The Impossibility of God

[Telos]

Most people, believers and nonbelievers alike, are unfamiliar with the variety and force of arguments for the impossibility of God. Yet over recent years a growing number of scholars have been formulating and developing a series of increasingly powerful arguments that the concept of God, as variously understood by the world's major religions and leading theologians, is contradictory in many ways, and therefore God does not and cannot exist.

This book is an anthology of logical arguments which disprove the existence of God (based on certain premises). Simply put, I believe this book is worth a read for anyone who is spiritually minded, for it will seriously challenge your mind and undoubtedly provoke it.

http://www.prometheusbooks.com/catalog/book_1490.html

[Logic]

Hmm, intriguing. I like it..

[clandestino]

Interesting concept for a book.... I might have to purchase that one.

thanks,
Mark

[Nagual]

A little bit cheaper on amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1591021200 ...

[Nostic]

Here are some portions of reviews at Amazon. Out of the 6 on the 1st page, 2 were very positive.


1
I didn't finish this book, because it introduced nothing new. The only thing it "proved" was that the Midevil Christian God is illogical...but didn't we already know that? It presupposes, quite fatally, that logic and rationality are to be prized by God, theist, and atheist alike, and that only that which is logical is worthwhile. Nothing could be further from the truth.

DeistMan is, of course, completely wrong, and completely misses the very contradictions he lampoons. "The onus (as it has always been) falls on the theist to prove God exists." What? How can one prove something which, as it has already been explained, cannot be proven? It is the ability of agnostics to wrap themselves around this concept, and the hypocritical inability of atheists to do the same (if indeed "Atheists have to prove and disprove nothing"...why does this book exist?) that causes so much argument.

Theists have something to prove that cannot be proven. Thereby writing books disproving that which has not (and will never be) proven is moot. Proof needs a receptor, but the only proof of God is apparently in first experience. It's a little like arguing with people who have seen a unicorn.


2
I've been an atheist since the late 1980s, and after innumerable debates with theists, I can say only one thing about "God"; there's nothing to it besides wishful thinking!

Well, I can say a lot more about it than that, and The Impossibility of God provides new ideas that I hadn't yet become acquainted with.

I tended to think of myself as what you might call a "weak atheist" or a person who simply lacks belief in God. I was a born again Christian years ago, and after less than two years, I realized that my faith had slipped away. One of the reasons I could no longer believe was my reading both contradictions and false prophecies in the New Testament. Now years later, I realize that these difficulties were and are insurmountable, and that not only does God not exist, he cannot conceivably exist as explained in The Impossibility of God, and therefore strong atheism-the denial that there is a God-carries the day.


3
It would seem a bit of a stretch to "prove" the impossibility of God, since proving a negative has long been considered impossible. And it would seem to be quite a task to prove that God does not exist given that the presumably easier task of proving the positive that God does exist has never been done--at least not done well enough to convince most philosophers.

To my mind what the authors come close to proving (in the most painstaking fashion) is that the usual definitions of God are inadequate, thereby allowing one to derive contradictions from those definitions, contradictions that prove that God, defined in such and such a way, cannot exist. For example (and several of the contributors use variations on this theme), God cannot be all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-benevolent since there exists the palpable presence of evil in the world. Actually the editors break this down more finely and throw out three categories of "disproofs" which might be called, (1) the argument to disproof from definition; (2) the argument to disproof from evil; and (3) the argument to disproof from doctrine. In the latter, what is demonstrated is that a particular formulation of God is inconsistent with a particular religious doctrine, demonstrating that THAT God cannot exist.

The astute reader will note that all three categories rest on demonstrating a disconnect between definitions. What the various authors are trying to do is NOT to prove that God does not exist, rather that it is impossible to define God in such a way that contradictions do not arise. As the editors point out in their introduction, the real task here is to show that God is a logical impossibility, and therefore, like a square circle, cannot exist.

[Tayesin]

Argument and statement proves nothing, either way.

Personal experience is the only provider of proof to an individual.

Quantum physics has been skirting around the word God for over 30 years because it has, through observation, come to the conclusion that something like God must exist in order for the effects to have been observed in the first place.

But, it does not agree with the churches perspectives of God as an omnipotent being that looks a lot like an ancient male figure with long gray hair and beard.  Nor does it agree with the more fanatic feminists in God being a female.

Hence the making of a generalization way back last century:- everything exists as different vibrations of the one energy that is malleable by consciousness.

Given that we haven't been around long enough to have created all the effects in the universe, there must be an a priori consciousness that did...  and we are therefore parts of that as well since we are able to effect observation with our thoughts.

Still, I don't like calling it God because of the many different perceptions on what that must be, according to the various belief systems.

[Telos]

Since I was raised Catholic, was an altar server, went to Catholic school, went to a Catholic university, did the sacraments, did confirmation, etc etc etc .... I found this book refreshing!

No where in all of my theological education were these arguments taken seriously. Frankly, I feel embarrassed for not thinking of some of them. In my ideal Catholic university, there would be a required Atheist Theology course with this book.

The book is about disproving God "as we know it." In the tradition of Acquinas suggesting that God is infinitely simple and can be arrived at through reason, I don't find the core beliefs of Catholicism to be threatened. However, the God of most protestant religions is definitely threatened.

[Dr NoX]

I don't find the core beliefs of Catholicism to be threatened. However, the God of most protestant religions is definitely threatened.

How's that?

[Telos]

Wow, I'm sorry I forgot to answer your question.

I think the Protestant God is threatened in the sense of having far more scriptural basis for doctrine, leading into voluminous doctrinal disproofs. The Catholic Church on the other hand has remarkably more flexibility over doctrine, at the discretion of the Pope, and because it follows a Neo-Thomistic tradition of God as objective truth. Before you mention Galileo, let me cite a lack of any modern day Galileo's to show that the modern Catholic Church is not the same as it used to be, and is in my opinion closer to objective interpretations of the divine than any of the Protestant religions.

But then again I don't think that says very much. ;)

[Krevency]

Well, I figure if it's disproving the way that the religions explain god, I would like to remind everyone that you don't need to be a member of one of these religions to believe in god.

I personally don't believe in the bible, for the most part.  Sort of a "based on a true story" thing, as I see it.  But, while I am no kind of Christian, I do believe in God.

The Christian view of god, as I see it, is generally a big, insecure guy who lives in the sky, gets angry when people tinkle him off, and feels sorry for little kids with cancer.  If someone wants to throw this no-better-than-human god out the window, I say go ahead.  

[jason]

The Christian view of god, as I see it, is generally a big, insecure guy who lives in the sky, gets angry when people tinkle him off, and feels sorry for little kids with cancer.  If someone wants to throw this no-better-than-human god out the window, I say go ahead.  

Exactly the way I feel.The idea that anyone can actually disprove the existance of god is a tribute to human arrogance and,the pathetic limitation of belief systems.


It's not so much a case of disproving god, but bringing into question common views of how small our views about what god would be, really are.

 Anytime I look out into the astonishing,unfathomable distances in deep space, and the incredible dynamism and perfection  of every level of the physical dimension-from the super-cosmic, to the cosmic, to the local, to  the subatomic,to the quantum levels, combined w/ every potential reality that can exist, versus the one we bring into being, combined w/ the fact that time is actually a unified phenomenon,in constant evolution, plus about a zillion other factors, makes me realize just how infantile the common ideas about god are.

I've also heard the argument that the seeming "perfection" is a balance. between matter and energy, but this is a juvinile idea as well- there is no dualism there.It's one and the same thing, expressed on different levels.

[vsskye]

Thanks for the info on this book, I think I will have to check it out.