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Religious conscience in public debate | Deseret News

Sorry, I read the first sentence and decided I couldn't read any further.

Deseret News wrote:God’s critics frequently refuse to accept the same burden of proof they demand of believers.

The author is essentially right. You have two vast assertions and neither one of them can muster proof for or against their metaphysical claims, because proof as we know it does not exist in that realm.

Quasimodo wrote:Sorry, I read the first sentence and decided I couldn't read any further.

I have read it from cover to cover (if this expression makes any sense for an internet page).
You are right.

Hmmmm.... let's break this abortion of intellectual fraud apart.

Point 1. The burden of proof is firmly on the person making an assertion. Good so far.

Point 2. Since the Korihors of the world assert there exists no god they must prove it with evidence.

Uh, what? Wouldn't god need to be established before this would be the case?

But no worries,
Point 3. Since god has been proven by a wide base of evidence in every area of human inquiry, the Korihor must disprove established knowledge.

Holy crap! God has been proven? There is wide evidence of deity? What could that be?

Point 4. The existence of scripture, "the Earth, its inhabitants, and the very motions of the planets" are proof of deity since no naturalist means has been reasonably posited to account for them.

Check and mate, you Korihors.

by the way, my Mormling friends, do you ever squirm uncomfortably in the presence of articles like these?

Spurven Ten Sing wrote:Hmmmm.... let's break this abortion of intellectual fraud apart.

Point 1. The burden of proof is firmly on the person making an assertion. Good so far.

Point 2. Since the Korihors of the world assert there exists no god they must prove it with evidence.

Uh, what? Wouldn't god need to be established before this would be the case?

But no worries,
Point 3. Since god has been proven by a wide base of evidence in every area of human inquiry, the Korihor must disprove established knowledge.

Holy crap! God has been proven? There is wide evidence of deity? What could that be?

Point 4. The existence of scripture, "the Earth, its inhabitants, and the very motions of the planets" are proof of deity since no naturalist means has been reasonably posited to account for them.

Check and mate, you Korihors.

by the way, my Mormling friends, do you ever squirm uncomfortably in the presence of articles like these?

Very well dissected, analyzed and eviscerated, STS.

It does not logically follow that because there are aspects of the universe, this earth and our very existence that we find amazing and beautiful, that god therefore exists. Those aspects do not evidence the existence of god any more than they point to the bing bang theory.

But when one looks to circumstantial evidence, before drawing any inferences he or she must take into account all of the circumstances. This god evidenced by a beautiful earth that he must have created is so flawed as to have earthquakes, tornadoes, and other natural disasters? For every beauty, there is as much if not more ugly. So what does this tell you of your god, theists?

The notion theists promote that there is a god has not been evidenced in the least. They fail to meet their burden of proof. Until they do, it does not behoove skeptics to disprove it, for logically one cannot prove a negative. However, this does not mean that everything that anyone can posit is true. Think Easter Bunny, for example.

There's so much wrong with that article in such a short amount of words that it's impressive.

It has a bunch of faults, such as flat asserting overwhelming evidence for the existence of God and equating religious moral views (and implying his in particular) are inherently superior to secular ones. What I like best about it is that it endorses the design argument based on the motion of the planets expressed in Alma even though that version of the design argument has been outdated for ages even among your most hardcore fundamentalists. You know, because the motion of the planets is relatively well understood and has been for centuries. This ain't 1830 and ignorance doesn't run that deep.

sock puppet wrote:

Spurven Ten Sing wrote:

The notion theists promote that there is a god has not been evidenced in the least. They fail to meet their burden of proof. Until they do, it does not behoove skeptics to disprove it, for logically one cannot prove a negative. However, this does not mean that everything that anyone can posit is true. Think Easter Bunny, for example.

It's a cliché' for atheists to assert you can't prove a negative, but that's not true. You can prove a negative to the same extent you can prove a positive both a priori and a posteriori. What this assertion is generally getting at is the difficulty of proving a universal. So if I say dodos are extinct, you probably feel confident that this has been established even though really is the negative assertion "there are no living dodos on earth." If I say there are no dodos anywhere in the universe, however, you probably feel less comfortable because there's so much about the universe we don't know about. But we can transfer this problem into positive assertions too. If I say all living things on earth are carbon based, you'd probably feel fairly confident in that assertion. But if I said all living things in the universe are carbon-based, you'd probably bristle.

The burden of proof is obviously on the theist who claims God exists rather than the nontheist who simply does not accept that. The trick in this article is he claims the evidence is overwhelming. If that were the case, the nontheist would at least have to supply a compelling case against that evidence to be rationally warranted in his views. The problem with this trick is that it is preposterous. I think in atheist/theist discourse it fair to say the atheist should explain why he rejects the theist's reasoning, but he shouldn't feel obligated to know precisely what's wrong with a theist's arguments to not accept them. More on that later if that seems confusing.

He takes it further in that he wants the nontheist to establish that God doesn't exist rather than simply that there isn't reason to think so. That's a mistake, but I think we can be more forgiving here given that 1) he's an idiot and 2) there's at least some burden there.

sock puppet wrote:The notion theists promote that there is a god has not been evidenced in the least. They fail to meet their burden of proof. Until they do, it does not behoove skeptics to disprove it, for logically one cannot prove a negative. However, this does not mean that everything that anyone can posit is true. Think Easter Bunny, for example.

EAllusion wrote:It's a cliché' for atheists to assert you can't prove a negative, but that's not true. You can prove a negative to the same extent you can prove a positive both a priori and a posteriori. What this assertion is generally getting at is the difficulty of proving a universal. So if I say dodos are extinct, you probably feel confident that this has been established even though really is the negative assertion "there are no living dodos on earth." If I say there are no dodos anywhere in the universe, however, you probably feel less comfortable because there's so much about the universe we don't know about. But we can transfer this problem into positive assertions too.

I might feel so confident, probably the more so to the extent my life/existence or its duration and quality do not depend on anyone finding a live (or recently deceased corpse) of a dodo. But the fact that there is no ready witness of having seen a dodo alive or having found a recent corpse, does not disprove with certainty their current existence. Lack of evidence makes something less likely, lack of evidence does not disprove in the way that actual, positive evidence lends proof. The uncertainty from a lack of evidence maybe illustrated by considering the situation of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Long thought extinct (no longer existing), there were a few sightings and recordings in the last decade of a bird thought to be the ivory-billed woodpecker. Maybe. Today, it is uncertain. The jury is still out--well, at least some juries.

There has been no sighting, confirmed as definitively being the ivory-billed woodpecker since 1944. Based on a possible recording of its call made in East Texas, the ivory-billed woodpecker was listed as an endangered species in 1967.

In the last decade, a spat of sightings of a large woodpecker in the native thought to possibly be the ivory-billed woodpecker have caused a stir, and debate, about the existence of the bird today. The debate continues, but
a Auburn/University of Windsor team conducted extensive investigation and concluded:

(12 June 2008) We completed our 2008 effort to get definitive evidence for ivorybills in the Choctawhatchee River Basin in early May…. Team members had no sightings of ivorybills and only two sound detections in 2008.… So where does all this leave us? Pretty much in the same position as in June 2006. We have a large body of evidence that Ivory-billed Woodpeckers persist along the Choctawhatchee River in the Florida panhandle, but we do not have definitive proof that they exist. Either the excitement of the ivorybill hunt causes competent birders to see and hear things that do not exist and leads competent sound analysts to misidentify hundreds of recorded sounds, or the few ivorybills in the Choctawhatchee River Basin are among the most elusive birds on the planet.

Only once the sightings, video tape and audio recordings were presented as evidence for the ivorybills existing, could others examine it, test it, and possibly refute the interpretation and meanings. E.g., is this evidence of Pileated Woodpecker sightings rather than the promoted ivory-bill woodpecker?

Even after the promoters present their evidence, the skeptics do not then prove the nonexistence of the ivory-bill woodpecker. Those skeptics cannot prove the nonexistence of the ivory-bill woodpecker, or anything else. What they can do is point out the weakness of the evidence and its misinterpretation by the promoters. Once the sightings, video tape and audio recordings ostensibly of the ivory-bill woodpecker are presented, then the skeptics can challenge and test, and if appropriate, refute the evidence. But with what? An endless stream of people testifying that they live in and about the areas of the claimed spottings, but they've never seen any ivory-billed woodpecker? That does not disprove the existence, but merely makes it less likely.

One could line up endless witnesses to say they have never seen god with their eyes, never heard god with their ears, never felt god with their hands or other tactile senses, never smelled nor tasted god respectively with their noses or mouths. Does that disprove god? No. What if it is 1 million witnesses? 1 billion? 6.9 billion? So what. All that would be demonstrated is that none of them have seen god. You cannot prove a negative with certainty, you can merely prove that those presented as witnesses have not had a sensory experience of god. You cannot prove a negative, even if you can produce witnesses that have never experienced the subject matter.

So, the theists promoting god bear the initial burden of proof. And what have you for evidence? A man that has been dead since 1844 that none of us have met, much less had the opportunity to cross-examine (challenge and test, and if appropriate, refute his testimony). We have written accounts of what he claimed. The annals of history are filled with claims made by men and women now dead that theists do not believe. So why do the Mormon theists believe JSJr's claims?

At best we hear that god will not give us sensory evidence of his existence. Why not? These same theists proclaim god did just that in past times, revealing 'him'self in ways detectable by human senses. They ask us as jurors, each weighing the decision of god's existence, to give heed to the claims of men long since dead that claimed before their death to have seen god with their eyes and heard god with their ears, and on that basis the theists ask us to conclude that god exists. Forget the fact that god has not manifested to your senses. Forget the fact that the theists cannot produce a shred of evidence that you can appreciate with your five senses, and deduce with certainty to be proof of god's existence.

What we get for "testimony" currently are people that claim that when they studied and prayed for an answer, they experienced a feeling of their bosom burning or of peace/comfort/serenity. They interpret these feelings to be proof that god exists and is telling them that JSJr saw god in the flesh with JSJr's eyes and heard with his ears god speak. That's going from A-Z without connecting any dots in between.

But most pernicious is when these current 'testifiers' claim that the burning bosom or peace/comfort/serenity is indescribable--although those are the descriptors supposedly given by jehovah (D&C 9:8-9) and through LDS correlation quoting S Dilworth Young's May 1976 Ensign article. And by asserting it to be "indescribable", these current testifiers want to take their testimony and place it beyond the reach of being tested and challenged to see if it holds up. Yet, they claim it to be testimony--statements made for purposes of validating the proposition in question.

It is not testimony, for testimony is presented and may be tested and challenged. They provide no evidence. What we find beautiful versus ugly, amazing versus mundane, is evidence of what humanity finds appealing or repulsive. It does not make god's existence any more or less likely. It simply is not probative on the question of god's existence. And so it is utterly and logically hollow for the theists to claim, as Monahan does in the article cited and linked in the OP and "Alma" (a character in the pages of the Book of Mormon), to claim that the theistic proposition is supported by evidence. It is a mere matter of trickery to the observer for Monahan and "Alma" to claim evidence of god's existence has been shown or demonstrated and that all the skeptics have "be [their] word only".

What skeptics have, is the absence of any reliable, probative evidence on the question of god's existence. One way or the other. Until the theists present demonstrable evidence of the proposition they would like others to accept as truth, there is nothing to be tested or challenged, no interpretations of that evidence to be refuted. When the Mormon theists stop hiding behind their cloaks of "indescribability" and "too sacred to talk about" and in fact reveal what they do--and by implication what they do not--have by way of evidence, then and only then would it behoove the skeptics to engage such evidence, to test it, to challenge it, and possibly to refute it.

Try as they might, Monahan, "Alma" and TBMs/defenders here, to paint the situation as though there's overwhelming evidence of god's existence by virtue of what we find beautiful and amazing about our surroundings and existence, god's possible existence is just one of numerous, competing explanations, and an explanation that is not nearly as rationally valid as others. All that Monahan has done is as absurd as a basketball team showing up to play a basketball game and before the opening buzzer has sounded, the team's coach pronounces his team to have 105 points and is therefore the winner since the other team has no points. Look at the scoreboard, Monahan, it shows zeroes for each team.

sock puppet wrote:
I might feel so confident, probably the more so to the extent my life/existence or its duration and quality do not depend on anyone finding a live (or recently deceased corpse) of a dodo. But the fact that there is no ready witness of having seen a dodo alive or having found a recent corpse, does not disprove with certainty their current existence.

You can't prove positive a posteriori statements either if you demand certainty. Take the simple counter: Dodos existed. You can't prove that with certainty either. The problem is there is always an auxillary ad hoc hypothesis that could turn out to be true that would falsify the claim. Since we don't know everything, we can't possibly eliminate the possibility of them being true. You spent a lot of effort detailing a case where a widely believed negative claim was overturned when a new discovery defeated it. But surely you can think of examples where the same happened to positive claims? Take the commonly held belief that uclers are caused by stress only to be overturned by H. Pylori.

Lack of evidence makes something less likely, lack of evidence does not disprove in the way that actual, positive evidence lends proof

Sometimes people get tripped up on the different defintions of "proof." I'm not sure if that is happening here. There is one sense of proof that means, "having sufficient support that a rational observer should accept it." In that sense, negative claims can be proven just as positive ones in that observations can make them so likely that we would be unreasonable to disagree. We aren't doing anything wrong by asserting that dodos are extinct with a high degree of confidence. In another sense it means "provide deductive certainty." Empirical claims can't achieve that regardless of whether they are positive or negative. And both negative and positive logical proofs can be devised. So, I guess what I'm telling you is you are wrong.

But most pernicious is when these current 'testifiers' claim that the burning bosom or peace/comfort/serenity is indescribable--although those are the descriptors supposedly given by jehovah (D&C 9:8-9) and through LDS correlation quoting S Dilworth Young's May 1976 Ensign article.

I realize we are on a Mormon board, but it's odd to take this into a Mormon context given that Mormonism is a drop in the bucket when it comes to belief in God and Mormons are widely regarded as up in the night by many of those same believers. Religious experience arguments are but one small piece of the total offered evidence for God, and the LDS version is one version of that. Whatever. I agree that the case for God is poor. Nothing I said suggested otherwise.

It is not testimony, for testimony is presented and may be tested and challenged. They provide no evidence. What we find beautiful versus ugly, amazing versus mundane, is evidence of what humanity finds appealing or repulsive.

I don't the the argument offered above was an argument to aesthetics. In Alma, that almost certainly is a teleological argument, and I think that's how it was used in that op-ed. It fails, but it fails for different reasons than you are attacking. The author probably just takes it for granted all the standard arguments for God - probably those especially popular among fundamentalists - are big winners when in reality they range from bad to atrocious. Such is life.