Hawking says there are no gods

[Belz...]

You don't understand the connection between words, logic and the rest of reality.

It's been demonstrated amply that this is projection on your part.

You confuse map and territory, or at least pretend to to support your bob-argument. That an idea exists doesn't mean that the thing the idea represents exists as well. This is a concept that, again, children learn as toddlers.

Gibberish.

Lots of that here.

 

[David Mo]

That presumes 'no real gods' is not in the answer to the question and the evidence is over whelming that 'no real gods' is in the answer.

As for the rest of your post, I'm not seeing anything there to reply to. Sorry. Whether one can find books addressing specifically what you want to find is as relevant as finding science by majority vote. And the Taz Devil transmissible cancer, WTF? Sorry, I do not get your point there at all.

I have not understand the first paragraph. Can you explain it otherwise? Thank you.

“Why do Christians think that X?” is a double question.
What are the psychological/sociological causes to believe in X.
What are the evidence of X.
First answer: Because he was educated in a Christian family.
Second answer: Because miracles show that God exists.
I hope you see the difference. I am concerned in the second question. Not the first.

I am not searching to vote anything. I only say that if an issue is archaeological we can find it in archaeological editions. Two very different subjects again.

 

[David Mo]

Hawking's musings were based on science, though.

He did formulate that opinion as a direct result of his scientific work.

That does not mean his opinion about the merits of chocolate vs strawberry ice cream would be based on science, though.

Heisenberg's belief in the Platonic structure of science was based in his scientific work but it was not scientific. Is it not?
The same for Hawking's opinions about God.Even more, Hawking's opinion -as they was reflected in the OP- is based on the existence of a temporal god. This is a filosofical-conceptual mistake since the concept of God or First Cause of Aristotle/Aquinas is of a being prior of time.

 

[Tommy Jeppesen]

No he didn't. He just formulated a bunch of "I think"s and merely implied that our current level of scientific knowledge was sufficient to rule out all gods.

The fallacy of reification is to treat an abstract as a thing.
Now that goes for some versions of negatives. Of course e.g. logic can be turned concrete in e.g. computer, but there is a limit to that.

E.g. I am not biological a woman, but that is not concrete, because what is concrete is that I am a male.
So you always check if you treat an abstract as a concrete.
E.g. unknowable is not a concrete, but as a concrete it is something else is going on, than you expect/assume/predict.
In the room with no chair it is not a concrete that there is no chair, the concrete is that there is air and so on.
The same with non-existence, non-existence is an abstract.
In practice unknowable means something you can't do for which something else happens. The same with non-existence, non-existence is something else as a concrete.
Now if something is unknowable, it means you can't do it for the word know as a process.
So neither unknowable nor non-existence are concretes, they are abstracts, because what is concrete is something else.

So what about if there is something outside the universe. Well, you can't do that, because you are inside the universe.
So to say that the universe came from nothing is not knowledge. It is unknowable and indeed something else happened:
"I think the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing..."
Hawking thought the idea that "the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing...", but that is not concrete, that is an abstract.
So to claim that in fact that "the universe was spontaneously created out of nothing...", is the fallacy of reification. Now Hawking didn't do that, but that won't stop others from doing that.
What Hawking did, was not science. It was philosophy, his opinion of what the universe is for gods or no gods in relationship to creation.
We all have opinions about that, but none are knowledge or about facts.

What he actually stated, was psychology - you don't need a belief in gods to have a life, but you don't need to be a scientist to know that. I know that and I am not a scientist.

 

[Darat]

When I pointed out that Hawking's musings weren't based on science you were the one who instinctively leaped to his defence and stated that his "opinion is based on his scientific work".

Since you apparently don't believe that this statement needs to be justified in any way, you must believe that everything he says is "based on his scientific work".

As others have said you are arguing with yourself because you keep to use a colloquial phrase "putting words into mine and other folks mouths".

Deal with what I have posted not your fantasy version of it and we can have a pleasant discussion, otherwise you are simply arguing against yourself, which if you are the solpolist may be fine but for most of us it isn't very productive.

 

[Darat]

Heisenberg's belief in the Platonic structure of science was based in his scientific work but it was not scientific. Is it not?
The same for Hawking's opinions about God.Even more, Hawking's opinion -as they was reflected in the OP- is based on the existence of a temporal god. This is a filosofical-conceptual mistake since the concept of God or First Cause of Aristotle/Aquinas is of a being prior of time.

The only thing the Christian god is credited with creating from nothing is light. Everything else is that god moulding/altering call it what you want what is already in existence.

 

[psionl0]

As others have said you are arguing with yourself because you keep to use a colloquial phrase "putting words into mine and other folks mouths".

Deal with what I have posted not your fantasy version of it and we can have a pleasant discussion, otherwise you are simply arguing against yourself, which if you are the solpolist may be fine but for most of us it isn't very productive.

The word that I placed in quotation marks came directly from post #2163 your OWN words.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

Hawking's musings were based on science, though.

He did formulate that opinion as a direct result of his scientific work.

Do you have any evidence of Hawking being this stupid on any other subject or do you think he compartmentalized?

 

[David Mo]

The only thing the Christian god is credited with creating from nothing is light. Everything else is that god moulding/altering call it what you want what is already in existence.

"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". Point.
Anyway,whatever the Bible says, Aquinas' First Cause is prior of anything. It is out of the universe. There is an old Christian tradition that puts God out of time.

Any theistic view of the world includes some notion of how God is related to the structures of the universe, including space and time. The question of God's relation to time has generated a great amount of theological and philosophical reflection. The traditional view has been that God is timeless in the sense of being outside time altogether; that is, he exists but does not exist at any point in time and he does not experience temporal succession. (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).​

 

[psionl0]

Do you have any evidence of Hawking being this stupid on any other subject or do you think he compartmentalized?

 

[Chanakya]

Chanakya you seem unable to grasp that there is a difference between "Disagreeing with me" and "You don't understand me."

No, I understand that fine.

What you don’t seem to grasp is that there is a difference between “disagreeing with me” -- which you are repeatedly doing by expressing your disagreement -- and clearly making your argument, and clearly presenting your reasons for disagreeing with me. Do you not see the difference even now, now that I have spelt this out?

Frankly I do not care overly much -- that is, beyond the dictates of common courtesy -- whether you do agree with me or not. Why would your personal views matter at all? What would matter, if you could present it, are your clearly argued reasons for either agreeing with me, or disagreeing with me. Your ipse dixit pronouncements, no matter how many times you present them, and irrespective of the passion you put into your declarations of disagreement, are simply irrelevant.

Yes we all heard your defenses of your special pleading. We don't not understand them, we just don't agree that they are valid and mean what you are doing is not special pleading.

That is simply not true, Joe. There is no “we” at all! You are clearly gaslighting here, in trying to imply that your views have some kind of near-unanimous support here, while mine don’t: the facts are exactly the opposite. No one supports you, Joe, no one at all.

The two issues which we have been disagreeing on of late, and which are the immediate trigger of this lot of to-and-fro posts between you and me, are: first, a meta-disagreement over the nature of the special-pleading fallacy (you disagree with my view that exceptionalism is a fallacy when there are no valid reasons for it; and two, your insistence that the reasons I’ve presented are themselves an appeal-to-popularity fallacy.

Like I said, you keep disagreeing without clearly spelling your argument. And what is more, you are now implying that the majority here are of your view, while the fact is that you, Joe, are in a minority of just one, comprising just you and no one else, no one at all.

GStan clearly agrees with me as far as the first issue, and says so clearly; while both Nonpareil (who initially disagreed with me, but later unambiguously agreed that they were mistaken in thinking that my argument was an appeal-to-popularity fallacy) and kellyb agree with me that what I'd said is not an appeal-to-popularity fallacy.

So, Joe, there is no “we”. Three people agree with me (one on the first issue, and two on the second), while no one agrees with you.

You attempt to convey that yours is the majority view is, to begin with, itself an appeal-to-popularity fallacy in the absence of cogent argumentation supporting that majority view; but that aside, it isn’t even true, given that your view on those two specific issues has, thus far, received zero endorsement, while mine has, on both counts.

You’re simply gaslighting away here.



Disclaimer: In order to be sure that I don’t myself end up inadvertently doing a spot of gaslighting myself, let me clearly state that the agreement of kellyb and Nonpareil, that I referred to above, are limited to the specific issues I spoke of. kellyb believes that my argument may be a moving-goalposts fallacy, and further she does not personally find the hard-soft distinction meaningful; while Nonpareil holds that my argument is irrelevant in as far as Carl Sagan’s dragon analogy. I am yet to settle those issues with kellyb and with Nonpareil, but I hope to, with either them ending up agreeing with me, or with me ending up agreeing with them.

But this disclaimer of mine, which I’m putting in in order to scrupulously avoid giving out a false impression of greater agreement for my views than I have actually received, does not change the fact that you, Joe, as I have shown, have clearly been gaslighting away here.

"But I already explained to you why you are wrong" isn't an argument.

This is ridiculous! I’ve said to you, earlier, that your disagreement, without clear argument, isn’t relevant; and so, like a kid being told they’re ipse-dixiting, you’re doing the equivalent of thumbing your nose and saying “Yah! You’re ipse-dixiting too!”

Yes, I have indeed explained to you why you are wrong. No, my saying that isn’t an argument, but it is a pointing towards arguments already presented, within this thread itself.

I have already clearly presented my arguments in favor of your position. You, on the other hand, haven’t. As simple as that.

Instead of this endless round of I-said-you-said that you’re resorting to in absence of solid argument, I challenge you : Present right now, in one single post, your argument showing why exceptionalism is never valid; and present your argument showing how my previous argument was an appeal-to-popularity fallacy; and I will present my own arguments on these two issues in one single post.

Do this, without presenting excuses and without trying to weasel out of backing up your position clearly with such arguments as you can bring to the table. Do this, and then we’ll see who is right and who is wrong, all in the space of two focused posts, one from you and one from me.

Again the longer this discussion goes on, the more hairs that get split, the more special pleadings that get pleaded, the more argumentative rules and nuance get invoked the more my point is proved.

That’s literally gibberish. I don't mean to be rude, but I don't know how else to say this.

Your “point is proved” only if your point is that the issue can get nuanced. Simply pointing out that I have brought out nuances -- which is self-evidently true -- is far from showing that those nuances are irrelevant.

Go on, translate that bit into clear English if you can, and tell us what exactly your point is that you believe has been proved, and how.

 

[Chanakya]

Shown it (demonstrated it) to yourself to your own satisfaction, or shown it to a real bigfoot believer?

When encountering a new idea, or exploring something for the first time, I try to give the proponent a lot of benefit of the doubt, and give the idea a lot of room for a fighting chance, no matter how outlandish the idea might intuitively strike me as.

But I'm not going to fake being "purely agnostic" on a topic I've already explored in-depth (for example, bigfoot, and the various versions of the Christian god.)

Hm, yes, that’s actually a very insightful and very valid point.

I realize I’d been conflating the two in my mind, but you’re right, they’re two separate things, and one needs to be clear which exactly one is referring to.

But, thinking more about this, here’s the thing: You personally, or I personally, can be very clear that we’re not agnostic about some particular issue, not any more: but wouldn’t this be a personal position, wouldn’t this be a subjective position?

Think about this: Say there have been twenty bigfoot sightings in this year, that you and I have personally researched, and found to be clearly false. We’re both of us now clearly a-bigfootists, no question about it (while obviously always open to evidence, that goes without saying). Now there has been a twenty-first alleged sighting, and you and I simply refuse to continue with this nonsense any more, and say that we’re sure that this is bunk, and that we won’t bother about this any more without first being presented good evidence, not any more.

What is this, kellyb, this position of ours? Isn’t this soft atheism? We can be hard-a-bigfootist about those twenty sightings, but we can only be soft-a-bigfootist about that twenty-first sighting. We can’t rationally be hard-a-bigfootist about this, that isn’t what hard a-big-footism is, and if we claim we’re hard-a-bigfootist there at the twenty-first sighting, then we’ve not really understood what hard-a-bigfootism is.

And absolutely, like I keep saying, soft atheism let us be just as firm as we care to be. That’s a separate issue, whether we are firm in our view or not.

The way the topic morphed from "gods" to "god ideas" seemed like you were wanting to disagree with Hawking, but you used semantic/linguistic re-tooling to do it, changing the definition of "gods" to be able to more validly disagree with Hawking. I don't think you did that out any malicious or dishonest impulse, btw. It just seemed like a sort of "moving the goalpost" kind of logical fallacy.

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying. That makes sense. I see exactly why this might appear like moving goalposts to you.

With respect and without implying any disingenuousness on your part, I’m afraid I have to say that this looks me like that most basic of fallacies on your part, albeit inadvertently committed: the straw man.

I was very clear in my mind what I meant. You believed that the “God” I was referring to only referred to “deity-Gods”, so that when I subsequently clearly described these “God-ideas”, then that looked like moving goalposts to you. But the goal posts haven’t “moved”, they are merely differently located than where you’d imagined they had been, that's all, as far as I myself am concerned.



And yes, turning this around and seeing this from the other end, I can see how this might, with equal justification, be seen as (inadvertent) strawmanning on my part! To me “Gods” mean “God-ideas”, so that if it can be clearly shown that Stephen Hawking basically referred only to deity-Gods, and not God-ideas, when he said what he did, then my speaking of “God-ideas” can be seen as a strawman (as well as a non sequitur).

Which last does not, of course, impact the actual argument about soft-vs-hard atheism; but absolutely, it does speak to the relevance of this argument and this issue, as far as Stephen Hawking and his specific remarks -- which, after all, is what this thread is supposed to be about.

 

[Darat]

Hm, yes, that’s actually a very insightful and very valid point.

I realize I’d been conflating the two in my mind, but you’re right, they’re two separate things, and one needs to be clear which exactly one is referring to.

But, thinking more about this, here’s the thing: You personally, or I personally, can be very clear that we’re not agnostic about some particular issue, not any more: but wouldn’t this be a personal position, wouldn’t this be a subjective position?

Think about this: Say there have been twenty bigfoot sightings in this year, that you and I have personally researched, and found to be clearly false. We’re both of us now clearly a-bigfootists, no question about it (while obviously always open to evidence, that goes without saying). Now there has been a twenty-first alleged sighting, and you and I simply refuse to continue with this nonsense any more, and say that we’re sure that this is bunk, and that we won’t bother about this any more without first being presented good evidence, not any more.

What is this, kellyb, this position of ours? Isn’t this soft atheism? We can be hard-a-bigfootist about those twenty sightings, but we can only be soft-a-bigfootist about that twenty-first sighting. We can’t rationally be hard-a-bigfootist about this, that isn’t what hard a-big-footism is, and if we claim we’re hard-a-bigfootist there at the twenty-first sighting, then we’ve not really understood what hard-a-bigfootism is.


...snip...

Which last does not, of course, impact the actual argument about soft-vs-hard atheism; but absolutely, it does speak to the relevance of this argument and this issue, as far as Stephen Hawking and his specific remarks -- which, after all, is what this thread is supposed to be about.

I'd say you are still making a fundamental error in thinking that atheism is about knowledge. It isn't, it is about belief.

In your bigfoot example if I don't believe there are bigfoot (bigfeet?) I am an abigfooter, that is regardless of whether bigfoot exists or not - a theist or atheist might claim there belief is based on knowledge but again that isn't the issue under discussion. The question is always "do you believe in a god or gods?" And if the answer is "no" then you are an atheist.

I think some of the confusion about this is that we are rarely defined by a lack of a belief and the belief in a god or gods is so prevalent that it seems weird (to a lot of people) that someone could not believe in a god or gods.

Whether one is gnostic or agnostic in regards to god or gods that is the word to cover knowledge of a god, a gnostic believes that we can know a god or god exists via knowledge (in other words evidence) whilst an agnostic believes as a matter of principle that we can never know (i.e. from knowledge/evidence) that a god or gods exists.

Again people often misuse agnostic to be about the knowledge one has or hasn't rather than a statement about the limits of knowledge in regards to "god beliefs".

 

[Nonpareil]

You either have the word "exist" or the word "undetectable" poorly defined here.

As kellyb and I have already explained repeatedly, when I say "undetectable" I mean undetectable even in theory. In your example of light cones, it would theoretically be possible for me to detect things in your light cone if I changed position, for example.

 

[Chanakya]

Then I admit the fault. I misinterpreted what you were saying.

Thank you for so readily and so graciously acknowledging this, Nonpareil.

But I am now at a loss as to what it is that you are actually arguing.

The discussion, until this point, has been about whether or not we can rationally dismiss the existence of gods, and the argument in favor of doing so has been that we can due to them being either garage dragons (which fail to exist by definition) or not (in which case their existence is bare assertion at best).

Well, you'd said that you'd found that alleged appeal-to-popularity fallacy in this post of mine. That post I had addressed not to you, but to GStan. As such, it has nothing at all to do with your particular arguments at all.

I was answering GStan's question, "Why a claim of god should be treated differently than the claim of a dragon?" I took that to mean, 'why should we go in for this level of hairsplitting precision with the God question, when we don't do that in the case of the dragon?' That is how I interpreted GStan's question, because GStan was himself commenting on an earlier post of mine -- this one -- where I was responding to specifically that argument having been made.

And that is the specific question I was trying to answer.

This has nothing to do with you, neither historically nor retroactively. Not even retroactively, because you've clearly said that you're taking the dragon issue seriously, that dismissal of the such precision as hair-splitting -- an argument that some others have put forward to me -- is not something you are arguing at all. As such, this particular argument of mine won't be needed when I'm discussing this with you, as it does not address any issue you have yourself raised.

What issue do you take with this argument?

Like I said, that argument has nothing to do with the post you had commented on.

As for what my position is as far as the dragon question, well, I've already presented to you (admittedly in somewhat rambling form) earlier. If you wish me to restate my position more concisely and more clearly -- despite this having nothing to do with that other post of mine -- then please ask, and I'll be happy to (try to) present my position and my arguments more clearly to you.

 

[Chanakya]

I'd say you are still making a fundamental error in thinking that atheism is about knowledge. It isn't, it is about belief.

In your bigfoot example if I don't believe there are bigfoot (bigfeet?) I am an abigfooter, that is regardless of whether bigfoot exists or not - a theist or atheist might claim there belief is based on knowledge but again that isn't the issue under discussion. The question is always "do you believe in a god or gods?" And if the answer is "no" then you are an atheist.

I agree that atheism is about belief, and simply not believing in God qualifies one as an atheist, without any need for further hairsplitting.

However, the soft-hard categories, as I understand them, do not come into play in deciding whether one is an atheist. That decision has already been made: one is an atheist. "Soft" or "hard" presents further information, and yes, that information relates to something different from the belief-or-no-belief question.

I don't know, to take a random and silly-ish example: we can have a tall brown-haired man, as well as a short brown-haired man. Sure, in deciding whether someone is brown-haired, we only need to look at his hair. His height is irrelevant as far as deciding whether he is brown-haired or not. But "tall" or "short" supplies further information about this person. Is this additional information relevant? Is the tall-short cateogrization of brown-haired men useful, is this further nuance at all useful to us? That would depend on the specific situation, as well as the specific individuals concerned.

I think some of the confusion about this is that we are rarely defined by a lack of a belief and the belief in a god or gods is so prevalent that it seems weird (to a lot of people) that someone could not believe in a god or gods.

While this is definitely true, I don't see how the soft-hard decision bears on this.

Sure, some people may be uncomfortable with "no belief", and try to tag on "soft atheist" as a kind of loophole; I see that this can happen, and I guess this is exactly what you are referring to. But this would be a misapplication of the soft-hard categorization; this is not what soft-hard is actually about.

Soft-hard is indeed about knowledge, and it furnishes further information, over and above the fact that one is an atheist. That information pertains to how that atheism was arrived at. Is it based on knowledge of actual non-existence, by actually disproving some God (in as much as anything can be "proved" or "disproved" at all)? If yes, then it is hard atheism. Or is it based not on such knowledge, but merely an absence of evidence? That would be soft atheism.

And yes, this relates to nothing else. A soft atheist can be just as firm an atheist as a hard atheist -- or even more, or not.

Whether one is gnostic or agnostic in regards to god or gods that is the word to cover knowledge of a god, a gnostic believes that we can know a god or god exists via knowledge (in other words evidence) whilst an agnostic believes as a matter of principle that we can never know (i.e. from knowledge/evidence) that a god or gods exists.

Again people often misuse agnostic to be about the knowledge one has or hasn't rather than a statement about the limits of knowledge in regards to "god beliefs".

This is off-topic, given our actual discussion, but I'm afraid I cannot agree with you when you say that "an agnostic believes as a matter of principle that we can never know (i.e. from knowledge/evidence) that a god or gods exists. " Sure, that is one meaning of the word, but not the only one.

The word "agnostic" carries three meanings:

1. The meaning you yourself supplied.
   
2. The sense in which Huxley himself -- the man who coined that term -- meant that new word he'd thought up. That sense is very close to what we know today as "skeptical" -- it relates only to not accepting anything (and especially the God question) in the absence of evidence.
   
3. Simply a sitting-on-the-fence sense, simply saying "I don't know, at all!"

Each of these three meanings is valid.

I myself tend to favor #2, which is Huxley's original sense for this word.

(But sure, the other two senses -- including the definition you yourself supplied -- are valid too.)

 

[Dave Rogers]

However, the soft-hard categories, as I understand them, do not come into play in deciding whether one is an atheist. That decision has already been made: one is an atheist. "Soft" or "hard" presents further information, and yes, that information relates to something different from the belief-or-no-belief question.

I disagree, and I think you're syntactically incorrect below.

I don't know, to take a random and silly-ish example: we can have a tall brown-haired man, as well as a short brown-haired man. Sure, in deciding whether someone is brown-haired, we only need to look at his hair. His height is irrelevant as far as deciding whether he is brown-haired or not. But "tall" or "short" supplies further information about this person. Is this additional information relevant? Is the tall-short cateogrization of brown-haired men useful, is this further nuance at all useful to us? That would depend on the specific situation, as well as the specific individuals concerned.

"Tall," "short" and "brown-haired" are all adjectives that qualify the noun "man" here. To apply this to strong and weak atheists in the same way, you'd have to be asking whether they couldf bench press 300 pounds. But in fact, that's not what "strong" and "weak" qualify in the terms "strong atheist" and "weak atheist"; the qualify the nature of that person's atheism, and as such are very specifically descriptors of belief. It's more akin to "long brown-haired man" and "short brown-haired man".

And I would argue that a more conventional interpretation of the terms, and one which has a wider usage, is where "weak" and "strong" describe respectively the difference between not holding the positive belief that any god exists, and holding the belief that no gods exist. It certainly seems to me a more useful definition, because it is fundamentally impossible to disprove that any entity exists that may be defined by the term "god", and so one would have to conclude from your definition that strong atheism is a logical impossibility.

Dave

 

[kellyb]

But, thinking more about this, here’s the thing: You personally, or I personally, can be very clear that we’re not agnostic about some particular issue, not any more: but wouldn’t this be a personal position, wouldn’t this be a subjective position?

Of course.

Think about this: Say there have been twenty bigfoot sightings in this year, that you and I have personally researched, and found to be clearly false. We’re both of us now clearly a-bigfootists, no question about it (while obviously always open to evidence, that goes without saying). Now there has been a twenty-first alleged sighting, and you and I simply refuse to continue with this nonsense any more, and say that we’re sure that this is bunk, and that we won’t bother about this any more without first being presented good evidence, not any more.

What is this, kellyb, this position of ours? Isn’t this soft atheism?

Again, I don't really find the distinction between hard and soft meaningful. "Kneejerk rejection" is a spectrum of possible strengths of rejection. I don't see two neat boxes.

The vehemence with which I think "pshaw!" is totally arbitrary, too, and often based on my mood that moment/hour/day/week/month.

We can be hard-a-bigfootist about those twenty sightings, but we can only be soft-a-bigfootist about that twenty-first sighting.

Not in my mind. At this point, I operate on the assumption that it's all a bunch of baloney. I don't need (or want) to examine every new "sighting". I feel about the bigfoot "sightings" the way I assume you (and I) feel about the promises of miraculous healing coming from the televangelists.

We can’t rationally be hard-a-bigfootist about this, that isn’t what hard a-big-footism is, and if we claim we’re hard-a-bigfootist there at the twenty-first sighting, then we’ve not really understood what hard-a-bigfootism is.

Again, I reject the premise of a meaningful distinction between hard and soft.

And absolutely, like I keep saying, soft atheism let us be just as firm as we care to be.

I might not meet your definition of "hard" whatever anything, since I don't completely reject stuff like "brain in a vat" theory. Since I'm only and exclusively 100% sure about the fact of my own existence, how can I literally 100% reject anything else?

 

[Phlegm]

For you, maybe. It's off the table for me. The evidence is overwhelming all gods are fiction.

I hope it is OK if I interject.

Correct, the evidence is overwhelming that all gods are fiction. The conclusion that no god exists is not absolute, however, because there is no way to prove absolutely that no god exists -- it's just the way that syllogistic deductive logic works. That type of thinking depends on a priori info/definitions of words and cannot really provide new information in the world -- the Socrates is mortal type of argument.

I don't see any problem saying that gods are off the table. It requires a slight leap -- from the overwhelming evidence demonstrating it -- to that's the way the world is. It's not much of a leap, so it shouldn't be that big of a deal. Very similar to "the sky is blue" type of leap. I look up, I see it, the sky looks blue. 'Nuff said.

But those who dip into philosophy likely use the word 'prove' or 'proof' a little differently; and that is what typically drives these types of conversations. They mean -- you can't logically disprove gods because logically disproof depends on the way you define god.

Your argument is not straight deductive logic; it uses inductive logic and truths about the world to demonstrate virtually beyond any shadow of doubt that no gods exist. I would keep using it; it is one of the more devastating arguments one can use in these types of debates.


As for the evidence issue -- evidence is a function word. By that I mean that calling something evidence means that someone wants to use a fact about the world to support or deny some proposition. That something can be used as evidence does not mean that it will or even can prove the proposition, only that it can be used to support a proposition from some point of view.

So, a person having a revelatory experience is a fact about the world. Meaning that the revelatory experience is a fact about the world. It is available to only one person. That person can try to use that experience as evidence in an argument to demonstrate that a god exists. It is, therefore, not the case that there is no evidence that gods exist; that person is using a particular fact about the world in her/his argument that they have been 'touched' by god. For that person there is evidence.

It is the case that you needn't accept their argument. There is no reason for you to accept that the 'revelation' is anything more than misinterpreted sensation or hallucination. That doesn't change the fact that they have used it as evidence in their argument. It is simply, from most people's perspective, entirely unreliable evidence.


ETA: Let me add, however, to the discussion about 'proof' that in the general way of using the word, the demonstration that all gods are human inventions is proof enough for me.

Unfortunately a good bit of philosophical discussion is about splitting hairs. Or hares, much more gruesome.

 

[JoeMorgue]

You are clearly gaslighting here

You’re simply gaslighting away here.

does not change the fact that you, Joe, as I have shown, have clearly been gaslighting away here.

I don't know how to break this to you exactly but someone disagreeing you isn't always a form of psychological warfare.