The first valid evidence that god does NOT exist

[Age]

Age has sometimes been reasonable. His emotional need to do that passive -aggressive thing sometimes gets the better of his reason. Intellectually I find him worth talking to but I FOE him as I don't enjoy his passive - aggressive snubs.

Well he definitely sounds like someone not even remotely familiar with the basics of philosophy. I only had a couple years in a college classroom, and actually my professor was far too captivated by Wilhelm Reich, as far as I'm concerned. The whole "Orgone Energy" thing, I thought was completely wrong.

Anyway I probably won't be communicating any ideas with Age anymore. He sounds like a loser that just comes here to troll. I, on the other hand, actually care about the truth of things, such that philosophical discourse can provide, with the engagement of honest, like minded people, that at least have some basic knowledge of philosophy.

I tried to get him to look up on or two basic lexical items from academic philosophy, but without recognisable success.

But, why 'look up' at some thing that had absolutely nothing at all to do with what I was saying and pointing out?

I have, also, tried to get you to 'look at' what the actual irrefutable Truth is, exactly, without absolutely any success at all.

[Age]

Yes! You're absolutely right. And that's why an infinite regress of causes is impossible. And yet, it's very easy to observe scientifically, or even just by looking around, that we live in a causal universe, where one thing initiates another. That is exactly what science itself requires us to believe...that the things we study in science have some sort of causal relation to things that have gone before. Scientific explanation is in terms of cause and effect.

So if there's no possibility of infinite regress, then this universe cannot exist as the product of an infinite regress of causes.
But this universe does exist.
Therefore, this universe must have had a cause, and that cause cannot have been part of a regressive chain, because that's impossible.

And this is how you and I can know for certain that whatever "exists," it had a beginning point. The mathematics are decisive.

If this universe was caused to have a beginning then when did the beginning begin, do you happen to know the exact time the beginning began Immanuel?

Nobody knows exactly that.

.Because it never actually happened

But we do know it had to have a specific beginning point.

Only a closed imbecile would say and claim such a thing.

It's just like we know that a mathematical sequence of prerequisites has to have a starting point, or it never starts at all.

Again, only closed imbeciles would presume such a thing.

[Fairy]

Yes! You're absolutely right. And that's why an infinite regress of causes is impossible. And yet, it's very easy to observe scientifically, or even just by looking around, that we live in a causal universe, where one thing initiates another. That is exactly what science itself requires us to believe...that the things we study in science have some sort of causal relation to things that have gone before. Scientific explanation is in terms of cause and effect.

So if there's no possibility of infinite regress, then this universe cannot exist as the product of an infinite regress of causes.
But this universe does exist.
Therefore, this universe must have had a cause, and that cause cannot have been part of a regressive chain, because that's impossible.

And this is how you and I can know for certain that whatever "exists," it had a beginning point. The mathematics are decisive.

If this universe was caused to have a beginning then when did the beginning begin, do you happen to know the exact time the beginning began Immanuel?

Nobody knows exactly that. But we do know it had to have a specific beginning point.

It's just like we know that a mathematical sequence of prerequisites has to have a starting point, or it never starts at all.

Yes okay that’s fair enough. I guess we’ll never know the exact time the beginning began, just that it did begin. Shall we leave it at that not knowing when then? Something sprang into action, that’s for sure, we can be certain about that for now at least, yeah?

[Immanuel Can]

If this universe was caused to have a beginning then when did the beginning begin, do you happen to know the exact time the beginning began Immanuel?

Nobody knows exactly that. But we do know it had to have a specific beginning point.

It's just like we know that a mathematical sequence of prerequisites has to have a starting point, or it never starts at all.

Yes okay that’s fair enough. I guess we’ll never know the exact time the beginning began, just that it did begin. Shall we leave it at that not knowing when then? Something sprang into action, that’s for sure, we can be certain about that for now at least, yeah?

Right. But we can narrow that, using some basic reasoning.

Whatever "sprang into action," it had to be uncaused and always-existing. That much is established by the impossibility of an infinite regress of causes. However, we also know that it had to be very powerful, obviously, if it can create universes. And it had to be capable of injecting into the universe the kind of complexity and intricacy from which, as we observe scientifically, that complexity subsequently began to decline entropically. That gives us a lot that we know for sure.

So now we have a list of characteristics of whatever it was that created the universe. What candidates fit that description?

[Alexis Jacobi]

So now we have a list of characteristics of whatever it was that created the universe. What candidates fit that description?

::: raises hand somberly, resolutely :::

“Sir, I believe I know the answer …”

[Immanuel Can]

So now we have a list of characteristics of whatever it was that created the universe. What candidates fit that description?

::: raises hand somberly, resolutely :::

“Sir, I believe I know the answer …”

Please...enlighten us.

[Will Bouwman]

It's a flawed definition, obviously. And you can detect that it is, by considering the claim "humans cannot know of anything...etc." Just ask yourself: how would one person -- say, you -- know what your neighbour or somebody who's an expert or the academic at the local university CANNOT know? If one person does not know Dallas, does that imply nobody else can? The suggestion doesn't even have a chance of being credible.

Well it does to people who haven't nailed their credulity to some particular cross.

No, it has nothing to do with what one personally knows or believes -- me or you. It's just obvious, isn't it? I can't say what you "can know," and you can't be dogmatic about what you suppose I "can know," unless you have some compelling rationale that isn't obvious here. And what would that be?

Philosophy 101: Cogito ergo sum.

So the dogmatic agnostic, the kind who says, "I don't know, and you can't either," is no more intellectually tenable than the Atheist who says, "There are no Gods." To be reasonable, agnosticism must be a humble, modest and moderate thing, and can perhaps go as far as to say, "I don't know, and maybe you don't either," but is rationally incapable of being any more dogmatic than that.

If an agnostic exceeds that, then he's just wearing the same intellectual rags as the Atheist: dogmatic claims to know things he can't possibly know.

It's a bit like arguing with the proverbial goldfish. I keep telling you that I have no desire to defend "Atheism", which after one trip around the goldfish bowl, you apparently forget. I'll say it again:

At no point have I tried to defend "Atheism". As I said, you and your "Atheist" are both labouring under the delusion that you can prove your proposition.

However, I have found that most admitted agnostics tend to be either centrist, close to the 50-50 line and willing to confess the limitations of human possibility of knowing, or even more open to the possibility of God than that. Somewhere between the center-doubtful and the extreme of openness is where an intellectually solid agnosticism can land. But it can't be hardened agnosticism, or it's just Atheism with less nerve. After all, the core meaning is "I don't know."

Well, as mentioned:

Here is an actual definition of:
agnosticism, (from Greek agnōstos, “unknowable”)...

https://www.britannica.com/topic/agnosticism
That you choose to translate ancient Greek as you do is an aesthetic choice you have made, because it fits a story you wish to be true.

That something can come from nothing, while it seems intuitively certain that it can't, but good luck proving it, isn't self contradictory;

"Self" contradictory? Perhaps not that. But it is irrational and impossible, according to mathematics and logic.

As I say, philosophy is fundamentally story telling. Mathematics and logic are just rules for particular types of stories. The basic methodology is the same; you start with an hypothesis, axiom or premise, which almost certainly cannot be proven, throw in some variables and develop a narrative consistent with your starting blocks. Essentially, that is what Thomas Kuhn described in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. We know that exactly the same phenomena can be explained perfectly well in different contexts, hence underdetermination.

Come up with a premise, the negation of which is self contradictory, and you will have your proof, which I will be compelled to believe.

Oh, that's easy. I already have. Atheism.

So the negation of "Atheism", theism, is self contradictory. I don't think you mean that.

No human being is ever adequate to make the claim, "I know there is no God." That's absurd.

Not according to you:

Just ask yourself: how would one person -- say, you -- know what your neighbour or somebody who's an expert or the academic at the local university CANNOT know?

I take that to be a claim that you can know what a neighbour, expert or academic cannot know. As usual though, the point has gone completely over your head. The Brittanica definition goes on to state:

"...strictly speaking, the doctrine that humans cannot know of the existence of anything beyond the phenomena of their experience."

Again, Cogito ergo sum. What you can know is that you believe in your god. You can know that you have experiences that you attribute to that god. What you cannot know is all the alternative explanations for your experiences, and if you don't even know what those explanations might be, you cannot possibly rule them out.

What you might benefit from understanding is that, outside the story you are telling, some of your claims are nonsensical. For instance, that an almighty god, who could create an infinite number of worlds, chooses to make only one. That one was clearly not made by an omnipotent and omniscient god. Even Eden wasn't perfect; your god neglected to provide Adam with any company, other than your god himself. That a relationship with your god was enough to satisfy Adam suggests that a relationship with your god isn't as fabulous as you imagine. The security wasn't great either; someone let a talking snake in. Perhaps the most wtf claim you make is that your god is the essence of goodness and at the same time does nothing to save humans from the agonies of hell. But then, your concept of hell is as slippery as a soapy tit. One minute you tell us that hell is something terrible, the next it is that hell is death and thereafter, that hell is living an eternity without your god, which in the world beyond your story is actually no bad thing.

Your god is too small; made so by the arbitrary restrictions you put on him. To return to the teacup in the Pacific analogy; you have designed and built that teacup, and foolishly trapped yourself inside it.

[Skepdick]

Well if that's how you do your sums "a+theist" means "not+theist", which describes me perfectly.

Does not chicken soup also describe you perfectly?
How about not 7; or not Chinese?

As I said, you and your "Atheist" are both labouring under the delusion that you can prove your proposition.

Yeah, but you are not being asked to "prove your proposition". You are being asked to explain what persuaded you to abandon the default position for your current one (atheism).

If you are currently in a different location than the one you started at - you must have taken some route to get there. Unless, of course you are labouring under the delusion that you have arrived at atheism.

[Will Bouwman]

Well if that's how you do your sums "a+theist" means "not+theist", which describes me perfectly.

Does not chicken soup also describe you perfectly?
How about not 7; or not Chinese?

All of the above.

As I said, you and your "Atheist" are both labouring under the delusion that you can prove your proposition.

Yeah, but you are not being asked to "prove your proposition". You are being asked to explain what persuaded you to abandon the default position for your current one (atheism).

If you are currently in a different location than the one you started at - you must have taken some route to get there. Unless, of course you are labouring under the delusion that you have arrived at atheism.

Well, if it is your belief that theism is the default position, I disagree. It seems to me that we are born without a concept of god, and it is only through education that we develop one. It is demonstrable that the particular concept of god a child develops is, surely not coincidentally, influenced by the different locations people find themselves in. I didn't arrive at atheism, I started there. It might be my failure to accept theism, or it might be a failure of all the different shades of theists to persuade me that their version is true.

[Immanuel Can]

Well it does to people who haven't nailed their credulity to some particular cross.

No, it has nothing to do with what one personally knows or believes -- me or you. It's just obvious, isn't it? I can't say what you "can know," and you can't be dogmatic about what you suppose I "can know," unless you have some compelling rationale that isn't obvious here. And what would that be?

Philosophy 101: Cogito ergo sum.

You'll have to explain. I see no connection between Descartes' cogito and the present issue. If one attends to Descartes, one comes to believe one does not even know one's own body exists, let alone what somebody in another body knows. So Descartes would seem to me to be a bad place for your argument to resort.

So the dogmatic agnostic, the kind who says, "I don't know, and you can't either," is no more intellectually tenable than the Atheist who says, "There are no Gods." To be reasonable, agnosticism must be a humble, modest and moderate thing, and can perhaps go as far as to say, "I don't know, and maybe you don't either," but is rationally incapable of being any more dogmatic than that.

If an agnostic exceeds that, then he's just wearing the same intellectual rags as the Atheist: dogmatic claims to know things he can't possibly know.

It's a bit like arguing with the proverbial goldfish. I keep telling you that I have no desire to defend "Atheism", which after one trip around the goldfish bowl, you apparently forget.

No, I've not forgotten. I'm pointing out that a so-called "agnosticism" that makes irrational claims to know what other people can or cannot know is as absurd as Atheism. Neither one of them has a shred of credibility.

However, I have found that most admitted agnostics tend to be either centrist, close to the 50-50 line and willing to confess the limitations of human possibility of knowing, or even more open to the possibility of God than that. Somewhere between the center-doubtful and the extreme of openness is where an intellectually solid agnosticism can land. But it can't be hardened agnosticism, or it's just Atheism with less nerve. After all, the core meaning is "I don't know."

Well, as mentioned:

Here is an actual definition of:
agnosticism, (from Greek agnōstos, “unknowable”)...

https://www.britannica.com/topic/agnosticism

I read it. It's a faulty definition. I pointed out why. Nobody can claim to know what another person can or cannot ever know, without a very specific and compelling reason for saying it. It's just irrational to suppose he could.

So I could say, "There's no way you can know the size of the universe," and that would be rational for me to say, because the universe is expanding. By the time somebody ventures a measurement, it's already bigger than that. But how can I say, "I know for sure that Will cannot know Boston, or bricklaying, or the population of New Zealand? How would I know what Will can or cannot know?

So how can an agnostic say, "I don't know God, and you cannot either"? What's his rational basis for such a judgment? Does he, like the Atheist, claim to know there's no God, so there's nothing to be known?

...philosophy is fundamentally story telling.

No, but continue...

Mathematics and logic are just rules for particular types of stories.

Definitely not. The "story" 2+2=12 is perhaps a "story," in that it's fictional. But 2+2 actually = 4. And that's empirically and logically provable.

Thomas Kuhn described in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

Kuhn had some good points. But he didn't say what you're taking to have said. He only talks about scientific theorizing, not about maths or logic. And, in fact, his argument relies heavily on an objectivist view of truth. For what can it mean to say that a theory is "true" or "more true" if it's all just stories?

I think you've drunk too heavily at the Postmodern kool-aid fountain, Will. It's not true that everything is "narrative," or "story."

Come up with a premise, the negation of which is self contradictory, and you will have your proof, which I will be compelled to believe.

Oh, that's easy. I already have. Atheism.

So the negation of "Atheism", theism, is self contradictory. I don't think you mean that.

No. I mean that Atheism is a negation. And it's a self-contradictory one, too.

No human being is ever adequate to make the claim, "I know there is no God." That's absurd.

Not according to you:

Just ask yourself: how would one person -- say, you -- know what your neighbour or somebody who's an expert or the academic at the local university CANNOT know?

I take that to be a claim that you can know what a neighbour, expert or academic cannot know.

Then you mistake it. I'm saying the opposite. I'm saying that even I don't know what Will can or cannot know, unless I have a compelling reason for believing it. So I can safely say that Will does not know the dimensions of the universe or whether God exists or not, because those require infinite knowledge, and Will -- like me -- is finite. But how do I know if Will knows the city of Dublin or quantity surveying or how to make good tea? I'm in no position to say.

What you can know is that you believe in your god. You can know that you have experiences that you attribute to that god. What you cannot know is all the alternative explanations for your experiences, and if you don't even know what those explanations might be, you cannot possibly rule them out.

All human knowing is probabilistic, not absolute...at least in the empirical realm. That need not trouble anybody: high probability knowledge is far better than low probability knowledge. And we all live by estimating relative probabilities.

You don't "know" in an absolute way that you won't be stabbed to death in the street today. But you still go out, because your estimation of that probability is that it's low. That's how we all live: not by absolute knowledge, but by weighing probabilities.

So where does the Atheist or the dogmatic agnostic get his confidence to say "There's no God?" Where's his incorporation of probability? What is it based on? How secure can our confidence in his knowledge be?

What you might benefit from understanding is that, outside the story you are telling, some of your claims are nonsensical. For instance, that an almighty god, who could create an infinite number of worlds, chooses to make only one.

I haven't said that. I don't know how many "worlds" God has made. There are certainly many planets. Who knows what God is doing out there? I certainly don't claim to know that.

But again, how does the dogmatic Atheist or agnostic "know" that other people can't know God? And if they don't "know" it, why are they talking about other people at all? Why not just say the truth, which is "I don't know God"? That's what an honest Atheist or agnostic would have to do.

[MikeNovack]

But again, how does the dogmatic Atheist or agnostic "know" that other people can't know God? And if they don't "know" it, why are they talking about other people at all? Why not just say the truth, which is "I don't know God"? That's what an honest Atheist or agnostic would have to do.

Well that depends on what we mean by "know". There is personal knowledge (not expressible or transmissible). Then there is knowledge that can be expressed or transmitted.

The atheist MIGHT be able to deny the second. Especially since in the cases of THIS particular knowledge, the person claiming it is also claiming to be trying to transmit/express the knowledge << compare with the person claiming tp have personal knowledge being kept secret >>

But IC, have you EVER encountered an atheist claiming that YOU (a believer) did not believe you had knowledge? In other words, I don't think an atheists belief "there is no god" means they disbelieve that YOU believe in God, claim knowledge of God, etc.

[Alexis Jacobi]

Well, if it is your belief that theism is the default position, I disagree. It seems to me that we are born without a concept of god, and it is only through education that we develop one. It is demonstrable that the particular concept of god a child develops is, surely not coincidentally, influenced by the different locations people find themselves in. I didn't arrive at atheism, I started there. It might be my failure to accept theism, or it might be a failure of all the different shades of theists to persuade me that their version is true.

If I think back over all the ethnographic, sociological, and anthropological literature I have read, and of course literature dealing with religious speculation and even psychology, there is said to be something innate in man’s psyche that could be referred to as intuitive that has led to the fabulous pictures about God, the origin of things, and our roles.

The earliest models are, I guess, those accounts that shamanism presents. For example the hunter in a primitive setting who relies on dreaming to help him in the hunt. And the role of omens and signs from the world itself that guides the man to his goals and objects. And then of course the shaman’s encounter with those beings and entities in his dream or vision experiences and the shaman’s role as healer — proto-doctor, proto-psychologist, proto-interpreter of man’s destiny.

All together these are the proto-experiences that lead to broader and more developed notions about a creator-god and about assigned missions (in life).

(I did also so much appreciate the “slippery as a soapy tit” metaphor. Bravo! )

[Will Bouwman]

If one attends to Descartes, one comes to believe one does not even know one's own body exists...

Correct. If that troubles you, prove you have a body.

[Immanuel Can]

But again, how does the dogmatic Atheist or agnostic "know" that other people can't know God? And if they don't "know" it, why are they talking about other people at all? Why not just say the truth, which is "I don't know God"? That's what an honest Atheist or agnostic would have to do.

Well that depends on what we mean by "know". There is personal knowledge (not expressible or transmissible). Then there is knowledge that can be expressed or transmitted.

What sort of "knowledge," though, can't be put propositionally? If I say, for example, "I know Boston," I can't transmit to you my knowledge of Boston, to be sure: but I can certainly convey to you the fact of my knowing of Boston. And I can say, "Fenway Park is at 4 Yawkey Way," and you can use my knowledge of Boston to find Fenway Park.

So in what sense is that "inexpressible" or "untransmissable"? Only that my knowledge is experiential and theirs-from-me is indirect and derivative of mine. But not that the information about Fenway can't be communicated, nor that they couldn't go to Fenway Park and have their own first-hand experience of Boston.

The atheist MIGHT be able to deny the second.

Right. He could say, "Maybe you do know God, but that doesn't mean I do." Sure.

But he couldn't say, "Your claim to know God is impossible." If he did say that, he'd surely owe more explanation as to how he came to that certainty.

But IC, have you EVER encountered an atheist claiming that YOU (a believer) did not believe you had knowledge?

All the time. Take R. Dawkins famous book, titled, "The God Delusion." What could that title be proposing, if making such a claim among Atheists were even rare?

In other words, I don't think an atheists belief "there is no god" means they disbelieve that YOU believe in God, claim knowledge of God, etc.

No, but it does mean they suppose my belief has no actual referent, that there's no real God for me to believe in. And if that's what they're claiming, then they surely owe that evidence for their certainty, don't they?

[Immanuel Can]

If one attends to Descartes, one comes to believe one does not even know one's own body exists...

Correct. If that troubles you, prove you have a body.

Well, Descartes' Meditations is a big subject, but I have him here, on my desk, if you want to go into it.

Descartes is making an heuristic argument, not a literal one. He's saying, "Let's use absolute skepticism to remove any knowledge that is less than absolute, and see what we're left with." But what he's actually saying is not that we have NO knowledge, but that there is no knowledge that is free from some possibility of doubt, except (he says) my own knowledge of my own existence. (That, too, has been criticized, but we need not go into that now.)

However, as I've said, that need not trouble us much. All human empirical knowing is probabilistic. But probabilities of a high sort are much better than probabilities of a low sort. So let's stick with high probability knowledge.

Still, the question will come up: what makes one kind of knowledge high-probability, and another low? And the answer will be, "It depends on the attached evidence."

So what evidence is attached to the Atheists' claim that there is no God, or the dogmatic agnostic's claim that nobody else can know?