Atheism: new religion?

[quisquose]

I challenge any atheist to specify a kind of empirical evidence that would convince them that God exists.

 

Convince? You seem to be mixing up proof and beliefs.

 

It's the lack of any evidence for theism which leads me to take a position of a'theism.

 

Without proving god's existence, I could think of plenty of things that might lead me to a position of deism or even theism. For example, if prayers were shown to work.

[Cyclone]

Ok, but just to summarise and, in the interests of clarity, are you agreeing with me that Dawkins knows full well that there is no imaginable evidence that would convince him God exists?

 

I for one disagree with that statement.

[onewheeldave]

It's quite simple, you can't prove something doesn't exist but you can prove it does.

 

 

science has proved that many things don't exist (e.g. the ether, particles with mass that travel at the speed of light etc, etc)

[llamatron]

it depends on the exact circumstances, if an atheist is asking that a believer proves God exists, then someone, somewhere, needs to have a definition of God.

 

and if the atheist, when 'proof' is presented, rejects it, it's got to be on the grounds that it's evidence, not for god, but something else, which would suggest that the atheist has some concept of what God is (or isn't), which indicates that they have some defintion of god in mind.

 

But, in the interests of clarity, why don't you present a specific example of such a scenario, and I can them comment on that scenario?

 

Atheists aren't asking believers to prove that god exists because they don't believe that is possible. Atheists are just refusing to believe in something that has never been proven.

 

Here is a scenario:

God is a spaghetti monster, a creature made entirely of spaghetti. Being an atheist this is a perfectly reasonable version of a god to me. I cannot prove its lack of existence, it is not possible. What else can I tell you?

[onewheeldave]

I already explained that actually you can prove negatives but only when the possible set of answers is finite.

 

You can't disprove the existence of a nebulous being because of the nature of the question. Ignoring numbers (as they're quite complicated when you actually look at them closely), you can prove that a fish is not a dog by any number of means. But that's because of the nature of the assertion.

 

You can't prove however that I don't have a fish. The reason being that you can only ever find a lack of evidence to corroborate my statement, there is no kind of proof which would rule out further evidence still to come to light.

 

 

This forum goes into it in a lot more detail (starting with a formal logic statement that is above my head in as much as I'd have to go and learn the symbolism again).

 

You'd need to specify what you mean by 'i don't have a fish'.

 

if you pin it down a bit e.g. 'i don't have a fish on me at the moment' then it's very easy to prove/disprove

[Cyclone]

Because you just constrained the set to be a finite one and so you can now check every possible outcome from within that set.

That's exactly why I left it open, it's an infinite set (or as good as). Without me giving you more detail about this fish, there is no way you can prove my statement to be false (even though I'll admit that it is).

[llamatron]

science has proved that many things don't exist (e.g. the ether, particles with mass that travel at the speed of light etc, etc)

 

probably as well as they have "proved" that god does not exist yes.

[barleycorn]

You may well be right.

 

Does that not make Dawkins guilty of sophistry

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophism#Modern_usage

 

If Dawkins does know full well that, in reality, there are no possible observations/evidence/reasons that would convinve him god exists, i'd suggest, that in the interests of honest and sincere debate, he should make that clear.

 

Otherwise, he's basically engaging in tactics that stall the entire debate.

 

I ca think of several things that a God* could do to convince my of its existence.

 

For example, any being capable of doing all of the following I would quite willingly name a God.

1) Heal everybody on the planet simultaneously of all ailments, disease and disability and preventing any further ailments, disease or disability from ever occurring again.

2) Turn the moon into cheese.

3) Write my name in stars.

4) Reverse the second law of thermodynamics.

5) Write a post of SF completely free or all spelling and grammatical errors.

 

jb

 

* or at least some being so powerful so as appear God like that the difference is academic.

[onewheeldave]

I for one disagree with that statement.

 

i was asking chris, as he seems to be suggesting that he agrees with it.

 

I'd imagine Dawkins knows this perfectly well, and is giving theists a loaded opportunity. Any answer that comes from theists will be greeted with more questions, at which point they would fall down.

 

When you say you disagree, do you mean you think there is evidence that would convince Dawkins that god is real, or, that there is no such evidence but Dawkins simply doesn't realise that (i.e. he sincerely believes there is possible evidence that would convince him)

[onewheeldave]

Because you just constrained the set to be a finite one and so you can now check every possible outcome from within that set.

That's exactly why I left it open, it's an infinite set (or as good as). Without me giving you more detail about this fish, there is no way you can prove my statement to be false (even though I'll admit that it is).

 

And, in your eyes, the equivalent for God would be...?