"You Can’t Prove A Negative"

[Mike Strand]

I appeal to the example of that odd and amazing life-form known as tube worms, found in the ocean depths.

Before they were discovered (by accident -- the deep sea explorers weren’t looking for them), and if anyone had even been able to imagine or define a tube worm, you may have been among those who would say tube worms don’t exist. You may even have felt safe saying this, and you might have felt smug feeling that anyone who made the claim they existed would have to show them to you.

However, the challenging approach (and the more interesting and relevant) would have been to debate the question, “Is it possible for tube worms or similar creature to exist?” Then the burden is on both sides. Not only do both sides have to consider various definitions or characterizations of tube worms, but, assuming they can agree on a definition, then have to address the question of whether it is possible for tube worms to exist.

Jack: Do you believe in God?
Jill: Depends on what you mean by God.
Jack: You’re avoiding the issue.
Jill: No, you are. Tell me your conception of God, and then we can talk about whether it is possible for such a God to exist.

[Sol]

One must know in order to know not, therefore one cannot know.

Knowing not cannot result in knowing, therfore one can only know.

[chaz wyman]

One must know in order to know not, therefore one cannot know.

Knowing not cannot result in knowing, therfore one can only know.

You are confusing knowing and believing.

As an atheist I merely state the impossibility of knowing god exists.
As a theist I state a belief in god which I cannot know

[Impenitent]

in order to know knot you need rope

-Imp

[chaz wyman]

in order to know knot you need rope

But you can get by with String Theory!



-Imp

[Sol]

You are confusing knowing and believing.

As an atheist I merely state the impossibility of knowing god exists.
As a theist I state a belief in god which I cannot know

Is an atheist a non-believer or a non-knower? My understanding of an atheist is someone who knows god does not exist.
Is a theist a non-believer of the knowability of god or a non-knower of believability in god? My understanding of a theist is someone who knows god does exist.

So is the problem with god or with knowing?

Is impossibility of knowledge and non knowability not the same?

"To know is also to believe, to believe is to possibly know" - Can the falsity of this statement be known or only believed?
It makes sense to me that all knowledge is presupposed to be believed unless knowledge is relative.
It also makes sense that beliefs are either 1) knowledge, 2) not knowledge or 3) something else.
So one can believe that one knows and know that one believes without contradiction.
My concern is with 2) that which is only or necessarily not knowledge, and the resulting gap from which originates an invisible absolute.

[chaz wyman]

Is an atheist a non-believer or a non-knower? My understanding of an atheist is someone who knows god does not exist.

I think most atheists would disagree and simply say (even insist) that their position is negative: that they have heard of god and don't accept the idea. This does not involve knowing or believing, but a negation of someone else's belief.

Is a theist a non-believer of the knowability of god or a non-knower of believability in god? My understanding of a theist is someone who knows god does exist.

Okay this is interesting. A theist might claim to "know". But to know is more than personal, like belief. An atheist would retort that the theist can only CLAIM to know, but that such knowledge is not possible. I suppose the main difference between belief and knowledge is subjective/objective.

So is the problem with god or with knowing?

For an atheist the problem is with god, and the theist claim to know. The atheist is not claiming knowledge, but a negation of another's belief.

Is impossibility of knowledge and non knowability not the same?

That would depend on who is talking.

"To know is also to believe, to believe is to possibly know" - Can the falsity of this statement be known or only believed?
It makes sense to me that all knowledge is presupposed to be believed unless knowledge is relative.
It also makes sense that beliefs are either 1) knowledge, 2) not knowledge or 3) something else.
So one can believe that one knows and know that one believes without contradiction.
My concern is with 2) that which is only or necessarily not knowledge, and the resulting gap from which originates an invisible absolute.

I'll leave the absolutes to the religiously minded. For me Knowledge is a true belief (until proven wrong), For all other belief they are either contingent on further verification as to whether or not they are true or false, or whimsical wished for assertions of the "if only" type which I personally have little to do with unless I feel it is possible to bring such a state of affairs about.


[/quote]

[evangelicalhumanist]

You are confusing knowing and believing.

As an atheist I merely state the impossibility of knowing god exists.
As a theist I state a belief in god which I cannot know

Is an atheist a non-believer or a non-knower? My understanding of an atheist is someone who knows god does not exist.
Is a theist a non-believer of the knowability of god or a non-knower of believability in god? My understanding of a theist is someone who knows god does exist.

No, for only about eleventy-eight trillionth time, atheist does not mean "know god does not exist." It means that there are two possibilities -- god exists/god doesn't exist -- and on the evidence (while it is certainly somehow conceivable that a god exists) the answer pretty much seems to be "no."

It is precisely the same argument for so many things that almost everyone remains comfortably certain don't exist -- leprachauns, invisible pink unicorns, and the like. Given what we know about the technology that might make things invisible, for example, it is conceivable that somewhere in the universe that has evolved naturally. An certainly there are animals (narwhals) that have evolved a single, central horn. So is an IPU possible? Sure! Is it likely? Well, has anybody ever seen (or somehow detected) one? And the consensus, all around the planet with the exception of a couple of tongue-in-cheek websites, is that there ain't no such IPU!

And that's what atheism is. When you describe your God and His attributes and abilities, it's actually not hard to show the evidence against His existence is rock solid. If you leave your god so undefined as to be meaningless, then it doesn't matter if anyboyd believes or not, since there are no consequences to either (a consequence would, of course, involve some attribute that we could demonstrate to be excessively unlikely).

[Typist]

It is precisely the same argument for so many things that almost everyone remains comfortably certain don't exist -- leprachauns, invisible pink unicorns, and the like.

You keep making this argument over and over, even though it can be defeated in 4 seconds, and has been already repeatedly. It's like you're quoting Bible verses.

Have billions of people over thousands of years in every culture of the world reported a personal experience of the invisible pink unicorn or leprachauns?

Have they?

Yes, or no?

Atheists claim to be all about data and evidence, but so often they do exactly what theists do, simply discard any evidence that doesn't fit the conclusions they wish to reach.

Billions of people over thousands of years is a very large piece of data. (I agree it's not conclusive evidence.) In order to make your IPU comparison, you have to pretend this data does not exist, which is blatantly illogical, and quite sloppy reason.

[Sol]

atheist does not mean "know god does not exist." It means that there are two possibilities -- god exists/god doesn't exist --

My issue is not with the existence or non existence of god but the necessary and sufficient conditions for such a judgement to arise.
It is obvious for theists that god is real. That an atheist (negater of the unknowable) can merely refute the theist is in my mind always going to be a weak argument because it is based on the negation of something not presented as an argument rather than on the affimation of an independent counter argument.
The argument that there is no god ought not nihilistically presume there was some god that we have killed (or negated), but commence with what there actually is. Radically sceptical or not we rightly come back to

the main difference between belief and knowledge is subjective/objective.

And to be frank if atheists cannot accomodate theists because of a superfluous arrangement of opinion why not just embrace pluralism and be done with it as Dawkins unfortunately seems to do by advocating that state education ought to include comparative religion. lol.

[evangelicalhumanist]

It is precisely the same argument for so many things that almost everyone remains comfortably certain don't exist -- leprachauns, invisible pink unicorns, and the like.

You keep making this argument over and over, even though it can be defeated in 4 seconds, and has been already repeatedly. It's like you're quoting Bible verses.

Have billions of people over thousands of years in every culture of the world reported a personal experience of the invisible pink unicorn or leprachauns?

Have they?

Yes, or no?

What many (or few) believe without evidence hardly defeats an argument -- except if my argument had been not that certain things exist or don't exist, but whether there were believers in the existence of those things. That was not my argument, and therefore it has not been "defeated," and certainly not in 4 seconds!

Many people throughout history have strongly and absolutely believed many things. Witches could cause you great harm, for example -- a belief still strongly prevalent throughout the world, and augmented in some places by the belief that eating bits of albino humans can magically protect you. So I ask you, does the prevalence of belief in witches (whether stronger in the past than now is irrelevant) say anything about the actual existence of witches?

Atheists claim to be all about data and evidence, but so often they do exactly what theists do, simply discard any evidence that doesn't fit the conclusions they wish to reach.

Billions of people over thousands of years is a very large piece of data. (I agree it's not conclusive evidence.) In order to make your IPU comparison, you have to pretend this data does not exist, which is blatantly illogical, and quite sloppy reason.

The argument from belief is, frankly, not of much value, and it is certainly not "data and evidence." Once again, I point out that a belief in witches is not evidence of the existence of witches. It is, however, evidence that people believe things for which they have no evidence (and often enough evidence that contradicts the belief!). It is also very strong evidence that the more earnestly humans are taught some things from earliest childhood, the less likely they will be as adults to look see the contradictions and refute even a patently erroneous belief.

Now, as to your other argument (which is really the "Argument from Experience"), Once again I point out that many people experience many things which can be shown to be an internal representation of nothing that can be shown to be an external reality. The woman who "experienced" the existence of her son's arm attached to her shoulder (anosognosia) is a rare but quite pointed example.

And many throughout history have made claims to "experiences" often enough that I would conclude aren't entirely real. Did Moses really see a burning bush that talked to him? Okay, then, did Joseph Smith really have "seer stones" that could translate a non-existent "reformed Egyptian" when read off golden plates out of a hat? If I must believe one, mustn't I believe the other, or can I conclude that at least one of those two (and possibly both) invented some portions of their experiences for reasons of their own? And in that case, looking at the 100,000 or so religions humans have dreamed up, isn't it just as likely that quite a few other such experiential claims are also at least somewhat imaginative?

Anyway, here are my reason not to pay much attention to "The Argument From Experience:"

• There's lots of medical evidence that some reports of religious experience arise from natural or psychological causes. Once that is admitted, it becomes possible that most -- or even all -- might be.
• Acccounts of such experiences (as I've mentioned with Moses and Smith) in "scripture" are often of quite tenuous historical accuracy. Why should a single report -- no matter how well-believed -- uncorroborated by any other source, be believed when it is a religious matter when it would be rejected as insufficient for other purposes (say a criminal trial or history text)?
• It seems fairly certain that at least a few claimed religious experiences (Jim Jones, Marshall Applewhite) are untrue. Thus it is certainly possible (and often enough even probable) that so are many other accounts which are as likely to be given in order to gain attention, acceptance or some other personal benefit (like power over others, donations, etc.)
• Inconsistent revelations and experiences are the norm throughout history -- different people have (believed themselves to have) had religious experiences pointing to the existence of different religions. Not all of these can be correct. Indeed, Christians only ever experience Mary or Jesus on their toast, grilled cheese sandwiches and oil slicks. Hindus never experience those characters, but often enough a rather different and more exotic form of decoration on their chippattis. Muslims most often see Arabic script, and in particular the name of Allah, when they see their own versions of pareidolia on whatever surface they observe.
• Many researchers in psychology and neuroscience have suggested that religious (and quite a few other) experiences are little more than hallucinations aimed at fulfilling basic psychological desires. Freud, for example, considered God to be simply a psychological "illusion" created by the mind, instead of an actual existing entity.

[Typist]

EH, thanks for replying. But, I'm sorry, you've completed ignored my review of your analogies.

I am not stating that because billions of people claim there is a God, therefore this proves there must be a God.

I'm saying that that the scale of the God proposal is so large, that it bears no resemblance to the pink unicorn and leprechaun analogies you keep trying to make.

Billions of people claim there is a God, and only one, me, claims there is a pink unicorn. Billions vs. one. See the math here???

If you wish to lump the pink unicorn and leprechaun theories together, I've no complaint with that, as they do seem similar. Both obscure theories nobody believes in.

It's silly logic to put a premise billions of people have supported throughout the entire history of humanity in the same category with proposals nobody has ever supported.

[evangelicalhumanist]

EH, thanks for replying. But, I'm sorry, you've completed ignored my review of your analogies.

I am not stating that because billions of people claim there is a God, therefore this proves there must be a God.

I'm saying that that the scale of the God proposal is so large, that it bears no resemblance to the pink unicorn and leprechaun analogies you keep trying to make.

Billions of people claim there is a God, and only one, me, claims there is a pink unicorn. Billions vs. one. See the math here???

Tell me what all those billions of people see as the least common denominator of this god that they all believe in. And then tell me how many people have been taught since birth by those they are programmed by nature to believe about the Invisible Pink Unicorn (invented within the past decade)?

You miss my point as much as you claim that I miss yours. That people -- each and every one of which was born of parents, grew up and was taught by them (or the community of which they were a part) -- are formed as much by their environment as by their nature.

And I therefore ask again, though I am aware of no studies of the matter, how many people would come to this belief that you tout if they were not taught it from birth?

If you wish to lump the pink unicorn and leprechaun theories together, I've no complaint with that, as they do seem similar. Both obscure theories nobody believes in.

It's silly logic to put a premise billions of people have supported throughout the entire history of humanity in the same category with proposals nobody has ever supported.

I note that you ignored my comments about witches -- which in fact many people throughout history have and still do believe in. You will find, for example, that every year around the world, literally thousands of real human beings are persecuted and killed for being witches. To kill somebody suggest a very powerful belief. There are entire cultures (see Africa) for which the belief is completely pervasive. On the basis of that, do you therefore claim that there really are people (witches) who have the special, supernatural powers claimed for them? Or do you deny that on the basis of numbers -- that there are only currently hundreds of millions (rather than billions) who believe it, even though at times through history the belief was pretty much universal?

And just one more little thing -- which I think speaks to my contention about belief: There is strong anecdotal evidence of a conversion asymmetry between atheism and the world's largest religion, Christianity. Many Christians (including ministers and priests, and theologians -- check out the bookshelves for titles like "Farewell to God" and "Why I left...") convert to atheism even though while still Christians they had been well-versed in Christian apologetics. By contrast, it is very hard to find atheists who converted to Christianity even though while still atheists they had been well-versed in the arguments against Christianity.

Finally, let me speak once more to the "Argument from Experience." I think that we, as philosophers (or pretending to be and that's why we're here) are rather more obligated than most to ask questions, and to try and address those questions that others ask. So, for example, there are many experiences that humans have that can be shown to be universal, and which can be shown to have natural causes. Gravity, for example. It is not the case that most people experience gravity ("let's call them "Fallists") while a few recalcitrant Afallists don't bother returning to earth when they jump into the air. I can provide, if necessary, rather a large number of such examples. So I think it appropriate for us, as philosophers, to address the question of why, for something assumed to be so real, such a very large number have no such experiences at all.

[Typist]

That people -- each and every one of which was born of parents, grew up and was taught by them (or the community of which they were a part) -- are formed as much by their environment as by their nature.

Again, I'm not arguing this point, which has nothing to do with my review of the analogy system your writings on atheism seems to be largely based on.

I'm only arguing that when you compare God and unicorns, you are comparing apples to bananas.

The evidence for God may be all wrong, I agree with that. I'm not arguing that point at all.

The scale of the evidence for God is so different than the scale of evidence for unicorns that trying to put them side by side is nonsensical.

Imagine that billions of people claim to have witnessed me stealing your TV, and few if any claim to have seen me run naked down the street. Why would we compare the two events?

[evangelicalhumanist]

That people -- each and every one of which was born of parents, grew up and was taught by them (or the community of which they were a part) -- are formed as much by their environment as by their nature.

Again, I'm not arguing this point, which has nothing to do with my review of the analogy system your writings on atheism seems to be largely based on.

I'm only arguing that when you compare God and unicorns, you are comparing apples to bananas.

The evidence for God may be all wrong, I agree with that. I'm not arguing that point at all.

The scale of the evidence for God is so different than the scale of evidence for unicorns that trying to put them side by side is nonsensical.

Imagine that billions of people claim to have witnessed me stealing your TV, and few if any claim to have seen me run naked down the street. Why would we compare the two events?

Fine, then forget all my arguments altogether and just provide what you suggest: "The scale of the evidence for God." And I will provide "The scale of the evidence for witches." No doubt, both will contain counts of those who believe (or who have believed, throughout history), and I suppose those numbers must be taken into account. But what will they actually prove, I wonder?

Now, to return to what you said -- "that when you compare God and unicorns, you are comparing apples to bananas." See, the problem is, I don't know God, so I don't know He is. All I can know is what others tell me about God. Now, would you care to review the literature on that subject and tell me that I am incorrect to be confused? Everything/nothing, everywhere/nowhere, transcendent/immanent/both/neither, anthropomorphic/animalistic/pure spirit/undefinable, omnipotent/limited, loving/sacrfice-demanding ... oh that list could go because there really have been 100,000 religions through human history.

I repeat, if you think my suppositions about God are terribly wrong, why don't you just correct me and tell me what He really is? Oughta be simple, no? And if you cannot, then you don't know that my suppositions are wrong -- you only know they're not yours.