All you know is that YOU have seen no such demonstration. That in no way proves that there has never in the duration of the cosmos been a demonstration.

Please, no arguments from ignorance!

ah, good point

@WilliamFleming There has been NO actual, testable, repeatable evidence, no contemporary recording of any miracle by any source besides religious writings, no verifiable evidence of most of the stories in religious writings. The historical record should be replete with reports of men coming back to life, a flood that destroyed the world, and so many other things that religious writings talk about but they are not. THAT is more than sufficient evidence that these were fictions created for the faithful and thus meaningless as demonstrations of the existence of ANY god or gods.

@sterlingdean And again, you do not know that. You can object to the gods and goddesses of scripture, but you can not disprove all concepts of a higher intelligence. Because something has been wrongly described does not disprove the existence of that thing. Besides that, written history only goes back a few thousand years. What about the millions and billions of years before that?

You are on shaky ground with your logic—you are, in fact, making an argument from ignorance.

My position on this issue is that the human intellect is not sufficient to understand the deep questions of existence. All of our concepts are based on the model of objects moving in space and time, and that model is contrived and illusory. When it comes to ultimate reality beyond the senses, our normal methods of argument are meaningless, and basically we don’t know what the hell we are talking about.

No one, for example, understands what it means to “exist”. According to modern physics, time is an illusion. With that in mind, all concepts such as motion, place, past and future, causality, etc. have no real meaning from a cosmic perspective. The nature of conscious awareness is a profound mystery of the highest degree, yet all our experiences are grounded in that. Truly, we don’t know what we ourselves are.

You don’t have to be very smart to recognize the gods and goddesses of scripture as fanciful myths. Once you see that it’s time to move on.

@WilliamFleming
" According to modern physics, time is an illusion. " Please show me a peer reviewed study that reaches that conclusion.

As for an argument from ignorance, you are making the greatest one. "The nature of conscious awareness is a profound mystery of the highest degree, yet all our experiences are grounded in that. Truly, we don’t know what we ourselves are." Or, we don't know, therefore God. Anytime you invoke 'profound mystery' to justify a potential for something supernatural, which is a definition of any god because they can violate all the laws of existence that govern the universe we inhabit, you are making that exact argument.

And yes, I can know that there are zero actually verifiable historical reports of actual miracles. I can't physically look back millions or billions of years, but that has no bearing on human history. If you want to say we not only don't understand things but CANNOT understand them, you're invoking the same kind of rationale that theists do when they say 'God Works in Mysterious Ways' and 'God's will is not to be tested'. It's a fallacy there as well as a fallacy here.

@sterlingdean

“...Or, we don't know, therefore God.“

Nowhere did I say that we know God. I am not arguing for the existence of God, nor do I have to. All I am doing is refuting your claim to have disproved the existence of God, something else entirely.

If you want a peer reviewed study showing that time is an illusion, read Reality is not What it Seems by Carlo Rovelli. I believe that it is chapter six that is entitled “Time Does not Exist” The book is well-documented and gives a summary of physics from ancient times up to recently.

“Anytime you invoke 'profound mystery' to justify a potential for something supernatural, which is a definition of any god because they can violate all the laws of existence that govern the universe we inhabit, you are making that exact argument.”

There is no such thing as the supernatural IMO. There are deep questions about reality that can not be understood with our illusory model of objects moving through space and time, but it is not helpful to label those as “supernatural”. Everything is natural. But what are those laws of existence of which you speak? Where did they come from? My contention is that humans DO NOT UNDERSTAND the meaning of existence. Read that book by Rovelli. BTW, Dr. Rovelli is a pronounced atheist.

You might disprove the objective existence of gods and goddesses as described by certain religions. In many cases those are nothing but fanciful myths, originally created as art forms. It is beating a dead horse IMO to go on and on about such a thing. But just because something has been wrongly described does not negate that thing. I can easily prove that the moon is not made out of cheese, but that doesn’t mean there is no moon.

The possibility of cosmic consciousness, an aspect of ultimate reality beyond our grasp, is something totally different. You can not disprove such a concept no matter what label you tack on.

No light is shed on the subject of reality and on our startling existence as conscious beings by saying that God did it. No light is shed on the subject by saying that all the matter and energy in the universe, along with the laws and constants of nature simply popped into existence in a single moment just on accident. Neither statement holds any meaning.

We just don’t know. We don’t understand. The only rational response is wonder, awe, appreciation and reverence. Arguing over belief is a sign of someone wearing a blindfold.

I am using the FIRST definition of the word from the American Heritage dictionary you quote.

God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

Well, then, jump off a building and argue with the Theory of Gravity, or try to accelerate to the speed of light and argue with relativity. When the theory fits ALL of the facts we know, it is ACCEPTED as VALID.

@sterlingdean . . . sigh, I can't believe, on this site, explanation is needed.

NO ONE (especially me) is disputing the existence of (the phenomenon of) gravity.

Perhaps I could have used "Law of Universal Gravitation". Newton invented calculus which, mathematically, (to an extremely close approximation) can describe gravity fairly well (and it is still useful to do so). BUT not-even he described what gravity actually IS. And the idea (Newtons' 'Law' ) "every object in the universe attracts every other object" is fundamentally WRONG.

Einsteins's General Relativity (that gravity is a curvature of spacetime) is (so far) settled science.

My whole "beef" with the word PROOF, in the context of science, is that it's use is (apart from math) inappropriate since there is always doubt etc. Non-believers (especially) are quite fond of "Evolution is just a Theory" (conflating the colloquial use of the word with the scientific meaning of it). Words Matter. For those who care about critical thinking, I think it is better to advocate using the accurate ones.

@FearlessFly Please explain how this "every object in the universe attracts every other object" is fundamentally WRONG? Every object has mass, mass distorts spacetime, creating gravity which in turn has and attractive effect on other objects with mass.

As for proof, if you can provide evidence that I'm incontrovertibly WRONG about something, I consider it proven. Like civil courts, I use the preponderance of evidence as my standard. Not only is there no preponderance of evidence that the God of the Abrahamic faiths exist, there is zero evidence that ANY supernatural being exists, aside from fuzzy photos that resemble a human being's face or figure or recordings of noise that resembles words, all of which cannot be repeated or confirmed in any meaningful way. I think that extreme lack of evidence over all of human kinds's known history is more than sufficient to come to a conclusion.

@sterlingdean Of course science CAN DISprove (falsify) things :

[en.wikipedia.org]

If you think Newton wasn't wrong, I invite you to write a scientific paper about that and submit it for peer-review to scientific journal(s) -- good luck with that.

As for courts and the existence/non of (insert flavor-of-the-month deity ), that generally doesn't work (if you ask Scopes) :

[en.wikipedia.org]

@FearlessFly knowledge brings sorrow
test everything, and keep what is good

I agree about belief and disbelief, of the hard sort, but how about current best guess? Doesn't everyone have that?

@skado It seems to me that whatever we say about the underlying basis of reality is meaningless. We can’t help but express our feeble ideas using our space/time/matter model, and that model just doesn’t cut it for describing ultimate reality beyond the senses. Physicists have their mathematical methods, but those equations are unfulfilling when it comes to deep questions of existence.

We all lean toward belief or disbelief in various ideas, but when it comes to the glaring and stark experience of conscious existence, I myself am totally baffled. It’s like asking your dog if he believes in the fundamental theorem of calculus. He can’t say that he believes or disbelieves. The best use he has for your calculus book is as a chew toy.

Argument from ignorance, we don't know, therefore God. Not a valid argument.

@sterlingdean As I stated clearly above, I am not arguing anything, either pro or con. Belief or disbelief are of no significance one way or the other. Rules of logic are human mind things and are of no help in understanding the basis of reality.

With respect to creation, to say that God did it is meaningless. To say it was just an accident is also meaningless.

No one understands ultimate reality.

That in no way demonstrates the validity of that belief. Some people believe the Earth is flat, but that does not make it so.

@sterlingdean But belief doesn’t require external validity. That’s the very nature of belief. It’s very different to making an assertion of verifiable fact.

@sterlingdean Who said that it demonstrates validity. I’m not reading it that way.

Deflection usually indicates a lack of a valid argument. Answering a question with a question is not a valid argument either.

@sterlingdean Just saving time by cutting out the middle man, because the question naturally follows on.

In answer to your question you need to clarify your definition of gods. In their earliest forms that we are aware of animistic deities are very real to the practitioners of their reverence. They are as valid as some who refer to Kim Kadashian or Donald Trump in their influence.

If you are referring to metaphysical forces, physics has uncovered many unknown universal laws that operate in their local environment efficiently, but are not relevant at a micro level such as the collapse of certainty in the quantum world.

Therefore, the term gods depends upon your definition, and whether that definition is agreed upon by those engaged in the debate.

Which leads on to the sociological question why would you believe,!or not believe, in gods.?

As you request, no logical fallacies or arguments from ignorance please.

@Geoffrey51 First definition of God in the American Heritage Dictionary.
God
a. A being conceived as the perfect, omnipotent, omniscient originator and ruler of the universe, the principal object of faith and worship in monotheistic religions.
b. The force, effect, or a manifestation or aspect of this being.

Now please proceed.

@sterlingdean Then my response stands.

@Geoffrey51 Your first response is a non answer to the initial query, a deflection to a completely different question.

@sterlingdean It’s not deflection. Geoffrey is making a valid point.

@sterlingdean Please see my response you have referred to regarding animism and the quantum world.

@WilliamFleming Thank you Bill. I thought it was me that was nuts for a minute!

@Geoffrey51 I have made a remark at the top. What do you think?

@WilliamFleming Nice one Bill. . I think this guy just wants an argument, not a discussion due to his fixation on whatever the fixation is!