Philosoft

Well Jebus, what are we talking about, a thrust fault or an appendectomy?

Hogwash. At no point has A = ~A. Never ever ever ever ever. Not once. Never has, never will.

Um, the part about projecting is what I said you were describing. That's what I called it when you said we should consider the well-being of other species, or whatever.

I don't even know why I brought this up. Buddhism is not a traditional theism in any sense.

You are trying to use the total number to theists as evidence of the existence of a single God. You can't do this because the various theisms have strikingly different god-concepts.

Whatever. My point was you're not making a logical argument, as you initially asserted.

Fine.

No argument.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Unum:
"I think a better question would be: Is it possible to prove anything?"

I'd say, of course it is. As long as we understand what we mean with "prove." A definition of "proof" that stipulates absolute certainty ought to be rejected.

"To prove something in reality, requires us to use reality to do so. In effect, we are using something to prove that same something. This is a contradiction according to the present laws of logic, yet this is exactly what is happening."

Maybe you're saying that to prove something about reality we have to use our knowledge of reality. This doesn't seem to be a very important criticism; to prove something about pro wrestling, often, we'd need to use our knowledge about pro wrestling. Do you mean we have to assume we have access to reality in order to start proving things about it, and that we can never prove we have access to reality? This is a very important epistemological question, independent of logic.

"It's ironic that we use logic to prove things, yet logic itself stands on an illogical base."

I don't think it does. Logic is just a language we use to talk about propositions, predicates, functions, and the like. Whether or not it applies to reality can be demonstrated with truth tables in the case of propositional logic, with more complex truth tables in the case of predicate logic, and there are metatheorems that state that every theorem of logic is a valid sentence, etc. Of course, we need to appeal to a metalogic to use these, but often, the propositions and operations we do in the metalanguage are pretty obviously true. You can deny them, but it won't really get you anywhere interesting or useful.

So logic is pretty dogmatic. We just choose some rules, and then we can see, analytically, what follows from those rules. It's hard to be skeptical of analytic propositions.

"Which leads to another interesting question: Is it possible to use logic to logically prove itself?"

We should be careful about what we mean by "logic." We can use some logic to prove things about systems of logic; for example, we can use some pretty accessible logic to prove that a certain 1st-order predicate calculus is complete (every valid sentence is a theorem), sound (every theorem is a valid sentence), and compact (if some sentence is a consequence of a set of sentences, it's a consequence of a finite subset of that set of sentences).

Logic is all about creating our own system out of scratch and proving things within or about that system. You can decide for yourself whether what we're proving is useful in reality, and much of the time, people will think it is.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by Seraphim:

"To say that something is not exist simply by stating it cannot be proven logically is equal to say that we had learn everything there is to learn to make such assumption that that something doesn't exist."

Let's be careful here. If it cannot be proven logically, that's different from the position that it has not been proven logically. For something not to be provable in principle, logically, implies to me that it does not exist. Because if it did, someone could, in principle, learn of its existence and formulate a really simply argument with material implication.

"1. Our knowledge is too small to come out with a proper assumption whether God exist or not."

Well, this is disputable. All we have to be able to do is formulate a probably-true conditional with the antecedent "God exists" and a consequent that's obviously false. The only way for a conditional with a false consequent to be true is if its antecedent is also false.

I'll give you an example. Suppose we were to come to learn that (probably) if God exists, most people would believe in Him. It's not the case that most people believe in God (qua the God of Christian theism), so, by modus tollens, (probably) it's not the case that God exists. Now, I'm not arguing here that the conditional in question is true, but if it is, we've got a serious problem with theism, and it looks as if lack of evidence has provided evidence of lack.

That said, I have a feeling there are workable arguments lurking within these sorts of realizations. Ted Drange has provided a pretty persuasive one (available on the Infidels Web site), and there are really a family of points around here to make. If God existed, it would seem pretty expectable that by now, we would have come up with a convincing argument for His existence, given how important a being He is and how much He's influenced the universe. If God existed, similarly, there wouldn't be much reasonable unbelief, but I believe there's a lot of reasonable unbelief and some reasonable disbelief. If God existed, He would have good reasons to reveal Himself by now, for the sake of humanity and for His own goals. All of these considerations provide some intuitive reason to think that if God existed, more likely than not, we would know about it.

The original post was about whether lack of evidence is evidence of lack, but your statement also conflicts with the (I think) fact that it's easy to prove some versions of God nonexistent.

"2. Most of our knowledge comes from Human point of view alone without considering any other factor which could contribute to it - Pro or Con. Assuming that we (humans) are the ONLY living organism in the Universe, such assumption could be consider logical."

We're not looking for certainty that God doesn't exist, just probability. There's no reason to believe that aliens would have good arguments for God's existence, no more reason than to believe they'd have good arguments for God's nonexistence. I don't see why learning about alien cultures would necessarily provide any evidence, positive or negative, for God's existence.

"3. Taking into consideration of various other races and their religions/teachings, the weight falls toward God exist (especially from point of view from Hindusm, Taoist and Buddhism) than to assumption that it doesn't exist. Since it is illogical for a single race (such as Americans, or Europeans etc) to make assumption on behalf of all other races, a collective opinion must be taken into consideration."

I think there are very good explanations for why religious belief is so common, and as others have pointed out, mere population is rarely good evidence of something. I can say that in terms of my experience, no believer has a good reason to believe; therefore, probably, no one has a good reason to believe.

"Belief in God should be consider as individual right where each person has right to belief what he or she wants."

Well, of course it's an individual right. To believe all sorts of crazy things is a right.

"Other people has no right to impose his or her own belief onto another, just as same as one who doesn't believe in such belief to impose their point of view to those who do belief, which include sarcastic remarks or making jokes about other people's belief."

Are you denying that we have the right to present our cases argumentatively? I feel quite safe in asserting, not only that God does not exist, and that there is no good reason to believe in God, but in concluding the normative proposition that people who believe in God without a good reason are most likely making a mistake. And I think I have the right to inform people of their errors.

As for jokes or sarcastic comments, I don't really have a problem with anyone from either side offering them, as long as they're actually salient to the discussion and accompany important points.

Seraphim

"Well Jebus, what are we talking about, a thrust fault or an appendectomy? "

My reply : We are (at least I am) talking about the fact that each of us make assumptions and opinions based on what we know rather than what is known (by all). I'm not very sure about the term of that.

"Hogwash. At no point has A = ~A. Never ever ever ever ever. Not once. Never has, never will."

My reply : Need I reply this?

"Um, the part about projecting is what I said you were describing. That's what I called it when you said we should consider the well-being of other species, or whatever. "

My reply : Just as we project our throughts and understanding to other species, we are doing the same with other humans in other places as well. It is simply learnt vs the unlearnt. I don't know about you, but I wish to learn new things rather than blind myself with whatever little I know.

"I don't even know why I brought this up. Buddhism is not a traditional theism in any sense."

My reply : And what is traditional theism? What is its characteristics?

"You are trying to use the total number to theists as evidence of the existence of a single God. You can't do this because the various theisms have strikingly different god-concepts."

My reply : I can do it IF it is based on moral principles. If one considers religion as moral principle with God in the middle, then ALL religion (even Islam and Christianity) looks the same and behave the same way. I see the destination where we are heading, you only see the roads.

"Whatever. My point was you're not making a logical argument, as you initially asserted."

My reply : And why is that? It sounded logical to me. Each person has individual knowledge and he or she makes decision based on what he or she knows and NOT what he or she may not know. The decision made by him or her is projected to others who may hold other point of view thus promoting either a confrontation of different thoughts or fusion of thoughts if it similar in concept. I think it is a logical deduction.

"Fine."

My reply : No further argument is needed.

"No argument. "

My reply : No further argument is needed.

Seraphim

"Let's be careful here. If it cannot be proven logically, that's different from the position that it has not been proven logically. For something not to be provable in principle, logically, implies to me that it does not exist. Because if it did, someone could, in principle, learn of its existence and formulate a really simply argument with material implication."

My reply : The "proof" alone is one we should first consider as which is acceptable and which is not. When dealing with an issue such as God, what proof should we consider acceptable?

Physics and Science? I don't believe this will proof much, but we can make models to show how things could have work, but it will be nothing more than a model. Quantum physics and theory such as Gaia is one of two models which we could use (IF acceptable).

Mathematical? Can come out with a model of energy if we know how much a body produce energy daily etc but even that is beyond our current technology.

Theological and personal experience as proof? Most of us may not accept it.

"this is disputable. All we have to be able to do is formulate a probably-true conditional with the antecedent "God exists" and a consequent that's obviously false. The only way for a conditional with a false consequent to be true is if its antecedent is also false.

I'll give you an example. Suppose we were to come to learn that (probably) if God exists, most people would believe in Him. It's not the case that most people believe in God (qua the God of Christian theism), so, by modus tollens, (probably) it's not the case that God exists. Now, I'm not arguing here that the conditional in question is true, but if it is, we've got a serious problem with theism, and it looks as if lack of evidence has provided evidence of lack."

My reply : Your statement and example is acceptable, however, there is a slight problem with believing in God and believing in a certain doctrine (such as Christianity). In certain doctrine (such as Christianity and Islam), they (those who believe in it) will assume that you have a certain degree of acceptance before you believe in God and those doctrine.

In another word, they (the doctrines) already assumed you believe in God thus do not provide you with necessary proof to those who ask whether God exist. In that context, it isn't logical to look for proof somewhere else rather than continue something (a doctrine) which is unproven by itself?

"That said, I have a feeling there are workable arguments lurking within these sorts of realizations. Ted Drange has provided a pretty persuasive one (available on the Infidels Web site), and there are really a family of points around here to make. If God existed, it would seem pretty expectable that by now, we would have come up with a convincing argument for His existence, given how important a being He is and how much He's influenced the universe. If God existed, similarly, there wouldn't be much reasonable unbelief, but I believe there's a lot of reasonable unbelief and some reasonable disbelief. If God existed, He would have good reasons to reveal Himself by now, for the sake of humanity and for His own goals. All of these considerations provide some intuitive reason to think that if God existed, more likely than not, we would know about it."

My reply : Assuming of course that you know what His goals are.

"The original post was about whether lack of evidence is evidence of lack, but your statement also conflicts with the (I think) fact that it's easy to prove some versions of God nonexistent."

My reply : Which part is that?

"We're not looking for certainty that God doesn't exist, just probability. There's no reason to believe that aliens would have good arguments for God's existence, no more reason than to believe they'd have good arguments for God's nonexistence. I don't see why learning about alien cultures would necessarily provide any evidence, positive or negative, for God's existence."

My reply : If probability that you seek, then there is plenty of it, but none of it is in form of Christian or Muslim doctrine. Whether you will accept probability from other doctrine is something you should decide.
As for Aliens, I think it is an unanswerable either way till further evidence of such existence is proven. Either way, just remember that we (humans) do not know everything.

"I think there are very good explanations for why religious belief is so common, and as others have pointed out, mere population is rarely good evidence of something. I can say that in terms of my experience, no believer has a good reason to believe; therefore, probably, no one has a good reason to believe."

My reply : I don't understand. It is to say that population is the reason for everyone believing in something? It is like the masses believe in one thing which they themselves have no proof and non-believers are simply someone who thinks about the proof? Is that what you are saying?

"Well, of course it's an individual right. To believe all sorts of crazy things is a right."

My reply : It is my right to believe in something I wish to believe in, I don't see how it can effect you.

"Are you denying that we have the right to present our cases argumentatively? I feel quite safe in asserting, not only that God does not exist, and that there is no good reason to believe in God, but in concluding the normative proposition that people who believe in God without a good reason are most likely making a mistake. And I think I have the right to inform people of their errors."

My reply : Your right is yours, I shall not argue with what you think or feel, but just as you present your case, I will present mine. In the end, it is indivual's right whether he or she wishes to listen or walk away.

"As for jokes or sarcastic comments, I don't really have a problem with anyone from either side offering them, as long as they're actually salient to the discussion and accompany important points. "

My reply : Acceptable.

Evil Milkman

Sourdough:

You can't possibly prove something supernatural. That's how theists get their kicks in their arguments, and that's why I can't believe. If it were possible to prove the supernatural, it wouldn't be supernatural. It'd just be "natural".

Of course, the fact that you cannot disprove the supernatural gives you the right to take it with a grain of salt. It's bunk.

Fiach

How do we define "natural?"

I thought that natural means that it exists, is real, and it has certain properties attributed to its composition.

If something is non-natural, extranatural, or supernatural, that means that it doesn't necessarily exist. It is not necessarily real. And it has no definable properties.

Everything that IS, is natural. So that which is claimed to be non-natural has no compelling reasons for credibility.

Fiacn

Fiach

Not quite. If no one can prove the existence of god, then no one is intellectually compelled to "believe" that it exists. I am an Atheist because I do not believe in god(s) because there is no evidence at all for any of them. I don't believe but one can never prove a negative hypothesis.

The following entities are ones which I don't believe exist, but cannot disprove.
God
Allah
Joe Hovah
Brahma
Vishnu
Shiva
Dagda
Lugh
Danu
Eriu
Gaea
Zeus
Thor
Odin
Quetzlcoatl
Mother Goose
Leprechauns
Faerie Gentry
Shape Changers
All God-human hybrids
Ghosts, spirits, goblins, ogres, trolls, vampires.

Fiach

Fiach