You CAN prove the nonexistence of God

And, the proof is simple and elegant.

So much so that I can’t believe atheists even more philosophically versed than I readily sign off on the “you can’t prove the nonexistence of God” argument.

Per formal symbolic logic, the attempt to prove the nonexistence of anything is the equivalent of dividing by zero, basically.

But Bob Carroll, creator of The Skeptic’s Dictionary, goes back to classical times and the good old modus tollens.

To begin any such proof, we must begin with clarifying our terms. What do we mean by “God”? If you mean “eternal, all-powerful, all-good, invisible being who created the universe out of nothing but an act of will” then I would proceed thusly:

Premise 1. If God exists, then innocents should not suffer the horrendous torments of famines, floods, hurricanes, etc.

Premise 2. Innocents do suffer the horrendous torments etc.

Therefore, God does not exist.

All well and good. It gets directly at the problem of evil, and can be extended, with the proper subpremises/subwarrants, in the face of people who will quote the Yahweh of Job and Romans, or the kismet of Islam, etc, and say that “God’s ways are above human ways.”

(Those subpremises all hinge on the psychological suffering of a God who either can’t or won’t make his ways explicable to/understandable by human ways.)

Back to Carroll, who talks more about the argument in general and primarily about the first premise:

The above proof (by modus tollens) is valid. The second premise is indisputable. You and others will probably quibble over the first premise. Perhaps you will claim that God must have good reasons for allowing innocents to suffer so terribly, even if we don't understand them. Perhaps, but that seems to beg the question. It hardly seems an adequate justification for believing in God. In any case, whatever objection you bring up to my proof will hinge on your extending the meaning of “God” to include qualities that will seem contradictory to me.

Either that, or by “lowering your expectations” to a faith in a god who is either far less than omnipotent or else far less than omnibenevolent.