Quote:
Originally Posted by GobbHayte
Go on, prove a negative, i dare you.
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It
is possible to prove a negative to the satisfaction of most science (excluding mathematics).
If you have a box sitting on your lap and someone tells you that there is a iron bar in it, you can hypothesise from the weight of the box that there is no iron bar inside. Opening it and looking would prove you right that there was no iron bar in the box. Ergo you have proved a negative.
This proof would be sufficient for most science, which on the balance of probabilities would accept that the iron bar didn't "vanish" when the box was opened.
(before someone brings up Schrodinger's Cat, that was an
analogy and does not describe how things work on the scale of anything larger than the subatomic)
God doesn't fit into this though. Why? Because no-one will define him clearly enough and they constantly use special pleading to get out of tricky situations.
For example, if God is defined as necessarily omnipotent then we can safely "disprove" the idea of God. However, the counterargument is (usually) to move the goal posts and redefine omnipotence or claim that God exists outside logic (which would make some of his actions strange).
If a tight enough set of definitions as to what God is is provided by a believer then, yes, God can be potentially disproven.