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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2010 : 08:44:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dr. Mabuse
Originally posted by bngbuck
Filthy
A well written and incisive reply to Wright's nonsense of "presuppositional apologetics". However, without presuming to correct you, I might point out that your general statement:| You can neither prove nor disprove a negative, Bible or no Bible. |
may not be completely accurate.
There are many proofs of "negatives" (proofs of impossibility) in mathematics.
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You can prove a negative, if you can find a positive that is mutually exclusive with the negative you were trying to prove.
"Englans hasn't the best football team in the world" is unprovable by itself, but if you can find a team that beats them (like Germany), then a simple syllogism solves proving the negative.
Prem.1 England hasn't the best football team in the world, if another team can beat them.
Prem.2 Germany can beat England
Conclusion: England hasn't the best football team.
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Hm. It looks from here that you are stating the obvious rather than proving the negative. Both teams undeniably exist and on a given day, either could defeat the other. We are leaving crazed British soccer fans out of the equation, aren't we?
Here's an example of an unprovable negative: Prove that the Bible is not the recorded word of God.
Can't do it because we can't disprove God in the first place and any words attributed to that deity remain to be taken as read, albeit with a grain of Lot's wife. 
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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welshdean
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
172 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2010 : 09:30:22 [Permalink]
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Cheers Filthy, I've lurked for a while, spend some time on the Randi boards but mostly BBC these days.
Anyhows, I agree with what you say re: allowing the bible as a reference, but I was trying to make the point that if the AIG article writer thinks that you can't disprove his god in his bible, then he can't have read it very well.
As an example, if his god is omniscient, then by definition he knows 'all that is, all that was and all that ever will be',* yet his god thinks that a snake eats dust.** Ergo he's not omniscient, ergo his god does not exist.
Please be aware I'm careful not to say that 'god' doesn't exist, just the 'god' of the bible. There may well be a 'god', I don't know either way, although indications suggest (s)he's as real as Winnie the Pooh.
* Carl Sagan's definition of the Cosmos, I love the phraseology and thought it fitted here.
** Gen 3:14
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"Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life."
"I am America. I am the part you won't recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me."
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."
---- Muhammad Ali
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 09:43:37 [Permalink]
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Mab has it right filthy. The reason the IPU and other such imaginary constructs work so well as arguments against a diety belief is that they demonstrate just how easy it is to make up some impossible nonsense.
As soon as bng show up with his can of spraypaint, all you have to do is claim your pink 'gator is also intangible (or somehow cabable of eluding the paint).
The reason people say "you can't prove a negative" is because it is technically true. Say that you wanted to "prove" this statement, "There are no orange and purple striped seagulls on earth." In order to "prove" that, you'd have to go look at every seagull on the planet. It gets more complicated with religious beliefs because no two believers will have the same definition of their imaginary friend, and that definition will shift around a lot. You literally can't examine the entire universe looking for jesus' house, can you? And if you could, by some amazing advance in technology, believers would just say you still aren't looking in the right place.
Most of life, and science, is based on inductive reasoning. But proving a negative requires a situation where you can apply deduction. There are probably no orange and purple striped seagulls. You'd be looked at like you were retarded if you suggested there were. But that doesn't change the fact that you can't prove there aren't any.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 09:49:05 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dave W.
It seems to me that beginning with just two axioms (or presuppositions), "I exist" and "that which is useful is 'good'," we can logically escape from solipsism and create a valid basis for an objective reality, thus building empiricism, evidencialism and modern science, and even justify moral codes like the Golden Rule which tend to be considering immune from rational inquiry.
Most people don't go so far, though, and so think that (for example) an objective reality is an assumption, and not the conclusion of a well-thought-out argument (like I once did). In that way, they fall into the "presup" trap of not being able to provide a justification for a position when challenged on it, which, in my experience, is the bread-and-butter of presup argumentation. "That's just another presupposition," they cry triumphantly, trying to show that science (or atheism, or naturalism) uses more presuppositions than their religion, as if philosophy were like golf.
So to have the slightest chance against these guys in a discussion or debate, one has to know one's crap, deeply. But even then, nothing will ultimately work, because their number-one, (mostly) unspoken presupposition is that if someone says something with which they disagree, that person must be wrong.
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I don't see any practical difference between the assumption "I exist" and "reality exists". As long as it is necessary to assume existence, you can't really get away from the whole solipsism thing.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 10:20:44 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
I don't see any practical difference between the assumption "I exist" and "reality exists". As long as it is necessary to assume existence, you can't really get away from the whole solipsism thing. |
The practical difference in whether there's anything real outside your own thoughts. If your senses are massively unreliable or you're a brain plugged into a Matrix, then even if there is an objective reality outside your head, you'll never be able to figure it out. Pragmatically speaking, this would mean that even your own thoughts would be useless, in any "grand scheme of things," because you can't know that you're contributing to anything (even your own well-being). |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 10:25:01 [Permalink]
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Yes, but "I exist" implies "reality exists". The underlying assumption is the same for both statements.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 02/09/2010 : 10:48:32 [Permalink]
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It all depends upon where you look and your definition of "seagull."
Couldn't find one with purple stripes, though. I suppose we could imitate the Creation Museum and just draw 'em in.
It is said that mere man cannot know the mind of God. This is entirely true whether that entity exists or not, which, when carried to it's logical conclusion, makes all religious writings superfluous at best and blasphemous at worst.
But again; first we must prove/disprove God, and as it stands, that we cannot do.
Welchdean is correct in that the Bible actually does make a pretty good argument for the non-existence of God, the Abrahamic one anyway, simply by pointing out the many failings of the 'omnipotent' him/her/it.
As for the alligator in my closet, it was really a quite visible 4 foot, Nile monitor and was only here for a couple of months. And I didn't keep it in a closet. It's reaction to being spray-bombed would be predictable and possibly bloody.
But, as we are talking of invisible animals in our closets, I suppose they could become apparent with a coat of paint. Unless they are also unsubstantial and the paint simply settles to the floor through them. Which, of course, is the case.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist!
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 12:06:26 [Permalink]
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But you can disprove specific gods, the problem lies in the ever shifting definitions.
The problem of omnipotence pretty obviously disproves an omnipotent diety, and renders the entire concept of omnipotence null as well. But believers shifted the description of their god to compensate, or they just entirely refuse to engage the omnipotence exclusions with some tripe about how we are incapable of understanding...
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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dglas
Skeptic Friend
Canada
397 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 12:11:06 [Permalink]
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| Now, why is everyone so terrified of solipsism? It's not like you can draw any conclusions from it. |
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- dglas (In the hell of 1000 unresolved subplots...)
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The Presupposition of Intrinsic Evil
+ A Self-Justificatory Framework
= The "Heart of Darkness"
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cantbe323
Suspended
242 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 14:42:22 [Permalink]
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When explaining their beliefs, Christians often feel they must first prove the Bible or prove the existence of God. This approach reveals that they do not yet understand the Bible?s approach, known as presuppositional apologetics. >>
Only the rare believers on the fence. True believers accept every word in the Bible as fact, with no exceptions, and won't even listen to conflicting ideas...
Cantbe323 |
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cantbe323
Suspended
242 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 14:49:00 [Permalink]
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I would rather face a cold reality than delude myself with comforting fantasies. >>
Me too... That distinguishes us from the other self-deluders.
cantbe323 |
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cantbe323
Suspended
242 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 15:00:35 [Permalink]
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We all base our understandings on something which is beyond verification.>>
Yes, but only on unprovable abstracts we can't see or feel. Substantive things that function don't have to be understood. They're open for everyone to see.
cantbe323 |
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welshdean
Skeptic Friend
United Kingdom
172 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 16:04:55 [Permalink]
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Welchdean
Arghhhh
Welch - to not honour a bet
Welsh - to be born with the privilge of knowing you are the best in the world. Especially in a rugby sense. |
"Frazier is so ugly he should donate his face to the US Bureau of Wild Life."
"I am America. I am the part you won't recognize, but get used to me. Black, confident, cocky. My name, not yours. My religion, not yours. My goals, my own. Get used to me."
"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth."
---- Muhammad Ali
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26020 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 16:49:38 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by Dude
Yes, but "I exist" implies "reality exists". The underlying assumption is the same for both statements. |
But there's a big difference between a personal reality and an objective reality. Solipsism offers the existence of a reality, but not an objective one. "I exist" is true no matter what kind of reality exists. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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bngbuck
SFN Addict
USA
2437 Posts |
Posted - 02/09/2010 : 16:51:07 [Permalink]
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Filthy.....
If you are going to "move the goal posts" (an expression that I completely detest because of it's constant misuse), from an invisible pink dragon (or whatever) to an invisible, pink, intangible, zero odor intensity, noiseless, tasteless dragon that you define as existing but completely incapable of being detected by any means; and then you state that I cannot prove that there is not one in your closet; I would then challenge you to demonstrate that your dragon was in any way different from "nothing" without committing Petitio Principii.
If you could not do that, I would simply open the door and demonstrate that there was nothing in your closet (except shoes and clothes, previously excepted) - thereby proving a negative.
Actually no one can prove or disprove that FSMs, colored Imaginary animals, or Nothing, properly defined, either exist(s) or do(es) not exist.
However it is perfectly possible to prove that the circle cannot be squared to anything more than an extremely fine approximation! The same is true of many mathematical proofs of impossibility.
Which raises an interesting question. True mathematical impossibilities exist because of axioms which are either self-evident or givens (definitions not subject to mathematical disproof.)
What is the true existential difference between mathematical impossibilities and the fact that you can't prove a negative (real world "impossibilities")?
"There are no married bachelors" proves a negative, but "bachelor" is defined as a not married male, so the statement becomes trivial.
A bit more complex is "God can not be both omnipotent and eternal because if he used his omnipotence to destroy himself he would no longer be eternal"
Is this a paradox or an example of disproving a negative? |
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What is 'Presuppositional' apologetics?
