Exactly! so for all we know, there could be a god out there.

You can't.

Surprised? Don't be. It doesn't mean the theists win.

Here are a couple of concepts you need to be familiar with:

Positive Definition: This is simply a definition that includes a description of what a thing is. A list of things that something isn't is not a definition.

Think of it this way. If I tell you that I have something in my vision, and it is not an elephant, can you tell me what it is? No. In fact, if I listed a billion things that it was not, you still would not know what it is.

There's a trick to this... some might say, If I have a box with a penny and a pencil in it, and I tell you I'm thinking of something in the box, and it is not a penny, then you know it's a pencil. That sounds like a negative definition but it's not. I have given you a universe of discourse. In other words, I've given you a set of positive definitions to choose from, and eliminated one of them, leaving you with only one positive definition.

Ok. Now that you understand negative definitions, one more concept...

Burden of Proof: This is a simple way of saying that if you claim something, it is up to you to prove that it exists. Nobody else has any burden to disprove what you have claimed. The best way to illustrate this is to think of what things would be like if it were not true. Suppose you have to disprove the nonexistence of something. Anything. First, it can't be done. If you had an infinite amount of time, and the means to traverse the entire universe, you could not prove the nonexistence of something, because there would be no way to prove that it was not always someplace different from your location, out of your sight. Second, if you have to disprove one thing, there's no reason why you wouldn't have to disprove EVERYTHING! This of course, can't be done because you can't even name everything, and even if you could, there would be a new thing created, which would be "Your knowledge of everything" which you would then have to disprove!

In short, disproof is nonsense.

Ok, now that you understand that the claimant is responsible for proving his position, and that the only meaningful definition is a positive one, you should be able to see that a claimant is only someone who claims that something with a positive definition exists.

What is it that atheists claim exists?

That's right! They don't claim that anything exists!

Who claims that something exists?

That's right again! Theists!

Ok, so now you understand that atheists have absolutely nothing to prove, right?

(picture me holding my breath for the inevitable theist response: Yeah, but you claim that god doesn't exist.. now you have to prove it... When this happens, I'm just going to sigh and put my head through a sheet rock wall.)

 

And until such time as there is empirical proof, the possibility deserves as much attention as the possibility of three headed cat-people from the plant Flarg who make the fizzies in my beer.

 

God the creator = impossible.
Matter and energy cannot be created or destroyed.

God the loving = impossible.
Life sucks, then you die. Which also sucks.

God the allknowing granting freewill = impossible.
The terms are exclusive to themselves, incapable of coexisting.

What's left?

Yes you can.

The 'you can't prove a negative' is a myth spread about the internet. It's false.

Carrier even wrote something on it:

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/theory.html 

There are only limits to inducitve rule outs... but we can rule out a claim deductively. If a claim is contradictory, then it is false. I don't need to scour the universe to know that 2+2=5 is false.

Also, if a claim is incoherent, then it is meaningless.

 

In addition, those who argue "Ah, you can't rule out my claim conclusively, so it must be true!" are committing the fallacy of arguing from inductive uncertainty. Others call it the "negative proof fallacy" : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_proof

 

 

 

I should point out that while I couldn't possibly disagree with this, I prefer to sit back and wait for a coherent positive definition. I find that the disproof argument backfires with theists, because if you haven't gotten their signed, sealed, bible-sworn affadavit to the "Complete and Incontrovertibly True Positive Definition of God" they will just waffle between conflated terms for the duration of the argument.

With the "You give me a definition, then prove it" approach, there's really not that much to do but twiddle your thumbs until such a time as they offer both a definition AND proof.

 

okay, so what you guys are saying is that, as long as i can't prove the existance of god, he doesnt exist.

so i have another question, where did the universe come from?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!

ow... my side hurts.

I'm sorry. I don't mean to be rude. Really, I don't. I know you're pretty new here, so I should cut you some slack. It's just that we've all been waiting for you to say that.

So, where did the universe come from?

I dunno.

Neither do you.

Any other questions?

 

That much is true....  No one can actually make a reference to the supernatural, so you have to uncover which anthropomorphic conceptualization of 'god' they hold to...

However, those who do make the attempt to refer to the supernatural will contradict themselves, hence we can refute such claims deductively.

I see you're already ahead of me.

Agreed.  

This is what I'm trying to get at, nobody knows where the universe have come from. so is it possible that somebody created the universe? it could be. you see, I'm not trying to prove anything or make you prove something to me, we dont know where the universe has come from, the answer may be too huge for us to comprehend but it could have been created by someone, no?

it's the doubt im trying to communicate, the posibilities, nobody knows for sure, and noone can prove hundred percent one way or another, so does it really come down to a matter of opinion?

Ok. Just to prove to you that I've got a heart of gold, and am just feeling a little spunky today, I'll give you the short and the long answer.

Short answer: Argument from Ignorance. Go home.

Since you made the argument in the first place, you obviously don't understand why it's flawed, and why it's an argument from ignorance, so I'll give you the long version, too.

Ok, first, nobody knows where the universe came from with certainty, but cosmologists have some pretty damn good ideas. They didn't just guess at them, either. Have you ever considered how incredibly accurate astronomy is? The Cassini spacecraft that just went into orbit around Saturn had to travel not just the 750(ish) million miles to Saturn, but it had to make two gravity boost passes around Venus, which is in entirely the other direction. Once it made it through space, using the gravity of Earth and Venus in precisely the correct way so as to arrive at Saturn going precisely the right speed at precisely the right trajectory so that it could go IN BETWEEN two of Saturns rings, it burned its rockets for 90-something minutes so as to achieve a perfect orbit around Saturn, and went BACK THROUGH the rings in the process.

Now, when you consider that this thing is the size of a car, and we have the precision to do all that, you understand just how accurate our understanding of physics is.

But that's only the beginning. Because we understand astrophysics that well, we are able to look at galaxies trillions of light years away, and tell their size to within a few percentage points margin of error.

Forgive the Carl Sagan impersonation, but it's important. The point is, scientists have been working this stuff out for a long time, and they've shown results. Fantastic results that could only be possible if they are correct in their observations. Can you imagine how staggeringly unlikely it is that we've managed to put satellites in orbit around multiple planets if our scientists don't know what they're doing?

Ok... so when a scientist says, "I've been doing these calculations, and it looks like the universe is expanding. In fact, it looks like it's expanding from a centerpoint, and the only way this is possible is if it was once contained in this centerpoint, yada yada yada BIG BANG" we've got pretty damn good reason to believe it's a plausible theory.

When another scientist talks about vacuum fluctuations being a possible explanation for "something from nothing" we have good math to back it up.

Ok... still with me?

Let's have a look at your possible explanation of the universe.

You've got how many degrees in astrophysics? None, I'm guessing. So, you can't rely on that for your expertise. How much have you studied physics, even? What about Calculus? Have you ever looked at Saturn through a telescope? Point is, you don't really have much of a leg to stand on to promote a theory of the beginning of the universe.

I'm not trying to make you feel bad, here. I am not an astrophysicist, either. Ok, what about philosophy? Have you read Descartes? What about Hume? Aristotle? Could you do a ten minute presentation on the ontology of syllogism? This is something more people are familiar with, but since you've asked the question in the post, I'm guessing you're not very familiar with a lot of philosophical ideas.

Have you ever tried to work out a positive ontology for the word "supernatural"?

Ok. Keep in mind, I'm not trying to make you feel bad. I'm just pointing out that the answers to most of these questions are probably no. Bottom line: You do not posess the knowledge necessary to make an educated guess as to the nature of existence or the origin of the universe. You are ignorant of them. Don't be offended. There are lots of things I'm ignorant of, and it doesn't mean I'm an ignorant person, just that I don't know everything.

Yet... you ARE positing the existence of a being that defies scientists! By what authority? What rationale do you have? The answer is that you don't have any rationale or authority to do so, but you do so anyway.

In short, this is your argument:

Despite the fact that there are many scientists who have devoted their lives to the study of cosmology, and who are ultimately more qualified than me to form a theory explaining the origin of the universe, I am ignorant of the origin of the universe. Therefore, I will propose something without a definition, believe in its existence, and furthermore, will model my life after my beliefs since it cannot be proven false.

Kind of silly, no?

 

It's called "Argument from ignorance."

 

True, but there are conjectures:

http://www.rationalresponders.com/common_cosmological_misconceptions

 If you've read Hawkings, you'll like Brian Greene and likely other cosmologists as well, take a look...

Removing the religious context, how does the question of a deity remain? Can one reasonably say that they've never become aware of the basic premise of one religion or another?
If you removed the religious exposition, and left it entirely up to evidence, you would have at the least no reason to suppose any such thing exists. At the most, you would have evidence of singular supernatural phenomena, or more likely natural physiological phenomena.
Without the religious exposition to contradict the experience, why shouldn't we suppose that the schizophrenic, whose internal dialog urges him toward paranoid acts of violence, isn't hearing "god" as he claims?
Proof of a singular phenomena is silent on matters of religiously-described deities, and you haven't even got that. There is only the "god of the gaps."

I just reread my answers, and realized I forgot to say something. Do you realize that what you're saying here is nothing more than:

"Since science doesn't have all the answers yet, I'm going to believe something unscientific."

Does this not exemplify impatience??

Why not promote science!?

Why propogate a religion that has never contributed one scientific fact through revelation? Why not help the rest of us out and promote a world where we try to figure this stuff out?!?!?!

This is what is so dangerous about religion. It breeds complacency and indifference by offering pat answers to questions that require immense amounts of effort to answer!

Ugh.

Now I'm pissed.

 

As I was reading this thread thru there were so many things I wanted to say, but then almost everything I had come up with was subsequently said by much more qualified people.  I'm not a scientist, theologist, or even college graduate so I deal mostly in rationality and common sense.  So I want to address the one thing no one else did, and that is that there could in fact be a "creator" of the universe.  Yeah, I guess since we can't prove it then it is possible, but it's NOT possible that the god of the bible is true, as was shown in many posts previous to mine.

But, if there was a being so large to be able to create the universe, why on earth would  you assume he even knows you exist let alone cares if you believe in him?  Considering the size of the universe, the creator would have to be so enormous that it would be physically impossible for him to even be aware life happened on this planet and would have no clue what was going on.  Life on earth would have been an accident and byproduct of the creation itself, not the reason for it.  We know that must be true because if the earth was the reason for creation, all we would need would be the earth, sun, and moon, nothing else.  All the other stars and planets, comets, asteroids don't help life on this planet, they're more likely to end life on this planet.

I look at it this way.  I have billions of blood cells in my body.  I give them life, food, oxygen, and death.  I am, in essence, their "God". but I could care less what they believed in, and I highly doubt they are aware of my existence, even if they were capable of intelligence and self awareness.  I don't know their individual names, what they're doing, or thinking, or wanting.  They exist solely because I do, and I exist solely because they do.

Now if blood cells were intelligent self aware beings they would still not be able to tell they were inside a human body.  They are very limited in what they would be able to see, and therefor could only guess at what their world really was.  They are just way too small to see the scope of my body, just like I'm too big to see an individual blood cell without a microscope.  Even when I can see them, I still can't communicate with them, hear their thoughts, or tell if they are worshiping me.  The same would be true of any being large enough to see the entire universe.

So in the end, it doesn't really matter if there is a god, it has no bearing on life, and that's all we are.

 

Arletta that message should be put in a Atheist Hall Of Fame, if there is such a thing. While reading though the thread I also had the same thoughts as you did floating around my head just waiting to be assembled together.

Let me also add that if there was an "intelligence" that had to start the Big Bang, it would have been destroyed by the enormous power of the explosion itself...

 

Slimm,

If we had a nickle.

See if you can spot the pattern:

"How do you know David Copperfield cant saw a woman in half?"

"How do you know ouji boards dont work?"

"How do you know vampires are not real"

"How do you know Allah isnt real?"

"How do you know Vishnu isnt real?"

"How do you know Scientologists are wrong?"

"How do you know that Yawhey isnt real"

"How do you know I cant fart a Lamborginni out of my butt" LITTERALLY?

Do you see the pattern?

The fallacy you are committing is assuming that merely claiming something is good enough to accept it as fact. If we were to do that everytime someone claimed something then the claims above would be fact as well.

The point is that you would not buy someone else's claim of their deity if they said that to you. "How do you know Allah isnt real?"

You dont buy every claim people make, just because they claim it and neither do we. 

You are under no obligation to provide evidence for your claim of deity, but WE are under no obligation to buy what you sell merely because you claim it. You dont do that with other deity claims. The only difference is that we say "Show me the money" to one more claim than you do.

When you understand why you reject all other deity claims besides yours, then maybe you'll understand why we reject yours as well. The only difference between you and me is that I reject one more deity than you do.

 

After reading this, Billy, cell #345912B of Arletta's pancreas,  suddenly lost the joie de vivre he was so well-known for, and drowned himself in an insulin resevoir.

Yeah I can feel you on that one, We'll just let that be the reason...

Slimm,

First, if it's contradictory, it cannot exist. That's all the proof you need. The law of non-contradiction is a foundation of thought and logic. Period.

You are overlooking something that I posted early in this thread. Simply put, there is no need to disprove god. In logic, it is necessarily, fundamentally true that the claimant is responsible for proving his claim. Where a lot of people go wrong is in thinking that the claim of god's nonexistence is a claim in the logical sense. It is not. If I claim something, I am specifically claiming the positive definition of something that exists.

The way logic works is that the claimant makes a claim, then backs it up with a proof. At this point, the proof can be examined for faulty logic. If a fallacy is found, the claim is invalid. It is then up to the claimant to either rework the proof so that his claim can be validated, or to give up on the claim.

The fact is that EVERY SINGLE PROOF OF GOD has at least one logical fallacy.

Therefore, it is not up to the atheist to further validate their own position -- namely that there is no proof for god. It is up to the theist to either abandon the claim that god exists, or come up with a proof that is not fallacious.

 

Okay, I wrote a lot more than I wanted to, so let me recap:

 

I agree that it's impossible to prove God's non-existence, but NOT because I think negatives are not provable or are not fit for logical examination (because I think they are on both accounts, given that the claim is not contradictory or incoherent*), but simply because this negative currently demands humanly impossible means to prove (as opposed to other simpler negatives where we can use accessible technology or even simple logic to prove). One could theoretically create a device or figure out a way to know whether God exists, but we currently don't have such options.

The irony is that we all used different examination methods, some sound and some dubious, but we still all converged upon the same conclusion lol.

 

* I was told that the definition of "God" is in fact contradictory and incoherent, so if that is in fact true, then there isn't even a need to create such a device.

Thanks!

 

Do I get like a pop-up notifier window informing that I have a new private message each time or do I just have to keep an eye on the inbox on the left side menu?

There's also a selection in your account/profile to have an email sent when you get a PM. 

Haha, it's happened to me far too many times. I've gotten pretty good about copying & pasting my long posts onto Wordpad now. Usually.

Actually, that's what I'm trying to say - I think ALL negatives can be investigated syllogistically/logically. Just because a particular negative is obviously unprovable doesn't mean it can't be approached logically (if that's what you're trying to say). And as I've tried to explain my posts, burden of proof/disproof has no relationship whether a claim can be approached logically (maybe better if I used the word, "investigate," instead of "approach" ); all burden of proof/disproof does is assign who has the responsibilty to do the convincing...another way to look at it is that the burden of proof/disproof reminds us who the positive is and who the negative is. At the risk of belaboring my point, the negative can be syllogistically/logically disproven just to prove/remind that the burden of proof isn't on the negative but on the positive.

For this specific negative, it happens to be "logically [impossible] to demand a burden of disproof." However, I think you may be missing my point. If you read the first passage you quoted, note how I was ONLY saying that the impossibility to prove God's non-existence should not be attributed to the fact that negatives are unprovable or unfit for logical examination; later, I explain that this should be attributed to the simple fact that it's just a currently humanly impossible task. I make this distinction because negatives being unprovable is not a universal truth; additionally, negatives being fit for logical examination is a universal truth.

I like this (), as it shows how the IDEA of "god" (as opposed to "god" himself) can be possible through naturalization, but unfortunately, the "god" at hand here is a supernatural kind; naturalizing "god" would change the definition, thus this natural "god" is no longer "god." Additionally, I haven't looked into why supernaturality epistemologically voids "god," but I really like todangst's explanation of how at least the Christian god is internally contradictory, so even if we could somehow naturalize the Christian god without betraying its definition, the Christian god is already epistemologically doomed (i.e. by cause of internal contradiction).

I just read the entire thread from the beginning. It seems to me that what everyone is so concerened about is the hard facts of science and nothing else. To that end I have nothing more to contribute but let me leave you with a quote,

"I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited"

-Albert Einstein