If it's proven there's no god

Originally posted by Suzianne
Because it is nonsensical. God DOES exist. I'm not interested in some atheist's fantasies.

Ask the atheists a hypothetical question and then we can all queue up to answer

It is nonsensical. I'm not interested in some theist's fantasies.

And what great progress we shall make!

Originally posted by sonship
...Now, let's get a grip here.

If they "proved" that you do not exist yet it is still not the truth, then you're still here to be [b] "happy with my state of non-existence .. whatever that is."

You have to exist to be happy with your state ... regardless of anyone's alledged "proof" that you don't exist.

Am I missi ...[text shortened]... t have any state. You don't have anything. There is no you to have anything. ...[/b]

If they "proved" that you do not exist yet it is still not the truth, then you're still here to be "happy with my state of non-existence .. whatever that is."

You have to exist to be happy with your state ... regardless of anyone's alledged "proof" that you don't exist.

Am I missing something doc?

To start with your are missing a long tradition in Buddhism that argues your self is an illusion.

Philosophically, the argument of Descartes that "I think therefore I am" is mistaken, since all we can say is that "Thinking is taking place." There is no necessity for there to be a single, integrated individual self and if there is such a self, then it is not sufficient to evidence this by referring to the experience that thinking is taking place.

Psychologically, there is a respectable case made that our "self" is a cognitive construct by which we integrate diverse quite separate processes and patterns. There is no doubt whatever that many of these processes and patterns take place without engaging our "self" at all, because they happen outside of awareness. Nor can we doubt that we often observe in ourselves and others behaviours that are at odds with what we would expect of a rational or purposeful "self."

All in all, there are many perfectly serious and respected threads to the idea that we are not ourselves - that self is an illusion. Probably a helpful one of course: it works well most of the time. To phrase that differently, we are usually happy with this illusion.

So yes - you are overlooking a huge amount.

Originally posted by twhitehead
I think 'proven' was the wrong word. It is better to ask, "if you were convinced there was no god ...?"
I must point out though that I find many claims about god figures to be self contradictory or in other ways incoherent and I would say that demonstrating that is essentially proof of the non existence of an entity matching the given description. Althou ...[text shortened]... ould think if they were convinced that God didn't exist: ask an atheist who was formerly theist.

Of course to truly find out what theists would think if they were convinced that God didn't exist: ask an atheist who was formerly theist.

Inspired. You are inspired. You have correctly captured the essence of the debate.

One might go further and explore what does happen in the mind of such a new atheist. It is a topic not without interest.

Originally posted by stellspalfie
if you have the time to reply, why not just try and answer his question? im sure most atheists on here would be happy to answer any hypothetical asked by a theist.

A Question That Atheist Evolutionist Couldn't Answer

YouTube

Originally posted by RJHinds
A Question That Atheist Evolutionist Couldn't Answer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tkq5j-qc8g

Gee, how many times does it make you have posted the exact same BS video?

We can present evidence of evolution seen in our lifetime but you would just poo poo that too so go back to your hole troll.

Originally posted by sonhouse
Gee, how many times does it make you have posted the exact same BS video?

We can present evidence of evolution seen in our lifetime but you would just poo poo that too so go back to your hole troll.

It is only BS to you and other unbelievers who are perishing in their sin.

Originally posted by RJHinds
It is only BS to you and other unbelievers who are perishing in their sin.

I am still surviving longer than you. Your sedentary life as it is now will ensure you will be pushing up daisy's not long now.

My life is anything BUT sedentary. And I have ZERO fear of either death or some afterlife fantasy theists insist they KNOW about. They don't know SHYTE about it.

Originally posted by vivify
The supernatural can be proven if the supernatural entity performs miracles in plain sight, and takes reasonable steps to show it exists.

Claims about the supernatural can be disproved, such as the claim of a global flood. Since the only account of such claims are from people who claim God is real, disproving the claims about their god is enough to reasonably say there's enough evidence that their god didn't exist.

Well, a "miracle in plain sight" is not supernatural and is just part of what we can measure since it leaves traces. Of course, no "miracles" have ever been observed.

Originally posted by finnegan

To start with your are missing a long tradition in Buddhism that argues your self is an illusion.

Well, I am not really "missing" that point. Since I did study Zen Buddhism for awhile, I remember.

And there is some truth to that Buddhist teaching, in a way.

Philosophically, the argument of Descartes that "I think therefore I am" is mistaken, since all we can say is that "Thinking is taking place."

Well, he didn't say " ... thinking, therefore I am" but "I think, therefore I am." So I cannot so easily in this case over look the thinker. "I think ...".

There is no necessity for there to be a single, integrated individual self and if there is such a self,

We don't live this way, as if there is no "single, integrated individual self". Practically speaking, day to day, moment by moment, we do live as if there is for each of us, an integrated individual self.

Some who do not understand this may become mentally ill.
I cannot so easily say "there is no single, integrated individual self."
Are you not thinking for yourself in this discussion?

Are you not contending with the thinking of my single, individual self, in a way to correct my thinking ?

then it is not sufficient to evidence this by referring to the experience that thinking is taking place.

Again, we do not practically live this way.
I think the illusion matter can be taken too far.

But Jesus did teach that there was something about the fallen self centered, ( rather than God centered self,) that was not as permanent, not so real, not so reliable. We know this because He taught that to follow Him we have to deny ourself.

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, IF anyone wants to come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me.

For whoever wants to save his soul-life shall lose it; but whoever loses his soul life for My sake shall find it. " (Matt. 16:24,25)

In this regard, there is something a bit similar to Buddhism's belief that the self is an illusion. They understood that there MUST be something more and something more real than the self centered ego.

God is that One more real as the "I AM" . And He became a man saying "If anyone wants to come after Me [God incarnate] let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me."

This is mysterious because God became a man and pioneered and took the lead to DENY His soul-life for both redemption and to lead by example. Much needs to be said here. But basically verses like this confirm that something about the fall of man brought about an independent and self centered soul life, which is not as real as a human life with God at the center.

The Apostle Paul also pioneered into a life of denying the self in order to be filled with Christ - and therefore filled with God. The new "I" is Paul united and mingled with Christ - and therefore with God.

" I am crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith of the Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God; for if righteousness is through law, then Christ died for nothing." (Galatians 2:20,21)

Continued next post.

Psychologically, there is a respectable case made that our "self" is a cognitive construct by which we integrate diverse quite separate processes and patterns.

When I was deep into Zen, one day I was looking out of the window of a college building at the students across the street. I saw one young man crossing the street. As an approaching car came close to him, I noticed that he picked up the pace a little to assure that he got off the street and out of the way of the car.

I mused upon what I saw. And I decided that there was no illusion about the self. We do not practically live day to day as if the self is an illusion.

If he had lived as if he was an illusion he would not have sought to get out of the way of the approaching vehicle.

Having said that, there is something or Someone more eternal and more real than the self centered ego. And rather than destroy the soul, He wants to dispense Himself into the soul, unite with that soul, mingle with that soul and live again on the earth "wearing" as it were that soul quite comfortably.

So Paul, one of our Christian pioneers in the Christian life showed us how to get into this enjoyment of living in oneness with the available resurrected Son of God.

" I [ego] and crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I [ego] who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.

... I now live in faith, the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me."

What attracted me away from Zen to Jesus was that I came to understand that the Truth was not a Force or a Vibration but a living Person.

You see any mere Force is something lower than me. But a living Person such as Jesus, in addition to being powerful, is a Person "who LOVED me, and gave Himself up for me." .

A Person is a bit harder to give in to than a force.
Your ego remains forever transcendent to any force.
But a living Lord and Savior, God in Christ, rises above ego.

Yet this is no tyrannical transcendence.
This is no despotic transcendence.

"... Son of God who LOVED me and gave Himself up for me."

When I touched Christ I touched an eternal and enduring divine Love.
No force loves.
No mere energy or transcendent plane free from self, Loves .

A Person loves. And to touch Christ within is to touch the Lord of Love.

There is no doubt whatever that many of these processes and patterns take place without engaging our "self" at all, because they happen outside of awareness. Nor can we doubt that we often observe in ourselves and others behaviours that are at odds with what we would expect of a rational or purposeful "self."

All in all, there are many perfectly serious and respected threads to the idea that we are not ourselves - that self is an illusion. Probably a helpful one of course: it works well most of the time. To phrase that differently, we are usually happy with this illusion.

So yes - you are overlooking a huge amount.

It is nothing "new" introduced by Buddhism that there is something illusionary about the self.

The entire Old Testament book of Ecclesiastes has Solomon speaking again and again that there is a vanity of vanities to a human life "under the sun" .

IF you read Ecclesiastes you should see that the Bible gives an entire book devoted to declaring that there is something futile, something vain ... "vanity or vanities" and chasing the wind in emptiness about the fallen human life.

[quote] "He has made everything beautiful in its own time; also He has put eternity in their heart, yet so that man does not find out what God has done from the beginning to the end." (Ecc. 3:11)

We come into the world with a God shaped vacuum in our hearts. And this sense is a sense of vanity or that there must be something more than the self. I think some Eastern philosophies also recognize the vanity and react with a belief in the illusion of the ego.

There is something like a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every created man. Fortunately, Christ as God incarnate, has come to terminate that "vanity" and end gradually deliver His lover from that illusion and vanity that did truly accompany the fall of Adam.

Originally posted by KazetNagorra
Well, a "miracle in plain sight" is not supernatural and is just part of what we can measure since it leaves traces. Of course, no "miracles" have ever been observed.

The bible is full of supposed miracles that were observed by people. Jesus performed miracles right in front of people who he knew would later plot to kill him. There's no storage of supernatural instances detailed in the bible that were allegedly seen by others. So if the biblical god wants to prove his existence, all he needs to do is perform them in pain view.

Originally posted by vivify
The bible is full of supposed miracles that were observed by people. Jesus performed miracles right in front of people who he knew would later plot to kill him. There's no storage of supernatural instances detailed in the bible that were allegedly seen by others. So if the biblical god wants to prove his existence, all he needs to do is perform them in pain view.

Since the bible god is 100% manmade such miracles are going to be few and far between indeed. Sort of like NEVER.

Originally posted by vivify
There's no storage of supernatural instances detailed in the bible that were allegedly seen by others.

The bible is full of supposed miracles that were observed by people. Jesus performed miracles right in front of people who he knew would later plot to kill him. There's no storage of supernatural instances detailed in the bible that were allegedly seen by others. So if the biblical god wants to prove his existence, all he needs to do is perform them in pain view.

I think this is superfiscial. Notice what you wrote:

The bible is full of supposed miracles that were observed by people. Jesus performed miracles right in front of people who he knew would later plot to kill him.

The "proving of" His existence did not stop some from hating and conspiring to execute the Son of God.

There must be something being the mere "proving of His existence" that God seeks to secure from people. Besides the creation itself, He says, is the proof enough of merely His "existence."

As for the supernatural noticed by some outside of the community of faith, we have that in history.

The dark day in which there was not a solar eclipse was seen by people not writers of the New Testament. But skeptics with put up great fights that references to a sun darkened time during Christ's death outside of the Bible, are not authentic secular references.

I think it is a fallacy to think God always must manifest His reality by the miraculous.

And when He did manifest the miraculous often people missed the point of trust in Him. Apparently more than just objective head nodding is what God is after.

Forty days of God being miraculously manifested in thunder and calamity on Mt. Sinai did not stop the Israelites from wanting to return to Egypt following an idol of a golden calf. I think you should read the story and muse on the fact that the miraculous is no guarantee necessarily that God will obtain the human reaction He is after.

Some people do say "A miracle should enough for us."
But the candid record of the Bible doesn't confirm that. A miraculous manifestation of God may not cause the response He wishes.

We have to give some consideration to the reaction that God wants.
You may assume that an objective nod of the head - "Yep, I guess God does exist" is all that God wants or needs.

Maybe you are satisfied with a provision of object proof.
But God is after more in the heart in the way of trusting, obedience and love and the miraculous only goes SO FAR to secure these from men.

And not every dealing of God with believers was accompanied with miracles. In the books about the return from Babylonian Captivity in books such as Ezra, Nehemiah and Haggai I don't think there is anything overtly miraculous.

And in the Exodus we are told that the nations of Canaan knew of the miraculous done by God on behalf of the Hebrews escaping Egypt and crossing the Red Sea. This didn't stop some of them from fiercely fighting against the theocratic nation just the same.

Isn't this what you are also saying in writing this:

The bible is full of supposed miracles that were observed by people. Jesus performed miracles right in front of people who he knew would later plot to kill him.

Your simplicity holds it that:

So if the biblical god wants to prove his existence, all he needs to do is perform them in [plain] view.

We should not be so quick to assume God would IMPOSE or COERCE belief in Himself. Sure if it was written across the night sky -

"I AM HERE. I AM GOD" from end of the night sky to the other, perhaps more would fall prostrate "believing that God exists."

He doesn't seemed please to grand stand all the time in every generation in that way. He did do some miracles. But He also expects the manifestation of changed lives to testify for Him. And He does expect the conviction of His Word to convict us.

Day to day grandstanding in spectacular circus like displays of His existence is not His style. He does not desire to be that constantly intrusive upon us. He has given us His word to woo and secure the love and belief of those who want to be His.

Originally posted by sonship
How would it change your life if it were to be proved that you do not exist?

I picked this post of your's rather than the more recent ones above to remind you that it was you who raised this question.

It seems (from the context) you thought it was an effective way to respond to the OP which asked, "If it could actually be proven that the Christian god doesn't exist, how would that change your life, if you're a Christian? Is this something any of you here have given real thought to? "

I was attempting to point out that YOUR question about my existence is not an empty one (I suspect you imagined it was) and your extensive response, spread over more than one post, suggests that it was indeed productive; you seem to have taken some pleasure in the exercise it afforded. I will not debate your answer - it makes my point very well as it stands.

By the same token, then, there seems no reason in principle why the OP could not be productive of interesting and insightful discussion. If I can engage in a discussion about proof that I do not exist, then why can you not engage in discussion about the proposition that God does not exist? Whether I believe I exist or you believe God exists is not critical here.

Originally posted by finnegan
I picked this post of your's rather than the more recent ones above to remind you that it was you who raised this question.

It seems (from the context) you thought it was an effective way to respond to the OP which asked, "If it could actually be proven that the Christian god doesn't exist, how would that change your life, if you're a Christian? Is thi ...[text shortened]... t God does not exist? Whether I believe I exist or you believe God exists is not critical here.

If you can imagine that you don't exist or I can imagine that I don't exist, then it should be easy to imagine God not existing. However, I don't believe we can really imagine ourselves not existing anymore than we can imagine God not existing.

However, my belief may be just a product of my world view. What do you think? 😏