Refuting Monotheism: God Does Not Exist

You gentlemen surprise me on this Forum. A labelling exercise??. . . only an ellaborate intellectual construction? Do you want us to go through the whole gamut of atheism all over again? Intellectuals don't talk the way you do.

You certainly have not gone through the gamut of atheism. You only took a dictionary definition of atheism, apparently claiming it to be the reference on atheism and then just went on ignoring the actual arguments brought forth. On top of that you accused me of revisionism in order strengthen your position and labelling mine as irrelevant. This debating technique is typical for Christian apologetics (e.g. C.S. Lewis) and misrepresents the diversity that exists among atheists. You are indeed putting up a strawman of atheism.

Have a look at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism
http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutatheism/p/atheism101.htm
http://atheism.about.com/b/a/229175.htm
http://atheism.about.com/od/definitionofatheism/a/reference_books_2.htm

I will copy the first paragraph of the last link for further clarification:

If theism is the belief in the existence of God, then a-theism ought to mean "not theism" or "without theism." Actually, there is no notion of "denial" in the origin of the word, and the atheist who denies the existence of God is by far the rarest type of atheist — if he exists at all. Rather, the word atheism means to an atheist "lack of belief in the existence of a God or gods." An atheist is one who does not have a belief in God, or who is without a belief in God. The importance of these distinctions is that one cannot understand what one cannot define accurately. An atheist cannot deny the existence of that which he finds to be without meaning, namely the term God.  In order to deny the existence of something, one must know what the term one is denying means.


Let me state it once more: atheism is simply the lack of God- belief. Atheism only deals with the belief in deities, not with knowledge about the existence of deities. I, as an agnostic atheist claim that even though I do not believe in the existence of God, I can not achieve positive knowledge about the (non-)existence of a deity, unless that deity is defined in such a way that it becomes falsifiable.

Maybe you can address the merit of the first mover argument as a basis for God belief, intelectuals should not use ad hominem arguments, sir.

Once more, only some atheists make categorical claims about the existence of God(s), others do not. Theists are in the habit of making categorical claims about the universe based on flimsy evidence, at least the strong atheists have more evidence in their favor than the theists do.
 
Most of those that claimed the earth was spherical had astronomical observations as evidence for their claims. Many civilisations (among them the Maya and the Egyptians) had knowledge about the spherical nature of the earth. A lot of that knowledge was destroyed when God-fearing Christians decided to burn the Alexandrian library to the ground because it contained ungodly materials.
May I inform you that this is not really a negative statement, but a positive statement in a negative linguistically wrapping.

Once you start describing the properties of God, I will do just that, but it is really irrelevant, as it would only disprove your strawman.

On a purely philosophical level you might have a point here, but this is the same like claiming that he should prove that invisible unicorns that are undetectable by human machinery do not exist. This can only be done if the subject of study (God) is falsifiable, either in the realm of logic or through observation. Therefore, only if you make your God falsifiable in one way or another can we talk about him, but for all intents and purposes, unless someone brings evidence to the contrary, God does not exist.

I was actually hoping you would respond to that  You forgot to embolden for all intents and purposes, obviously you rather ignore the parts that don't suit our purposes.
I clearly and explicitely said that I consider the non-existence of God a reasonable working hypothesis. I will stand by that hypothesis, unless someone bring convincing evidence of the contrary. To date, not a single theist has been able to do that.
Anyway, you continue in your relentless zeal of misrepresenting my positions and ignoring everything that does not support your case. This is a clear example of out-of-context quoting. What about the rest of the argument? Do you ingore that in your galant don quichotesque charge against the strawman of atheism?

Do you actually have a case for the existence of God that does not rely on unproved assertions?

Perhaps if you had stated, "for all intents and purpose, unless someone brings evidence to the contrary, I lack a belief in God" I might not have been led to make the inference earlier of your summation about the non-existence of God.

Let me make another thing clear to you: atheism proper is not agnosticism. The latter term is a recent coinage by Huxley who could not properly identify himself as an atheist even though atheism was many years in use before his time. Atheism questions the existence of God, not the lack of belief in God; whereas, agnosticism simply does not question the existence of God but rather lacks a belief in God. Why is this distinction important? One deals with the EXISTENCE of God ("God does not exist" - atheism); and the other deals with a LACK OF BELIEF in God ("I do not believe in God, whether or not He/She/It exists). I'm quite aware that many atheists today have this revisionist acquiescence with agnosticism, and that's why they want us to believe that atheism proper has NEVER been defined as the belief that God does not exist. There are so many examples of this distinction if you do a careful search on the net yourself (just so you won't think I'm biased, here's an example from a website antagonistic to Christianity:  http://www.evilbible.com/Definition_of_Atheism_1.htm ). The debate here does not seem to have started off being about lack of belief in God but rather about the existence of God.
 
Sometimes, some individuals are in the hilarious habit of trying to make such sweeping definition of atheism based on what they want the public to feel about them. An example is Dean W. Austin (http://www.galah.org/myreasons.html ) who says that "Belief that God does not exist" is the definition proffered by theists. NOT TRUE!! Some others have therefore asked that we ceased quoting such Christian apologists as C. S. Lewis because theists are the ones who proffer such definitions, as Dean Austin suggests. Austin is making a biased claim. Atheists themselves of no mean stature defined atheism as pointing to a claim that God does not exist, ala Doug Jesseph. Expantiating on his definition of atheism, Doug said: "Someone who simply lacks theistic belief, a small child who has never been taught about God, or someone who simply rejects God as an act of rebellion does not count as an atheist." His own claims runs like this: "I claim that there is no rational justification for the belief in the existence of God. I also claim that the evidence is strongly against it; that the rational conclusion to draw is that there is no God. I do not believe that agnosticism is necessarily a stable middle position. I believe that if you add the evidence up and start drawing conclusions, there is about as much reason to believe in the existence of God as there is to believe in leprechauns." http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/doug_jesseph/jesseph-craig/jesseph2.html.  (emphasis mine).
 
Notice that Doug does not argue for merely the lack of belief in God, but rather against the belief in the existence of God. Further, he even mentions that he did not believe that agnosticism is necessarily a stable middle position.
 
And then again, take a good look at elbaron's topic: he loudly states that "God does not exist" - that is worlds apart from stating "a lack of belief in God". And what you have stated for all intents and purposes is, "God does not exist" - which is not the same as stating that for all intents and purposes, "I lack a belief in God". The former is categorically denying the existence of God; and the latter is a lack of belief in God, whether or not God exists.
 
The definition promoted by the Positive Atheists website and the American Atheists group as well as many individual atheists is "the absence of a belief that there is a deity or God" - and perhaps, that's what you assent to. In which case, your generalizations are too narrow that "atheism is simply the lack of God- belief. Atheism only deals with the belief in deities, not with knowledge about the existence of deities."  


This is why I said that your definition is revisionistic and too narrow for applicable reasons of this discussion. Atheism proper works on one premise: the (non)existence of deity/deities; which is what Doug Jesseph as an atheist has encapsulated in his claim: "the rational conclusion to draw is that there is no God".
 
Nferyn, the point of entry to the discussion or debate about atheism must be founded on what exactly makes atheism what it is - the belief in the non-existence of deity/God. There is admittedly no consensus among atheists themselves as to the definition of atheism and each individual or group scuplts their own ideas of what it means. To the extent that the topic is about the denial of the existence of God ("Refuting Monotheism: God Does Not Exist"), this definition forms the working hypothesis for discussion here (as I suppose), and as has been seconded in your statement: "for all intents and purposes, unless someone brings evidence to the contrary, God does not exist."

nferyn, many thanks for being a gentleman at this point. Do have a wonderful evening 

To claim you know there is no God is to claim you have exhaustively searched every part of every universe and dimension with an infallibly accurate method of detecting every non-physical entity that could possibly exist. In the realm beyond your present experience amazing things could dwell - even a God poised to shatter your insensibility to him. I am quoting net-burst.net

Our claim to the non-existence of god is BASED on the IDEA of god PUT FORWARD BY YOU.

For all we know there might be an entity in the seventh heaven. . .categoricaly disproving its existence is impossible.

Where is nferyn this days, who knows his whereabouts?

@ Dexmond, you are entirely correct: and we will be inviting others shortly to a NL symposium on this.

For me, i will start with the very simple equation: 0 + 0 = 0.

Something cannot come cout of nothing.

Therefore: The Universe came out of something, something brought it about.

We will later come back to define the qualities of that "something."

For me, one of its clear attributes is an all-encompassing Intelligence. We will talk.