Are you an atheist?

[The_Doc_Man]

In post 5626 I offered the statement:

I think I would be satisfied if your side of the aisle could just acknowledge that we who do NOT believe have at least some legitimacy to our doubts.

I didn't think anyone from the religious side would provide such acknowledgment. After all, it IS a "gotcha" statement. If they had agreed our doubts were legit, they would have had to admit their beliefs were questionable. So, as usual, the religious side of the aisle side-stepped the issue by trying to attack science. Nothing new under the sun, I'm afraid.

The phrase "Most scientists agree" reminds me of that TV commercial that has five dentists trying some product, and the first four loudly sing its praises. The fifth dentist, however, gets attacked by a squirrel or some other pestiferous creature, gets terribly bitten, and screams "NO, NO, NO" before he passes out. At which time the announcer sonorously intones "Four out of five dentists agree...." Sorry, that image just popped into my mind. Had to express it to get it out of there.

 

[Frothingslosh]

As the one who actually started the whole kerfluffle by using 'most scientists', let me point out that it was when I stated that 'most scientists agree that believing Aliens are God is idiotic'.

If there were an actual survey out there asking scientists if they believed that 'God' is some magical amalgamation of all non-Terran life, I'd have used its results. As there isn't one that I'm aware of, I simply had to interpolate based on the higher-than-average occurrence of atheism among scientists, the fact that most religious scientists follow the more 'traditional' religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and the like, and the fact that scientists, even religious ones, tend to at least TRY to use logic from time to time.

If I had any way to quantify it, believe me, I'd have said something like '99.999999999999%' instead of most, but if you disagree with my statement that 'most' scientists don't think God is all alien life, then you would by necessity be saying that most scientists really do believe that God is all non-Terran life.

I just don't see that happening.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

Mike375, we can argue the fine points all day, but in the end analysis, this isn't like a quantum probability function. Either God exists or does not exist. Atheism merely says that the starting point is that God does not exist because there is no proof that He does. Religion says that the starting point is that God exists because there is no proof that He does not. (I'm trying to keep this simple, but I think this is a fair summation with limited intent.)

OK, so ... here is the crux (pardon that pun) of the dilemma. Atheism can be proven wrong by producing a god. Religion, on the other hand, to be refuted requires proof of a negative assertion, which is not possible in simple logic. It is something that has been known for millennia when elementary assertoric logic was first devised. (Or, if you are of a religious style, when logic was first divined.)

Atheism, however, is not a faith in a deity. It is simply saying that until/unless you can produce your deity, I don't have to accept your argument. Where we usually come into the big disagreement is that in Biblical times, God was ALWAYS exerting direct intervention, showing Himself before many, performing large-scale miracles that affected the Red Sea or the entire basin of the Upper Nile River or the destruction of two cities (Sodom and Gomorrah) or a world-wide flood or many other whiz-bang effects. Now... all we hear is crickets chirping. We see challenges to the Biblical God's power in the threat of ISIS taking over the world (if they could).

Atheists are essentially the ultimate skeptics. Give us evidence that we can comprehend. If you give us nothing but mysticism and redirection of attention and tales of events that patently cannot be true without having left more evidence, what do you EXPECT us to believe?

There is that old saying, "There are none so blind as those that will not see." However, it cuts both ways when those who claim their beliefs will not see the many causes - all of them quite legitimate - for our skepticism. To you, we are blind. To US, you see illusions, delusions, and confusions.

In the final argument, Mike, you ABSOLUTELY have the right to believe as you wish. I think I would be satisfied if your side of the aisle could just acknowledge that we who do NOT believe have at least some legitimacy to our doubts.

Yes you can prove that something does not exist. If you have the parameters inside which you should be looking.

Many of religion have their test of faith, and their doubts, so of course atheists may be right.

I am not sure why you find it necessary to pretend they dont.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

AnthonyG:

I am not sure why you find it necessary to pretend they dont.

It was actually more of a targeted statement to see if any of the exceptionally zealous members of our group would bite. They did not.

As to proving that something does not exist, that is possible if and only if you have one of two cases: (1) a highly constrained domain in which to search so that a complete search is possible or (2) some sort of logical situation that allows you to use a reductio ad absurdam argument.

In the case of proving that God does not exist, you cannot constrain the domain because religion says that God is not of this world. That leaves the entire rest of this universe plus any and all other alternative quantum realities and multi-dimensional domains that might exist. Physics says that such things could exist so we can't eliminate them.

As to the possibility of using logically exclusionary arguments that lead to self-contradictory statements, the problem again is the claim that God is not of this world. This means that what is exclusionary here might not be in another extra-dimensional reality (if such a thing exists). It is the big IF that blocks both approaches.

Therefore, it is logically impossible for us to prove that God does not exist. We can build induction proofs that show how UNLIKELY it is for God to exist - but there is no absolute proof. In the final analysis, it is a matter of how far your credibility will stretch. You know my position so we don't have to belabor that point.

 

[AnthonyGerrard]

They wouldnt being zealous, in the main anyone outside the zealous left this thread alone long ago. I agree with what you say. I agree that science struggles. But it's gone fair way to explain how things happen . If it can explain why. That's were god resides in my opinion. If science can't answer those questions t's not fair to blame religion for sciences short coming. If it can answer why all good it will either show or exclude god. They go hand in hand to me rather than fight against each other. That's how my world religion as a child explainred it's role in the world anyway. I don't follow any more. It has its faults and dodgy politics like all institutions and some doubtful interpretations. But at its core I have no problem with it. It's far more reasonable on most things than lots of people are on anything. More reasonable and subtle than this thread of accusations and jibes allows anyway. It's Christmas. I'm now on holiday so whatever you belief have a good one!

 

[Libre]

As to proving that something does not exist, that is possible if and only if you have one of two cases: (1) a highly constrained domain in which to search so that a complete search is possible or (2) some sort of logical situation that allows you to use a reductio ad absurdam argument.

I don't see how nonexistence can EVER be proved. Certainly you can rule out highly improbable scenarios when searching for an explanation of an event - but that's just using probability to narrow the search. It does not constitute PROOF, which implies that EVERY alternative explanation has been shown to be IMPOSSIBLE.

Let's take case 1- a highly constrained domain.
Let's say the domain is an auditorium and you want to prove/disprove that there is an individual in the auditorium named "Mike".
You can question everyone and still fail to locate an individual named "Mike".
Does this PROVE that there is NO individual named Mike?
Not really. You proved that you are unable to locate such an individual. Suppose your search and detection strategy is defective or erroneous? Maybe you asked the group but the one guy named Mike is deaf and doesn't respond? Or maybe he lied? Suppose there is a change of state (somebody changed their name to Mike) after you interviewed them? There are too many variables and unknowns to ever be SURE that you totally and completely searched EVERY member of a constrained set.

You can prove something exists by producing it.
But you can't prove it doesn't exist just because you can't produce it.

Let's take case 2 - a reduction ad absurdum argument. This is in essence an affirmation of a fact because denial of it results in an impossible situation. Sort of like saying, "There CAN'T be anyone in charge here because if there WERE, things would be a lot different!"
Or any kind of argument of that form.
It still relies on assumptions and complete knowledge of ALL the variables. Assumptions and claims of omniscience can always be challenged or questioned and so again, the proof fails.

I suppose you can come up with a logical conundrum in which the only solution is that something doesn't exist. But that's not going to convince anyone or result in anything useful or meaningful. Might be fun, though.

 

[Frothingslosh]

You have a ramp, 12 balls, and two deep (to prevent bounce-outs) buckets at the base of the ramp.
You roll all the balls down the ramp aimed at the right-hand bucket.
You can prove none of the balls went in the left-hand bucket simply by counting the balls in the right-hand bucket and finding all 12 there.

So yes, in sufficiently constrained scenarios, you CAN prove a negative.

It's just that in wide-open issues like 'Does God exist' that it's impossible. (Note that this is separate from the Problem of Evil, which is a paradox, not a proof.)

Also, with your Mike question, what about if you fingerprinted and DNA matched everyone in the auditorium and matched them up against assorted federal databases, getting confirmed ID's for everyone? Now we're back at having proven there are no people named Mike there.

 

[Alc]

Also, with your Mike question, what about if you fingerprinted and DNA matched everyone in the auditorium and matched them up against assorted federal databases, getting confirmed ID's for everyone? Now we're back at having proven there are no people named Mike there.

Yes, that example was more to with bad examination technique than a lack of proof.

 

[Libre]

You have a ramp, 12 balls, and two deep (to prevent bounce-outs) buckets at the base of the ramp.
You roll all the balls down the ramp aimed at the right-hand bucket.
You can prove none of the balls went in the left-hand bucket simply by counting the balls in the right-hand bucket and finding all 12 there.

So yes, in sufficiently constrained scenarios, you CAN prove a negative.

It's just that in wide-open issues like 'Does God exist' that it's impossible. (Note that this is separate from the Problem of Evil, which is a paradox, not a proof.)

Also, with your Mike question, what about if you fingerprinted and DNA matched everyone in the auditorium and matched them up against assorted federal databases, getting confirmed ID's for everyone? Now we're back at having proven there are no people named Mike there.

I can poke holes in your ramp scenario.
It doesn't matter that the holes I poke are incredibly unlikely. They are not impossible.
You say that the balls can't bounce out of the bucket. Can you prove that? How many trials would it take? An infinite number. Or would you use physics formulas to have me infer that a bounce out is impossible? I remain unconvinced.
Unless you want to claim that in this constricted domain, balls just CAN NOT bounce out of a bucket - because, it's your domain and you say so. Now we're getting closer to the reduction ad absurdum type scenario, which is a logical "proof" and does not operate in the real world.
Another thing, you are not proving exactly what you said:

none of the balls went in the left-hand bucket

You are in fact proving something different. You are proving NOT that they NEVER went in the left-hand bucket - you're only affirming the positive statement that they are currently only in the right-hand bucket. How do I know they NEVER went to the left and were moved later? For that I'd have to observe the actual event for myself - but if you don't think that such an apparatus can be rigged - you didn't grow up in the big city.

With the Mike question, you can certainly run into gray areas. Such as, "My name is NOT Mike. It's Michael. But everyone calls me Mike."
Or
The FBI screwed up yet AGAIN (not the first time by any means).

I'm working now - can't give this my full attention.
I'm sure we can all come up with scenarios that for all practical purposes, a negative is proved.
That's for all practical purposes.
There are always absurd outcomes that are incredibly unlikely but still possible.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Yes, that example was more to with bad examination technique than a lack of proof.

Well, the most common refutations of findings in peer reviews always seem to be variants of 'your controls/techniques/measurements suck'.

 

[Frothingslosh]

Ahhh, Libre my friend, we may have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Alc]

Well, the most common refutations of findings in peer reviews always seem to be variants of 'your controls/techniques/measurements suck'.

As demonstrated by the post immediately following my last one

 

[Libre]

Well, the most common refutations of findings in peer reviews always seem to be variants of 'your controls/techniques/measurements suck'.

Inadequate controls, misidentification of relevant variables, measurement error, statistical anomalies, sampling error - these are all important sources of experimental error and incorrect conclusions.
These are at the heart of research and experimentation. They're not simply insignificant factors that can safely be discounted.

 

[Frothingslosh]

I wasn't saying they were. I was simply pointing out they're the default go-to. To be honest, the Mike example was a terrible one because you specifically took a case with no controls and which cannot possibly be tested to verifiable certainty and then suggested testing for said certainty. Basically, you were sandbagging.

 

[Libre]

Maybe Mike was a bad example. The purpose was to show that a completely bounded domain and a simple question still had big problems if you want to show proof.
If Mike was a bad example, so were the ramp and balls.
You contend that you can prove that a ball never entered the left bucket because at the start, both buckets were empty, and now there are 12 balls in the right bucket. That proves that none of them were EVER in the left bucket? I shouldn't even have to look in the left bucket with that criteria. 12 at the start and now 12 in the right bucket -but that's a leap of logic + faith. I've seen doves fly out of magician's hats. Houdini produced an elephant on stage from a cloud of smoke. There are intentional deceptions as well as unintended ones. But still you can be fooled.

The very nature of a negative proposition prevents it from being provable. This is not to say that one cannot INFER facts from negative results. Only that they can't be proved.
I call as an example Bertrand Russell's teapot in orbit around the sun (except we can't see it). Prove it doesn't exist! All you can prove is that you can't detect it. There are infinite things going on we can't detect.

Maybe we have different standards of PROOF.
On the flip side, POSITIVE statements also have great difficulty in being proved. This is why experimental results are not often announced as being definitive unless the experiment can be replicated, ideally many times. In fact results are stated within a certain level of statistical confidence. They are always subject to refutation.
Would you say that the Higgs Boson has been PROVED? Or simply satisfactorily demonstrated?
You remember last year when they announced in Switzerland (?) that they found a particle faster than light? And it was even duplicated, and re-affirmed. Scientific world was in an uproar. King Albert was nearly dethroned.
That was until they said - oh.....sorry. We were wrong. Never mind. Albert was right all along. Didn't we always say so?

 

[Frothingslosh]

With the bucket thing, I phrased it poorly. You could either add a video camera showing the balls' behavior, or you can change it to what I meant, that no ball ENDED UP in the left bucket because you can conclusively prove they all ended up in the right bucket.

Honestly, you're stretching this one, man.

You are also blowing my other comment WAY out of proportion. The fact is that the initial responses to experiments that challenge existing theories are almost always arguments that measurements, controls, or methodology are wrong, in large part because they are the easiest thing to check. I never said that the challenges are wrong, or that those issues are never the real culprit, and I would VERY much appreciate it if you stopped acting like I did.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Libre, your objection to my point about constrained domains was faulty.

If you constrain the domain, then your base statement changes from "X exists" to "X exists in the constrained domain" and I contend that the latter question can be disproved by an exhaustive search of the domain. I was pointing out that because the domain associated with the "God exists" statement CANNOT be constrained, the ability to disprove existence by examination simply isn't possible.

As to the other complaint, the inability to reduce to a contradiction, again the issue becomes the inability to constrain the parameters, not the domain. Same result, you cannot disprove God's existence via a logical contradiction because the descriptions used to describe God are either vague or rapidly mutable. Can't shoot down a fast-moving target with a slow-tracking gun, I guess.

I have personal experience in the issues of accurate measurement, divergent interpretation, and such. I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media. The problem was one of using an imprecise measuring tool in the 1920s and having better (and very different) tools 50 years later. So I understand how science changes its opinion on something as time passes.

As to the Higgs Boson? Hasn't been proved to exist - but HAS been proved (by demonstration) to possibly exist. There WERE those who denied it could ever be found. But now, if we can find whatever it was that was found and looks like a Higgs, we start to play the next game: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and lands as awkwardly as a duck ... it AIN'T a duck-billed platypus. So let's find out what it IS.

 

[Alc]

I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media.

Haven't we all?

 

[Libre]

With the bucket thing, I phrased it poorly. You could either add a video camera showing the balls' behavior, or you can change it to what I meant, that no ball ENDED UP in the left bucket because you can conclusively prove they all ended up in the right bucket.

Honestly, you're stretching this one, man.

You are also blowing my other comment WAY out of proportion. The fact is that the initial responses to experiments that challenge existing theories are almost always arguments that measurements, controls, or methodology are wrong, in large part because they are the easiest thing to check. I never said that the challenges are wrong, or that those issues are never the real culprit, and I would VERY much appreciate it if you stopped acting like I did.

So I'm the one stretching this one?
Here, on the 380th (and counting) page of this thread.
I'm not blowing any comments out of proportion. I don't get why you say I am. You said the most common challenge to a peer reviewed finding is a questioning of experimental technique - but my comment you hastened to add that indeed those factors CAN alter the data and lead one to a false conclusion. So I guess I don't understand the point or the relevance of your comment - or how I am acting in a way to misrepresent you.

If you want to say that proving all the balls are on the right is exactly the same thing as proving none of the balls are on the left, I would agree that they are logical equivalents. Yet, I would rather a direct proof rather than one by inference.

Videos can be faked as well.

All I'm really getting at is the difficulty in proving ANYTHING beyond ANY doubt.

 

[Libre]

Libre, your objection to my point about constrained domains was faulty.

If you constrain the domain, then your base statement changes from "X exists" to "X exists in the constrained domain" and I contend that the latter question can be disproved by an exhaustive search of the domain. I was pointing out that because the domain associated with the "God exists" statement CANNOT be constrained, the ability to disprove existence by examination simply isn't possible.

As to the other complaint, the inability to reduce to a contradiction, again the issue becomes the inability to constrain the parameters, not the domain. Same result, you cannot disprove God's existence via a logical contradiction because the descriptions used to describe God are either vague or rapidly mutable. Can't shoot down a fast-moving target with a slow-tracking gun, I guess.

I have personal experience in the issues of accurate measurement, divergent interpretation, and such. I published a paper a long time ago that contradicted a paper from the 1920s regarding the state of dissolved vanadium in strongly acidic aqueous media. The problem was one of using an imprecise measuring tool in the 1920s and having better (and very different) tools 50 years later. So I understand how science changes its opinion on something as time passes.

As to the Higgs Boson? Hasn't been proved to exist - but HAS been proved (by demonstration) to possibly exist. There WERE those who denied it could ever be found. But now, if we can find whatever it was that was found and looks like a Higgs, we start to play the next game: If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, flies like a duck, and lands as awkwardly as a duck ... it AIN'T a duck-billed platypus. So let's find out what it IS.

What's an "exhaustive search" then? Searching implies there is a seeker who is looking for something. Maybe that seeker has bias that the thing will never be found. I don't even get this conversation anymore. It's perfectly clear to me that negatives are unprovable, they can only be inferred. In an artificial system of your own construction (your "constrained domain") yes, it's possible to say, in my own universe that I've created there is nobody named Mike. I've looked for a Mike exhaustively, and not found a single one. If I continued to search I am certain it would not yield anything new because of how exhaustive my search has been.
Ergo, no Mike exists and that's my proof.
Nonsense.
And bear in mind, Mike is a trivial example - the real objects of our search - to add anything new to scientific knowledge - would be far more difficult to describe, to identify, and would be far more elusive.