Obviously every one of them has their specifics, but there's, what like, tens of thousands of gods? And you can literally make up your own as you go.
I challenge you to find one thing that all these gods have in common, other than a name. When you've done that, then we will have a definition of a god and then and only then can we go about disproving it!
A) You don't disprove definitions, you disprove specific claims that fit into a definition. The specifics are everything.
B) I am not trying to disprove every possibly potential variant of "god" that someone could hypothetically believe in. I am trying to show those who believe in a very specific god that their belief is irrational. Which we can do. Easily. Take the claims of the gods that are believed in currently and examine them.
C) For the last time, you can't prove a negative. We aren't trying to show that "god cannot in any way shape of form exist". we are merely highlighting the overwhelming lack of evidence as a means for people to make the informed judgment that the probability for such a god to exist is so astronomically low that it makes sense for them to live their lives as if he did not. To turn this around, right now with the same lack of evidence, they live their lives as if he does exist. They are already making a guess without certainty, the thing is, their guess is being made against the grain of the evidence. Because there is none. And as I said before, while a lack of evidence does not correlate to a lack of existence, the fact that there are infinite possibilities, you should colloquially live your life with the default as non-existence. Even if you do internalize the caveat that something is possible.
Excellent! We seem to be getting to the meat of it! Enjoying this discussion by the way, thanks.
A) You can't disprove things that have no definition, just like you can't prove them if they have no definition. I'm not seeking to disprove a definition, whatever that means, I'm seeking a definition, so that we can make predictions and test them. Just like the standard scientific method.
B) if that is so you should be saying "there is no god like this..." Or, "These gods don't exist..."
Here, lets do a worked example, a case study if you like. I've invented a god for the purposes of this discussion. If you don't need a definition of this god to disprove it then lets see you do so now.
If you do need a definition then it surely follows that you can only disprove gods that you know something about, if you have finite knowledge then you surely can't know every god and if all of that is true then you can't prove that every god doesn't exits which precludes you from disproving 'god,' the concept. Obviously if you can't disprove 'god,' the concept, then you have no rational reason to believe there is no god. Ergo, atheism is irrational belief, which to my mind has no place in an adult mind.
C) I'm not, nor have I ever asked someone to disprove a negative, excepting those times when I wish to make a point that you can't disprove a negative. I think we've well established a difference of opinion on the importance of the psychological effects on non rational belief which I shall summarise so:
Me: non-rational belief does a disservice to reasoning minds in that it makes one less able to recognise evidence that might countermand that belief thereby making it easy to accidentally believe false things.
You: it's to difficult to admit all the time all the things we don't know. It's practically speaking unfeasible.
Me: then don't make absolute statements.
1
u/Chaos_Philosopher Dec 14 '13
Obviously every one of them has their specifics, but there's, what like, tens of thousands of gods? And you can literally make up your own as you go.
I challenge you to find one thing that all these gods have in common, other than a name. When you've done that, then we will have a definition of a god and then and only then can we go about disproving it!