Do you know everything about the universe?

[Piggy]

I'm not defining anything here.

<Gomer>

Surprise, surprise, surprise!

</Gomer>

 

[Piggy]

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!!!

I do.

Then you are no one.

 

[Dunstan]

I had to delay in responding to this thread as I realised I'd forgotten to check behind the sofa. Good job I did as I found an invisible pink unicorn and an undetectable dog.

Was my teapot back there, too? I seem to be missing one; I wonder where it's got to?

 

[MrFrankZito]

No, but I can form reasonably educated hypotheses about almost everything, thanks to the wonderful discoveries of science.

 

[Windom]

If this poll is supposed to be a kinda joke then maybe I've got no sense of humor. Otherwise the topic is clearly dumb.

 

[Piggy]

If this poll is supposed to be a kinda joke then maybe I've got no sense of humor. Otherwise the topic is clearly dumb.

It's actually a very common tack of the "atheism is irrational" and "atheism is fundamentalism" camps.

The (naive) argument is that one cannot deny the possibility of God without being omniscient.

The trouble is, people who toss this idea around can never say why it should be so.

One doesn't have to be omniscient to know that there's no cosmic ether, or that the universe isn't contracting, or that magical St. Bernards don't dance the hora around Alpha Centauri every other Thursday.

It's merely an attempt to assert the potential existence of God without having to say what God is. But such tactics are necessary, because once forced to do that, the choices are either to posit an entity which is clearly contrary to fact, or equivalent to natural forces, or relegated to some undefined alternate reality.

 

[elaine]

Then you are no one.

Am I in cave with a politically correct cyclops?

 

[T'ai Chi]

The (naive) argument is that one cannot deny the possibility of God without being omniscient.

The trouble is, people who toss this idea around can never say why it should be so.

No no, you've misunderstood the argument. One cannot state as fact that god(s) don't exist. It follows logically.

One doesn't have to be omniscient to know that there's no cosmic ether, or that the universe isn't contracting, or that magical St. Bernards don't dance the hora around Alpha Centauri every other Thursday.

These things are not postulated creators of the universe, etc. They are simply objects in the universe. Again, logic.

(BTW, there have been recent articles in science journals on ether)

 

[Foster Zygote]

No no, you've misunderstood the argument. One cannot state as fact that god(s) don't exist. It follows logically.

Yet one can state as fact that there is absolutely no evidence that god(s) exist. So follow logically from there.

These things are not postulated creators of the universe, etc. They are simply objects in the universe. Again, logic.

I hereby postulate that the universe was created by magical St. Bernards that dance the hora around Alfa Centauri every other Thursday. Those who worship the magical German Shepperds who tango around Proxima Centauri every third Wednesday are infidels who must be destroyed. It's quite logical.

(BTW, there have been recent articles in science journals on ether)

Could you tell us which ones?

Steven

 

[Windom]

The (naive) argument is that one cannot deny the possibility of God without being omniscient.

The trouble is, people who toss this idea around can never say why it should be so.

The trouble is, word "god" is meaningless now. e.g. which god did you mean in your post - christian god? allach? Jupiter? If the term doesn't mean anything, how can you prove it doesn't exist? Even if you've seen whole Universe and so on, you couldn't tell whether "asjdad" (or "god") exists or not if you don't know what the term means.

 

[CFLarsen]

No no, you've misunderstood the argument. One cannot state as fact that god(s) don't exist. It follows logically.

Yes, we can. We can state that, based on the evidence, there is no evidence of God. Ergo, God doesn't exist.

The evidence of God is as strong as the evidence of Santa Claus. In fact, there is more evidence of Santa Claus than of God.

 

[Piggy]

The trouble is, word "god" is meaningless now. e.g. which god did you mean in your post - christian god? allach? Jupiter? If the term doesn't mean anything, how can you prove it doesn't exist? Even if you've seen whole Universe and so on, you couldn't tell whether "asjdad" (or "god") exists or not if you don't know what the term means.

For a complete argument, see the thread Proof of Strong Atheism.

But here it is in a nutshell:

The generic term "god" (or GOD, for clarity) is incoherent -- so much so that it allows an infinite number of mutually contradictory hypotheses, many of which are not even believed by any theists anymore. So there can be no meaningful claims that adhere to the GOD concept per se.

The claim that one of the sub-theories, a God or god, might be real, is not a claim of any sort in itself, absent the identification of at least one god/God as a candidate for potential existence.

So far, no one has been able to identify a candidate which can be said to be potentially real.

And in fact, it is not logically possible to do so.

Any proposed god/God either interacts with the universe or does not.

If it does not, then it lacks any connection with reality, and therefore cannot be said to be real, or to exist, in any way which is distinguishable from being unreal, or not existing. If we allow definitions of things which permit us to define terms as being indistinguishable from their opposites, then we all become Humpty Dumpties who can't tell the difference between is and ain't. So it is unreasonable to ask that anyone accept the potential "reality" or "existence" of a ineffable transcendent God, which is an I-don't-know-what living in I-don't-know-where.

If it does interact with our world, then it does so in ways that are completely compatible with natural law, or in ways that aren't.

If the former, then God becomes just another word for the forces of nature, which first of all is not what is normally meant by the term, and secondly creates a merely redundant term which we can dispense with since we already have naturalistic theories of the world which do not require belief in a superfluous God.

If the latter, then God is contrary to fact, and without some hard evidence it is unreasonable to ask anyone to believe that it might possibly be real.

So bottom line, despite its apparent (naive) logic at first blush if one doesn't think about it too much, it is unreasonable to demand that anyone declare that God might possibly be real, might possibly exist.

Atheism is perfectly rational.

 

[Piggy]

No no, you've misunderstood the argument. One cannot state as fact that god(s) don't exist. It follows logically.

In fact, I have understood the argument. I understand it very well.

We know enough now about the world to positively state that God isn't real.

There is no definition of God which is not either dead, contrary to fact, empty, nonsensical, or redundant. Therefore, although people are free to believe what they want or to take imagination on faith, it is unreasonable to ask that others grant potential reality to God.

These things are not postulated creators of the universe, etc. They are simply objects in the universe. Again, logic.

There cannot be logic "again" because that would require your previous arguments to have exhibited some logic.

It doesn't matter whether these examples are claimed to be creators of the universe, any more than it matters whether they're claimed to have had conversations with ancient Hebrews or to have grown a lotus flower out of their navels.

The point is, omniscience is not necessary to draw conclusions regarding the existence or non-existence of entities. All that is required is enough information pertaining to the definition of the entity.

If you want to claim that omniscience is required in order to draw a conclusion regarding the existence of God, then by all means, demonstrate it.

 

[T'ai Chi]

Yet one can state as fact that there is absolutely no evidence that god(s) exist. So follow logically from there.

So you commit the fallacy of

lack of evidence = evidence of lack

If there are no oranges at the store, oranges don't exist anywhere.

I hereby postulate that the universe was created by magical St. Bernards that dance the hora around Alfa Centauri every other Thursday. Those who worship the magical German Shepperds who tango around Proxima Centauri every third Wednesday are infidels who must be destroyed. It's quite logical.

You can label the notion of god(s) however you'd like to poke fun at the notion of god(s) (that have existed strongly and centrally in every culture, in every time, and we might be hardwired for it), but that does nothing to diminish the argument (which you try, emphasis on try, to avoid by jesting).

 

[Piggy]

So you commit the fallacy of

lack of evidence = evidence of lack

If there are no oranges at the store, oranges don't exist anywhere.

This only works if you propose that god is like an orange, a limited phyiscal thing that might be lurking somewhere we haven't yet checked.

You still haven't said why omniscience is necessary to reach a conclusion regarding the possible existence of god.

 

[Foster Zygote]

So you commit the fallacy of

lack of evidence = evidence of lack

So you're actually going to respond to someone now?

Absence of evidence does not equal evidence of absence. Yet as Piggy pointed out:

This only works if you propose that god is like an orange, a limited phyiscal thing that might be lurking somewhere we haven't yet checked.

If there are no oranges at the store, oranges don't exist anywhere.

Ah, but oranges do exist. We've seen them, we've eaten them. If the store is out of oranges I can entertain the possibility that oranges have become extinct but it is more likely that I'll simply conclude that the store is out of oranges. Even regarding the question "Does life exist elsewhere in the universe?" it can be pointed out that life does indeed exist in the universe, right here on Earth.

You can label the notion of god(s) however you'd like to poke fun at the notion of god(s) (that have existed strongly and centrally in every culture, in every time, and we might be hardwired for it), but that does nothing to diminish the argument (which you try, emphasis on try, to avoid by jesting).

I've emphasized a word in the above sentence because I think it is important. Humans have imagination, quite a lot of it actually. And humans like to anthropomorphize damn near everything they encounter from pets to machines to the weather. Actually, some gods were created by anthropomorphizing the weather. The fact that the notion of gods in one form or another has existed throughout human history offers no evidence that the gods themselves are real. It is evidence of human imagination though.

The logical error you seem to be making is to claim that because one can't use any metric to prove that an utterly unobservable being doesn't exist that this is evidence in support of said beings existence.

Let's try this: Suppose I got to the produce department and ask for the Invisible Pink Unicorns. The clerk gets that look my cat gets when I put him on the phone. He says,
"We don't have any Invisible Pink Unicorns."
And I reply "Oh, so you're out of them then?"
"We've never had them, there's no such thing as an Invisible Pink Unicorn."
And I answer "That's a logical fallacy! Just because you don't have any Invisible Pink Unicorns in this store doesn't mean they don't exist somewhere in the universe. I'll go try the BiLo."

And by the way, I haven't tried to avoid anything. The jest is a way of pointing out that the god(s) you write of have no properties to distinguish them from any other magical, unobservable being. If I wanted to be evasive I might simply ignore all arguments made against my statements or claim that no worthy rebuttals have been made.

Steven

 

[Foster Zygote]

Hello... Am I back on ignore?

Steven

 

[Mick Houlahan]

Another pointless poll - looks like somebody's been watching "The Way of the Master" in his/her ABUNDANT free time.

 

[HeavyAaron]

For a complete argument, see the thread Proof of Strong Atheism.

But here it is in a nutshell:

The generic term "god" (or GOD, for clarity) is incoherent -- so much so that it allows an infinite number of mutually contradictory hypotheses, many of which are not even believed by any theists anymore. So there can be no meaningful claims that adhere to the GOD concept per se.

The claim that one of the sub-theories, a God or god, might be real, is not a claim of any sort in itself, absent the identification of at least one god/God as a candidate for potential existence.

So far, no one has been able to identify a candidate which can be said to be potentially real.

And in fact, it is not logically possible to do so.

Any proposed god/God either interacts with the universe or does not.

If it does not, then it lacks any connection with reality, and therefore cannot be said to be real, or to exist, in any way which is distinguishable from being unreal, or not existing. If we allow definitions of things which permit us to define terms as being indistinguishable from their opposites, then we all become Humpty Dumpties who can't tell the difference between is and ain't. So it is unreasonable to ask that anyone accept the potential "reality" or "existence" of a ineffable transcendent God, which is an I-don't-know-what living in I-don't-know-where.

If it does interact with our world, then it does so in ways that are completely compatible with natural law, or in ways that aren't.

If the former, then God becomes just another word for the forces of nature, which first of all is not what is normally meant by the term, and secondly creates a merely redundant term which we can dispense with since we already have naturalistic theories of the world which do not require belief in a superfluous God.

If the latter, then God is contrary to fact, and without some hard evidence it is unreasonable to ask anyone to believe that it might possibly be real.

So bottom line, despite its apparent (naive) logic at first blush if one doesn't think about it too much, it is unreasonable to demand that anyone declare that God might possibly be real, might possibly exist.

Atheism is perfectly rational.

I'll bite. Let me define the term "possible being" to be an object which is logically possible to exist (i.e. is not defined to be incoherient.)

You are saying that God is not a possible being. Well, clearly if you define God in such a way that it is not possible for the object to exist it follows that the object does not exist. Ho-hum.

Let us consider an arbitrary possible object X. Now we wish to show that no actual object X exists. Let us consider the set of all existant things S. (Yes, I know that that this set might be too large, and thus S itself is not a possible thing.) Let's consider it anyway. Now, to show that X does not exist is to show that X is not in the set S. The only means to do that is to examine all elements of the set S and find that they are not identical to X. It does not require omniscience, but it does require knowing of all existant objects. Now, so long as the definition of God is such that it is a possible being, let X be God.

Aaron

 

[Piggy]

I'll bite. Let me define the term "possible being" to be an object which is logically possible to exist (i.e. is not defined to be incoherient.)

I'm afraid that's overly broad. For example, it's not logically impossible for fell beasts to evolve and live on earth. But nevertheless, fell beasts do not live on earth.

Just because a thing is not logically impossible doesn't mean it may possibly be real.

Let us consider an arbitrary possible object X. Now we wish to show that no actual object X exists. Let us consider the set of all existant things S. (Yes, I know that that this set might be too large, and thus S itself is not a possible thing.) Let's consider it anyway. Now, to show that X does not exist is to show that X is not in the set S. The only means to do that is to examine all elements of the set S and find that they are not identical to X. It does not require omniscience, but it does require knowing of all existant objects.

No it does not require knowing of all existant objects. You have only restated the unsupported assertion that the whole universe must be examined before you can conclude that anything either does or doesn't possibly exist. This is simply not so.

First you have to know the qualities of the thing. If you don't, then nothing meaningful can be said about it at all.

Once you know the defining qualities, you only have to know enough about the world to be able to say "It definitely is", "It definitely ain't", or "Can't tell".

Now, so long as the definition of God is such that it is a possible being, let X be God.

Sorry, too broad a definition. God has defining qualities. You can't simply make claims regarding "an arbitrary possible object X", then tack on "let X be God". God is not just any arbitrary thing you care to imagine.