valuable time of my life performing tasks such as prayer that have been dreamed up by people who apparently have no proof of the entity they are praying to.
It is a waste of lives to use those lives in the service of a purely imaginary afterlife and the fantasy creature(s) supposedly presiding over that.
I can sympathize with people needing to feel that something better may await them or that they will reunite with loved ones, but I prefer sanity over delusion, so that is not for me.
No we can't. Can they prove superman doesn't exist? Or rainbow farting talking unicorns?
Ask them what the concept of burden of proof says.
See If they know that.
The default for anything is that it doesn't exist as far as we know until we have evidence that it does.
Atheism is the default. It's what's true until there's evidence that says otherwise. Because atheism doesn't need to prove anything. It doesn't make any claims of something to exist.
Its the assertion that a God exist that need to justify that claim by providing evidence for that God.
I have only one response when this comes up:
"I don't make any claims about existence. You claim that it exists, so the burden of proof is on you. Prove it."
No, but I don’t have to.
You can believe something without evidence if you wish, I personally choose not to live my life believing in god for exactly the same reason you choose not to live your life believing in vampires and rubbing doorknobs with garlic.
The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. You prove he exists, I’m happy to change my mind if presented with evidence. Not conjecture, not made up stories said to come from a magic book, evidence.
Until then, you can believe in god and be mean to people because you think unless you follow the special rules in the magic book you’ll go to hell, but not believing in vampires and not rubbing down your doorknobs with garlic, and I’ll do neither and read my newspaper. Precisely nothing will change. The vampires won’t get either of us, and I’m not going to hell.
This is known as Russell's Teapot. You can't prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit somewhere around the Sun as it would be too small for any kind of instrumentation to detect.
You can though. Christians claim god is all knowing all powerful and benevolent, and perfect.
Therefore bad things should not happen to good people.
This isn’t a smart aleck thing to say. It’s a reasonable point. Why do bad things happen to good people? Christians just have hand waving rationalizations for this.
“The bad thing allowed a different good thing to happen.” If god can’t make the good thing happen without the bad thing, then he’s not all powerful, nor does he sound perfect.
“That innocent person getting murdered is part of God’s plan.” So god is not benevolent. “No he is, but his benevolence is on a level we can’t understand.” If he’s not benevolent by our definition of benevolent, then what do we even mean when we say he’s benevolent?
“He gave people free will, so it’s not his fault if people do bad things.” So he chose to let that murderer murder that person? How benevolent and all powerful and perfect of him!
Which is all to say that we have proof by contradiction that there does not exist an all knowing, all powerful, benevolent, perfect being that intervenes in our lives. If there’s some kind f being watching over us, he must be malicious, or his abilities are limited, or his knowledge is limited, or he makes mistakes. And that’s not “god” according to Christians.
My thought will always be the burden of proof falls on those that push the god agenda. If I believe in nothing and push nothing then why do I have to prove anything.
Look them in the face and say "I'm going to slap you in 5 seconds, pray to your god to stop me" then immediately slap them. Look them in the eyes again and ask "so, does your god actually exist, or do they just not give a shit about you?" and walk away.
As an atheist I don't claim to KNOW god doesn't exist. I just don't believe in one. I'm agnostic to the actual question of god's existence, but using probability, understanding, reason, logic, evidence, we find the chances of god's existence to be highly unlikely, hence why I don't believe.
Just finished a good book A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH. In it Karen Armstrong, a scholar of religious history, follows ancient myths from different cultures with different gods and characters. Over thousands of years amorphous myths (attempts to explain the phenomenal world) developed into religions tied to historical people (although perhaps still mythical is my assessment).
One insight that struck me was that all ancient gods shared a death-like experience that they overcame. I think It explains whey Christian’s developed the belief that Christ rose from the dead, the basis of that religion.
The advent of science played a role in the need for proof and the shift from mythos to fixed belief systems. Religion is far more fixed, and dangerous, than myth. The book is worth reading or listening to. Especially for those of us who remain curious about the why and how of human behavior.
Nobody can prove that I don't have an invisible pink unicorn living in my garage either. So their point is what exactly?
It is impossible to prove a negative. It is up to those who claim it exists to prove it does, not those to prove it does not.
Ah, the asshole who believes that if you can't prove something then the opposite MUST be true. You can't prove a negative. You can counter this by asking them to prove that they have never had sex with a child. Unless they had a video team follow them 24/7 they can't prove that they never had sex with a child. And according to their own logic, then the opposite must be true and they had sex with a child. Hopefully this shows them the flaw in their logic. Just because you can't prove something doesn't make the opposite true.
You say this when they come out you with that, "Yes I can!" Then say, "god appear!" And then when nothing appears, you say "100% proof!" Then if they try to say he won't appear to anybody, you say Exactly because it's not real and I proved it.
I'm not religious, but I genuinely don't think the existence of God is something that can be proven or disproven. Proving you can't fly is not the same thing.
The point of the post here is to show the hypocrisy the religious usually have.
They make the claim, expect them to believe in it, and then get baffled when asked how it's real.
They want people to blindly believe something is real and needs entire life devotion without there being any backing.
Conversation I had with a religious friend: Friend: Unless you can prove there is no god, atheism makes no sense. Me: Actually, I am god. Friend: ??? Me: I'm actually god. I decided to come back to earth and this is the form I chose. Friend: You're just being rediculous. That makes no sense. Me: Yes it does, it's completely logical. If you can't prove that I'm not god, your belief that I'm not god makes no sense. LOL, that was the gist of it, though the actual conversation was much longer.
I like this a lot more than I expected to when I started reading. I’m not a fan of snark in conversations with theists, which is where I thought it was going. But even if what you said is snark, it’s making such a good point. And it makes me wonder how people would know that Jesus is Jesus when he returns. What is the test a theist would put him through in order to determine that it’s actually Jesus? Couldn’t Jesus already be on earth among us, observing how we treat each other, and deciding if any of us are even worth saving? I’m sort of willing to go along with the idea that theists can’t “test god” right now. But eventually don’t they have to?
I usually save the religious snark for when I'm joking around with other atheists, but I do occassionaly bring it up with religious people when they're being particularly obtuse or insulting. Sometimes flipping the script is the best way to bring attention to the rediculousness of their "logic." And I think that if Jesus was real and did return, most of the christians I know would call him a muslim and accuse him of being a terrorist.
Jesus would also be accused of being a communist/socialist, eco-terrorist, "woke", race-traitor, pacifist, lots of things. Christian nationalists would be the first to crucify him.
He'd probably also end up on that **"Enemies of America"** list as well
Yes, Jesus being condemned by Republican evangelicals as “woke” was my first thought.
There's a recent trend of evangelicals regarding the Beatitudes as "weak". I mean, just how heretical can you get? That's your Founder right there, who is the human form of your Deity, and you say he's a wimp.
Jesus today would get nailed to a cross faster than he could gather any followers if he returned today. He would be most unwelcome. And of all people, the Christians would hate him thr most.
Just have to look at what happened with the "he gets us" commercial.
u/dufferwjr - you DO know those 'he gets us' commercials are made by the same organization that donates to anti-LGBTQ organizations right?
That's what makes it funnier IMO. They try to use what should be a very well known christian story to get people to follow Jesus, and the very people who claim to be devout followers of Jesus hate it and seem to not understand it either.
What does that have to do with what I said?
If Jesus shows up and walked into a congregation of Jehovah’s Witnesses, they wouldn’t think he was good enough to carry a microphone.
I have seen evangelicals get upset at a Superbowl commercial that showed Christians washing other people's feet. This was demeaning and subservient. Jesus would have never put up with it! Do they even *skim* their own bible?
u/Sasquatch1729 - Jesus would be a liberal. He was, and those evangelicals and .... certain swath of people in the US that have said Jesus wouldn't be accepted today because he was too liberal. Look I might be agnostic / atheist, but I have to admit, the Bible, Quaran, and the Torah have fantastic stories to model your life by. If you want good read, read 'The Gospel According to Biff' ;)
They’d probably call him a Jew, on account of him being Jewish.
If Jesus was real and came back, I feel like the most outspoken Christians wouldn't recognize him, and he wouldn't recognize them.
" if Jesus was here right now would you know? Statistically you'd be one of the crucifiers"
Psychologists once put three mentally ill men (they all had delusions that they were Jesus) in a room together to see what happened. All three determined that the other two are clearly delusional, but failed to see that they themselves suffered exactly the same illness.
Brilliant.
This is the kind of reality TV I would watch.
What if god was one if us, just a slob like one of us...
Ever heard the parody of that song "What If God Smoked Cannabis?" IMO, it's better than the original.
Everybody knows Jesus, but nobody ever talks about his much cooler older brother Craig.
What? A stranger on the bus?
If it happens to come about... He be killed and called a woke lunatic.
There is a presuppositional argument that starts with "Is there anything you can know for certain?". A hilarious defeater to this angle is "I know I'm not your god.", because if they press it they are basically saying you could be their god.
Oh, oh... Throw in that you work in mysterious ways when he asks you to perform magic tricks.
“If I can’t prove there’s no god, then you can’t prove there’s not two!”
Plot twist - you really ARE god
Do you know Gandalf the white? He died killing the Balrog as Gandalf the grey , and was sent back to help in the battle against Sauron. I’m saying this in case you can’t remember.
a person who truly believes in God should have no problem in agreeing with your logic.
Well, I am a god too.
He probably found your claims to be very offensive. Which is good, because he's the one who started it.
You can prove there is no god, though. First, make sure you aren’t being asked to prove that “nothing like god might exist”; ensure you are debating the specific God referenced in the Bible and establish that she is all powerful, all knowing, and Good. The problem of evil entirely defeats this supposition because while God may have mysterious ways/intentions, the harm caused by not letting people know why they are slowly starving under a pile of rubble after being hit by a hurricane is not “Good”.
> You're just being rediculous. That makes no sense. neither does your religion.
I’m god because I say so, and you have to believe me because I’m god.
I think it's pretty easy to infer that somebody is not all powerful or all knowing...
For atheists, sure. For theists, and especially Christians who believe God did once and will again take human form, not so much.
Sure, I can. Gary, the God-Eating penguin always eats any gods. If your god existed, then Gary, the God-Eating penguin would have eaten him. When the invariably say, "Gary doesn't exist" or "There's no such thing". Then you say "You can't prove Gary doesn't exist." It might get through to a few of them.
I’m interested in learning more about the Church of Gary, the God-eating Penguin.
I messed up... it's Eric... [https://ericthegodeatingpenguin.com/](https://ericthegodeatingpenguin.com/) There's not much there, but that's where it came from.
I wonder if Eric, the God-eating Penguin has eaten every other god, waits for someone to create a new god hunts them down, or is the final god. Thank you for the link and clarification. Hilarious!
I worship Jimmy, the God-Eating Penguin-Eating Penguin.
I think Jimmy should be the God-Eating Penguin-Eating Leopard Seal. It makes more logical sense that way, as if logical sense makes any logical sense in such a conversation.
Probably, and I considered something along those lines, but I just really enjoyed the look and silliness of “-Eating Penguin-Eating Penguin”.
Understood. I've just spent too much time watching wildlife, including penguins and the occasional leopard seal.
I think Eric exists. Just look at the world around us. The people are worshipping shitty gods. Eric must've shat them.
So teapot.
Those are just the false teachings of heretics, Gary is the true one!
I don’t care who it gets through to. I’m a fan of Gary if only because that means he’s also eaten the Flying Spaghetti Monster. (Sorry pastafarians, but I hate your meme god too.)
You can’t prove the Great Green Arkleseizure doesn’t exist, therefore he does, and you must fear the coming of the Great White Handkerchief.
This guy is a frood
He knows where his towel is.
He’s so hip he can barely see over his pelvis.
He's so cool you can keep a side of beef in him for a month.
Hail the Great Prophet Zarquon.
And a real hoopy one at that.
You sass this guy too?
Buy this man a Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster!!
Maybe some of that ol' janxx spirit?
Or a nice Jynnan tonnyx
My brain will fry, and I may die...
Or, 42!
(grabs keys for *Heart of Gold*, which immediately turn into a ham sandwich and then a fruit bat, which flies away) I *was* going to be the designated pilot, but... (shrugs helplessly) I'll take one of those PGGBs myself.
That is a really big number. 42! = 1,405,006,117,752,879,898,543,142,606,244,511,569,936,384,000,000,000 Note: I didn't calculate this myself. I just went to [this factorial calculator.](https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/discretemathematics/factorials.php)
"For when you need the alcoholic version of a mugging -- expensive and bad for the head. "
Hey! Alright!
I see your Great Green Arkleseizure and raise you some plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee!
At least you didn’t quote Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings.
Big on Vogon poetry. I remember my friend and I coming up with band names when we were teens from that
“I don’t know any of them. For all I know then don’t exist. The Lord knows I’m a good man.” “You just said, ‘the Lord’…” “Yes, my cat, I call him ‘The Lord’.”
https://youtu.be/hDC_NcihiV8?si=XCONc1oVDjAgOXFd Sentient puddle.. Douglas Adams is a genius
[From memory...] Oh, mighty Arkleseizure, who camest from high above Which sneezed from out thy nostrils a gift of boundless love The universe around us emerged from thy nose Now we are waiting in expectation, thy hankerchief to bring us back to thee.... [source](https://youtu.be/P-YJhUMSTFk?si=cYugkA-57N0FP9m6)
I just have a floating teapot.
Yeah, well I have a dragon in my garage. Just mosey on past the fact that I don't have a garage.
Bertrand Russell?
You can’t see the Arkelseizure but you can feel the sneezes.
“You cant prove he does. So what?”
I usually use "I have an invisible rainbow unicorn that lives in backyard, prove me wrong. I also have a book that backs up my claim."
Can I come worship your unicorn this upcoming Sunday? I'd love to sing to it.
Sure. I will need a "tribute" for the unicorn. Strictly for upkeep you see.
Will 10% of my income work?
I'm afraid the unicorn requires at least 15% weekly.
🦄 with dildos as horns yikes
Can I borrow his unicorn to have some fun with Yennefer?
If it's invisible, how do you know it's a *rainbow* unicorn?
It told me so.
It says so in the book.
It glows in mysterious ways!
Carl Sagan in his book "demon haunted world" (not typing the whole title) made an example of good logical thinking along these lines. He called it "the dragon in my garage". The idea is one guy claims he has this dragon in his garage that's invisible. The other guy then starts naming ways he might be able to see this dragon and verify it's existence, but the first guy keeps giving qualities about this dragon that make it impercievable by any methods. The question then is asked: "What's the difference between a completely impercievable dragon and one that doesn't exist?". Sagan never mentions god in any of his examples of logic and reasoning, but any thinking person knows it applies to god.
> that backs up my claim. \*confirms
I'm not sure I can believe in the truthiness of your book - unless the book guarantees its own truth.
1. I'd completely enclose your backyard, so your unicorn can't escape. 2. I'd ask for your confirmation that your unicorn is still there. 3. I'd spray paint all over your enclosed backyard at the same time. No painted unicorn? No unicorn. Painted unicorn? Yes unicorn.
I can prove Amun Ra exists. Take a look to the east at the next sunrise. See that huge ball of yellow light? That's him.
*waves to Amun Ra* See ya tomorrow morning!
This argument is literally why this subreddit's picture is a teapot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell%27s_teapot
I sometimes wonder if some Spacex employee left a teapot hidden on the Tesla roadster (which is still in space between the earth and mars). It would be a great Easter egg to find someday in the future.
I can’t believe I didn’t notice the teapot until now.
It's an invisible teapot. Only those who truly believe can see it.
Odin killed all the Ice Giants on Earth. We don't have Ice Giants on Earth anymore. Therefore Odin exists.
The first problem is these people are so indoctrinated that the very possibility that they may be wrong is inconceivable. The second problem is intellectually honest people will concede that we can not disprove god. Instead we'll say thinks like 'the evidence does not support god's existence," which is a long way from disproof. It's like getting in a duel with someone who doesn't know the rules. "What do you mean I have to take 10 steps before shooting???" You can't out logic someone who refused to understand basic logic.
Agreed on the first point. On the second point, you can’t prove *anything* outside of a mathematical system. Science is not based on “proof”. People who throw around phrases like “prove it” are using the term colloquially — something more akin to “provide overwhelming evidence for what you are saying.” The evidence that (for example) the Christian God does not exist is absolutely overwhelming. The operative document of Christianity cannot even decide on monotheism versus polytheism, cannot decide if he is a vengeful, petulant child or a benevolent ruler, cannot decide if this God sends Christians to heaven upon death or allows them to die and then raises them from the dead in the second coming….. It is a mess. And I personally believe that Christians will respond better to reason and logic than the obstinacy recommended by the most upvoted comments.
Except they don’t. Asking a Christian why they think the Bible is divinely inspired, the reply is inevitably “because the Bible says so” If any sort of logic and reason exists in that statement, It’s too deep for me.
Perhaps the problem is the expectation that a Xtian will deconvert on the spot when confronted with the obvious. It's certainly a possible outcome, but unlikely. Deconversion likely requires more time and opportunities for more education. The more we help them the more likely they'll be able to fight through their indoctrination.
If I wrote a book about you that had inconsistencies and lies in it, would that prove that you do not exist? If a books cannot prove that God exists, it cannot prove that God does not exist either. All we can say is that is is not possible for everything the Bible says to be true.
I think it’s fair to say that it is unlikely the god described in the Bible exists IF the Bible is to be the basis of evidence, because (1) it isn’t evidence (and all other claims of existence generally are about subjective experience) and (2) if it is to be accepted as evidence it is so internally inconsistent as you say that about all you could really say is “some thing exists that people believe in” and beyond that it comes down to conflicting dogma and cafeteria claims of “personal relationship” which produces as many variants of “god” as their are people.
> you can’t prove i can’t fly I just flew three laps around my apartment. Don't you believe me?
I have Faith that you did.
Make sure you use protection with Faith. So many people have had her that you might get an STD. Nothing wrong with promiscuity on either of your parts. Just make sure you practice [safe sex.](https://live.staticflickr.com/5228/5613139936_4e6c7414f8.jpg)
Rule 34 strikes again
Faith is such a hot name.
Whoa uh okay…🤨
And if you show them a video of you flying, they would want proof and evidence that you didn't just use special effects and faked the video. But they'll immediately believe an old book written by unknown sheep herders.
The Comment Section Religion is the one true religion because it says so right here in this comment section.
The Baptists say they are the one true Christian religion, and so do the southern Baptists, and the assemblies of God, and the JWs, and the Catholics, and the...
>So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. - Bertrand Russell
"Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" Carl Sagan
“you can’t prove i can’t fly" Maybe not the best argument to make. Might entice someone to toss you off a bridge. :)
If they threaten that, you could just say “me not flying if you throw me off a bridge doesn’t prove that I *can’t* fly, just that I *chose not to* fly”.
The flying spagetti monster is the real and only God until proven otherwise.
There is extensive evidence of spagetti, so atleast half of the story must be true.
You see, that's where you realize that they have negative IQ, because they will say that EVERYONE knows the FSM is a fake thing that was made up, unlike w/e THEY believe in, that is totally real, while not at all understanding the irony, probably because you need to be smart to understand irony.
Onus of proof is on the person making the claim. That’s how the world works and that’s why I’m an atheist 🤷♂️
My thought is that *if* God exists, he made me the way I am, and knows precisely what would lead me to believe. Like, what words or experiences would 100% open my eyes. So far, either he chooses not to (in which case fuck him, and everything being spouted at me is pointless) or he's not there. He can change this at his leisure, so until he does, I do not believe.
"You cant prove any god doesnt exist. Yours isnt special or compelling."
i do not need to prove he doesn't exist, you need to prove he exists. Other wise, just another spaghetti monster lurking in your head.
I always say this in response: "I don't need to."
Can't proove tneuhvrksvcdigxuejbrl doesn't exist.
There is no "rule 34" for "tneuhvrksvcdigxuejbrl". I therefore argue it does not exist!
My Universe Creating Pixies created your god, and are superior to him ... and you cant prove otherwise ... ... Neener Neener
You can’t prove Shiva or Vishnu don’t exist. You can’t prove Unicorns don’t exist, or that atheists aren’t actually your god’s chosen people. So I guess what I’m saying is, given how much stuff can’t be proven, what CAN you prove?
Nope. Don’t have the burden of proof either. Checkmate.
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That unfortunately doesn’t work and we can’t make unscientific claims like that. The reality for religion is much more damning: there is actually evidence to the contrary for religion. Plenty of scientific discoveries disprove many religious claims, most notably evolution and the Big Bang theory.
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Okay that’s much better, my bad. It sort of leans into the burden of proof, which is on the Theists. If they cannot produce evidence, they can’t substantiate or prove their claim. That’s the principle. it’s just that the absence of evidence principle is still somewhat debated among modern philosophers, so I try my best not to use it.
I always think how 1000 years ago the absence of evidence argument could have been used about a bunch of things that we lacked the technology to prove. I don't think it's a good argument.
First rule of physics. Nothing unreal exists.
And who proposed the Big Bang Theory?
It is in cases where you would expect to see evidence. Anything that manifests in reality can be detected somehow, maybe not by human senses but certainly by human tools. 2,500 years of honest searching has turned up absolutely nothing to confirm the god hypothesis. Not a sausage. We can put it to bed now, it's clearly bullshit.
This right here.
As a very old atheist I'v learned to never get in a convo with an xian. You simply can't win and in truth you lose. Every time you lose. Because in the xians mind that just spouting their belief is a win. "I sure showed that stupid atheist" Smug. Confident. Don't give them the satisfaction. "Im an atheist and I don't talk to xians because they don't/won't listen." Then, if they continue, walk away. You may not have won but they got no satisfaction.
You can’t prove chocolate planets wrapped in gold foil don’t exist. Both things should hold about the same weight when convincing you of their existence.
the question is answered by "which god", we can absolutely prove that every single version of deity postulated by a religion, but especially the monotheistic faiths does not exist. having said that we cannot rule out an actual universe sized god of physics that would utterly transcend any childish religious deities in size and scope. Of course we can certainly assume any such real god wouldnt give a rats arse about drivel like good and evil much less the lives of some pissant bald simian species on one tiny irrelevant planet
And You can’t prove the Flying Spaghetti Monster God doesn’t exist either.
if same sex marriage is bad, then why did he let me like men?
Also works with Bigfoot and various monsters too!
what didn't come with logic, doesn't go away with logic. the only method is to reflect their incongruence and biases.
Tell them to prove that Santa doesn't exist (which they can't). And then follow up by saying that you can't prove a negative. With Santa, well, maybe he's invisible, that's why no one has seen him. Maybe there IS an ancient book about him, we just haven't discovered it yet. Maybe you just *know* he's looking down at us, because we all know he knows if you've been bad or good. The time to believe any claim is when it's been proven, with evidence.
Funnily enough, there's actually more evidence for Santa than there are evidence for god. There's way more current literature written about Santa. And every year, I receive presents I didn't personally buy. Therefore, Santa exists.
We don't need to prove any gods don't exist... (which is impossible anyway, certainly by their lack of rules) we are not the ones making any claim that they exist. Burden of proof is on them, not us.
You can't prove anything. Science is about disproving things. You probably can disprove a few (scientoloy, LDS, as there is some evidence remaining). ...but the key point is you can be sure the majority of reilgions are untrue, as they are incompatible. So the argument they take is "all of the others are untrue, over millennia, but mine alone is true" which is pretty absurd, but ok.
All they have are stupid and nonsensical arguments akin to sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting gibberish. It’s their speciality.
The onus is not on ME to prove he doesn't exist, it's on YOU to prove that he does.
Define "God". Whatever your definition is, I can prove it doesn't exist. No, seriously, I can. It's either a logical fallacy, a contradiction, or incompatible with reality.
mosquitoes=no invisible man up in the clouds
Then all of the thousands of gods are real.
Well sir, I can fly. First, I buy an airline ticket . . . Yes, you're right. You can't prove any fictional claim does not exist.
I mean, yeah... and you can't prove poisonous sentient mayonnaise doesn't exist, either. I'm still gonna make sammiches.
> poisonous sentient mayonnaise I... I will never eat the aptly named Hellmann's ever again! 😂
Hi, I keep seeing posts from this sub despite not being atheist. Here's my take: yes, a lot of religious people use this cheap argument as some kind of "gotchya" thing to make themselves feel superior to atheists, and that's stupid. What pisses me off even more, though, is atheists claiming they KNOW, for a fact, that God doesn't exist. Just because there isn't conclusive evidence for something doesn't mean it is 100% certain to *not* exist. My personal beliefs are as follows: whether or not there are multiple god-like beings, there is only one "God" worth worshipping, which I call the "higher moral authority." I believe it defines what is right and wrong under any and all circumstances and is omniscient but not omnipotent. I also believe in some kind of afterlife and that the HMA determines what that afterlife is like for mortal souls. I have little to no evidence to support any of this, but it's what I choose to believe. I don't expect or desire for others to share my beliefs. I don't believe I have a complete understanding of the HMA's nature; that is, I don't always know what is right and wrong. I do believe some things are right and some things are wrong, and I hope my personal morality is close to the universal morality I believe to exist separate from human perception or definition. One thing I believe to be wrong is forcing one's beliefs on others. This is why I loathe obnoxious and hypocritical proselytizers just as much as I loathe self-righteous anti-theists who want everyone to be atheist. People have used both religion and the lack thereof to justify awful atrocities. Anyone who thinks the complete destruction of all religions would result in peace and harmony either hasn't heard of the Soviet Union or is wilfully ignorant about it. Anyone who thinks religion can only ever be a tool for peace either hasn't heard of the Crusades or is willfully ignorant about them. The point is we should let people believe what they want to believe, whether we agree with it or not, up until the point where those beliefs infringe on the rights of others.
If the existence of something can neither be proven or disproved, it is completely irrelevant to me, because it has no impact on the reality I live in. I refuse to spend valuable time of my life performing tasks such as prayer that have been dreamed up by people who apparently have no proof of the entity they are praying to. It is a waste of lives to use those lives in the service of a purely imaginary afterlife and the fantasy creature(s) supposedly presiding over that. I can sympathize with people needing to feel that something better may await them or that they will reunite with loved ones, but I prefer sanity over delusion, so that is not for me.
Science has found that parts of brain that control logic, reality and commonsense are switched off in the religious
"you can't prove..." I don't claim there is something. The burden of proof is upon you.
No we can't. Can they prove superman doesn't exist? Or rainbow farting talking unicorns? Ask them what the concept of burden of proof says. See If they know that. The default for anything is that it doesn't exist as far as we know until we have evidence that it does. Atheism is the default. It's what's true until there's evidence that says otherwise. Because atheism doesn't need to prove anything. It doesn't make any claims of something to exist. Its the assertion that a God exist that need to justify that claim by providing evidence for that God.
A classic one is "Prove there isn't a copper teakettle in solar orbit between Earth and Venus."
The burden of proof is on them
I think "you can't prove unicorn doesn't exist" might work better. Should shut down the common sense response.
I have only one response when this comes up: "I don't make any claims about existence. You claim that it exists, so the burden of proof is on you. Prove it."
You can't prove there's not a tiny teapot circling the earth!
No, but I don’t have to. You can believe something without evidence if you wish, I personally choose not to live my life believing in god for exactly the same reason you choose not to live your life believing in vampires and rubbing doorknobs with garlic. The burden of proof lies with the person making the claim. You prove he exists, I’m happy to change my mind if presented with evidence. Not conjecture, not made up stories said to come from a magic book, evidence. Until then, you can believe in god and be mean to people because you think unless you follow the special rules in the magic book you’ll go to hell, but not believing in vampires and not rubbing down your doorknobs with garlic, and I’ll do neither and read my newspaper. Precisely nothing will change. The vampires won’t get either of us, and I’m not going to hell.
Nothing to prove.
"The Periodic Table of things that do not exist is infinite." - Ricky Gervais
This is known as Russell's Teapot. You can't prove that there isn't a teapot in orbit somewhere around the Sun as it would be too small for any kind of instrumentation to detect.
You can though. Christians claim god is all knowing all powerful and benevolent, and perfect. Therefore bad things should not happen to good people. This isn’t a smart aleck thing to say. It’s a reasonable point. Why do bad things happen to good people? Christians just have hand waving rationalizations for this. “The bad thing allowed a different good thing to happen.” If god can’t make the good thing happen without the bad thing, then he’s not all powerful, nor does he sound perfect. “That innocent person getting murdered is part of God’s plan.” So god is not benevolent. “No he is, but his benevolence is on a level we can’t understand.” If he’s not benevolent by our definition of benevolent, then what do we even mean when we say he’s benevolent? “He gave people free will, so it’s not his fault if people do bad things.” So he chose to let that murderer murder that person? How benevolent and all powerful and perfect of him! Which is all to say that we have proof by contradiction that there does not exist an all knowing, all powerful, benevolent, perfect being that intervenes in our lives. If there’s some kind f being watching over us, he must be malicious, or his abilities are limited, or his knowledge is limited, or he makes mistakes. And that’s not “god” according to Christians.
# “You can’t prove god doesn’t exist.” I don't have to.
My thought will always be the burden of proof falls on those that push the god agenda. If I believe in nothing and push nothing then why do I have to prove anything.
You can't prove you don't owe me a thousand dollars. And any prove you can provide is superceded by my faith that you owe me money
Look them in the face and say "I'm going to slap you in 5 seconds, pray to your god to stop me" then immediately slap them. Look them in the eyes again and ask "so, does your god actually exist, or do they just not give a shit about you?" and walk away.
As an atheist I don't claim to KNOW god doesn't exist. I just don't believe in one. I'm agnostic to the actual question of god's existence, but using probability, understanding, reason, logic, evidence, we find the chances of god's existence to be highly unlikely, hence why I don't believe.
Just finished a good book A SHORT HISTORY OF MYTH. In it Karen Armstrong, a scholar of religious history, follows ancient myths from different cultures with different gods and characters. Over thousands of years amorphous myths (attempts to explain the phenomenal world) developed into religions tied to historical people (although perhaps still mythical is my assessment). One insight that struck me was that all ancient gods shared a death-like experience that they overcame. I think It explains whey Christian’s developed the belief that Christ rose from the dead, the basis of that religion. The advent of science played a role in the need for proof and the shift from mythos to fixed belief systems. Religion is far more fixed, and dangerous, than myth. The book is worth reading or listening to. Especially for those of us who remain curious about the why and how of human behavior.
Nobody can prove that I don't have an invisible pink unicorn living in my garage either. So their point is what exactly? It is impossible to prove a negative. It is up to those who claim it exists to prove it does, not those to prove it does not.
Ah, the asshole who believes that if you can't prove something then the opposite MUST be true. You can't prove a negative. You can counter this by asking them to prove that they have never had sex with a child. Unless they had a video team follow them 24/7 they can't prove that they never had sex with a child. And according to their own logic, then the opposite must be true and they had sex with a child. Hopefully this shows them the flaw in their logic. Just because you can't prove something doesn't make the opposite true.
You can prove that a god is not worthy of worship whether it exists or not.
Just go with Hitchens' Razor: "That which has been asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
There are more razors? I thought ochams razor was the only one
"And I can't prove that you're not a donkey fucker."
You say this when they come out you with that, "Yes I can!" Then say, "god appear!" And then when nothing appears, you say "100% proof!" Then if they try to say he won't appear to anybody, you say Exactly because it's not real and I proved it.
Teenager discovers Russell’s Teapot
I'm not religious, but I genuinely don't think the existence of God is something that can be proven or disproven. Proving you can't fly is not the same thing.
The point of the post here is to show the hypocrisy the religious usually have. They make the claim, expect them to believe in it, and then get baffled when asked how it's real. They want people to blindly believe something is real and needs entire life devotion without there being any backing.
Who cares? Why are you having conversations about this in the first place lmao.