Proving a negative is seen as very difficult - you have to look under every stone and argument to see what is there. In addition the questioners always comes up with a twist or other thought when pinned down by a good answer.

The easiest way to disprove the existence of god(s) for any particular questioner is to ask what proof they have found to be sufficient to disprove the existence of Zeus, Santa Claus, house gnomes, and the monster under their bed.

This same level of proof should be sufficient to disprove their position on any other deity. So repeat their arguments back to them substituting the name of the deity you are arguing against.

It is also useful to find if they are willing to accept the "no God" side under any condition - even if you produce the perfect argument or conclusion. They usually think that you would accept the "Yes" side eventually, based on their proof. If they aren't willing to accept the possibility of defeat the argument is of the "Heads I win - tails you lose" variety. Genesis 1:26 And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. Genesis 2:5 And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. Genesis 5:1 This is the book of the generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made he him; Job 33:4 The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. You Must remember,man was made first Spirit, then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

The arguments brought up on the "Yes there is" side are often those from the List of Fallacious arguments (Link). Review these to see where the errors in logic are.

AnswerProving the non existence of a person would normally relate to personal dealings and to records left by that person, even though, in this case there is the supernatural. The details of the Bible which claims supernatural connections has to be completely explained away successfully and reasonably, including accurate predictive prophecy hundreds of years in some cases before the event.

Having a presupposition or belief that the supernatural does not exist is a person belief and not a proof. People disbelieve all kinds of things which are fact.

God could definitively be proven to not exist if a person could know everything which had happened in all places throughout time. However, if that were the case such an individual would then possess characteristics attributed to God and so God would then exist as it would be that all-knowing person.

Finding alleged errors in logic regarding God's existence, without examining one's own errors in logic, including circular reasoning (assuming God does not exist and then allegedly proving He doesn't) proves precisely nothing.

AnswerAssuming a god exists and then arguing it does is also circular logic.

Disproving a negative is, as the first poster points out, pretty much impossible.

Can you prove that there isn't an invisible man reading this over your shoulder? Can you prove that there isn't a ghost in your house? Can you prove that you're not in the middle of a huge computer simulation and everyone else isn't actually real? Can you prove that Zeus does not exist? Thor? Anansi, the prankster spider god?

You can disprove none of those things, and neither can anybody else.

You would expect anyone making such a claim to back it up with some evidence and some logical reasoning.

No religion has ever done this. No compelling evidence has ever been presented, and (to my knowledge) no logical arguments have been made in favour of religion.

So no: nobody can disprove the existence of any god. But gods have no more evidence in their favour than pixies, invisible men behind me, ghosts in my closet, that Anansi moved my car keys as a silly joke, or any other of the millions of zany ideas which people offer up all the time.

AnswerIf you can know all things that have happened everywhere for all of time then you could do it. AnswerHere is yet another answer. Well it answers the question of can you prove that God does exist. I keep having to copy and paste and copy and paste to get the message around that GOD DOES EXIST. Don't worry I didn't plagerize, I wrote (typed) every word of it. It just gets tiring of having to say the same things over and over again.

Yes you can. Well, maybe you as in you can't but a scientist has. He searched and searched for some information that would prove that God did not exist. But instead he found no information whatsoever other than we would not be here if it weren't for God because if we evolved, what made the thing we evolved from?

AnswerThe above can be refuted both quickly and easily: if god exists, then who made god? By its own logic, the argument is defeated. It is also refuted by evolutionary theory, but that answer would be longer. AnswerSee links below. Answer

There are tens of proofs for God's existence. These have been recorded for centuries and are easy to look up. However, this subject is ultimately one of personal belief, since our possession of free-will mandates that it is possible to put forth arguments (fallacious or not) against every one of the proofs.

Here are a few:

Teleological Argument; the argument from design: The universe has definite design, order, and arrangement which cannot be sufficiently explained outside a theistic worldview. From the complexities of the human eye to the order and arrangement of cosmology, the voice of God is heard. God's existence is the best explanation for such design. God is the undesigned designer.

Anthropic Principle: The laws of the universe seem to have been set in such a way that stars, planets and life can exist. Many constants of nature appear to be very finely tuned for this, and the odds against this happening by chance are astronomical.

Sensus divinitatus: The innate sense of the divine exists within all people. People, societies, and cultures of all time have been, by nature, those who sense a need to worship something greater than themselves. No ancient society ever existed that did not believe in a supernatural power.

Tradition: There are events in human history which cannot be explained outside of the existence of God. Many people have their subjective stories that bend them in the direction of theism, but there are also historical events such as the Giving of the Torah, which are underpinnings for the belief in God.

Pascal's Wager: Belief in God is the most rational choice due to the consequences of being wrong. If one were to believe in God and be wrong, there would be no consequences. However, if one were to deny God and be wrong, the consequences are eternally tragic. Therefore, the most rational choice is not agnosticism or atheism, but belief in God.

All of reality: Why is there something rather than nothing? There are only six options:

1. The universe is eternal and everything has always existed.

- Even atheists have abandoned this possibility, especially because it would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

2. Nothing exists and all is an illusion. There is no reality. There is notsomething. There is only nothing.

- This possibility, it should be obvious, is completely self-defeating. In order to even make such a proposition, the subject has to exist in some sense. If all is an illusion, where did the illusion come from? Even the solipsist, who does not believe in the existence of other minds, has to explain the genesis of his own mind.

3. The universe created itself. This is the idea that the universe and all that is in it did not have its origin in something outside itself, but from within.

- Like with the previous two, we have created a logical absurdity. It would be like creating a square triangle. It's impossible. A triangle by definition cannot be square. So creation cannot create itself as it would have to pre-date itself to create. The pre-dated form would then need a sufficient explanatory cause, ad infinitum.

4. Chance created the universe. While the odds of winning the lottery are not very good, given enough time, everyone will win. While the odds of the universe coming into existence are not very good, given enough time, it could happen.

- This option is a sleight of hand that, like "survival of the fittest," amounts to nothing, because it implies that "chance" itself has quantitative causal power. The word "chance" is used to describe possibilities. It does not have the power to cause those possibilities. It is nonsense to speak of chance being the agent of creation of anything since chance is not an agent.

"Sophisticated arguments of chance creation have been formulated which dazzle our mathematical comprehension… What are the real chances of the universe created by chance? Not a chance. Chance is incapable of creating a single molecule, let alone an entire universe. Why not? Chance is no thing. It is not an entity. It has no being, no power, no force. It can effect nothing because it has no causal power within it. …It is a word which describes mathematical possibilities which, by the curious flip of the fallacy of ambiguity, slips into the discussion as if it were a real entity with real power, indeed, supreme power, the power of creativity." (R.C. Sproul, Not a Chance. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1999.)

5. The universe is created by nothing. Simply put, nothing created the universe.

- The problem here is that it is either a restating of option #1 (the universe is eternal) or fails due to the irrationality of #4. In our current universe, the law of cause and effect cannot be denied by sane people. While we often don't know what the cause of some effect is, this does not mean that there was no cause. When we go to the doctor looking for an explanation for the cause of our neck pain, we don't accept the answer "There is no cause. It came from nothing." We would assume that the person who gave such an answer is better fit for a straight-jacket than a respected professional of his/her field.

There is an old saying, "ex nihilo nihil fit," which means "Out of nothing, nothing comes." To say that the universe was created by or came from nothing is an absurdity. Like with the idea of chance, "nothing" is a non being with no causal power. If there is something, there must be a sufficient explanation for it.

6. A transcendent being (God) created all that there is, from nothing.

This is the last option that I know of. Here we recognize the impossibility of the first five. Realizing that the universe must have come into existence a finite time ago, we know that there must be a sufficient cause. This cause must be transcendent to (above, beyond) the universe. This causal agency must be all-powerful, or else the grandeur of the effect would eclipse the grandeur of the cause.

This creator had to have created all things ex nihilo (out of nothing). In other words, all of matter could not be eternal since material itself is, by definition, not transcendent and is subject to the law of cause and effect. This creator, being transcendent to the laws of our universe in which the saying "out of nothing nothing comes" applies, must create time, space, and matter out of neither himself or preexisting material. He creates it all out of nothing. He brings all of existence into being by his power. While it is beyond our understanding how transcendence can create immanence, it does not form a logical absurdity. In fact, existence itself demands that it is a logical necessity.

All the other options are self-defeating, formally absurd, and irrational. In short, the only logical explanation for existence is that a transcendent, powerful, and personal being (i.e. God) created all that there is out of nothing.

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