How atheists can say, "There is no God"

[Just thinking]

... I forget who said it (or where I read it), but I kinda agree. Atheism isn't really a belief system. It's like, is there a word for someone who doesn't believe that Elvis is still alive (other than rational) or that the tooth fairy doesn't exists?

Skeptic?

Rationalist?

Realist?

Anyway ... for me, Atheism is more of a conclusion rather than a choice.

 

[Just thinking]

{gasp}

There are no mermaids? Damn.

Just little ones ...

 

[Beth]

Going to have to ask you to support this. As far as I am aware (to concentrate on the religion you've picked up on) the Roman Catholics (that is to say by far the majority of all Christians) hold that Christ actually existed, that his physical body died when he was crucified and later on was resurrected.

I haven't conducted a scientific survey. That is merely my opinion based on my experiences. However, if you can support your contention that the majority actually believe that physical evidence for the existance of God exists, then I will change my opinion based on that evidence.

However, the fact that religious institutions hold such things as the physical existance of Christ to be part of their dogma is different thing than that the majority of religious people believe physical evidence exists that supports the existance of God. The Catholic dogma that Christ actually existed would not qualify. He may or may not have been a real person. Someday there may be found objective physical evidence that a man named Jesus Christ once lived and taught about his vision of God in Galilee some 2000 years ago. Even if that happens I doubt that it would convince athiests that God exists. They would simply point out, quite properly, that even if Jesus was a real human there would still be no proof that he was divine.

At any rate, we were discussing the belief that physical evidence of the existance of God exists in the same way that if mermaids existed we would be able to find physical evidence of them. My opinion is that few religious people (aside from literalists) believe that such evidence exists and they (obviously) do not find it necessary to have such evidence in order to believe in God.

 

[nescafe]

What do you call something which is completely indistinguishable from an elephat?

A philosophical elephant, of course. P-elephant for short.

So what do you call something which is completely indistinguishable from nothing at all?

P-nothing (God for short).

 

[Just thinking]

A philosophical elephant, of course. P-elephant for short.

Just a thought ... is there any evidence that a P-anything exists? ... outside the constructs of one's imagination, of course.

 

[Darat]

...snip...

If you're seriously asking Beth for religious people who don't sweat the physical impact, you need to meet more religious people...

I'm asking for evidence that the majority of Christians don't believe that their God has a physical effect on the world; I've pointed out that the Roman Catholics certainly believe their god does, as does the Anglican church and that accounts for the vast majority of the world's Christians.

 

[Darat]

I haven't conducted a scientific survey. That is merely my opinion based on my experiences. However, if you can support your contention that the majority actually believe that physical evidence for the existance of God exists, then I will change my opinion based on that evidence.

I already have done - Roman Catholics believe that Jesus existed as do Anglicans, it is pretty hard to see how anyone could claim to be a Christian and yet not believe that Christ existed! (Albeit as you said you can be sure there is someone somewhere who will label themselves a Christian but claim Christ didn't exist.)

And I don't see how you can get much more physical then a body that is tortured and then finally killed.

However, the fact that religious institutions hold such things as the physical existance of Christ to be part of their dogma is different thing than that the majority of religious people believe physical evidence exists that supports the existance of God.

...snip...

Which was not my point. I was pointing out that you had generalised too far in your statement "I think that most people who believe in god do not believe he is a physical entity, so they don't expect to find objective evidence that can be examined.

Most people who do believe in a god(s) (the list I originally provided) do believe that in principle and also that at least historically their god(s) have physical characteristics i.e. can exist in this world as a physical being and effect the world in a physical manner. Christians, Muslims and Hindus are not deists (on the whole) but theists.

 

[Roboramma]

I was reading Carl Zimmer's Soul Made Flesh today, and there was a little passage that I thought has some bearing on this discussion. Specifically @Beth, what do you think:

The Oxford circle also tangled with Hobbes durring the Restoration. When Boyle published his experiments with his air pump, Hobbes attacked him. Experiments proved nothing, he argued; all kinds of hypothesis could account for the things Boyle saw in his glass receiver, and Byole could not know which was true. Hobbes argued that instead of experiments, a philosopher should rely on pure deduction from first principles. Hobbes own reasoning had led him to conclude that there could be no such thing as a vacuum, and he refused to beleive any evidence to the contrary.

The argument that Hobbes makes seems very similar to the argument that you're making. He says that we can't know that there is a vacuum, because we could come up with plenty of other explanations that would explain just as well what happens when you suck the air out of a sealed chamber. The evidence is ambigous. Worse, no matter how much of it we pile up, it will always be ambigous.
This is true of any scientific claim that I can think of, including any claims about god.

Is his argument a valid attack on the conclusions we draw from the scientific method? If not, why is it a valid attack on conclusions about the existence of god?
Or am I wrong (as I often am) to equate his argument to yours?

 

[CFLarsen]

Cottington Fairies

It's the Cottingley Fairies.

But here's the kicker: if mermaids were ever shown to exist, they would have absolutely nothing to do with the stories or the sightings. Those who insisted on the existence of mermaids would have been right only by luck, and we could deduce no properties or aspects of mermaids and mermaid life from their testimony. The mermaids we find would, in almost all certainty, be quite different from what the stories would have us believe.

Wrong.

If mermaids were ever shown to exist, we would have to go back to the stories and the sightings. Not that every story and every sighting necessarily is evidence of mermaids - they could just as well be sightings of a seal or a walrus. But we cannot dismiss the evidence, just because it is old.

We have tales from Hanno describing gorillas, long before gorillas were "discovered". Hanno must have travelled below the Equator, since he described the sun rising and setting in the North. Both accounts were ridiculed in their day, but later discoveries showed that he was right.

 

[Wolfman]

I was going to make exactly the same point as PFLarson, but he beat me to it. How on earth can you conclude that "if mermaids were ever shown to exist, they would have absolutely nothing to do with the stories or the sightings"? Do you mean to claim that, if mermaids were shown to exist, it would be impossible that those mermaids would ever have been seen before the time their existence was verified, and that every previous report of them must have been wrong?

Quite the opposite -- I'd say that if mermaids were ever shown to exist, it would require an immediate re-examination of the evidence, and quite possibly a demonstration that at least some of the previous claims had, in fact, at least potentially true? What if the description of the actual mermaid matched the description of mermaids in some particular stories; would it not be stretching credulity a little too far to think that they'd been "accidentally" correct not only in assuming the existence of such creatures, but in describing them exactly?

I enjoyed your article, and agreed with it up until the point where you made this argument; but from this point onwards, I cannot agree with your conclusions.

Let me provide a counter-balancing argument. Giant squids. There were stories throughout history of giant squids that attacked large whales, and even ships. But no physical proof of the existence of such squids was forthcoming. Many scientists considered it a myth, just another "sea monster" in the same category as mermaids.

But we've since discovered that there are, in fact, giant squids. They are very rarely spotted, because they tend to stay very deep in the ocean. But they have been observed; a few dead bodies have even been recovered.

Now, would it be logical to conclude that now that we've proven that the giant squid actually does exist, that they would have absolutely nothing to do with the stories or the sightings? Or would it be more logical to conclude that while quite possibly many of the stories were false, at least some portion of them were actually true?

In fact, quite opposite from the argument you make, does not the discovery of the reality of giant squids cause us to consider such past stories as sightings as potentially being more valid, rather than to conclude that they had nothing to do with it?

No, I don't believe mermaids exist. And I don't believe god exists. I was with you all the way, enjoyed your article...until you got to this point.

 

[Roboramma]

I have to agree with Wolfman and Larson.

I think a valid point still exists, however. If, for instance, a skeleton of a mermaid were found, perhaps numerous skeletons or other remains, and they stood up to close examination so that we could be pretty certain that it wasn't a hoax, we'd have pretty good evidence for the existence (or at least prior existence) of mermaids.
This would lend some credence to the stories - it would suggest that they were based on sightings of mermaids. But the evidence would only go so far - it wouldn't suggest that any of the magical aspects of the stories about mermaids were true. In fact, while it would suggest that an animal like mermaids existed, we couldn't conclude just from that, that they could speak, that they lived in underwater kingdoms, etc.

We still wouldn't know that much about mermaids, in spite of the fact that the stories about them tell us a lot about them.

But I do think that we might at that point look at those stories to see if they could lead us toward any fruitful lines of investigation.

 

[sphenisc]

It's close enough, eh?

 

[CFLarsen]

PFLarson

Larson

(cough)

 

[Wolfman]

(cough)

Ooops...my apologies...usually am more careful than that!

 

[Wolfman]

I have to agree with Wolfman and Larson.

I think a valid point still exists, however. If, for instance, a skeleton of a mermaid were found, perhaps numerous skeletons or other remains, and they stood up to close examination so that we could be pretty certain that it wasn't a hoax, we'd have pretty good evidence for the existence (or at least prior existence) of mermaids.
This would lend some credence to the stories - it would suggest that they were based on sightings of mermaids. But the evidence would only go so far - it wouldn't suggest that any of the magical aspects of the stories about mermaids were true. In fact, while it would suggest that an animal like mermaids existed, we couldn't conclude just from that, that they could speak, that they lived in underwater kingdoms, etc.

We still wouldn't know that much about mermaids, in spite of the fact that the stories about them tell us a lot about them.

But I do think that we might at that point look at those stories to see if they could lead us toward any fruitful lines of investigation.

And I, in turn, would agree with you. Taking the example I gave above, about giant squid, there have also been large whales found that have very clear scars from battles with giant squid. But there is no verified account ever of a giant squid attacking a ship (and a lot of circumstantial evidence to indicate this is unlikely, unless the squid were attacked first...possibly harpooned?).

Thus, one could conclude fairly confidently that at least some portion of stories about giant squids are based on real observation of these creatures. One could conclude that it is possible, but less likely, that people had actually witnessed a battle between a giant squid and a whale. But stories of ships being attacks by giant squid would justifiably be regarded with much more skepticism...the fact of the squid's existence doesn't mean that every story attributed to giant squid would be true.

So, to go back to the mermaid -- I'd agree 100% with a statement that finding undeniable proof of the existence of a mermaid would not automatically validate the claims of every person who had every claimed to see one; in fact, we could reliably expect the majority of them to have been wrong. It would be wrong for someone to claim that just because the existence of mermaids had been proven, that therefore their claims about mermaids must be true. And the same argument can be extended to the argument about the existence of god.

 

[Beth]

I already have done - Roman Catholics believe that Jesus existed as do Anglicans, it is pretty hard to see how anyone could claim to be a Christian and yet not believe that Christ existed! (Albeit as you said you can be sure there is someone somewhere who will label themselves a Christian but claim Christ didn't exist.)

Not as uncommon as you might think! I suggest you check out the book "Think Again" by Dr. Gary Cox. Although primarily directed at fundamentalists who would deny that those who don't believe as they do are also Christians, I think it might also be helpful for atheists who persist in thinking that way too.

And I don't see how you can get much more physical then a body that is tortured and then finally killed.

So, if tomorrow uncontestable physical evidence of the truth of Jesus' life and death were found, you would believe in God? I don't think so. Certainly what you are describing is a physical thing, but even if true, it doesn't (to me) constitute physical evidence of God. Only evidence that Jesus was indeed a flesh and blood human being. It would not provide proof that he was divine.

Which was not my point. I was pointing out that you had generalised too far in your statement "I think that most people who believe in god do not believe he is a physical entity, so they don't expect to find objective evidence that can be examined. Maybe I have. Can you support your contention with evidence that I'm wrong? I don't consider belief in the phsyical existance of Jesus to be contrary to my statement, although I recognize that you do. We'll simplly have to disagree on that.

Most people who do believe in a god(s) (the list I originally provided) do believe that in principle and also that at least historically their god(s) have physical characteristics i.e. can exist in this world as a physical being and effect the world in a physical manner. Christians, Muslims and Hindus are not deists (on the whole) but theists.

What people believe has happened historically is a somewhat different matter than what people believe may happen tomorrow. While many people believe that it is possible for God to do act in the physical, they neither expect nor believe they will priviledged to actually see such miracles for themselves. Thus, they neither expect nor need to see physical evidence of the existance of God.

I was reading Carl Zimmer's Soul Made Flesh today, and there was a little passage that I thought has some bearing on this discussion. Specifically @Beth, what do you think:

The argument that Hobbes makes seems very similar to the argument that you're making. He says that we can't know that there is a vacuum, because we could come up with plenty of other explanations that would explain just as well what happens when you suck the air out of a sealed chamber. The evidence is ambigous. Worse, no matter how much of it we pile up, it will always be ambigous. This is true of any scientific claim that I can think of, including any claims about god.

Is his argument a valid attack on the conclusions we draw from the scientific method?

I don't think so.

If not, why is it a valid attack on conclusions about the existence of god?

This question will take some thought and I have to get off to work now. If I come up with a good answer, I'll post it later.

Or am I wrong (as I often am) to equate his argument to yours?

I don't see them as similar.

 

[Beth]

The argument that Hobbes makes seems very similar to the argument that you're making. He says that we can't know that there is a vacuum, because we could come up with plenty of other explanations that would explain just as well what happens when you suck the air out of a sealed chamber. The evidence is ambigous. Worse, no matter how much of it we pile up, it will always be ambigous.
This is true of any scientific claim that I can think of, including any claims about god.

Is his argument a valid attack on the conclusions we draw from the scientific method? If not, why is it a valid attack on conclusions about the existence of god?
Or am I wrong (as I often am) to equate his argument to yours?

Okay, I've given this matter some thought and the connection I think you're seeing is "there isn't anything there" applies to both the idea of vacuum (bottled nothingness) and atheism (there isn't any God). Is this correct or are you thinking of some other connection between the arguments? If not, you'll have to elucidate the similarities you see.

If that is what you are thinking of then I don't think the two are similar because one is dealing with knowledge gained from experimentation and other hypotheses can be eliminated by testing for differences between what the various hypotheses predict. I don't think you can experimentally test the hypothesis of "no God" versus "a non-material God that does not physically affect our reality".

 

[Jimbo07]

I don't think you can experimentally test the hypothesis of "no God" versus "a non-material God that does not physically affect our reality".

Also hard to test for the God who covers his tracks, so that the wise will be fooled.

 

[Darat]

...snip... Maybe I have. Can you support your contention with evidence that I'm wrong? I don't consider belief in the phsyical existance of Jesus to be contrary to my statement, although I recognize that you do. We'll simplly have to disagree on that.

...snip...

Yes - for Christians Jesus is/was God so if you accept that Christians believe what they say they believe then their God has been a physical being who was indistinguishable until after his resurrections from other human beings. (Note - I am not saying that they consider him as only a physical being and that they don't think there are non-material components and characteristics of their god).

So as I said your generalisation was a generalisation too far since it is contradicted by the beliefs that Christians claim they hold.

 

[Roboramma]

Okay, I've given this matter some thought and the connection I think you're seeing is "there isn't anything there" applies to both the idea of vacuum (bottled nothingness) and atheism (there isn't any God). Is this correct or are you thinking of some other connection between the arguments? If not, you'll have to elucidate the similarities you see.

Not exactly, but your second paragraph comes close enough to understanding what I'm getting at that I almost don't need to explain any better.
I guess the connection I see, though, isn't so much specific to the case of the vacuum as to knowledge in general. The claim that there is a god is to me no different from any other claim. The question is whether or not it is more difficult to test.
I don't think it necessarily is. The point Hobbes is making (or at least the point Zimmer attributes to him, it doesn't really matter for our sake whether he made it or not) seems to be that experiment is useless because there's always some other hypothesis that can account for your results.

The point I think that you're making with god is that experiments that seek to find whether god exists are useless because there's always some hypothesis under which we can still fit a god in to the universe. God is in the gaps that we haven't or can't look at, or maybe has no effects at all.

If that is what you are thinking of then I don't think the two are similar because one is dealing with knowledge gained from experimentation and other hypotheses can be eliminated by testing for differences between what the various hypotheses predict.

The problem here is that once you've tested a hypothesis and it's come up wanting, you can always change it in a way that would allow it to still fit the data.
Maybe always is too strong, but I think it's pretty close to accurate.
Regardless, it's still always true that there will be some other hypothesis that could easily be dreamed up that would fit all the experimental results.

I don't think you can experimentally test the hypothesis of "no God" versus "a non-material God that does not physically affect our reality".

Ah! I've been having a hard time making myself clear until now, but I think this helps. What I'm saying is that yes, you can't experimentally test to see which of those is true - but the same will be true of any scientific claim - there will always be an alternative hypothesis which is not compatible with the one you've tentatively accepted based on the experiment, but which you also won't be able to eliminate based on your experimental data, or in fact any future experiments. I think that's basically the point Hobbes was making, and I think your point here is only a special case of it.

So the question becomes "How do we choose between two different hypotheses when both are consistent with experiment?"

Edit: This question is not specific to the issue of god, but is one that science faces (and deals with quite well I think) every day.