Heraclitus Nietzsche

Hello all!
I have been visiting the Infidels forum for some time, though mostly just to read the enlightening lively discussions. Some of your posts at this great forum have both amazed and entertained me. There truly are many gifted and intelligent people who regularly contribute to these posts!

With that said, I was hoping I could get some good feedback about a philosophical problem I have been contemplating recently:

First, does everyone here believe that anything that exists can be proven [by mankind] to exist?

I am of the belief that God (defined loosely as a higher consciousness that created the physical universe and thus has the power to do whatever it wants with its creation) CANNOT be proven to positively exist. This inability to prove God's existence does not therefore mean "it" does not exist especially if the "god consciousness" exists both within and without the physical universe. As physical beings, I believe mankind simply doesn't have the proper tools to prove a being like God's existence. Similarly, God cannot be proven to NOT exist if for nothing more than because of the rational inability to prove a negative.

Now, getting back to my main question: IF there ARE existences that we cannot prove are "real" (however, it can be argued that the terminology and concept of God does exist, but is nothing more than a label for an "imaginary"- a fictious being) surely we have the tools and ability to prove that something CANNOT be proven to exist. I'm looking for ideas on how I can support my assertion that man cannot prove God exists. I guess a simple atheistic answer to this question would be: because God DOESN'T exist. But that would mean that mankind indeed DOES have the tools and ability to prove the existence of EVERYTHING that exists. My intuition tells me this is incorrect. Science strives to identify (and deductively predict and use) all that exists, but Science's work is not done (Will it EVER be done?). I am of the belief that Science has done great work with the physical world, but God is defined as the creator of the physical world and therefore transcends it. This would make God outside the reaches of a Scientific proof; Science is unable to prove the existence of God.
I apologize if I haven't made my point clear enough (an ability I'm trying to make stronger). But, how can Science prove it's limitations if it indeed does have limitations?
Thanks in advance for your responses to this post.

Keith Russell

Greetings:

I believe that if something exists, there will be evidence for its existence. That evidence won't always be reachable (distance) or comprehensible (due to technological or other current scientific limits), so we may not be able to prove its existence until farther into the future.

But, I do believe that it's irrational to believe a claim until there is evidence to support it.

Keith.

crocodile deathroll

You also must consider the absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. There also a huge gap between "believing" something exists and claiming absolute knowledge of its existence.
I have often encountered theists who do in fact claim they have absolute knowledge and proof of the existence and not just believe in god on faith alone. Like a recall an old interview with Carl Jung who was asked if he believed in a god he replied "I do not just believe in a god I know there is a god". No one has shown me any proof of his existence and still remains to this as the daddy of all most extraordinary claims that demands the most extraordinary evidence.
There is something that I find to be totally irrational in claiming absolute knowledge of something that no one has proven

Oxymoron

Even more strongly and correctly: the only sense in which we can say something exists is if there is evidence to that end.

(of course, any person can say or believe anything, but that isn't the point).

Oxymoron

Do not confuse the arguments of "proof of existence" and "proof of non-existence". Logically speaking they are not complementary (ie ~(~A) is not equal to A).

There may well be. However, suppose the latter was impossible (as I have argued on other threads). The only thing left would be belief, so all those wooly thinkers out there had better get their acts together and work out what they really think.

Mr. Sammi

With evidence seeming to be the aggregate of beliefs WHICH seems to be the summation of independent information which are correlated, I often wonder why MORE OF THE SAME makes people accept IT as what IT is.

What makes a set of related information (2 to 4 scraps of information) MORE RELIABLE over 1 fragment of information?

What is a reliable method? Is this one that corresponds with the behaviour found in the universe? IS this something we should call UNIVERSE-COMPATIBLE?

* * *

(A) We are only as real as the Universe.
(B) We are only as real as what we can percieve in the Universe.

A & B can give us a sense that : we are not as real as the Universe.

* * *

Sammi Na Boodie ()

Defiant Heretic

No, we are only as real as the universe because we are a part of it.
Just because we can't perceive every part of the universe doesn't mean we can't perceive the universe as a whole.

We perceive that we exist even though we can't perceive every neurotransmitter in our brains. The situation you state is equivalent.

doubtingt

Both logic and historical precedent show that that some things exist for which we currently do not have the evidence to believe in rationally.
There is no reason to think this will not always be the case regardless of scientific advancement.

The only claims that CANNOT be proven(rather than simply HAVE not yet) are unfalsifiable claims. These are claims that are incapable of making predictions that can be tested against empirical observation. By definition, such claims can also never be proven correct.

As for God, some theistic concepts are specific enough that they do in fact have logical implications for what we should and should not observe. For example, and all-powerful loving God is contradicted by the empirical fact of human suffering. Theists must invent convoluted excuses and add many superfluous assumptions to their theory in order to reconcile this God with the facts. However, the far more parsimonious interpretation of the facts is that God does not exist, or that God is either not all-powerful and/or not loving. All of these alternatives are superior explanations according to rational scientific principles. Of these 3 alternatives, the "God does not exist" is the most parsimonious and none form of theism increases our ability to explain more established phenomenon.

Therefore, specific God concepts can be shown not to exist. Vague, unfalsifiable God concepts cannot be shown either to exist or not exist. However, any form of theism requires a violation of basic scientific principles, whereby one chooses to accept (without support) an idea rather than adopt the more parsimonious lack of belief.

Shadowy Man

You know.. I wonder about this. Certainly absence of evidence is not proof of absence, but it could be evidence.

In astronomy we deal with this somewhat often. If we look randomly at some small area of the sky and see something, we tend to think that that thing is somewhat common. If we survey vast areas of the sky and don't see a certain thing, we tend to think that thing is quite rare.

Kharakov

no evidence != evidence

I am going to assume that you are talking about a known object. In this case your example is of evidence for the rarity of the object. Your example is not of absence of evidence.