P.S. So sorry for misspelling Atheism in my title. :(

Yup, time to start a shitstorm.

I just started my Philosophy of Religion class today, and it's going to be my favorite class ever. It's basically a big discussion class about morality and religion, rationality and religion...I can't wait.

Anyways, today we had to give points either disproving or proving the existence of God. After a few people started giving examples, I raised my hand and asked my teacher, what kind of God are we talking about? There are so many interpretations of what God could be, from animate to inanimate, that we need to qualify what type of "God" we're talking about to start making any points.

.. But this got me thinking. Science says that at least in our current form, we can't prove the existence of any God. We can't prove the existence of any living, animate God. But what about the interpretation of God being inanimate? Not necessarily a living being? What if God was merely the Laws of Phsyics?

What truly qualifies the meaning of God? How could we ever disprove that any sort of God exists, without having some way to truly qualify what God might be?

You can throw examples of what God is, and people can disprove it, but how can anyone begin to disprove that any and ALL sorts of God exists? How can Atheists say there is no God for certain? Believing in science =/= Atheist, and who knows, Science may prove some sort of amazing power someday, whether animate or inanimate, that could be considered God.

Does God have to be animate? Living? Conscious? I want an opinion from some Atheists as to why God could never exist. I understand that Atheists disagree with the forms of God shown in modern day religions, but why should the existence of a super power be limited to that?

I myself am Agnostic. At least in our current state, I think we can never prove any sort of God exists, nor can we disprove it. I want to know why Athiests are so quick to disprove any sort of higher power. Or rather, you could just say that whatever governs the Laws of Physics is God, and if the LoP govern themselves, then they are God. But then how could we truly comprehend or even begin to understand a sort of power that is so beyond us? Even if there is a god, animate or inanimate, I doubt we would ever truly understand it. It could be around all of us this very moment and we just don't comprehend it.

Anyways, I want to get a discussion going. So... lets go. ^_^

I just think the idea of God is unrational. There's no logic. There's no physical evidence of God.

There is evidence to support that life started long ago with volcanic eruptions underwater. The volcanoes released chemicals, and these certain chemicals reacted with elements on the surface of the earth, and the right conditions were made for bacteria to be created.

Here's an article:

http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/News/2006/October/26100603.asp

There's no evidence of a big bang either. Just a ton of theories and impressive sounding hypotheses.

forget it. I better just get out of here. I got really disapointed with the hiroshima thread. bye

It would appear you have a very very outlined view of what God is. Do you mean a sort of living all powerful God like the christians and Jews believe? Because I think that's limiting the idea of what God is to something extremely narrow.

Could God not be whatever animate or inanimate force that guides the Laws of Physics? And if they guide themselves, why not consider them God?

In order to disprove God, you have to set limitations on what it could be. But my thinking is that God could be anything, whatever the supreme controlling force is in this world that governs the rest. And if that's the Laws of Physics, would you like to disprove them?

Then again, could we ever truly comprehend if the Laws of Physics were the end-all be-all or if something that we cannot comprehend controls how they work? It could be something not of this world, something that would truly be impossible to comprehend and ever see in our tangible world, but it could exist. How do you know for certain it doesn't?

I don't want to get involved in this. I shouldn't even have posted...

Your choice, but I am confused as to why you backed out so early.

I did read the link you gave, and I don't see why proof of how life on this planet was started means that any sort of God can't exist. It gives evidence against well known modern-day religions, yeah, but how does it disprove that God exists in any fashion?

I know you're not returning, but maybe someone else will pick this up and answer it.

If there is this all powerful being, where did he come from?

He? You're classifying God as a living being and as all-powerful. I never said God had to be that way. But that's what I'm so confused about, what are the bare-bones basics for qualifying "God?"

Well every religion I can think of the gods are sentient beings and have powers no human possesses so I think that would be the bare bones minimum.