THE QUESTION
There is a web site that I enjoy visiting on occasion called "Ask a Philosopher" [1], which is operated by the International Society for Philosophers. I find it fascinating, the wide range of questions that people ask, but of greater interest to me are the answers provided to those questions. The following is, in my estimation, a very poor answer to a rather common question. An individual named Francis asked a philosopher [2]:
Can you prove that God does not exist?
The answer came from a gentleman by the name of John Brandon. He likened the question to someone asking whether or not unicorns exist, invoking the view of Alfred J. Ayer by telling Francis that it is not really proper to invent something "simply to prove that it does not exist." He feels that this is somewhat backwards; that is, the burden of proof lands squarely in the lap of whoever posits a God:
There is no need to build up an image of God simply to knock it down. The onus is on the believers to prove that there is a God.
Nevertheless, he goes on, if one does wish to go about proving that God does not exist, then it could be accomplished merely by showing that arguments for the existence of God are invalid. As an example, Mr. Brandon said, the fine-tuning argument could be invalidated by asserting that "there are other explanations for order in nature, which could be backed up by scientific argument."
And he could not be more wrong.
