Prove Whether or Not God Exists

Here's what I believe.

Rationalists need a corollary to counter Pascal's Wager, which is "Either God exists or doesn't exist, but if so and I believe in God, I will go to Heaven after I die; if God doesn't exist, I have lost nothing."

By that reasoning, then follow the teachings of your chosen "God," "Allah" or Whomever. Otherwise, admit that your "God" is so weak as to be fooled by lip service and lets anyone into Heaven just for half-hearted belief, not for good deeds or true belief.

Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) was a brilliant scientist, mathematician and writer who also invented a calculating machine at 18. In 1654 he had a "mystical experience" and converted to Jansenism, a doctrine of the sect of Roman Catholics in opposition to the Jesuits.

In other words, Pascal himself had doubts about what he had been taught as a Roman Catholic, and if that isn't enough to make his so-called "wager" suspect, consider that he also wrote "Men blaspheme what they do not know" and "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction," both in his LETTRES PROVINCIALES [1656-1657].

So, for everyone who takes the easy way to "save your soul" or who cannot decide what to believe, here is Culberson's Challenge:

Assume there is no deity. Then, priests, Popes, preachers, ministers, imams and all other self-appointed spokespeople for "God" are either liars or deluded into ignoring the empirical evidence of science and mistakenly believing that "God" exists.

Now assume there is a deity who created us and all the reality around us: the planets, the solar system, the stars, the universe and the "world." Then we are merely figments of that deity’s imagination and therefore do not exist outside of that imagination.

However, if we are merely figments of Something’s imagination, if we are manufactured "real" creatures in Someone's own image or if we are truly independent sentient beings with or without free will, what would eternity in either Heaven or Hell mean? We would either eventually become used to our existence and bored in one or inured to the pain that supposedly awaits us in the other of those futures.

And name one other thing in nature that lasts forever without wearing out, running down, burning up or simply dying.

Thus, I challenge you either to give up your belief in a deity who supposedly created you and controls you and the world or else to continue your disbelief in such a mythology, because either way, you lose nothing.

Of course, there are some misguided fools who will not accept this challenge and say, "Better safe than sorry," which is merely religious belief by Pascal's Wager.

This thinking is the basis for all religious belief, and it is the most dangerous aspect of believing in a deity, because it leads to this sort of logic:

"There must be a God, because everybody says there is. Therefore, I can believe in God and do anything I want, because if I ever do anything that God doesn't want me to do, God will stop me. Therefore, I can do anything I want and ask forgiveness, and try to convince many more people that God exists, because the more people who believe in God increases the chances that God does exist."

However, If you accept my challenge to prove whether or not God, Allah or Whoever exists and take a poll documenting the results, then you will participate in proving whether or not "God" exists.

Choose a comfortable location, look skyward and say, "God, strike me dead if you exist!" Then take the poll located at: http://forums.delphiforums.com/allgods/messages/?msg=413.1 and document the results.

Either way, your life on earth will be much less complicated, frustrating and stressful, and it will be much more rewarding, enjoyable and definitely free of self-imposed religious pressure.

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Culberson's God

Here's what I believe.

"Schrödinger's Cat" is a thought experiment, sometimes described as a paradox, devised by Austrian physicist Erwin Schrödinger in 1935, illustrating what he saw as the problem of the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics applied to everyday objects. The scenario presents a cat that may be simultaneously both alive and dead, a state known as a quantum superposition, as a result of being linked to a random subatomic event that may or may not occur. The thought experiment is also often featured in theoretical discussions of the interpretations of quantum mechanics. Schrödinger coined the term "Verschränkung" (entanglement) in the course of developing the thought experiment.

"Schrödinger's Cat" paradox consists of a cat, a flask of poison, and a radioactive source placed in a sealed box. If an internal monitor (for example, a Geiger counter) detects radioactivity (that is, a single atom decaying), then the flask is shattered, releasing the poison, which kills the cat. The Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that after a while, the cat is simultaneously alive and dead. Yet, when one looks in the box, one sees the cat either alive or dead, not both alive and dead. This poses the question of when exactly quantum superposition ends and reality collapses into one possibility or the other.

This complicated and detailed thought experiment is usually described in lay terms as that the cat inside the box is either alive or dead and that the act of opening the box and observing it either kills it or doesn't kill it, which itself is just a more complicated and detailed example of the 1882 short story, "The Lady or the Tiger," by Frank Stockton: A non-royal subject is accused of the crime of loving the king’s daughter, who also loves him. The accused youth stands before two closed doors, one of which hides a ferocious tiger that will emerge and kill whoever opens the door, and the other conceals a beautiful lady that the princess knows and hates, because she has observed her lover and the lady together and suspects that they, too, might be secret lovers, and if the youth opens her door, a priest will immediately marry the two of them together.

The princess discovers which door contains which, and she signals her lover to open a door with her right hand. However, the story ends before the youth opens the door, and the audience is left suspended and has to decide for themselves whether the beautiful damsel or the ferocious tiger is behind the door he opens.

I propose to use the Schrodinger's Cat example to prove whether or not God exists in a humblebrag thought experiment I call "Culberson's God." Religious believers always challenge atheists to prove that God does not exist, which is a logical impossibility, because it is logically impossible to prove a negative hypothesis, unless certain conditions are added.

I cannot prove that God does not exist, but if we agree on the definition of God, I can prove that God does not exist inside a box. If I open the box and God is not there, then I have proven that God does not exist inside that box.

However, someone who is religious believes that God exists, but either refuses to prove or cannot prove that God exists. Now, that person has the same opportunity to prove that God exists and is inside the box by opening the box.

However, a religious believer might insist that God is invisible to human eyes and actually is inside the box, but we cannot perceive God's existence. If that is the case, then I insist that Schrodinger's Cat is also invisible, and when we open the box, we cannot tell if the cat is either alive or dead.

As far as I know, a cat cannot choose to be visible or invisible, but an all-powerful, all-knowing God should have the ability to choose in order to prove existence. If there is a God, then why does God choose to avoid proof of existence, when doing so would settle the question once and forever and also recruit billions of new believers?

I will stake my life, my reputation, and everything I hold dear that God does not visibly exist inside that box, and I will prove it by opening the box and observing that God is not inside. Would a religious person do the same to prove that God exists and is inside the box?

I offer to go first.

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