Reviewing Atheist 'Lack Belief' in Deities theory. <<MOD WARNING ISSUED>>

https://www.washingtonpost.com/post...idence-doesnt-hold-up/?utm_term=.d2d42380248b

 

So your lack of belief in the Tooth Fairy is a real problem, then.

 

you're attempting to make "I believe gods don't exist" the same as "I lack belief in gods" .. and they are WORLDS apart. I assume you're doing this because you've been caught by your own trap (see Buddha, etc).

 

if one says there is no God and is a Christian, would be a little of both

 

Jesus was a creation from many men and many myths and actually his name was never Jesus, that was a name given to make the religion sound less middle eastern

 

exactly, many people named Jesus live today too, course as stated, that was never a named he would of used, it's all about the myths, not some man that the myths refer too

 

Jesus does live! I sold some stuff to him on Ebay - twice!

Talk about being a great salesman, I sold stuff to Jesus.

 

He hammered nothing and made a fool of himself as did the moron who reposted the crap he spewed.

As usual no matter how hard you scream it you are wrong.

The burden of proof is on the theist and you CANNOT offer any proof of any kind whatsoever.

You would not have this discussion about santa and a god is just as fictitious and believable despite your denial.

 

One cannot prove a negative.

That is fact you live in stupid denial of.

The burden is on the believer that is another fact you live in denial of.

Your simplistic illogical crap is lacking in reason and you lose every argument no matter how many new threads you start after being humiliated

 

correctly stated its you cant prove a negative, everyone else can. this shows how foolish your post is and the atheist dogma that used to justify it.

The burden is on the claimant, you are the claimant prove it.



Can't prove a negative? Sure you can!
Posted Sep 15, 2011

Can we prove unicorns never roamed the Earth? Or that there is no God?

One reason that some people suppose science and reason are incapable of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that certain supernatural claims—for example, that fairies or angels or spirit beings exist—are false, is that they assume you can't prove a negative. Indeed this is widely supposed to be some sort of "law of logic."

For example, Georgia minister Dr. Nelson L. Price asserts on his website that "one of the laws of logic is that you can't prove a negative." If Price is correct and this is indeed a law of logic, then of course it immediately follows that we can't prove that there are no fairies, angels, or spirit beings, or, indeed, that there is no god. We will have established that the nonexistence of God is indeed beyond the ability of reason and/or science to establish!

The fact is, however, that this supposed "law of logic" [there] is no such thing.

As Steven D. Hales points in his paper "You Can Prove a Negative,"

"You can't prove a negative" is a principle of folk logic, not actual logic.

Notice, for a start, that "You cannot prove a negative" is itself a negative. So, if it were true, it would itself be unprovable. Notice that any claim can be transformed into a negative by a little rephrasing—most obviously, by negating the claim and then negating it again. "I exist" is logically equivalent to "I do not not exist," which is a negative. Yet here is a negative it seems I might perhaps be able to prove (in the style of Descartes—I think, therefore I do not not exist!)

Of course, those who say "You can't prove a negative" will insist that I have misunderstood their point. As Hales notes, when people say, "You can't prove a negative," what they really mean is that you cannot prove that something does not exist. If this point were correct, it would apply not just to supernatural beings lying beyond the cosmic veil but also to things that might be supposed to exist on this side of the veil, such as unicorns, Martians, rabbits with twenty heads, and so on. We would not be able to prove the nonexistence of any of these things either.

But is the point correct? Is it true that we can never prove that something does not exist? Again, it depends. If John claims there's a unicorn in the tool shed, I can quickly establish he is mistaken by going and taking a look. We could similarly establish there's no Loch Ness monster by draining the loch. But what of the claim that unicorns once existed? We can't travel back in time and directly observe all of the past as we can every corner of the tool shed or Loch Ness. Does it follow that we can't prove unicorns never existed?

It depends in part on what you mean by "prove." The word has a variety of meanings. By saying something is "proved," I might mean that it is established beyond all possible doubt. Or I might mean it has been established beyond reasonable doubt (this is the kind of proof required in a court of law). Can we establish beyond reasonable doubt that unicorns have never inhabited the earth? True, the history of our planet has been and gone, so we can no longer directly inspect it. But surely, if unicorns did roam the earth, we would expect to find some evidence of their presence, such as fossils of unicorns or at least of closely related animals from which unicorns might plausibly have evolved. There is none. We also have plenty of evidence that unicorns are a fictional creation, in which case, it's surely reasonable for us to conclude that there never were any unicorns. Indeed, I'd suggest we can prove this beyond reasonable doubt.

In response, it might be said "But you can't prove conclusively, beyond all possible doubt, that unicorns never roamed the earth." This is undeniably true. However, this point is not peculiar to negatives. It can be made about any claim about the unobserved, and thus any scientific theory at all, including scientific theories about what does exist. We can prove beyond reasonable doubt that dinosaurs existed, but not beyond all possible doubt.

Despite the mountain of evidence that dinosaurs roamed the earth, it's still possible that, say, all those dinosaur fossils are fakes placed there by alien pranksters long ago.

Let's sum up. If "you can't prove a negative" means you can't prove beyond reasonable doubt that certain things don't exist, then the claim is just false. We prove the nonexistence of things on a regular basis. If, on the other hand, "you can't prove a negative" means you cannot prove beyond all possible doubt that something does not exist, well, that may, arguably, be true. But so what? That point is irrelevant so far as defending beliefs in supernatural entities against the charge that science and/or reason have established beyond reasonable doubt that they don't exist.


Get over it already

 

Clearly, like burden of prove you dont understand logic or reason either.

 

and less Jewish

 

Alright! someone finally stepped up to the plate to make the material distinction, go for it.

 

What claim are non-believers making, please?

 

a belief is certainty of a specific thing. an 'active and positive' position of certainty.

lack of belief is lack of the above. obviously.

 

So then you cant make the distinction as I have posted above since I converted it to an 'positive' LOL.

 

Yes I do which is why you constantly fail at it.

I understand it far better than you.

It defeats you every time

 

Thanks for the laugh!

 

Hales is missing the center of natural science as in scientific method.

In scientific method, one can not prove an hypothesis to be true. And, the reason comes from what he points out - there could be some dimension of the problem that was simply outside of our awareness. For example, Newton thought he understood gravity, but failed to notice the bit about the speed of light. So, his rules are wrong. Was that just academic? Obviously not. We can't use Newton's laws in GPS systems, because Newton was wrong. GPS calculations have to use Einstein's improvements. Are Einstein's improvements perfect? There is no possibility for us to know that in advance.

OK, now for the negative side. The move by Hales to double negatives is just obfuscation. They don't make anything more or less provable, and the obvious first step is to resolve the double negative.

We can't prove a negative, because we do not have all things at our disposal for observation.

His example in the paper you cited is especially hilarious. It involves proving unicorns never existed:

After all, his number 1 premise is staggeringly false. And, everyone involved in paleontology knows that very well. Plus, there is clearly no way to fix that premise - that premise is at the very heart of why proving a negative IS impossible!

So, when someone decides to address the existence of god using the logic and methods of science, they may attempt to gather evidence, but it is NOT going to prove the existence of God (since science can't prove anything to be true, let alone god). And, it is also not going to prove that god does not exist (since science can't prove a negative).

Basically, it's just a stupid use of science.

So, many people just do something else - they agree with their parents, or whatever.

I liked my parents, but I don't find that to be a satisfying activity when it comes to all powerful super beings and their friends.

So, call me what you want, but I see NO evidence of a supernatural being. So, why should I believe there IS a supernatural being??

I just don't see a reason to do that.

 

All of it, there is a rumour of something called gods, people believe this rumour and want others to respect their beliefs. This rumour has caused all sorts of issues, when called upon to prove the rumour, the response we get is prove it is not true!

 

I have used this example before,

Theist, "Your wife is having an affair"
Atheist, " you better be able to prove that"
Theist, " I have no evidence, you have to prove she is not"
Atheist, Smack.

Maybe it is just to simple for some people to understand how it works!

 

..doesn't correlate. You are equating a provable concept, to one that has no proof. There is no 'unknown mystery' that has been with humanity for millennia. Here is how it actually is:

'What is the origin of life & the universe?
theist: 'A Higher Power created all things.'
atheist: 'Everything happened by accident, with natural processes. No supernatural beings exist.'

Those the binary possibilities for the 'explanation' of how we got here. There is NO empirical evidence for either belief. Both are BELIEFS, about the nature of the universe. IF..... and this is a BIG IF, either 'theory' of origins claimed Absolute Truth, THEN.... they would be tasked with producing empirical proof. But since NEITHER has empirical proof, NEITHER can claim any 'high road' of scientific credibility. They are both matters of belief & opinion, about the nature of the universe.

Atheism is not the default position, regarding origins, & proving the existence of a Deity is not a prerequisite for believing in a supernatural Cause. You have no proof of a natural Cause, for origins. You cannot 'create' life in a laboratory, so a belief in abiogenesis is just a belief. It is not 'settled science'. It is only a fantasy, like spontaneous generation. It takes just as much 'faith' to believe in some imaginary natural process, that cannot be observed or repeated, as it does a supernatural creator.

In almost every culture, in every time, some form of theism has been the majority belief, regarding origins. That is not 'empirical evidence', but it shows the history of mankind's quest for Truth. Dismissing it with mere prejudice does not invalidate the belief, or nullify the possibility. You are still left with 2 diametrically opposed BELIEFS, about the nature of the universe.

Logically, your example is more about accusation & defense. But the beliefs about origins are not simple accusations & provable charges. To use your analogy, you would have to address the CONCEPT of adultery, not a specific instance. And the analogy would have to correlate to the origins debate.

'I have no proof, but i believe a specific wife is having an affair'.
'I also have no proof, but i believe she is not'.

Neither 'believer' can make a dogmatic statement of fact, as they do not have the evidence to do so.

EVIDENCE is the central issue. I would venture to guess that most people have a basis for their beliefs. They have upbringing, peers, education, indoctrination, negative & positive experiences that contribute to a belief.. but very few people have empirical proof for their beliefs. The atheistic worldview is no more a 'proven' concept than any theistic one.

 

Nope, god is just a rumour, just like most rumours it is spread by people with an agenda, like you cannot know who your wife is ****ing.

 

So you believe, from your limited human perspective. And, if you knew my wife, you would not suggest such an implication. If you knew God, you would likely have a different perspective on that, as well. But since you know neither, it is easy to make speculative comments, with no basis.

 

It isn't about Matt. It is about his ideas, his logic, his reasoning. So trying to weasel out of debating ideas is a fail. It is running away, trying to hide behind some obstacle.

People debate Einstein's ideas all of the time. No one insists on weaseling out of that debate because they insist they must debate Einstein. LOL So, the debate is about Matt's ideas, not some personal ego game with Matt. You guys are something else. LOL And if you cannot negate his ideas, you would fair no better with debating him. That has become rather apparent here with the weaseling out of such a debate. But perhaps no one here is on Matt's level? That would explain it.

Many subjects on this forum is a debate about ideas. And no one here owns those ideas. It is what others have thought.

So I must assume the next time trump says something you do not like, you will refrain from saying a word, unless you can debate trump? LOL See how absurd this argument is?

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