markfiend

Atheists are often challenged by the assertion "you cannot prove that God does not exist, because you cannot prove a negative."

The proposition "you cannot prove a negative" can be re-phrased as
"Propositions of the form 'there is no X' cannot be proven" or,
"There is no proof for propositions of the form 'there is no X'"

This is itself a proposition of the form 'there is no X', and so if it is true, it cannot be proven.

So theists cannot demonstrate that a proof of the non-existence of God is impossible.

Apologies if this is in the wrong place, but I think it's more philosophy than EoG or anything else?

Pyrrho

You might be interested in:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=55629

metacristi

Funny but from my own experience it is rather atheists those who make this claim...Anyway no matter who makes this claim it is certainly a mith.Moreover to make belief nonrational there is no need of a 'proof' but only of arguments proving,beyond all reasonable doubt,that such a God does not exist (something like Michelson-Morley's experiment which made the 'aether' less probable 'objectively'):that is naturalism is proved as being 'superior' objectively (I've presented in one of my previous threads what it is needed to promote naturalism from the state of simple conjecture to that of fallible scientific truth).Sure this let the door open to be skeptical that a personal God does not exist but anyway belief would be made nonrational at least for the moment.

xoc

You can give a logical "proof" for a negation, that something can't exist because it violates logical laws and would be a contradiction to itself. You can give an empirical "proof" for the lack of existence of something in a certain frame/area, like there are no brontosauruses in my backyard. You can't disprove God empirically because we can't discover the "area" where he would exist(beyond space/time) to tell where He is.

ComestibleVenom

I believe that is a good refutation of the logical argument insofar as it restricts what the claim "cannot prove a negative" involves.

However, discovery of a point in space where something exists is too restricted and misses the issue. God is posited to be inaccessible save insofar as he wills to reveal himself. His will is inscrutable, so there is not only no point in space, there is no concilient place within our theory-systems for god. God-theory in isolation shrivels up and dies. God is dead.

The fact that you can't prove this particular negative, ironically, disproves this particular claim thus proving the negative.

mark9950

to prove anything is by evidence.The court system of the US is based on physical or testimonial evidence sworn under oath.

There is no proof that God does not or does exist.

There is only ones belief in anything without proof of any kind.

Little-Aphid

That's mostly true, except you can't prove that there isn't a brontosaurus in your backyard. It could be invisible. However, you can prove that there isn't a universally visible brontosaurus in your backyard, because if you can't see it, it's obvioulsy not there. You have to narrow down your claims.

You can't prove there isn't a tiny unicorn hovering infront of your face, but you can prove that there isn't a visible unicorn hovering in front of your face.

~Me.

Tristan Scott

But what if everyone else around you said that they saw it (whether they were delusional or just pulling your leg)? How would you prove that it did not exist?

xoc

"proofs" ultimately must rely on the perceptive or conceptive power of fallible humans in their psychology and reasoning power.

This all falls back into the old epistemological difficulties of Descartes. How do we "know" we "know"? If we can't judge our own perceptions and reasoning, how can we trust someone elses? Perhaps we alone see the truth and the rest of the world is deluded; or perhaps the opposite is true. How do we decide what to belief then, our own impressions or that of the world outside.

I think we ought to logically consider the experience of others as objectively "equal" with ours, and consider the old law of action-reaction; if people are "reacting" to something they perceive, there is some action that brought this about. Whether to tell whether people are lying or not is another matter, but a good understanding of psychology, the people involved, possible motivations and "poker-face" power(Liars have "tells", signs that denote they're lying, psychological pressure produces external quriks) should help us get closer to the truth.

However with the elephant there is a multitude of possible witnesses besides "sight"; we could touch, smell, listen to, etc. the elephant to verify it's substance, and test to see if different peple give different testimony- a way cops break down many crime partnerships(bond of lies) is to find inconsistency in their reports, as a real "object" will be clear to all who see it and describable in the same ways while one that is made-up will probably become more incoherent when people try and describe it. The elephant was 10 feet tall one might say, others say 15, when tested, lies tend to become obvious. Consistency of testimony, persistency of "phenomenon" , constancy of laws, leads to "proofs" in all domains... I think.

Starbug

"you cannot prove that God does not exist, because you cannot prove a negative."

Granted, i too think these two clauses are unrelated. You can prove a negative like so: "all flying animals have wings; dogs do not have wings; therefore, dogs cannot fly." Granted, this may not be permanently true - we may discover, one day, a dog that can fly, but in the moonteam this is accurate.

Proving the non-existence of something is another matter. For instance, can I prove that I haven't developed Weapons of Mass Distruction? I.e., can I prove their non-existence? (Oh shit, Bush is gonna' liberate the hell out of me now!)

The proposition "you cannot prove a negative" can be re-phrased as
"Propositions of the form 'there is no X' cannot be proven" or,
"There is no proof for propositions of the form 'there is no X'"

Can it? 'There is no X' is not that same as, say, 'X does not equal Y,' which is what I think of as a "negative." Even still, to say "There is no proof" may not prove a negative, but it does show that the assertion of something without proof is illogical.

True, when an atheist spouts, "you can't prove a negative," it is a misnomer. Really, all that needs to be said is a theist has no proof of their god, therefore I'm under no obligation to believe.

But what about this:
Can the existence of the Biblical God be disproven? If the credibility of believing in this god hinges on the credibility of the Bible, then would discrediting the Bible disprove it's god?