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Does the existence of a god need to be proven?
Posted on: September 6, 2009 - 7:09am
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Does the existence of a god need to be proven?
Does the existence of a god need to be proven? If so, how would one do it? If not, why not? I'm curious to see what the answers here may be. “Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
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Realy I stopped looking long ago. If a truebeliever wants me to believe as they do; then they are going to have to prove to me there is a god. I haven't heard anything new in the last 40+ years.
I do not feel compeled in the least to prove any god does not exist. Zero = zero, I don't have a fairy tail to support, the emporer has no clothes, I call it as I see it. If you think the story is real and the emporer is dressed then you get to prove it.
"Very funny Scotty; now beam down our clothes."
VEGETARIAN: Ancient Hindu word for "lousy hunter"
If man was formed from dirt, why is there still dirt?
Either proven or demonstrated (logic or science). To suggest otherwise would be special pleading, which is a presumption of proof... so... yeah. Even those who say god doesn't have to be proven are actually saying that god is proven.
You would have to present three things: 1) A gap in our knowledge base that seems to point at "God." 2) A working definition of God that can be tested empirically. 3) A series of falsifiable tests demonstrating that "God" is the overwhelmingly likely explanation for the unexplained gap from (1).
Again, it's special pleading to assume anything other than the Burden of Proof.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
People didnt think proof was needed when they gave Maddoff billions of dollars to invest.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
God only needs to be proven if it exists or you want some one else to believe in it.
Can the existence of a god be proven empirically? Would such a test not presuppose that a god has something that is a part of the observable world?
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Is there something other than the observable world?
Nobody I know was brainwashed into being an atheist.
Why Believe?
I suppose that depends on one's presupositions...but empirically, there is no way to know, unless of couse that world somehow were accessible from this world.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Absolutely, as people continue to use divine inspiration as an excuse for exercising their authority over others. That alone necessitates revealing the man behind the curtain. If no such basis of authority can be established, that would be a huge, 2,000 year old fraud.
I believe it can be done if we expand our idea of existence to include imaginary things. This question concerns what we allow as hallucination, and what we consider real from the experiences that people have of hallucination.
Something like our attitude towards fiction: a good novelist isn't a "good liar", even though what the novellist is saying happened didn't. It's understood that we're reading fiction.
If there's a difficulty, it's in understanding ourselves. We seem to be the focus of all belief, and all knowledge. If we can reason that certain hallucinations are correct, and certain others are not, then we could have Luminon's Shangri-La, where our feelings would be sharp enough to give us information.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
A 'presupposition' is a naked assertion; its a claim without any reason behind it, an assertion without any evidence, proof, or other support.
Your argument is ipse dixit.
If "something other than observable" was somehow accessible, it would axiomatically be observable. "Something other than observable" seems self-impugning.
People who think there is something they refer to as god don't ask enough questions.
It's not presupposing. It's the end of a chain of logic. If a thing is not observable (in the empirical sense, not in the visual sense) then for practical purposes, it does not exist. I'm not in the business of spending time worrying about things that cannot interact with the observable universe. Things that do interact with the observable universe are, by definition, observable.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Also, when suggesting that something exists outside of the observable, there should probably be a reason for that suggestion. It should be a good one, too, because the observable universe is the easy part, if that's the case. Things that we will never be able to observe (ie that we can determine logically that we will never be able to observe -- even indirectly) are problematic when they also have no reason for us to think that they should be included in what we call "existence".
To say it's "presupposing" to use the most successful methods of discerning between truth and falsity is a bit strange. On the other hand, your earlier criticisms of empirical thought were, naturally, valid. Empiricists cannot expect the eventuality of exhaustive knowledge.
I guess what we actually have to discuss, then, is how things can be determined to be possibly observable or not.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
At some level, it seems we all make some sort of presuppositions.
I should have probably qualified that to say empirically observable, that is obsevable via one's senses.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Right...I think that is part of the discussion that's going on in the thread on ontology.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
What is the difference between a presupposition and end of a chain of logic? Is it that presupposition carries baggage with it that something like axioms or basic beleifs do not?
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
Authority or no authority, I think extraordinary claims warrant investigation.
Arguments that suppose something like a brain-in-a-vat illustrate that there is no discernable difference between some illusions and what one think of as reality. But I certainly think there are discernable differences between other sorts of illusions. If I watched a friend eat mushrooms, then he claimed to see purple elephants on the wall when I was sitting in the room sober then I think there would be a discernable difference.
Right. That which is intended to be fiction is categorically different from that which is not intended to be fiction, so they have to be treated differently. There is no reason to attempt to verify the existence of Sauron or Gandalf, as they are characters in an intetionally ficticious work, but characters like Muhamed or Jessu are not intentionally ficticious.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
I suppose my point was that *I* only consider unconfirmed extraordinary claims problematic when they're part of the rhetoric of a social power.
So then there is the question of whether all it takes is intention, or can something be unintentionally fictitious?
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
In what sense?
In a human empathy personal rights issue sense, no. In a pragmatic, "I want to be sure" sense. YES!
If no one challenged the set belief of the majority of the world of the time, we would still believe that the earth was flat. The Ancient Egyptians believed for over 3,000 years that the sun was a thinking god, and they were wrong.
Anyone can utter a claim about any issue, not just religion or god. But that is still a completely different subject than having the ability to demonstrate the credibility of the claim.
Why is this an important issue? Because those who make claims can obtain and do have monetary and political power. Without the ability to question, sheep will slaughter sheep.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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Any time someone imperfectly repeats a story that happened one summer at band camp to a friend's cousin's best friend, unintentional fiction ensues.
And that's exactly how Christianity got started. "See, my friend's cousin's best friend was kickin' it playing bongos at the sea in Galilee..."
It's a fact.
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Haha! That's kind of what I was thinking. But it breaks the dichotomy that things must fall within intentionally or unintentionally fictitious. What if you repeat what someone said and accidentally got a couple of details wrong? It wouldn't be intentionally fictionalizing. In fact, any miscommunication could be considered unintentional fictionalizing.
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
Not entirely true. What if you were recounting an unintentionally-fictitious story, and accidentally got some details right? Then you'd be unintentionally non-fictionalizing!
"Yes, I seriously believe that consciousness is a product of a natural process. I find that the neuroscientists, psychologists, and philosophers who proceed from that premise are the ones who are actually making useful contributions to our understanding of the mind." - PZ Myers
Oh no! Your counter-example has destroyed my atheism! I'll never doubt the unintentional non-fictionalized gods again!
Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence
I don't suppose that I'd treat intentionally fictious, as they are prima facie not true. Unintentionally fiction would be different, I think, because it is intended to true.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”
No, it's that presupposition is the reverse of both logic and science. It is granting something as true before proving it true.
Axioms are demonstrated by retortion, and precede proof, so this doesn't really have anything to do with them.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Ok.
“Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid.”