Let me jump back in for a bit here, though I suspect Jim and I will end up coming to the same "agree to disagree" impasse as he and Joe have...
First, I think you keep missing my distinction between
"not-believing in A" and
"believing in not-A" (i.e., believing in the
opposite of A"). As far as I'm concerned, these are NOT the same thing. For instance, I'm sure I could name many things which you don't
believe in, but which you also never have believed
don't exist. Polka-dotted swans, for instance, or little blue munchkins on Mars, or flying velociraptors in the jungles of Borneo. I doubt whether you could prove the non-existence of these things...but then again, why would you want to? (Especially since even if you did, I could easily come up with another dozen or so nonexistent things which you never actually believed did not exist.)
And even things which you actually, actively believe DON'T exist (like, say, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, leprechauns, the "New World Order", or
rubato's income "ancient astronauts") actually turn out to be things whose
NON-existence is impossible to prove. It's not
impossible to prove a "universal negative" (a.k.a. "unrestricted negative") but it's pretty damn hard, and generally can only happen if the thing whose non-existence is to be proved contains some sort of internal contradiction (e.g., a cubic sphere). (Actually,
some definitions of "God"
do seem to contain contradictions but I'm not gonna go there, nope, no siree, no way, no how. I'll leave it to Meade and Andrew to finish the old
"omniscience versus omnipotence" argument. Notice I only said
some definitions.)
I came across this example on another site while looking up some things, which I present for your amusement:
The example I give is, I actually have a deal with God; He loves me you know. From His love, He gave me a great gift: I can fly. I can concentrate very hard, flap my arms, and soar through the air. It is so much fun. It is wonderful! The only problem: He doesn’t want anyone else getting jealous of His love for me, and His wonderful gift. Because of that, He doesn’t let me fly when people can see. That is fine, I like flying at night, cool air, wonderful lights….
Your task; tell me how you can prove that is wrong? You can’t possibly prove that I do not have the God-given ability to fly. That fact does not prove that I actually can fly (which I can, I promise) it merely says you can’t disprove it.
Maybe this sort of attitude toward the supernatural makes me a Bad Atheist, or maybe even not an atheist at all, by your definition. Actually, I came across the terms "strong atheism" and "strong atheist" somewhere (I guess this makes me a "weak atheist"?), and these seem to be what you are convinced are the only "real" atheism and atheists. I guess I just want to fall back on the two quotes from Isaac Asimov which I posted earlier in this thread:
I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.
I am an atheist, out and out. It took me a long time to say it. I've been an atheist for years and years, but somehow I felt it was intellectually unrespectable to say one was an atheist, because it assumed knowledge that one didn't have. Somehow, it was better to say one was a humanist or an agnostic. I finally decided that I'm a creature of emotion as well as of reason. Emotionally, I am an atheist. I don't have the evidence to prove that God doesn't exist, but I so strongly suspect he doesn't that I don't want to waste my time.
So does this mean that science can't "prove" that something does not exist? In a word, no. I
was going to rewrite/paraphrase this next bit, but what the hell, this isn't a master's thesis or a high-school essay, I'm allowed to
cheat find things on the web and quote them, so that's what I'm going to do:
...in order to prove that something does not exist, one need not show that it is logically impossible. One need only show is that it is epistemically unnecessary--that it is not required to explain anything. Science has proven the non-existence of many things in this way, such as phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, and the planet Vulcan. Scientific proofs, unlike logical proofs, do not establish their conclusions beyond any possibility of doubt. But they are proofs nonetheless, for they establish their conclusions beyond a reasonable doubt and that is all that is needed to justify them.
Phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, and the planet Vulcan are theoretical entities that were postulated in order to explain various phenomena. Phlogiston was postulated to explain heat, the luminiferous ether was postulated to explain the propagation of light waves through empty space, and Vulcan was postulated to explain the perturbations in the orbit of Mercury. Science has shown, however, that these phenomena can be explained without invoking these entities. By demonstrating that these entities are not needed to explain anything, science has proven that they do not exist.
God is a theoretical entity that is postulated by theists to explain various phenomena, such as the origin of the universe, the design of the universe, and the origin of living things. Modern science, however, can explain all of these phenomena without postulating the existence of God. In the words of Laplace, science has no need of that hypothesis. By demonstrating that God is not needed to explain anything, science has proven that there is no more reason to believe in the existence of God than to believe in the existence of phlogiston, the luminiferous ether, or Vulcan. This may explain why more than 90% of the world's top scientists disbelieve or doubt the existence of God.
Scientists prefer natural explanations to supernatural ones, not because of any metaphysical bias on their part, but because natural explanations produce more understanding than supernatural ones. As Plato realized, to say that God did it is not to explain anything, but simply to offer an excuse for not having an explanation.
The goodness of an explanation is determined by how much understanding it produces, and the amount of understanding produced by an explanation is determined by how well it systematizes and unifies our knowledge. The extent to which an explanation systematizes and unifies our knowledge can be measured by various criteria of adequacy such as simplicity (the number of assumptions made), scope (the types of phenomena explained), conservatism (fit with existing theory), and fruitfulness (ability to make successful novel predictions).
Supernatural explanations are inherently inferior to natural ones because they do not meet the criteria of adequacy as well. For example, they are usually less simple because they assume the existence of at least one additional type of entity. They usually have less scope because they don't explain how the phenomena in question are produced and thus they raise more questions than they answer. They are usually less conservative because they imply that certain natural laws have been violated. And they are usually less fruitful because they don't make any novel predictions. That is why scientists avoid them.
[...] What if there was no plausible natural explanation for some phenomenon? Would that justify the claim that god caused it? No, for our inability to provide a natural explanation may simply be due to our ignorance of the operative natural forces. Many phenomena that were once attributed to supernatural beings such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and disease can now be explained in purely natural terms. As St. Augustine realized, apparent miracles are not contrary to nature but contrary to our knowledge of nature.
Given the inherent inferiority of supernatural explanations and the incompleteness of our knowledge, theists would be justified in offering a supernatural explanation for a phenomenon only if they could prove that it is in principle impossible to provide a natural explanation of it. In other words, to undermine the scientific proof for the non-existence of god, theists have to prove an unrestricted negative, namely, that no natural explanation of a phenomenon will be found. And that, I believe, is an unrestricted negative that no theist will ever be able to prove. [source]
To come back around to Joe's argument about death...for everything that we can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or in any way measure, the natural, obvious explanations are sufficient: "People are born, live a while and die and then it's all over." A supernatural explanation is simply unnecessary. To reiterate the Laplace quote inside the above quote, "Science has no need of that hypothesis." We only need to explain what we can see, hear, taste, touch, smell, or measure--not everything that anyone can imagine.
One more thing. I want to return to this assertion I made before, since nobody seems to believe me.Econoline wrote:Believing in something without any empirical evidence isn't something one simply chooses whether or not to do, not like how I can choose to go shopping this afternoon, or like how I can choose to post this reply in this thread. One can choose to say one believes, one can choose to pretend to believe, one can even choose to obey some version of the 10 commandments, or 613 commandments, or 369 commandments--but belief itself is not simply a matter of volition.
I'd like Jim--or Meade, or Big RR--to go back to those examples I gave of things that Jim didn't believe. Or come up with your own example of something that you really just don't believe. (Or maybe even something
really ridiculous, like, say, believing that the Cubs will win the World Series next year.) Can you decide, right now, through sheer force of will, that you really, really *
DO* believe in one or more of those things?
Do it.
Do you believe, now? Really? Or are you just saying you do, just pretending? Are you ready to put down $1000 on the 2015 Chicago Cubs?
I didn't think so. If it were that easy, prosecutors and defense attorneys wouldn't have to try so hard in court, children would never stop believing in Santa Claus--and maybe I would believe in God.
Actually, there's a pretty good example of this exact point, right there in the New Testament:
22 Directly after this he made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side while he would send the crowds away. 23 After sending the crowds away he went up into the hills by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, 24 while the boat, by now far out on the lake, was battling with a heavy sea, for there was a head wind. 25 In the fourth watch of the night he went toward them, walking on the lake, 26 and when the disciples saw him walking on the lake they were terrified. "It is a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.27 But at once Jesus called out to them, saying, "Courage ! It is I! Do not be afraid." 28 It was Peter who answered. "Lord," he said, "if it is you, tell me to come to you across the water." 29 "Come," said Jesus. Then Peter got out of the boat and started walking toward Jesus across the water, 30 but as soon as he felt the force of the wind, he took fright and began to sink. "Lord ! Save me!" he cried. 31 Jesus put out his hand at once and held him. "Man of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?" 32 And as they got into the boat the wind dropped. 33 The men in the boat bowed down before him and said, "Truly, you are the Son of God."
If anyone ever had a reason to
decide to believe--to
try to believe--to exert his will to actually believe--it was Peter. Yet even with with Jesus--the Way, the Truth, and the Life--the Son of God Himself--standing right in front of him on the surface of the water, he just couldn't do it. Now I'm not saying that this
proves it's impossible to simply
will oneself to believe something, but it seems likely to me that perhaps the reason this passage is there is to remind everyone that, even in the absolute *BEST* of circumstances, it sure ain't easy--and it may well be impossible.
(Sorry this post turned out so long; those of you who are familiar with my posts know that it's not typical of me to blather on at such length. I guess it started out as a reply to Lord Jim, but it somehow morphed into something directed at everyone who has posted in this thread so far. I guess writing this post has help me to better think through some things that I hadn't yet thought through quite so thoroughly? I hope it made at least a
leeetle bit of sense to some of you.)
Lord Jim wrote:Like
Rush said, "If you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice"...
That's sort of why I choose to call myself an atheist rather than an agnostic.
).
Since we haven't heard from the singularity but we have from the person, I must might put more faith in the latter.
. That quote is an assertion that logic is useful for purposes of argumentation, but that's about it.
