God's existence is impossible...because being impossible is basically part of a God or god's definition

[Clinton]

What's the difference between powerful aliens and polytheistic gods? I'd say the main difference is that when we contemplate the traits of plausible powerful aliens, we think about how their societies might have evolved (within the boundaries of the laws of physics or at least rationality). We think about how their ancestors might have evolved, and perhaps about how genetic engineering might have taken their evolution further. We think about possible technologies they might have used to cross the stars, like powerful magnetic fields that repel space debris away from their ships while using light sails pushed by lasers to fly at significant percentages of light speed. We think about them building universes in computer simulations.

With polytheistic gods though...if their traits make sense, we're probably going to describe them as aliens, rather than polytheistic Gods. It's the physics-breaking nonsensicalness that results in us defining them as gods. The Aztec god Huitzilopochtli, for example, was born because his mother was impregnated by a ball of hummingbird feathers. Nobody seriously considering how aliens might have evolved will suggest something like that being their origin.

Monotheistic gods work the same way. The more their existence makes sense, the less likely we're going to be to describe them as gods, as opposed to something else. For example, if there is a sentient computer program designed by aliens that's ruling over the computer simulation that comprises the universe we live within...that's probably more likely to be described that way, than as a monotheistic god of our universe...because the thought process that went into how it might have come about and works comes closer to making sense than the thought process for how monotheistic gods work typically do. How did Yahweh create women? He pulled out the first man's rib and it became a woman and whatnot. That's how.

So...whether we admit this to ourselves or not, we've already, somewhere in our minds, probably placed "god, gods, and God" into some kind of mental bin in which we pile all the things we consider impossible. It's just that we place God on the top where it can be seen most easily, usually with a note taped to it that says, "Even though I'm placing this into my box of impossible things...god's existence is not impossible," and on that note we'll often have the words "This is a lie!" crossed out several times too. This system is called mental gymnastics, by the way. It's a real neat trick humanity loves to use to re-envision reality in a way that appeals to us, without that vision being true.

So God's existence is basically impossible...but "impossible" is a word with a meaning that changes based on the context it's used in. The word "impossible" is a filtration device. Nothing is completely impossible, but we describe things as impossible anyway to essentially mean that the likelihood of them happening or being true is so low that it's not worth considering, so far as we can tell. In this way, there are plenty of things that we'd ordinarily describe as impossible...that we might change our minds about if we found new information.

For example, ordinarily I think most of us would consider it reasonable to state that it's impossible that human beings are currently living in the Andromeda galaxy. If I somehow was able to view a planet in the Andromeda galaxy up close though, and I saw a Coke can on the ground, I'd probably rethink that, and perhaps change my mind about it being impossible that human beings currently live in the Andromeda galaxy. That's basically how most arguments in favor of God's existence work. They'll acknowledge that it seems quite odd for a being with the physics-breaking traits of gods to exist, but they'll make some claim about how something in the universe requires the existence of a God or it wouldn't be here, and that's their described evidence for a god. Does that really make sense though? I think not, and I'll describe why below:

So, first of all the only reason why I'd seriously consider that humans exist in the Andromeda galaxy if I saw a Coke can there, is because I already know humans exist in our universe and are capable of doing so. I do not know that Gods exist in our universe or are capable of doing so. Again, they also have all those traits we've pretty much all decided are impossible on some level too...so what we should be doing in our search for the origin of the universe is, rather than what we typically do, which is arbitrarily deciding God did it, we should instead immediately discard that possibility and search for alternate explanations that make sense...or just not assume anything. Pretty much any choice is better than arbitrarily deciding that anything we'd typically describe as a god created the universe.

But doesn't reality just need some sort of primal source? An uncaused cause? That's, after all, what the famous Cosmological argument proposes. Shouldn't we call that a God? The answer is no, in multiple ways. First of all, the question of whether or not the universe needs some kind of primal source is not actually thought out well enough to be a true coherent question. It sounds coherent, but is not. It's tricky that way, as are most arguments in favor of god's existence. What would a primal source or uncaused cause even be, and how would we possibly distinguish that from anything that is not a primal source or uncaused cause? I ask this because a primal source could be an infinite string of sources, as could an uncaused cause. Furthermore, even if the the universe needed some kind of primal source (and that were a coherent statement...which again, it is not) that primal source need not be sentient...so despite the fact that people's bias has led people, over centuries, to presume that the Cosmological argument is an argument for God's existence...the Cosmological argument is, in reality, both incoherent and not actually an argument for what most people would consider God...because if it's not sentient, most people are not going to think of it as a god.

What about the famous Teleological argument? Doesn't the design need a designer? The Teleological Argument suggests that rather than the universe requiring just some primal source, the existence of the universe requires an intelligent (and presumably sentient) designer. Well...again, as with most arguments for the existence of god, the teleological argument is misleading...although I'd say not as badly as the Cosmological argument. It's misleading because, in fact, design does not require sentience. Sentience is merely one's ability to experience reality and feel things. Tornadoes don't feel, and yet they're quite capable of rapidly altering the landscape. There's nothing vital in sentience that makes it so only sentient forces are capable of creation...but there do appear to be certain structures that seem to need sentience to exist. For example, that Coke can in the Andromeda galaxy I mentioned. Presumably, our brain cells are non-sentient. They build our brains though, and we're sentient. They've built a device capable of certain types of complex structures (Coke cans) and those Coke cans wouldn't have existed without humanity. For this reason I'd say that though the Cosmological argument should simply be discarded because it causes pointless confusion and asks nothing of relevance, the Teleological argument does have some merit. However, I'd say the main reason the Teleological argument is misleading is because it's an argument for powerful universe-creating aliens, rather than gods or a God...despite it typically being described as an argument for God...and it's misleading both because gods would technically be kinds of aliens (although they're seldom described that way) and because aliens are typically the ones with traits that make sense...unlike the traits of gods.

What about other arguments for God, like the Ontological Argument or the Argument from desire? What about the argument that the existence of morality, or sentience requires a God?

Well, there's quite simply nothing about morality or sentience that requires the existence of a sentient ruler of the universe, so far as we can tell. Apparently a few people just arbitrarily decided that morality or sentience for some reason needs a sentient ruler of the universe called a God and lots of people forgot to question that...for centuries.

Regarding the Ontological argument...the Ontological argument is a series of arguments that generally make some claim along the lines of something like "God is defined as the greatest conceivable being. If God did not exist, it could not be the greatest conceivable being. Therefore God must exist." In that statement, if examined closely, you can tell that God is basically undefined and greatest is also undefined so what we really have here is an extremely misleading bit of propaganda designed to hide the fact that it's essentially saying "X+2=Y" (which says nothing) and pretending there's a good answer. The most amusing way to refute that particular Ontological argument is to replace God with Superman and greatest with strongest. So...Superman is the strongest man. Superman could not be the strongest man if he did not exist. Therefore Superman must exist.

The Argument from Desire is another misleading argument for God's existence that strives to trick the brain into believing it makes sense. It often goes something like this:
Nature makes nothing (or at least no natural human desire) in vain.
Humans have a natural desire (Joy) that would be vain unless some object that is never fully given in my present mode of existence is obtainable by me in some future mode of existence.
Therefore, the object of this otherwise vain natural desire must exist and be obtainable in some future mode of existence

Notice the unwarranted assumption about how nature works, as well as the term "in vain" being basically completely undefined, resulting in similar problems as with the Ontological argument.

But really...I'd say it might be a waste of time to cover individual arguments in favor of God's existence in too much detail. All we need to know is that it's traits render its existence impossible, and that any assumptions about the universe having characteristics that require a God's existence necessitate the making of totally unwarranted assumptions about the nature of reality that are a spit in the face of every physicist who's been studying reality for years striving to gleam the faintest truths about the cosmos.

So...in conclusion, God's existence is impossible (basically...unless you're defining God or gods as something most people would not typically describe as God or gods) and our society is riddled with propaganda that's misleading people into tricking themselves into believing it's not. Therefore, I'm wondering if it might be a good idea to legally mandate that every public elementary school devote some class time to telling students that God's existence is impossible. Ideally, we'll get them young before they can develop the emotional biases towards God-belief that prevent them from understanding this stuff. That's why I think elementary school would be a good time for this. Ideally, too, this teaching would involve describing arguments for why God's existence is impossible, and helping the children to think more rationally in general...but if there's not time for that I'd say child-friendly propaganda, like a person in a dinosaur suit singing about how great atheism is and how God's existence is impossible would probably be acceptable and I don't think I'd feel any guilt about that. I figure it'd be probably not much worse than children's science programs that tell about how Earth revolves around the Sun that involve pretty colors and entertaining antics.

In the above paragraph, I am being a little facetious. I'm very frustrated at what I see as widespread propaganda against atheism...especially in the field of philosophy, and so I'm venting. I'm in a philosophy club at a community college and the teacher there described the Ontological, Cosmological, and Teleological arguments as if they're worthy of respect. I find that frustrating because I think that a more honest society would, at minimum, not mention any of those three pretty bad (and highly misleading) ideas without describing many of their flaws, or at least stating that they're bad arguments. Really, I have no idea how we can really teach philosophy well without teaching students that God doesn't exist...and it bugs me to no end that I'm sure philosophy teachers would likely face problems for doing so...but I genuinely do think that it'd be a mistake to treat atheistic propaganda with the same discouragement as religious propaganda.

Thanks for reading.

[attofishpi]

Thanks for reading.

Do you honestly think NE1 is going to read that?

Can U at least explain to me Y God is "impossible" AND provide the definition of God that IS impossible as per your premise...IN A SUCCINT MANNER?

[LuckyR]

Nothing is completely impossible, but we describe things as impossible anyway to essentially mean that the likelihood of them happening or being true is so low that it's not worth considering, so far as we can tell. In this way, there are plenty of things that we'd ordinarily describe as impossible...that we might change our minds about if we found new information.

You're basically conflating impossible and improbable, which, of course have different meanings.

Part of the Modern "god problem", is that the English language didn't (and pretty much doesn't) have a common word to describe ordinary organic beings that are smarter and more powerful than humans and yet not be omniscient nor omnipotent. Thus why "god" is the wastebasket term to describe any and all such beings, some of which as stated perfectly well could be advanced aliens.

[Veritas Aequitas]

.....
Thanks for reading.

Note this;

It is Impossible for God to be Real
viewtopic.php?t=40229

This is like a square-circle which is a contradiction thus a non-starter for reality and so, impossible to exists as real.

Nevertheless the idea of God can be thought which is of critical necessity for the majority given their current* psychological state.
Thus an idea-of-God is a useful illusion, critical to soothe the inherent psychological angst.
* this must be weaned off in the future [ASAP] to expedite human progress all fields especially morality.

[Skepdick]

<blah blah blah>
So God's existence is basically impossible...but "impossible" is a word with a meaning that changes based on the context it's used in.
<blah blah blah>

Either the claim of impossibility is tautological - true by definition - in which case it's not even wrong. Human definitions are subject to choice - you can choose to define God as possible; or impossible - it doesn't change anything outside of language.

OR

The claim of impossibility is the initial scientific, and falsifiable hypothesis - absence evidence of possibility it's reasonable to believe impossibility; but it's falsifiable, so it could be wrong.

The rest is not necessary.