No evidence for or against God? Rational to assume he's not there

[minorwork]

Perhaps, but you'll have to explain better what you mean.

Well, I was hoping you'd go first. But...

When I use the word transcendant, I am referring to experiencing what our senses deliver without the filters of the conditioned mind using symbols as an interface to the raw world. And that is not exactly precise because if there were no filters there could be no talk of the experience, such as in a deep sleep. More accurate is a greatly reduced filtering of the raw experiences by the conditioned mind. Enough filters so that some record can be installed in the brain accessible to recall.

There is a huge difference between watching, being taught, and imagining what a transcendant experience would be like and actually having such an experience. Same as watching, training for, and imagining what it would feel like to skydive the first time. Much can be said about both experiences without having them. There is far fewer terms that relate to a religious, transcendant experience than to the first skydive. That is a big problem that is continually exploited by the charlatans who will rely on ancient text language as the standard. The mystic experience, especially a recent one, will mostly cause the visionary to be fanatical about his vision and proselytize to whoever will listen. The speech and mannerisms of the visionary can be emulated enough that the gullible and vulnerable will take the charlatan as a leader while ignoring the fact that they too, might be able to have their own vision.

The mystic experience is unique to the individual. The language used and system used to speak of the ineffable is a cultural phenomenon that is not in existence to exclusively communicate the visions. Generally the language has been in religious terms, Kabbalistic, Sufi, Gnosticism, and such. I do not consider Jung's terminology to be religious, though I am reminded that many do.

If you ask me, "religion" is another term for not understanding.

Yes. That is one characteristic that I will go along with generally. Science, too, pursues doing away with "not understanding." Those who worship the darkness of "not understanding," fear the light of reason.

Religion is possible mostly because it is difficult to reliably recover from its "teachings".
When most people get hooked into that kind of thinking, it seems very hard for them to get out.

Conditioning at a young age makes it tough to openly advocate an opposing position. I stamp white horses. Used to be because I was emulating Mom. Then because I'd had a good life, I feared not to. I'd made some kind of connection with my good fortune and stamping horses. Now I do it, or rather hesitate in doing it, so I can feel what my Catholic raised friends feel at any tendency to question their faith. So that I can feel their pain, so to speak. In doing this, I understand, no, not understand, I experience my and their feelings of fear when I attempt to reasonably discuss religion with them.

[one of many]

In a previous discussion, Meleager stated:
If there is no evidence for God or against God, then the atheist assumption in nonexistence is irrational.

My counter is as follows:

If I look into a room and I see nothing, which of the two options is more likely?

1. There is no bird in the room
2. There is a bird in the room but he is hiding

Occam's Razor says we pick the option with the fewest assumptions: Choice 1


In every single case, your two options are these

1. X does not exist
2. X does exist + an assumption to explain why we cannot see X



So if I look into a universe, and I cannot see God (or evidence of God):

1. God does not exist
2. God does exist and something must explain why I cannot see God

Therefore

In all cases, if there is no evidence for or against the existence of God, it is more probable that he does not exist than he does exist.

--------------------------------------------------------
With tremendous humility, I must apologize to Meleager. He developed a counter that defeated my argument. It was a most cunning counter. And then I countered myself with an even stronger argument. I'm afraid that Meleager is correct in saying that

If there is no evidence for or against the existence of God, it is irrational to claim he does not exist.

The most you can say is "I don't know". Atheists, to be logical, should become agnostics.
--------------------------------------------------------

Here is the counterargument:

I hold a box and it is painted black. In this situation, I truly have no evidence for or against anything. Now - here's what I was thinking:

I have no evidence for a bird. So I could say there is no bird.
But - I also have no evidence that is no bird. So I could say there is a bird.

Both make an assumption - it exists or it doesn't exist.


What is the probability that there is a bird in the box?
Anything could be in the box!
So what is the probability that there is nothing in the box?
Same as there being a bird!


What is in the box could be any configuration of matter or non matter.

There could be a sandwich and space in the box.
There could be a space of jello in the box
There could be a tiny unicorn in the box
There could be a bird in the box
There could be nothing in the box

The probability that nothing is in the box would be something (obviously not exact) like:
1/10000000000000000000000000000

The probability that the bird is in the box would be the same
1/10000000000000000000000000000

But the probability that what is in the box is something other than a bird would be

100% - 1/10000000000000000000000000000 =

99.99999999999999%

The probability that there is no bird in the box is almost 100%

However:

These possibilities also exist:

there is jello and a bird
there is a unicorn and a bird
there is a frog and a bird

But then again, there could be:

Jello and a unicorn
Jello and a frog
Jello and a hammer

But then I could tack on bird to that list too.

We cannot know what is in the box - we cannot even know the probability of the bird being in the box.

In matters of the unknown - we simply do not know.

Your analogy--the bird--is less than satisfactory. I have seen a bird though I have not seen god before. I will assume you have seen a bird though you have not seen god before.

Best to make your analogy to some one thing that is perceptibly unknown in the room, prima facie, such as that of air.

If that is the case, we will debate further.

[Aussie]

Your analogy--the bird--is less than satisfactory. I have seen a bird though I have not seen god before. I will assume you have seen a bird though you have not seen god before.

Best to make your analogy to some one thing that is perceptibly unknown in the room, prima facie, such as that of air.

If that is the case, we will debate further.

So really there's more likely to be a bird in the box than god!

[Think Harder]

The burden of proof plays an important role too. It seems to me that a positive claim requires positive evidence. As soon as you say "the evidence does not suggest a god" you're not a theist anymore. Although it can be stated in the positive, "Gods do not exist".

But we can never disprove the existence of anything - not even the xmen or fairies, for maybe they are just manipulating us the whole time. Thus, with Russel's teapot analogy, the teapot being so small that no telescope can spot it, we cannot prove or disprove, but whoever is making the claim is setting it up to be unfalsifiable. In such cases, what Irving Copi writes should be taken at heart.

[Meleagar]

You can disprove the existence of all sorts of things, given a sufficiently defined thing and a sufficiently defined search space. The problem with asserting that "no gods exist" is that it is a positive assertion, and as such requires evidence, or else it is an irrational assertion. It's also an unnecessary assertion, unless it is a necessary part of one's ideology.

Unlike the teapot and fairies and X-men, the existence of a god of some sort is supported by mountians of evidence of all sorts, which I've already iterated in other threads. Unless one simply dismisses such evidence as "non-evidence", the claim "there are no gods" doesn't just rely on an argument from ignorance; it also must ignore all the evidence at hand.

[The Black Ghost]

100 pages later....

[minorwork]

You can disprove the existence of all sorts of things, given a sufficiently defined thing and a sufficiently defined search space. The problem with asserting that "no gods exist" is that it is a positive assertion, and as such requires evidence, or else it is an irrational assertion. It's also an unnecessary assertion, unless it is a necessary part of one's ideology.

Unlike the teapot and fairies and X-men, the existence of a god of some sort is supported by mountians of evidence of all sorts, which I've already iterated in other threads. Unless one simply dismisses such evidence as "non-evidence", the claim "there are no gods" doesn't just rely on an argument from ignorance; it also must ignore all the evidence at hand.

How about some kind of definition of "gods" and give up the evidence you find so convincing. Am I bad if I don't find your evidence convincing? Or, perhaps, merely a dumbass for not being able to see in the illuminated manner as yourself. What kind of glasses should I get in order achieve your vision? Maybe this link will count as evidence, pro or con, for the gods' existence. Nine Injured as Church Bus Crashes in Southern Carolina

[Meleagar]

How about some kind of definition of "gods" and give up the evidence you find so convincing.

I didn't say I found it convincing. I said, evidence has convinced countless people for thousands of years, including some of the finest minds to ever live.

Am I bad if I don't find your evidence convincing?

Why would you be bad? It's one thing to find the evidence for any god unconvincing; it's another to assert that no gods exist. Even those that assert that no gods exist aren't necessarily "bad"; they're just irrational.

Or, perhaps, merely a dumbass for not being able to see in the illuminated manner as yourself. What kind of glasses should I get in order achieve your vision? Maybe this link will count as evidence, pro or con, for the gods' existence. Nine Injured as Church Bus Crashes in Southern Carolina

Not all proposed gods purportedly care about what happens to humans, suc such a report would be entirely irrelevant when asserting, say, a deistic god exists or doesn't exist.

[Think Harder]

"You can disprove the existence of all sorts of things, given a sufficiently defined thing and a sufficiently defined search space."

You can't if the claim is SUPERNATURAL. Suppose I an alien is at my door. That is a small space right? Well what if we check and it isn't there? Well you could say "the alien is applying mind-control" or some other gymnastic move that is characteristic of UNFALSIFIABLE, SUPERNATURAL entities. God is such an entity. Thus, if you claim that there is evidence for god, then you MUST claim evidence for xmen (xavier is manipulating us all)

You see the problem with your logic?

[Think Harder]

You can disprove the existence of all sorts of things, given a sufficiently defined thing and a sufficiently defined search space.

You can't if the claim is SUPERNATURAL. Suppose I an alien is at my door. That is a small space right? Well what if we check and it isn't there? Well you could say "the alien is applying mind-control" or some other gymnastic move that is characteristic of UNFALSIFIABLE, SUPERNATURAL entities. God is such an entity. Thus, if you claim that there is evidence for god, then you MUST claim evidence for xmen (xavier is manipulating us all)

You see the problem with your logic?

[Primum non nocere]

Um why did another thread need to be created?

[Cruella]

It's perfectly legitimate to start a thread with an opposing premise to one already in existence, LinL.