Proof of Strong Atheism

[Vox Humana]

OK, but can we come up with a logically coherent description of "God" that doesn't do violence to what people who believe in God mean by the word? If we can't then we are justified in saying, quite bluntly, that God doesn't exist.

Are you talking about the "uber-concept" of God, as Piggy puts it, which is a description of God that encompases all God-theories? I allow that this concept is logically incoherent, due to the contradictory nature of all God-theories. However, this in no way invalidates any particular God-theory; all the wrong ones would not have any bearing on the correctness of the 'right' one, if it existed.

Alternately, if you are talking about a particular God-theory, then yes, we should generally be able to establish a logically coherent description of the God-theory sufficient to test its merits.

But this raises the question, why should I attempt to find a logically coherent God-theory which to test? I am comfortable to say, as a practical matter, that no God-theory will meet muster. I then leave it up to the proponents of the various God-theories to provide those descriptions themselves if they wish to convince me otherwise.

 

[chriswl]

I apologize, I'm not following you. If someone comes to me with a philosophical proposition, on what grounds may I dismiss the assertion a priori? I can only think of two cases; 1) obvious logical incoherence

Why must it be obvious?

2) the existence of evidence refuting the claim.

Here you go again. Evidence? What has evidence got to do with this? This is not a scientific argument.

 

[chriswl]

Are you talking about the "uber-concept" of God, as Piggy puts it, which is a description of God that encompases all God-theories? I allow that this concept is logically incoherent, due to the contradictory nature of all God-theories. However, this in no way invalidates any particular God-theory; all the wrong ones would not have any bearing on the correctness of the 'right' one, if it existed.

Alternately, if you are talking about a particular God-theory, then yes, we should generally be able to establish a logically coherent description of the God-theory sufficient to test its merits.

I don't agree with Piggy on this. I think we must be clear what we mean by God if we are going to discuss God's existence. If some people define God in a totally different way then that's no concern of mine. They are talking about something else.

 

[Beth]

OK, but can we come up with a logically coherent description of "God" that doesn't do violence to what people who believe in God mean by the word? If we can't then we are justified in saying, quite bluntly, that God doesn't exist.

Try this with other intangibles. Can we come up with a logically coherent description of "Justice" that doesn't do violence to what people who believe in justice mean by the word? If we can't then we are justified in saying, quite bluntly, that justice doesn't exist.


I would submit that we can't come up with a definition, but I disagree that we are justified in saying that justice doesn't exist - although I'll admit, there is a strong possibility of the non-existance of justice in the real world.

 

[Beth]

You are the first person I have come across who is consistent enough to say that they "believe in Santa Claus" when they mean they believe in the spirit of Christmas.

If Christians who believe in God in this way would admit to believing in Santa and other fictional entities in the same way then I would accept their protestations that this is what they really mean when they talk about by believing in something. But they never do. This kind of "belief" only seems to apply to God.

In any case, we can easily say that justice exists as an idea in people's heads. Any hard atheist would be quite happy to say that God exists as an idea in people's heads. So I don't see the problem.

But can we say justice exists elsewhere, other than as an idea of people's heads? If not, what do we have courts and trials for? If yes, then you have the same problem with existance of justice that you do with the existance of God.

 

[chriswl]

But can we say justice exists elsewhere, other than as an idea of people's heads? If not, what do we have courts and trials for? If yes, then you have the same problem with existance of justice that you do with the existance of God.

I think courts regard justice as a set of principles and values that guide their actions. They don't personify justice as a sentient being, even symbolically. I don't deny that, for example, Christian morality exists. But this doesn't require any notion of a God.

 

[Vox Humana]

I apologize, I'm not following you. If someone comes to me with a philosophical proposition, on what grounds may I dismiss the assertion a priori? I can only think of two cases; 1) obvious logical incoherence

Why must it be obvious?

Because if the claim is not prima facie logically incoherent it requires investigation until it can be demonstrated as such. Hence it may not be rejected a priori.

2) the existence of evidence refuting the claim.

Here you go again. Evidence? What has evidence got to do with this? This is not a scientific argument.

I will concede the second point; although I suspect that there may be an example of physical evidence refuting a philosophical claim, I can't come up with anything better than: claim: dragonflies don't exist - refutation: Nope, here's one. (converse of the pixie argument.)

This is tangential to the discussion, however. Please explain how the existence of God may be rejected a priori.

 

[Beth]

I think courts regard justice as a set of principles and values that guide their actions. They don't personify justice as a sentient being, even symbolically. I don't deny that, for example, Christian morality exists. But this doesn't require any notion of a God.

Well, justice is often personified as a God. Athena, for example, was the goddess of Justice. While we don't consider such a personification to be 'real', I'm not well enough acquainted with ancient Greece to know if they actually believed in the reality of such a personification or if their beliefs were more akin to the Hindus, which regard such personifications as representations of a spiritual entity in the same way that I believe in Santa as the personification of the spirit of Christmas.

My point is that I think it is a mistake to presume that all believers accept the personication of their god as 'real' in the sense that you are talking about it. Certainly, if piggy wants to establish that no Gods exist, he must deal with the idea that the personfication of gods are representations of transcendent entities, not dismiss the idea as a fallacy.

You can't disprove the existance of the spirit of Christmas by disproving that Santa exists. Likewise piggy can't disprove the existance of any and all possible gods by focusing on the fact that the personifications that humans have built up to represent them are not real. Thus, to me his argument fall flat. He can disprove the existance of a 'real' Santa all day long. It doesn't matter. I believe that the spirit of Christmas is real, not that Santa is. Likewise, he can post all he likes about how no personification of god can be real. He hasn't yet addressed the concepts of God I find most plausible - i.e. spiritual being(s) that exist in a transcendant plane independent of human beings and our thoughts about them.

Some questions to consider: Would justice still exist if there were no humans? Would mathematics? In other words, do such concepts have an existance independent of ours? If so, what does that mean in terms of existance independent of our familiar 4 dimensions?

 

[Vox Humana]

I don't agree with Piggy on this. I think we must be clear what we mean by God if we are going to discuss God's existence. If some people define God in a totally different way then that's no concern of mine. They are talking about something else.

How is this not the definition of a strawman? You construct a definition of God, then demonstrate your construct to be incoherent. Who does this convince? How can you say anything other than "that God doesn't exist"?

We are discussing whether it is possible to positively say 'no God exists.' I say the answer is no, because:

• No coherent model of God can be constructed to apply to all God-theories; therefore while debunking this model does invalidate all applicable theories, it leaves intact the theories to which the model does not apply.
• This leaves us to debunk all God-theories individually, or at best in sets where an applicable model may be found that applies to the set. I argue that this is a fool's errand.

Much better to relax and allow the idea that God might exist, but that it's up to the proponents to demonstrate it.

 

[Beerina]

* God-theory can be traced historically from animism to simple spiritualism, to pantheons of spirits to pantheons of gods, to pantheons of gods with one main god, to religious wars where "my god is tougher", oh yeah? Well my god is Perfect? Oh yeah? My god is infinite AND perfect? Oh yeah? My god is infinite and perfect and good and can beat up your god(s). Oh yeah? My god can beat up your god (Moses's stick vs. Pharoah's priest's sticks-as-snakes), see? Even though your god is just fake trickery mine can even beat it up!

Etc.

 

[Piggy]

First, by calling them "imagined" entities, you might as well stop there. There's no need to go any further.

Second, not all theists think that God is unknowable, or that God's nature cannot be known.

I was merely answering a question.

 

[chriswl]

How is this not the definition of a strawman? You construct a definition of God, then demonstrate your construct to be incoherent. Who does this convince? How can you say anything other than "that God doesn't exist"?

It would be a strawman if I just set up a definition of God in order to knock it down but that's not what I'm proposing.

I explained my position in the original thread but obviously my post was too long and rambling for anyone to read (which I entirely understand - I can't express my throughts with quite the same elegance and clarity that Piggy can). On the question of defining God I said:

Firstly, the word God means something. I don't accept that it is so broad that there is nothing to be said about it. It's a word and it's meaning comes from the way people use it. There aren't any words that people use that have no meaning.

Secondly, the word doesn't just have one meaning. A pantheist means something different by the word God than a Christian. Paul Tillich means something different to the Reverend Ian Paisley. This doesn't mean that the god concept is broad enough to encompass all these meanings, any more than the true meaning of the word "chip" (which means French fries in Britain) encompasses American potato chips and British fries. In fact there is no one who uses the word to mean both of these things. There are parallel definitions and you always mean a particular one when you use the word. This is true even where the definitions overlap.

Furthermore, there is not usually any need to indicate which definition you are using. When asked whether they believe in God Christians will simply answer "yes". They do not feel the need to clarify that they believe in the Judeo-Christian God just to make sure no one gets the wrong idea and thinks they have become pantheists or deists. There is an implicit understanding about what the word means in a given group or society or culture, about how to use it in conversation.

A further observation we can make is that this understanding is a publicly observable thing. We don't have to take a believer's word for it if we want to know what they mean by god. Sometimes they may give us an honest definition, sometimes they may give us a rather "political" definition, one that stands up well to arguments but describes something rather more minimal than the being they actually pray to. And sometimes they may just fail to define it very well. The point is, they are not the authority on what they mean by God. The meaning is the way they publicly use the word.

So, to justify my statement that God doesn't exist I need to figure out what is meant by God in our culture (not arbitrarily invent a definition) and explain why I don't think this kind of entity exists. This definition is not arbitrary but it may not include everything that has at some time or another been labelled "god" by someone, somewhere.

So, in conclusion I think we can, in principle, come up with a definition of God that is a genuine, valid definition. And then decide whether he exists.

 

[Apathia]

So, in conclusion I think we can, in principle, come up with a definition of God that is a genuine, valid definition. And then decide whether he exists.

Good! Somebody please do it. Piggy?
Then it will all be over, because I'm confident that this defined, set in stone, deity will not exist!

 

[Piggy]

Hi, everyone. I'm going to shower and eat, and then post the summary which I should have posted at the beginning.

Rather, we would know God in a way different from how we would know something else, like how much a particular rock weighed.

Ok, but if this method of knowing is ineffable or if it posits a being whose existence is not distinguishable from its non-existence, then this "way of knowing" does not obligate anyone else to grant it any credence.

I think the course of history demonstrates that these aren't *mere* memes. Rather, they're extremely significant and hardy memes.

Oh, yes, certainly. The persistence of the God meme is enormously significant to our understanding of the human mind.

I meant "mere meme" not in comparison to, say, a "great meme", but rather in comparison to things which are real, which exist independently of our thoughts.

I know I'm barging in, hopefully my intrusion is not unwelcome.

No, you're not barging in. You're posting. It's a message board. The more the merrier.

First, regarding thraks, you offer no meaningful claim, so again, you could stop right there, there's no reason to go further.

For Christian theists, they make a hell of a lot of meaningful claims. The claims can be rejected, but they are certainly meaningful.

I'm probably going to start sounding like a broken record on this point, but I must refer back to a previous issue.

We can't approach this piecemeal.

It's clear that the uber-concept of "God" (let's call it GOD, for short) -- that is, the wide umbrella which allows Krishna, Zeus, YHVH, New Age "subtle energy", Zen suchness, the objects of ineffable mystical experience, and the Holy Being I once encountered on an acid trip to all be fit into the God box -- is vague to the point of incoherence. We can't say anything meaningful about GOD because it allows an infinite number of theories, many of which are clearly contrary to fact, and many of which are mutually exclusive.

It makes no sense to claim that GOD "exists" or is "real", because there are no core qualities which define it.

So that's the end of the story, right?

No, because it is claimed that one of these sub-theories (a God or god) might potentially be real. And if that's true, then God cannot be discarded as an incoherent non-concept.

And yet, this claim by itself is still not enough to save God-theory, for reasons that have been mentioned before. It's not enough to point at the heap o' Gods/gods within the GOD-concept and make an unsubstantiated claim that one of them might possibly exist. That solves nothing.

Rather, this claim must be supported, must be made specifically for one of the Gods.

All it will take is one God that can be said meaningfully to potentially exist with reference to the real world, and my claim (that we know enough now to conclude that God is not real) is blown out of the water.

But what we can't do, is pick and choose this bit from this God and that bit from that God. And we can't shift our focus back and forth between a proposed God and the incoherent GOD-concept.

We have to take one package and examine it, and examine the whole package, not just parts.

So let's put this back in context. When I mentioned thraks, it was in response to this post:

hard atheism seems to reject that god can be unknowable simply because such an entity can not be known. This strikes me as a rather weak argument.....

To paraphrase what I believe andyandy is getting at, the objection runs something like this: God may be unknowable and still exist. Strong atheists deny that God could be unknowable, merely because that puts God outside the realm of detection. But not everything that exists can be detected. And in any case, just because the quality of unknowability is inconvenient for you, doesn't mean it can't be a quality of God.

But here's the mistake that's being made: Hard atheists don't deny that unknowability can be a quality which is proper to attribute to certain conceptions of God.

Sure, we can propose a God which has that quality. Why not?

After all, the God-concept is unanchored. It allows pretty much whatever you want.

The problem arises when theists make the claim that we are obliged to concede that such a thing might be real, might actually exist.

This is why the example of the thrak is relevant.

The point wasn't to claim that every definition of God is thrak-like. That's not what I'm saying.

What I'm saying is that no one is obliged to accept the "vanishing field trick" merely on the claim that, well, God is ultimately unknowable.

Your assertion that Xian theologians make meaningful claims about God is irrelevant to that point. Because so far, no one has proposed a definition of a Xian God for consideration.

And if you do, then we have to consider the whole ball of wax.

To clear up a point of confusion...most theists think they can understand God partially, and certainly not fully. But that goes for everything under the sun, right?

That's fine. We don't need complete understanding of any God to establish whether it might possibly be real, just as we don't need to understand everything about black holes to establish whether there's one at the center of our galaxy.

But if instead we are asked to consider a purple hole, and this purple hole is defined so weakly that we wouldn't know one if we saw one, or that its existence is not distinguishable from its non-existence, then the definition is a non-starter, because no claim of "reality" could possibly cohere to it. Therefore, it is unreasonable for purple hole theorists to assert that the world is obligated to concede that purple holes might be real.

 

[Piggy]

Ok, I gotta clean up and eat, but let me respond to this....

If a person approached you claiming that he had definitive evidence of the existence of God, and assuming that you had no prior commitments and that the claimant was clearly not an adherent to a religion that you had already evaluated and found false, like JW, would you allow him to present his evidence?

In the real world... I seriously doubt it.

I probably wouldn't stop and chat with a stranger who walked up to me claiming to have the blueprints of a perpetual motion machine, or proof that GW Bush detonated the Twin Towers, either. But this has not always been the case. For many years, I would talk to just about anyone on just about any topic. The realms of human belief are truly fascinating... and often scary.

These days, I don't have one-on-ones like that anymore. But I do read articles in print and on the Web about all kinds of claims, such as WTC conspiracy theory, chemtrails, mind control waves emitted from microwave towers, underwear that heals arthritis, etc etc etc. In fact, part of my job is to read a lot of this stuff in the health and consumer fields.

Every now and then I'll make a contact -- like recently a guy at a table next to me and a friend handed us a slip of paper as he was leaving. It was a chemtrail site URL. These are rare now, though.

But this post may help to answer the underlying question. It's my response to the question of how skeptics on this board became skeptics.

I have spend hundreds of hours talking with adherents of a wide variety of religions, and I've studied thousands of pages of religious texts. But I've also heard and read a lot of science.

My position regarding God does not stem from any innate bias, or from ignorance.

I've heard what the great religions have to say. And I know the basics of what science has discovered, not just about the physical world, but also about the human mind. And I've also taught hundreds of college students to read a wide variety of texts, understand misleading arguments, and formulate and express their own thoughts with some degree of clarity.

I am a skeptic because I firmly believe that one should never dismiss claims -- no matter how bizarre they seem at first... just look at relativity! -- merely out of hand.

But I also have enough sense to know that some claims have been proven false and will never be revived. I've mentioned a few of these several times already: flat earth theory, geocentrism, cosmic ether, phlogiston, spontaneous generation, Lamarckian evolution, creationism, a steady state universe.

I have heard so many arguments for God til I can't even remember them all.

None of them hold up.

After supper I'll post the gist of my argument for the claim that we know enough now to assert that God is not real.

 

[Piggy]

I'm not sure why you consider this a fallacy. The idea that God exists on a transcendent level is a common one in many religions and cannot be falsified or verified - at least not by current scientific methods. You pick an easy target and basically set up a straw God argument by concentrating on physical reality and dismissing the idea of a spiritual or trancendent reality when you dismiss this argument as fallacy.

Oh, sure, it's a common feature of many Gods. Just like being able to fly around the world is a feature of Santa Claus.

I'm not merely dismissing the idea of transcendent reality. What I'm saying is that no one is obliged to concede that an unanchored concept, which is said to exist in a purely hypothetical realm, must have the potential of actual existence.

People can dream up subtle and transcendent planes all they want. But no one is obliged to take them seriously.

Now, I'm really going to take exception to your accusation that I'm setting up a straw man. I have not provided any definition of God here. It's up to proponents of God-theory to do that.

What I was doing in that post was simply to describe certain erroneous arguments that are made concerning -- not the concept of God, let us be crystal clear about that -- but the claim that we are obliged to concede that God may possibly be real.

As far as defining existence a way that cannot be distinguished from non-existance...well, defining any intangible entity has similar problems. You can't see or feel or touch justice.

We did deal with this in the other thread.

When justice is defined properly, it's a trivial matter to find an example of it.

Justice doesn't exist on any transcendent or subtle level. It exists right here on earth. We can speak of places where justice is being done, and places where justice is not being done. No biggie. We don't need to invoke alternate realities.

Or if you define justice as an "ideal" (your term), then it's also a trivial matter to show that ideals exist and that this one is among them.

Of course, if you want to claim that God is the same type of thing that justice is, well, that's a horse of a different color.

We can easily demonstrate that the concept of God exists. But that's not what's at issue. God is.

Why is it that so many 'hard' atheists are materialists/literalists? They don't believe in God the same way they don't believe in Santa Claus. Me, I believe in Santa Claus. That is, I don't believe that Santa exists in a physical way, but I believe in the spirit of Christmas which is what Santa represents.

Oh, please. Yes, I don't believe in God the way I don't believe in Santa Claus. If you want to propose that God is an unreal thing which is merely symbolic of a state of mind which does exist, then I agree 100%.

SInce many believers in all religions believe that God is a spiritual entity that exists in a transcendant plane not a physical entity with supernatural abilities, your proof that God does not exist in any form must deal with this concept of God, not brush it aside as you have done here by claiming it is a fallacy.

I'm not brushing it aside. I'm requiring that we distinguish between God and the concept of God.

If you want to propose a concept of God which involves existence on a transcendent plane as real, then fine. We can look at that.

But remember, the question here is whether such a definition obligates us to concede that such an entity may actually exist. Not whether such a definition describes ideas in people's heads.

 

[Piggy]

I don't agree with Piggy on this. I think we must be clear what we mean by God if we are going to discuss God's existence.

Actually, that's my position, too.

Sampling bits of this and that God from the buffet is meaningless play.

If someone wants to claim that a God exists, we need to agree on a stipulative definition, and examine that entity and what we know about reality to see if the 2 are compatible.

So far, one stipulative definition has been offered: The supernatural sole creator and ruler of the universe.

"Supernatural" was defined as "not merely what is described by the impersonal laws of science". Unfortunately, no clarification was offered for the vague term "ruler", despite my requests.

But the question "Where is this God?" seemed to end the debate, even though location was defined in such a way as to allow for an answer to "Where?" with reference to asteroid belts, gravity, dreams, love, etc.

 

[CapelDodger]

We can easily demonstrate that the concept of God exists. But that's not what's at issue. God is.

Quite. And God isn't.

 

[Piggy]

How is this not the definition of a strawman? You construct a definition of God, then demonstrate your construct to be incoherent.

But this is not what's happening here.

It has been proposed that we know enough now to say that God isn't real.

It will only take one definition of God which obliges us to concede that the entity thus described could possibly be extant, and the proposition is dead on the spot.

However, God-theorists are in a bind. If they propose old-school definitions of God (y'know, like the one that claymated human beings and made the universe in 7 days) modern science will blow them out of the water. If they propose deistic or new age or transcendental definitions, God's existence becomes equal to its nonexistence, or God becomes equivalent to natural forces and laws. If they strike a middle ground by proposing an anecdotal God -- whatever it is doing all the stuff that believers say God is doing -- then the evidence doesn't pass muster, and we run into the same fatal problem as GOD theory has, with adherents disagreeing with each other.

If there is another option, I certainly don't know what it is.

But in any case, it is the proponents of God's reality who are providing the definitions. There is no straw man.

 

[Piggy]

Good! Somebody please do it. Piggy?
Then it will all be over, because I'm confident that this defined, set in stone, deity will not exist!

Sorry, I'm not allowed. If I did that, it would indeed be a straw man. Remember, I'm the one who made the strong atheistic claim. One potentially real God shoots me down.

Ok, now onto supper, and then I'll summarize the support for the claim that we know enough now to say that God isn't real.