Can we be 100% sure there is/isn't a God?

Will we ever be able to answer the question above? Your thoughts are welcome.

Doesn't matter.The way I see it, there may be, there may not be. For all intents and purposes though, there isn't. We still have to go it alone on this planet, and might as well start taking a little responsibility for our actions without trying to pass the buck onto God.[EDIT]:
To more directly answer your question... we could 100% prove the existence of a God if God decided to take a stroll down Times Square and say hi to everybody. However, we can't ever definitively 100% prove any negative, ever. For instance, I want you to prove that Mickey Mouse isn't sending coded messages directly into my brain telling me to obey the Freemasons.Can't do it, can you?This is why the burden of 100% proving something is on the shoulders of the person who makes the assertation. No need to prove God isn't there. If the facts at hand don't support it, there's no reason to entertain the idea at all.-----------
Dan Carroll[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 04-29-2003]

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To more directly answer your question... we could 100% prove the existence of a God if God decided to take a stroll down Times Square and say hi to everybody.

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Actually we couldn't prove that it was God strolling around. Trivially, maybe he has doubles like Saddam Hussein. More seriously, you would need some way of extrapolating from the Times Square epiphany to an eternal, omiscient, omnipotent being - if that is the God you wish to be 100% sure of - and I cannot see how you could do so with 100% reliability. But of course 100% certainty is a practical impossibility in virtually every imaginable field of knowledge open to objective study.Believing in God is not at all like believing in mathematical proofs or empirical theories. It is much more like being in love. It is deeply personal and, frankly, not strictly rational. When you start to discuss religious belief in coldly objective terms - these empirical evidences, those particular emotional or physical effects - one has the feeling that the essence is lost in the examination. It's like killing an animal and dissecting it to find out what being alive means. You can see how the experiment might help, but it seems to be missing the point somewhat.

You are saying that religion is purely an emotional exercise, I agree.

Not purely emotional, but similar in nature to our emotional experiences.

No.There is no way of knowing whether or not there actually
is a god or gods.At best we can make some assumptions about what the world
should be like if there is/isn't a god (of any kind or faith)
and see if observations match our assumptions.But our assumptions are likely to be wildly inaccurate in this
case since none of us know the true nature of any god(s).

I thought in science that the opposite was the assumption.That is that we cannot ever proove something, but we can
refute things (i.e. disproove).In your example about Mickey, all that is required is for
some experiments to examine your brain activity, the energy
fluctuations around your body, perhaps some other things,
and we could potentially rule out that any signals where
being transmitted to your body ... that would disproove the
proposition.We could also investigate the liklihood that any Mouse
exists whose name is mickey and is capable of sending
signals.Science assumes that confidence in something is increased
if the predictions made based upon a theory cannot be
refuted, surely.

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In your example about Mickey, all that is required is for
some experiments to examine your brain activity, the energy
fluctuations around your body, perhaps some other things,
and we could potentially rule out that any signals where
being transmitted to your body ... that would disproove the
proposition.

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Nope. They're invisible, untraceable signals.But they're there. Honest.Do you see what I mean? I can always whip out another uncheckable theory.In fairness though, I'm talking more about logical rules than scientific ones.------------------Dan Carroll[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 04-30-2003]

I would have thought in logic that one can prove
or disprove something given sufficient data and
validated assumptions.In science one does not generally speak of proof, but
of weight of supporting evidence.In my suggestions for investigating you Mickey Mouse
claim you'll notice that I advocated an investigation
of the source (mice named Mickey), the route (the signals),
and the destination (your brain).If we cannot locate any support for your claim in any of those
investigations then weight of evidence points to the
proposition being untrue ... but that doesn't mean it's
been proved absolutely one way or another.If, for example, no evidence at all is found then we can say nothing
regrading the proposition. Absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence.But this is all beside the point ... I spoke to Mickey
and he assures me that it's not him

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If, for example, no evidence at all is found then we can say nothing regrading the proposition. Absence of evidence is not
evidence of absence.

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Um... I think we're agreeing, and just not understanding one another. Damn, I'm not used to agreeing with people on message boards, what do I do? What I was saying is that you can't ever 100% prove a negative, for the very reason you give above. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. That's why, according to general logical rules of debate, the person making the assertion has to support their claim, and not rely on, "you don't know it isn't, do you?"------------------
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Dan Carroll

I don't agree with this. Why should we accept that we are just alone and that science is the only answer? Our human capabilities clearly have limits. If we are able to comprehend the possiblility of God then it is worthy to be explored.

You are contradicting yourself in the same sentence. How can you make an assumption about an assumption? What if our assumptions are accurate? You can't assume that they are inaccurate. That would be making an assumption based on assumption.

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I don't agree with this. Why should we accept that we are just alone and that science is the only answer? Our human capabilities clearly have limits.

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Again, it has nothing to do with science (directly). It has to do with asserting a reality that is not supported by that which is immediately in front of us.I don't think what I'm saying is so radical an idea. It just boils down to supporting your claims. In other words, I don't see a God in front of me. If you think there's one there, please point out why. If you can't, why should I think there is?I'm also not saying there is definitely no God, or that there are no arguments to be made for God's existence. I'm just saying that the argument "you can't prove there isn't one" is a fallacy.

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If we are able to comprehend the possiblility of God then it is worthy to be explored.

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Sure. But how would it be explored? By seeking out evidence to support it. And if that evidence isn't there, then get back to me when you've found some. (Not you specifically... the universal you.)------------------
Dan Carroll[This message has been edited by Dan Carroll, 04-30-2003]

The thing that makes me atheist is while the existence of supernatural beings cannot be proven or disproven, it's relatively easy to prove that the kind of god worth believing in (a concerned, morally just, interventionist deity with unlimited power to correct injustice) doesn't exist or would be contradictory to the evidence.Since God doesn't intervene in situations of extreme moral injustice (genocide, etc.), he's either uninterested, immoral, or powerless. A moral, powerful, inactive god is a hypocrite. (In our world, if somebody has the power to right a wrong and doesn't, they're held almost as accountable as the wrongdoer.) A moral, powerless god may not be a hypocrite, but if it can't do anything, what's the point?I know none of these are new criticisms, but I've never heard an explanation that didn't either refer to ineffability (which I reject) or to god being bound to some "greater" moral code that binds him to less responsibility than he binds us to. Which would be immoral.Anyway, I just can't believe in a moral, just god with the power to intervene (which is the Christian god, right? At least in my old church) because the evidence is to the contrary. And personally I don't see the point in believing in a powerless or immoral god, so I don't. Thus, I believe in no gods.

qsI would have thought in logic that one can prove
or disprove something given sufficient data and
validated assumptions.[/qs]In deductive logic you can prove things to be true or untrue. Science is inductive. I like this quote...

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The honest scientist, like the philosopher, will tell you that nothing whatever can be or has been proved with fully 100% certainty, not even that you or I exist, nor anyone except himself, since he might be dreaming the whole thing. Thus there is no sharp line between speculation, hypothesis, theory, principle, and fact, but only a difference along a sliding scale, in the degree of probability of the idea. When we say a thing is a fact, then, we only mean that its probability is an extremely high one: so high that we are not bothered by doubt about it and are ready to act accordingly. Now in this use of the term fact, the only proper one, evolution is a fact. For the evidence in favor of it is as voluminous, diverse, and convincing as in the case of any other well established fact of science concerning the existence of things that cannot be directly seen, such as atoms, neutrons, or solar gravitation ....

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So enormous, ramifying, and consistent has the evidence for evolution become that if anyone could now disprove it, I should have my conception of the orderliness of the universe so shaken as to lead me to doubt even my own existence. If you like, then, I will grant you that in an absolute sense evolution is not a fact, or rather, that it is no more a fact than that you are hearing or reading these words.

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- H. J. Muller, "One Hundred Years Without Darwin Are Enough" School Science and Mathematics 59, 304-305. (1959) reprinted in Evolution versus Creationism op cit.

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