{"id":1507,"date":"2013-05-23T16:14:09","date_gmt":"2013-05-23T06:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1507"},"modified":"2014-02-03T19:09:06","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T03:09:06","slug":"the-unproveable-absence-of-god","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/?p=1507","title":{"rendered":"The Unproveable Absence of God"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question from MiK’la:<\/strong>
\nAtheists always ask the Christian to prove that God exists. What proof is there that He doesn’t exist?
\n
\nAnswer by SmartLX<\/a>:<\/strong>
\nNone, but that doesn’t change anything.
\n
\nMost atheists, myself included, allow for the possibility of a god existing. We think it’s unlikely, but there are so many ways in which a god could exist and yet remain unproven that there’s no way to prove beyond all possible doubt that there are no gods. That in no way means there’s enough evidence to justify positively believing that there is one, let alone a particular one. It’s impossible to prove that George Burns wasn’t the actual composer of Eleanor Rigby<\/em> – he was around at the time, after all, and might have written Paul McCartney a long letter – but no one believes he did it. (That analogy was originally going to be that no one believes Queen Elizabeth I wrote Shakespeare’s plays, but it turns out some people do.)
\n
\nChristians do believe in God, and therefore think there is<\/em> at least one good reason to believe in God. When atheists go asking, we’re asking what that reason is. It’s an important question, because if it’s really a good reason to believe then we should believe too, and if it’s not a good reason then the believer shouldn’t. This is all based on the simple assumption that one should only believe in something with good reason. You’re welcome to argue with that if you really want to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question from MiK’la: Atheists always ask the Christian to prove that God exists. What proof is there that He doesn’t exist? Answer by SmartLX: None, but that doesn’t change anything. Most atheists, myself included, allow for the possibility of a god existing. We think it’s unlikely, but there are so many ways in which a … Continue reading “The Unproveable Absence of God”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[154,134,240],"class_list":["post-1507","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-text","tag-evidence","tag-god","tag-proof"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pB6tr-oj","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1507"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2030,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1507\/revisions\/2030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1507"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1507"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/asktheatheist.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1507"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}