How to Prove God Does Not Exist (4587 Words)

Copyright© 2011 G.M. Jackson

All Rights Reserved

If I suggested to you that you have an invisible wart growing on your forehead would you believe it? Especially if I insisted that you can't prove there is no invisible wart on your forehead. You might be tempted to turn the tables on me and insist that I have the burden of proof since I am the one wearing the straight jacket.

Normally we are taught that we can't prove a negative. This is not necessarily true. Can I prove that 2 + 2 doesn't equal 5? Certainly. I take two apples and add two more apples and I get four apples, not five. Note however I have simultaneously proved a positive as well as a negative: I have proved 2 + 2 = 4. I have also proved that all other numbers are the wrong answer, so I have proved an infinite number of negatives--I have proved that the answer is not 5 or 5.5 or 7 or 5,005 and so on...

Every time we prove a positive, we simultaneously prove an infinite number of negatives. Therefore, it is erroneous to declare that we can't prove a negative.

It is far more realistic to say it is easier to prove a positive than to separately prove an infinite number of negatives. Let's take our math example again and examine why this is true. Suppose we arbitrarily decide that it is better to disprove the infinite number of possible answers to the problem of 2 + 2 one possible answer at a time. Instead of starting with two apples and adding two more, we start with a proposed number of apples that we think might be the right answer and subtract two. If we don't end up with two, we know the answer is wrong, so we try a different number. Such a methodology would take an infinite amount of time, since there are an infinite number of numbers we could test. It would be therefore impossible to test them all.

Sherlock Holmes used this kind of elimination method to narrow down his list of suspects, but he was blessed with a limited number of suspects. Generally, it is not impossible to prove negatives; although it may be impractical since the number of negatives could be very large.

Take God, for instance. A theist can't empirically prove that God exists but he believes in God because no one can allegedly disprove God's existence. By his logic, you must believe in anything you can't disprove. That means all things are real until disproved--including the tooth fairy, the Loch Ness Monster, Santa Claus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, etc.

Imagine growing up in a world where you are untaught something rather than taught? Normally we start out with a clean slate and add knowledge to it over our lifetimes. It is far easier to devote our limited time and resources to a small number of things that have been affirmatively proven than to waste limited time and resources over an infinite number of things that have yet to be disproved. This is why it is practical to prove positives rather than negatives.

In summary, once we positively prove that A is the right answer, we simultaneously disprove all the other answers, and we save time, energy, and resources when we focus on proving A is true rather than focusing on disproving a large number of wrong answers separately.

However, suppose we only focus on disproving one wrong answer? That shouldn't be much harder than proving 2 + 2 doesn't equal 5.

Can we prove that God does not exist? The answer is yes as long as God is clearly defined. If, for example, God's definition is vague and/or ever-changing , such a definition is unfalsifiable since we are now, once again, trying to prove an infinite number of negatives.

The late Carl Sagan had a neat trick: Whenever a theist asked him if he believed in God, he would respond, "It depends on what you mean by God." He would try to get the theist to commit to a definition of God. Once a definition of God is established, one no longer has to disprove a goal post that keeps moving, i.e., prove an infinite number of negatives.

Suppose, for example, that a theist defines God as a perfect being, disproving the existence of such a god becomes as easy as disproving 2 + 2 = 5. How could such a god exist? Allegedly God created us, so we should be perfect but we are not. A perfect god would not make imperfect things. Now, the theist (thinking he's clever) may hit you with a zinger as sharp as the butt of baby Jesus: "But we are perfect in God's eyes...therefore he truly is perfect..."

Oh really?! Then what's God's problem with sin? Obviously this "perfect god" does not exist because he violates his own definition. According to the identity and contradiction principles, A is A, not B, assuming A does not equal B. That means God can't be perfect and imperfect simultaneously--or see us as perfect and imperfect sinners simultaneously.

"But God is in the process of making us perfect," declares the theist. Your response might be, "Again, God should have no problem with sinners and feel no need to send them to hell for all eternity; he would just simply polish them until they are perfect. Nice try!"

"But what if an imperfect God exists?" the theist asks. You could come back with, "Well that may be but then he would be human."

Note how the theist tried to move the goalpost, how he tried to redefine God as imperfect once you proved his original vision of God does not exist? This is a typical tactic of theists. It is not that God can't be disproved, it is more accurate to say that theists can't commit to a vision or definition of God.

They might tell you that God is beyond reason and logic, but the same claim can be made about unicorns, ghosts, fairies and every other imaginary thing. Another way to falsify the existence of God, is to point out the fact that real things like a table or chair are well within the realm of logic and reason and all unreal things can also be deemed beyond the realm of logic and reason. For example, if someone disproves the existence of pink elephants, I can just pull something out of my ass like, "Pink elephants are beyond logic and reason..."

Dear reader, I submit to you that theists hate to define their god specifically and want to put him beyond logic, reason and evidence precisely because he is so easy to disprove! Let's look at some more examples, shall we?

Some theists believe God is omniscient (all-knowing and all-seeing). If you can get them to commit to that definition, once again disproving the existence of said god is as easy as proving 2 + 2 doesn't equal 5.

Such a god can't exist because an intelligent, all-knowing god would never create sinful creatures such as ourselves or evil, knowing in advance that evil would piss him off. If everything God does is according to plan, then why would he ever need to punish anyone with eternal damnation? And since he is allegedly so smart he would know our sins are his fault, since we did not create ourselves, nor did we ask to be sinners before we were created.

But once again, the theist you are talking to will probably move the goalpost: "But God has a higher purpose we can't comprehend."

Oh really?! Here the theist's righteous retort is circular: he can't comprehend what God's higher purpose is that would explain God's apparent lack of omniscient powers but somehow he knows this higher purpose exists and will explain but the explanation will have no value to us because we won't understand it anyway.

Of course, any idiot can make the same claim. When an idiot does something incredibly stupid that defies all common sense and logic, he could just say, "Hey, I have a higher purpose you can't comprehend..." Easy!

One way to quash such a ridiculous proposal made by idiots and/or theists is to ask them to provide their basis for determining who is omniscient and who is not--for that matter--their basis for determining who is reasonably competent and who is not. Be sure to remind them that logic and reason as a basis are off the table, since they insisted.

Always keep in mind that you have not failed to disprove their god when you demonstrate with logic and reason that their absurd definition of God couldn't possibly withstand a reality check. The truth is they have this thing to fall back on called 'faith' when the weight of reason crashes down on them. They simply believe in God because they want to, they think they need to...but I digress. Let's get back to the task of disproving God.

"God is omnipotent [all-powerful]" is another definition of God we can falsify. If God is omnipotent, good should be stronger than evil, shouldn't it? Given a contest between God and Satan, God should win hands down! But when God tried to wipe out evil with a great flood, he clearly failed. He even expressed regret about having created man. He also became very pissed at times at the antics of men. An omnipotent God clearly does not exist because if he did exist, everything would go as he planned and he would have no reason to be pissed, he would have no regrets.

"But what if there is a god that has limited power?" Well, then he would be human or an extraterrestrial. He definitely would not be the god theists want to believe in. That god simply does not exist because he defies his own definition. (A is A and not B if A does not equal B.)

"But God wants us to choose (between good and evil) and that is why there is still evil."

If that's the case then clearly he is not all-powerful, since he has ceded some of that power to us. In doing so, God once again defies his own identity and definition and therefore does not exist.

"But the Lord works in mysterious ways!"

Once again, idiots can make the same claim: They are not really stupid; they just work in mysterious ways. Next time you screw up at work, try telling your boss you work in mysterious ways and that you have a higher purpose...yada..yada...and see how far you get.

If there is a god that works in mysterious ways, what is the point of worshipping such a god? You may as well worship an idiot--at least you can prove the idiot exists.

Finally, it is probably easiest to disprove a God that is everywhere, since he is clearly not in the hearts and minds of non-believers. Surely if God is ubiquitous he would be easy to prove. He would exist in both the material world and spiritual realm. A theist disproves his God every time he puts God into hiding, claiming God exists outside this universe or in another dimension, etc.

Disproving God Using the Scientific Method

For centuries no one had the means to prove that atoms exist; they could not be observed. Such absence of evidence was not evidence of absence--so the argument goes and is often used to justify a belief in God. "Just because we can't see God or yet prove the existence of God does not mean there is no God."

But here's the thing: Once scientists discovered atoms, they were able to repeat experiments that successfully confirmed the existence of atoms. That is not the case with God as it is not the case for Zeus, pink elephants, ghosts and goblins. People have claimed to have discovered these imaginary things; they allegedly interacted with them and saw them with their own eyes, etc. However, when we try to repeat their observations and experiments, the results are controversial at best. ('Controversial' is code for bullshit.)

Although, what if God is like a trained dog that only does tricks for his master and no one else. Imagine you train your dog to sit, fetch, play dead. You are really jazzed! So you invite your neighbor over to see. You say, "Sit, God!" and nothing happens. You then say, "Roll over, God." Still nothing. God just looks at you with his floppy ears and big sad eyes like you are from Mars. Your friend is growing ever more skeptical. He is starting to disbelieve your claim that your dog can do tricks. As soon as your neighbor leaves, your dog (God) is doing tricks for you once again.

Perhaps like your dog, God is shy--he only does tricks for a chosen few. Once again it appears that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. However, your neighbor is correct if he concludes your dog failed to do tricks in his presence. And so why should he count on your dog to do tricks?

Now, unlike your dog, God is not shy. Not only did God part the Red Sea for Moses, he did that trick for everyone present. So if God is real, surely out of the six-billion-plus persons living on Earth today there ought to be at least one person who can part the Red Sea for us or walk on water or do something equally impressive.

There simply isn't. Like your neighbor, it is perfectly rational to conclude that God (if he exists) doesn't do tricks for the crowd anymore. And so, why should we count on him? We can dismiss God as we do ghosts, fairies, pixies--and the neighbor's dog.

And since God is not shy, we can conclude he does not exist, otherwise we would see public miracles like a reduction in taxes or something.

"But what if God is real and he simply adopted a new miracle policy that stipulates he will only perform small miracles that are private or difficult to attribute to him?"

Well I never got the memo; did you? Nothing in the scriptures mentions this development. What an oversight for a ubiquitous, omniscient, omnipotent, perfect supreme being! Imagine God Almighty forgetting to tell the prophets of his new miracle policy.

The bottom line is God can be scientifically disproved if we are willing to take into account that he violates his own identity and definition--and like fairies, ghosts and the flying spaghetti monster, there are no repeatable observations or experiments we can perform to confirm his existence.

Let's take a close look at the scientific method to see first hand how it can be used to disprove God. The scientific method is as follows:

1. Ask a question;

2. Do background research;

3. Construct a hypothesis;

4. Test your hypothesis by doing an experiment;

5. Analyze your data and draw a conclusion;

6. Communicate your results.

Let's walk through each step and see what happens.

1. Is there a God?

2. According to a background check, God is this dude you can pray to. "Ask and it shall be given to you (Matthew 7:7)".

3. Hypothesis: If I pray to God, I should receive a cheeseburger with fries.

4. Now for the experiment: "Dear Lord, I humbly ask that you make a cheeseburger magically appear before me and don't forget the fries! Amen."

5. Data analysis and conclusion: Nada! Zip! I conclude that either God's customer service really sucks! Or, he simply does not exist.

6. I now publish these results for your benefit, so you can try my experiment to see if your results are the same or different. You in turn could publish your results so that even more people can try the experiment and publish their results. If we all achieve the same results (and something tells me we will), we can say we have scientifically proven that God does not exist or sucks at customer service.

Let's see if we can establish that God does not exist and eliminate the possibility that he simply sucks at customer service. We will try the scientific method again with a new question:

1. Is there really a God who sucks at customer service?

2. According to a background check, the Bible is allegedly the word of God: "Then the LORD stretched out His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me, 'Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.'" (Jeremiah 1:9), and God never lies and always keeps his word: "...upon the basis of a hope of the everlasting life which God, who cannot lie, promised before times long lasting..." (Titus 1:2)

3. Hypothesis: If there is a God and if I ask I should receive, otherwise there is no God because God cannot lie and did not lie under Matthew 7:7.

4. When I performed the previous experiment, a theist friend of mine complained that I did not allow enough time for God to produce the cheeseburger and fries. I see his point since Jesus promised to return 2000 years ago and he still isn't here. (I wish my creditors were as patient as those waiting for Jesus.) However, in all fairness, we shouldn't have to wait an eternity for a cheeseburger to magically appear (along with fries) since we can simply add a deadline to our request, and, according to Matthew 7:7, we should receive. Here it goes: "Lord, I humbly ask you to make a cheeseburger magically appear before my eyes within the next ten minutes and don't forget the fries. Amen!" (Waiting ten minutes...)

5. Data analysis and conclusion: Wow! It really worked! (Just kidding.) There is no God. Sorry!

6. Again I publish my results so others can repeat my experiment. My theist friend is still complaining. According to his Bible, Matthew 7:7 says, "Keep on asking..." as opposed to "Ask..." A subtle difference. Obviously at least one of these versions of Matthew 7:7 is wrong, and since God is allegedly never wrong, at least one version is not really God's words. Oh my! However, in the interest of accommodating my friend, I did the above experiment over again. He says I failed to keep asking and that is why the cheeseburger didn't magically appear. So I kept asking for a full ten minutes, but I still didn't get my cheeseburger (and fries) within the ten minute deadline. My friend protested that it takes longer than ten minutes. I am not sure how he knows that or why it is relevant. Even if God were to produce a cheeseburger say...2000 years from now, he would be a liar, but God supposedly does not lie, so he simply does not exist. I kept asking for a cheeseburger with fries to magically appear within 10 minutes and I did not receive! I demand a refund of the time I wasted praying!

"But God only helps those who help themselves!"

Says who? Says not the Bible (allegedly the words of God), so who really said it? Why Sidney Algernon (1622-1683) in his 'Discourses on Government." Ben Franklin said something similar in Poor Richard's Almanac of 1757: "God helps them that help themselves."

Obviously these two dudes noticed that God's promise in Matthew 7:7 wasn't adding up to squat, so they moved the goalpost, re-wrote the rules when Christianity would have died a natural death if they hadn't placed it on life support.

Basically they are saying I have to go out and get a cheeseburger and fries, and if I do the work, God will help me somehow. However, if I should have an accident on the way to the Restaurant, well then God didn't help me, "he worked in mysterious ways (not from the Bible either but from a hymn by William Cowper [1731-1800])".

Imagine you are employed and you told your boss you will help him if he does your job for you. If he fires you, just hand him a copy of Poor Richard's Almanac of 1757--so he knows you were just following God's example.

It should be abundantly clear at this point that we can dismiss the counterfeit claims of "God works in mysterious ways" and "God helps those who help themselves." We can also dismiss the claim that God can't be proven or disproved and all its derivatives and variations.

We can also dismiss the claim that the religious are seeking the truth. As I have demonstrated, nothing could be further from the truth. People like Cowper, Franklin and Algernon only seek to maintain their belief in God no matter what because that is what faith is really all about: believing in something absolutely, notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary.

The truth, as you well know, can be very thorny. Many who are seeking something warm and fuzzy tend to avoid the truth when it is cold and hard. So is it any wonder you can't prove to them that God does not exist?

"But I feel his presence when I am in church."

I felt something too when I went church: boredom. To be fair, however, I too felt what could be construed as a divine presence. Given the fact that there is no God, what might explain the so-called religious experience? The most likely explanation would be wishful thinking combined with intense brain chemistry. To test that theory, try praying to a can of tuna instead of God. Open your heart to the can of tuna, feel the can of tuna's spiritual presence. I think you will find that you can make up your mind to believe in anything. If you convince yourself the can of tuna has spiritual power, then you will surely feel it. The fact that we can convince ourselves that anything is true explains why humans have worshiped a multitude of gods and idols. The can of tuna is just one more. If you pray to the can of tuna and it fails to deliver, just keep in mind it works in mysterious ways. That way you can maintain your faith in the can of tuna. If someone opens the can of tuna and eats it, fear not for another can of tuna will replace it. Amen.

Additionally, if we look around the world today, we can find people who don't believe in God but experience a religious awakening. Buddhists, in particular, can achieve enlightenment without a belief in the God of Abraham. Some Hindu practitioners can, through meditation, make their hearts stop. They demonstrate incredible power over their minds and bodies. Taoists believe in chi and are able to break piles of bricks with their bare hands. None of these religious people worship the God of Abraham; yet, they can not only feel a religious experience, they can also consistently demonstrate the power. What has your neighborhood theist done to impress you lately? Surely if their god is real, they ought to at least match the heart-stopping capabilities of a Hindu yogi.

The fact that you can achieve a religious experience without worshiping God (and can even feel spiritual power with a can of tuna) adds support to the theory that it is all in your head.

Perhaps you have run into a theist who claimed he/she recovered from a terminal illness. "The doctors said I had no chance, so it's a miracle I'm alive!" Of course the assumption he is making here is that doctors are incapable of making a misdiagnosis.

The best way to test the hypothesis that faith and prayer provide an advantage, is to take a good look around. Do bad things happen to theists who pray? Yes. Do good things happen to atheists who don't pray? Absolutely! You know this is true because William Cowper never would have written, "God moves in mysterious ways..." Therefore we can conclude that faith and prayer provide no real advantage.

Next time a theist claims that God gives him special powers or abilities, ask him why his God doesn't give him the power to persuade you that God is real. Surely God, if he exists, can put the right words in the theist's mouth. If the theist can't even demonstrate that small miracle, why should you believe he cured his sick pet turtle with the touch of his hand or recovered from an incurable invisible wart on his forehead?

"But what about scientists who see no conflict between religion and science? Surely that means that belief in God is supported by science."

BioLogos is the unification of Christian faith and science. There are actually scientists who simultaneously believe in Darwinian evolution and that Adam was created from a mud paddy--but see no contradiction. The mere fact that some scientists have their heads up their asses is no reason to assume that belief in God is supported by science. Before belief in God can be supported by science, it must withstand the scrutiny of the scientific method. The above demonstration shows that it does not.

Now of course you are going to run into a church-bus load of objections when you scientifically prove that God does not exist. People want to believe what they want to believe. Most objections they will come up with will be attacks against science, reason and logic. But you might challenge them to demonstrate a more reliable method of determining what is real and what is not. If they attempt to use any reason or logic or offer any evidence, they will have defeated their arguments against reason, logic and science. You the atheist will have beat them at their own game--the game of requiring you to prove a negative.

Of course, you can always take the easy road and say, "Prove God exists."