Religious conscience in public debate | Deseret News

[_Tarski]

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.

Thank you (again)

[_MrStakhanovite]

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.

If there is anything people should take away from this thread, it is this.

[_MrStakhanovite]

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.

Saying you cannot prove a negative is to assert a negative. That is like saying you are absolutely certain that no one can achieve absolute certainty.

[_Gadianton]

Thanks EA, you've really taken these low lives to the cleaners. I kind of have to wonder if S. Loyd is rejoicing in victory right now over such a horribly-reasoned propoganda piece.

I will point out though that this artcle is as sophisticated as anything I've ever seen come out of the MI defending their ET god.

[_sock puppet]

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.

I am sure you'd agree that causation of ulcers is a matter of medical opinion, not direct evidence in the way that one can show evidence of the existence of a being, like the dodo bird, the ivory-billed woodpecker or god. One would expect that as medical science learns more about the human body and conditions, better opinions would develop and replace older notions that do not explain as much or as well the medical evidence. On the other hand, someone seeing and hearing a bird that has all of the characteristics used in the definition of an ivory-billed woodpecker (and no contraindicating characteristics) is positive evidence of its existence, subject to the reliability of that testimony--issues of perception, memory, and interpretation of the sensory data. If the witness passes all vetting in these regards, there is then positive evidence of a positive proposition: i.e., ivory-billed woodpecker existed at the time of the reported sighting. That evidence is much more persuasive on the issue of the existence of the ivory-billed woodpecker than my testimony that I have never seen or heard such a bird, if offered as proof that the bird does not exist.

Now, suppose that I have witnesses who will testify to having been present at the time and place the claimant saw the bird, but they did not see the bird. One such witness testifies to have not heard the double knocking sound of the ivory-billed woodpecker. Does that dispel the testimony of the bird claimant? Not quite. On careful examination, an examiner could probe that non-hearing witness's perception difficulties vis-a-vis the vantage point of the bird claimant, as well as interpretations of what sounds were heard, of what visual characteristics were observed on the bird the claimant saw. In the end, the counter witnesses--if all vetted themselves--leaves the situation being they did not see the bird as described by the claimant, but cannot disprove that the claimant saw what he claims.

A familiar situation is the Kennedy assasination at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. Despite all the forensic analysis of the situation in almost 50 years, have they disproven the claims of some eye witnesses to shots coming from the grassy knoll, implying a second shooter? No. The forensic evidence is strong that both shots that hit Kennedy (and one Connelly) were fired from the School Book Depository, but they have not disproven the proposition of shots also being fired from the grassy knoll. (FTR, I do not ascribe to the Kennedy assasination conspiracy, but I do not think it has been disproven that shots were fired from the grassy knoll.)

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.

Most questions are rather academic. The answers have little to do with or impact on the decision makers. Proof as "having sufficient support that a rational observer should accept it" is one thing for the proposition, for example, that the Andromeda Galaxy exists. For most of us (including me), so what? What if next year the scientific evidence and hypothesis leans against the existence of it as a galaxy and in favor of some other astronomical item? On the other hand, proof in the sense of "having sufficient support that a rational decision maker would act upon it" is proof in the pudding, so to speak. Daily I rely on the predictability of gravity. I base this on the evidence I gather from a lifetime of experience with gravity. Virtually everything I do physically depends in part on that reliability. As a decision maker, whether to avoid the precipice over the Grand Canyon wall, or to pour my coffee beans into the grinder from a position above rather than below the top of the grinder's bin are decisions that I make and act upon based on the 'proof'.

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.

I fail to see the oddity given the context of the thread as framed by the OP and linked to the Monahan article. Indeed, it might be the philosophical infusion that is misplaced. After all, Monahan framed his piece in the legal context. You might recall that his first two paragraphs went like this

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

In law, a foundational evidentiary protection is known as the burden of proof. A litigant asserting a particular fact must establish it by a "preponderance of evidence" in civil matters and "beyond a reasonable doubt" in criminal cases. Once a litigant meets his burden of proof, the burden shifts to the party opposing the evidence.

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.

Not aesthetics in the abstract, but as part and parcel to the notion that our wonderment and amazement at things like the earth, its inhabitants and planetary motion being evidence of a grand designer, a god, I noted the subjectivity and relativity of aesthetics as well.

Alma then pointed to the overwhelming proof of deity in our lives, including God’s word, the Earth, its inhabitants, and the very motions of the planets which "do witness that there is a Supreme Creator" (Alma 30:44).

The argument that the earth's existence, our existence, and planetary motion is evidence of a god stems from the notion that we cannot build such. We cannot start a life form (and I am not speaking of reproduction). We cannot build a planet. We cannot build a solar system with planetary motion. Therefore, there must be a higher, cognitive power that can do so, a god. Our amazement at the existence of these three or other natural facts does not mean that there was a grand designer. Our amazement grew out of man's inability, in earlier historic times, to explain why the earth and planets exist, why the planets move, why we exist. As explanations were formulated, revised, and many replaced with better ones, the need for concocting a higher power (god) that devised and created them becomes less, and less relevant. As they become less mysterious, the need for a god that 'works in mysterious ways' becomes less important. Whatever we are amazed by is what we don't understand, once we understand it it becomes rather mundane and less interesting. It's relative to us, not to some eternal truths.

In a similar vein, theists often point to the beauty of the world, mankind, or planetary motion, for example, as a kindred argument to the wonderment/amazement phenomena as well. My point was simply that if we need to create a god to explain why there exist things we find beautiful, then how does he not also account for that which is ugly.

[_EAllusion]

I think you are confused about the example I brought up Sock, but medical professionals believed that stress caused ulcers based on observational evidence. They were wrong in their inferences we now know, but it wasn't something believed on a mere whim. Inferring something isn't the case based comparing observations against expectations isn't all that different that inferring something is the case based on comparing observations against expectations.

More abstractly, any theory you can think of can be overturned by some future discovery. So that a new observation can overturn a negative claim like dodos are extinct isn't unique to negative claims. What if we found out dodos observed in the past were actually holographic projections of aliens? That's not too likely you might say, but the mere possibility is enough to rob your confidence in the past existence of dodos when you claim you need certainty.

Regarding the motion of planets, I think you believe this argument is something like apprehending the existence of God through beauty at times and at other times you seem to think it is only God could design something so beautiful. What I'm saying is I think it is more straightforward design argument. The idea that the motion of the planets demonstrates a designer was once a very common argument. It only went away with the maturation of physics and astronomy and mass education.

What makes people reason like this isn't people's incredulity over the human capacity to design such things. It goes something like this:

I can't imagine how the planets just so happen to move so harmoniously. If it were just random chance, it would be very surprising indeed if it happened to turn out like this. You can't explain it. But if God existed, God could explain it very nicely. (God always is implicitly defined to have the power and motive to obtain what one is seeking to explain in these kind of arguments). So if God exists, it's likely the planets would move so harmoniously. It seems so much like what people make, like gears in a clock. Therefore, the motion of the planets point to God.

Now as it happens, we now explain planetary motion in terms of gravity, so people aren't apt to reach to this argument. But this kind of reasoning very intuitive to people. People, and especially children, are biased towards anthropomorphic, teleological reasoning.

[_EAllusion]

It only went away with the maturation of physics and astronomy and mass education.

That's too speculative for me to say. I'm going to rescind that one and ask John Wilkins about it.

[_sock puppet]

I think you are confused about the example I brought up Sock, but medical professionals believed that stress caused ulcers based on observational evidence.

Well, I don't think there's confusion about my take on your example. We'll have to disagree on that one. I think there is a big difference in the provability of an a priori occurrence (e.g., whether someone saw a ivory-billed woodpecker on X date) and a working theory used in the medical field. That in the medical field is relying more heavily on interpretations and conjecture for causation, the link between stress or H pylori and the resulting stomach ulcer. Indeed, stress may yet be a contributing factor despite the discovery of H pylori. (I have tested negative for H pylori on three separate occasions, but exhibit the classic symptoms of a stomach ulcer.) This is the matter of scientific development.

Whether the bird seen by someone on X date was an ivory-billed woodpecker, otherwise thought to be extinct, interpretation and more investigation into whether the bird that was observed on X date did in fact have the characteristics of what ornothology terms the ivory-billed woodpecker and the absence of characteristics contraindicating that conclusion. This is a forensic matter of what was (or was not) observed on X date. The ability to come to a definitive answer to the inquiry is much more likely regarding the question of the type of bird sighted than it is on the cause of stomach ulcers.

[_harmony]

We completed our 2008 effort to get definitive evidence for ivorybills in the Choctawhatchee River Basin in early May….

Any God who can come up with a name like Choctawhatchee for a river deserves to be worshipped.