Thread: Atheists

Originally Posted by gwahir

Well, it's not a false analogy, because I also said genies and stuff. And Thor, and Zeus. There's no more evidence for "God" (ie. the big J) than there is Zeus, yet almost everyone alive today would dismiss the belief in Zeus as silly. Certainly all would call it unscientific.

You and I have discussed God before, so unless your beliefs have changed, I think I basically know what they are. And I know you have deep and (to you, but not to me, obviously) convincing reasons for believing what you believe, and very strong arguments to support yourself. But this objection isn't one of them. We're talking about evidence -- there's no more reason to believe in unicorns than a god, whether physical or not.

You are saying, essentially, that the god proposition is exempt from needing evidence.

Not really. I'm saying the examples given (invisible pink unicorn, teapot around saturn's ring) aren't valid comparisons to an incorporeal being because they are concrete examples. God, from what we're arguing about, isn't necessarily a physical being. Teapots and unicorns would be. In what way does this imply that the god proposition is exempt from needing evidence? And how does this point not fit into my belief structure of which you are well-versed?

If you're talking about Jesus that is a whole other bag of worms my friend.

Originally Posted by gwahir

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound condescending, but I recognise that I did.

If you're saying that the philosophically relevant difference between god and pink unicorns is physical-being-ness, in response to the point that there's no evidence for either and therefore both are as likely as each other (to put it all simply), you're saying that, because god isn't a physical being, it doesn't require evidence to be a convincing proposition.

I'm not saying it "doesn't fit into your belief structure", I just meant to say that while I find your beliefs and arguments interesting and compelling, I don't think this is a sound objection. Unless there's some reason that physical-being-ness is a philosophically relevant difference that I have just missed and can't see, which is also entirely possible. But then you'll have to explain that.

Because the comparisons being made aren't equal. The objects being compared (in this case, God and an invisible, coloured unicorn or a theoretical teapot) aren't equivalent to one another. If God was a physical being with a presence that could be measured empirically, then it is an apt comparison. I'm not saying "because God isn't a physical being, no evidence is required". I'm saying "the invisible unicorn and the teapot are false analogies because you're comparing apples to oranges". That has no bearing on the actual debate itself, whether or not God exists and why, but is instead critical of an argument against the proof of God's existence.

The whole argument for the unicorn/teapot is, as you stated, that there's no evidence for either existing, therefore we can substitute in God for the unicorn/teapot and say "well, there's no evidence here either, I guess he doesn't exist." My issue is that there are no commonalities between unicorns/teapots except for the fact that we have no evidence of their existent. The requirements for one or another to exist are very, very different from each other, and, should they exist, they would do so in inherently different ways. The point that God does not require a physical presence to exist and the fact that teapots/unicorns can only exist as a physical presence is an extreme difference between the two when you're questioning whether or not one does or does not exist. Assuming an equal likelihood of all probabilities:

1) All of the above exist.
1a) God exists physically, teapots/unicorns exist physically
1b) God exists abstractly (in the sense that God does not have a physical body, but still exists nevertheless), teapots/unicorns exist physically (incapable of existing abstractly)

2) One exists, the other does not
2a) God exists physically, the teapot/unicorn does not exist
2b) God exists abstractly, the teapot/unicorn does not exist
2c) God does not exist, teapot/unicorn exists

3) Neither exists

The argument is saying that because there is equal proof of both existing (which is kind of a false lead in and of itself, considering the breadth of human knowledge is fallible in terms of what it has not encountered or accurately determined, and the truth of what's accurately determined is not always proven), then neither exist. It is just as likely that one or the other exists, but not both. But all of this hinges on bother things being compared having commonalities between each other in the context of the comparison.

I'm saying there are fundamentally different requirements for one to exist than the other, so using the possibility of one's existence to confirm/deny the existence of the other is flawed for precisely that reason. While the lack of physical existence can be effectively linked and ruled out, the abstract, or spiritual, existence of God cannot be equated the same way and so cannot be ruled out the same way.

Originally Posted by gwahir

THAT is why I have so little patience for people who say "you can't disprove god any more than you can prove it, so both positions are illogical".

I think I've said this to you before: I don't really understand the need for some people to make an absolute statement on the existence of God. Making such a statement requires that we truly understand what God is, and it is far more probable that such a being is beyond our collective comprehension at the moment. So the question is: What piece of evidence would exist as proof of God's existence? How do we know that it would be proof?

Assuming that we can currently understand God strikes me as hubris, personally.

Originally Posted by gwahir

I'm not sure what would suffice as proof; perhaps the whole universe would have to pass some kind of Turing test to prove that there IS a higher agency. As for evidence, some well-documented examples of supernormal phenomena would be a good start. If you believe in God-the-abstract-being, presumably you believe It has some effect on our physical world, no? That's why physical evidence is needed. It's pointless to argue about an abstract god that has NO effect (and never has) on our physical world, but nobody really seems to think that. If the God you're talking about has no physical properties, It still has to physically manifest itself (even if only in the creation of the universe) to be worthy of any debate.

Even with supernatural phenomena, how would you link said occurences irrefutably to God and not to statistics or impossible odds that actually happened? This is what I mean about physical evidence - a prerequisite to being capable of linking said events (or whatever) to God in order to prove God exists first requires a comprehensive understand of how God operates and/or what God is. We lack that kind of knowledge. We have hazy old history books with who knows how many editors, in which case the word of God must be considered compromised, because there is no way of telling truth from fiction aside from intuition and/or reason.

So it's not exactly impossible for a God-in-the-abstract to operate in the world without us being able to recognize it for what it is. Simply because that's a possibility, it further muddles whatever truth or fact we look for to link and therefore prove God's existence.

I feel I should stop here and point out that I am a fence-sitter of the highest magnitude and in no way endorse the existence or non-existence of God.

Originally Posted by gwahir

I'm still not understanding the objection. "There's no evidence for God or gods, and there's no evidence for unicorns, therefore each is as likely as the other" is my argument. You're saying the comparison is false. Then what, if not evidence, makes God more likely than unicorns? Or, if something satisfies the criterion of evidence to you, what is it?

First, I should point out that the existence of beings is not based on whether or not we have evidence of their existence. Let's look at, say, goblin sharks in the 1600's. They had no evidence of goblin sharks existing (well, we have no evidence that they had evidence, but this is tangental), but the sharks did then as they do now. A similar parallel can be drawn between Northern European tribes in the 800's and the people who lived in Indonesia. Neither had knowledge or proof of the existence of the other, yet both still existed. Our lack of evidence has nothing to do with whether or not something exists, only whether or not we've documented it. We have not catalogued the world, yet, nor have we catalogued the universe. We are operating with incomplete information and extrapolating possibilities based on what we have, but, without another set of knowledge to compare mankind's collective knowledge with, we have no way of really knowing how much we know, which directly influences the accuracy of the projections made on our data.

Think of cavemen trying to figure out how a watch works.

That aside, there are, in my argument, 3 states of existence for God. First as a physical being only, second as an incorporeal being capable of expressing Itself physically and third as an entirely incorporeal being. The unicorn can only exist in one of these states; it can only exist physically. If God were only a physical being, and perhaps we just haven't found Him yet, then, yes, there is equal probability for the existence of the unicorn and God. Otherwise, there isn't equal probability between the unicorn and God because it is equally likely that God exists incorporeally (either purely or with occasionaly physical manifestations), in which case there are more scenarios where God exists than there are scenarios where the unicorn exists.

I have no criterion of evidence because I have no idea where to look or what to look for. Pride in my own ignorance, I suppose.

Originally Posted by gwahir

It strikes me as hubris to say that God is all powerful and all knowing, and then presume to know His desires. I'm not saying that's you -- it's more of a religious thing. I'm just saying.

It probably strikes you as that because it is that. There is a relative basis of truth to it, however, operating on the assumption that if God created us, he wouldn't wish us destruction (an all-powerful, all-knowing God would have ended us already if that had been the case). So we can assume he's either absent (absent and watching or absent completely) or actively working for us, and determining how the last one works, even on a simpler level of, say, raising a child, is completely beyond human comprehension at this time.