God's Existence Cannot Be Proven

Hi everyone,

I have seen people claim that God can be proven to exist. One person said that we could prove that he were real by use of the Bible.

I first contend that the Bible is fiction; secondly, one cannot prove the veracity of a book by the book itself. So, if I try to prove that God exists by citing the Bible, I have only used a book to prove itself, which is a fallacy. It proves nothing. It is like claiming that Joe is right, and then when someone asks how you know, you tell them that Joe said so. Joe could be wrong. Even if you can guarantee somehow that Joe is not lying, most people when making claims think that they are correct, but that does not make it so.

I can use the example of another fiction book. I read The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien. If I wanted to claim that the wizard Gandalf in this book were real, I could not prove it by citing the book itself. I would need to look into actual history and find Gandalf there. When I made a thorough search of history and found no wizard named Gandalf, and especially when I found that wizards did not exist, I would reasonably conclude that Gandalf in fact never existed.

I do the same thing with the Bible: When I read in it that Noah built an ark and God flooded Earth, I learn from historians that Earth never entirely flooded, and that possibly there was a local flood that inspired this story. I also learn that having all the animals on the ark that the story claims Noah brought on is impossible. Therefore, I conclude that the story is false.

As for whether any god can exist, that cannot be proven.

​

None of this is to say that one should ignore the Bible or God if they can get good lessons there. A moral is occasionally learned from this popular piece of literature. My only claim here is that we should be aware and forthright about the fact that it is fiction, and that one cannot prove that God exists by citing it.

​

Thanks for reading, and may you have a happy, safe, and prosperous day!