Responses to a few common arguments

[ratcharmer]

Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on this. Been busy.

I'll spoiler each section to keep it from being to long . . .

Burden of Proof
The "argument from ignorance" as addressed by Russel's teapot and other such arguments only works in situations where there is a complete lack of data.

What atheism is doing, or at least some atheists (as I should bear in mind no two people are likely to think exactly the same thing) is conclude that all religions are false since there isn't any data available, then go on to discard any data presented, since it must be false since religion is false because there isn't any data. It just doesn't work

The problem with the atheistic position on this is that you're seeking to overturn belief in any sort of deity, something on which literally every society in recorded history has maintained in the overwhelming majority of the population. There are literally more testimonies on "supernatural" events than there are people currently living. There are also countless logical arguments in favor of a God existing, and yes, even scientific studies that lend support.
God has not been proven absolutely true, but neither is the debate steming from an absolute lack of knowledge.

Consider Russel's Teapot. There's no reason why anyone would even think to look for a teapot floating through space, but what if a group nof astronauts reported seeing one? What if over the course of several years several different groups from different cultures reported seeing a teapot floating through space? It's at least enough to make people want to investigate. Applying the scientific method (observe, hypothesis, test) to  religion simply gives us an observation and a hypothesis that no-one knows how to test yet.

In any debate both sides must make their case. Even when "burden of proof" is established, the unburdened side must still establish some basis for their case. Atheists have not done even that little bit. Allow me to demonstrate:
http://www.positiveatheism.org/writ/dawk911.htm
http://www.sciamdigital.com/index.cfm?fa=Products.ViewIssuePreview&ARTICLEID_CHAR=0C9F4CBB-2B35-221B-628A70E93A04E86C

In the first article (and many others) Dawkins maintains his claim that the absolute entirety of the burden of proof must rest on the religous person, yet in the second one he maintains that he shouldn't have to listen to arguments in favor of religion in order to know that it's false.
What's that? Place the burden of proof on the other party and then not listen to what they have to say? Why I could prove anything using that method. Including the sky being green and the grass being blue.

I recognize that not all atheists believe the same thing, and I hope most don't follow that particular brand of logic. But this is the main sort of reasoning I've encountered (never directly stated mind you) and I find it very frustrating.

As to Daxx's statement about "the God of the gaps", I find this odd, because many of the recent gaps were filled in by exactly what I expected to see, based on a theistic perspective. I'll go into a bit more detail at the end of the post.

Oddly enough, Hume's Maxim sort of makes one of my points for me. You're automatically assuming any testamony that reports something that doesn't fit with your worldview must be false, simply on the grounds that it's hard to reconcile with your worldview.

Historical Contradictions
Could you please clarify what you mean by "special pleading"? I'm afraid I'm not clear on what you're trying to say there.

Evolution versus creationism isn't really part of what I was discussing with this argument; I was trying to get at was discrepancies between the Biblical account of an event and a different account from the same period.

I'm happy to discuss evolution with you, but that really doesn't fit with this argument. I think for the most part we'd just end up agreeing anyway.

The main point I was trying to make is that for any historical event different sources will differ in details, yet without a time machine there is no way to go back and check which one is true. In events that can be verified, Biblical accounts have been shown to be as accurate as we can reasonably establish.

Invisible Pink Unicorn
I've replied to this briefly on the other thread, but let me do a more thorough job here.

You have several times refered to this as a logical fallacy, but you have yet to provide any support to the argument. You say that, in spite of the fact that "argument ad populum" refers to an appeal to public opinion that it should apply to things people see/experience. Okay, let's take a closer look at that.

In a given population, let suppose half of the population witnesses a phenomena. Of those that observe it, half of them misinterperet it as something else. There is one "correct" interpretation, but there are many, many incorrect ones. Therefore all of the 25% who correctly interperet the event will agree, whereas there will be several different opinions in the 25% who misinterpereted it. Therefore in matters of an eyewitness account a consensus opinion will hold, even if we assume witness accounts to be extremely innaccurate.

In order for there to be a risk of "false possitives" we would have to assume human perceptions have almost no bearing on reality whatsoever, whereupon I'm probably "typing" this post into an angry jellyfish, and the whole point is moot anyway.

Okay, so maybe there's a biasing factor? What about groupthink, or cultural bias? They've been referenced a couple times now. Except both of those could only bias things towards a religious interpretation of events if we assume that there is already an overwhelming majority holding those views. Therefore, such things could potentially influence the spread of eyewitness accounts, but not their origin. On a side note, such things could explain different cultures etc. having different interpretations of a phenomena, hence Christians vs Muslims vs Hindus vs Jews etc etc . . .

As a final note on this, please try to take a step back for a minute and think about what you're saying. You're asking me to discard my religious beliefs, any court system that uses testamonies, at least half of all news sources (probably more) and what my own senses tell me based on nothing more than your say so.

I'm not trying to say that there can't be any legitimate reason for your views, but if there is you haven't provided it. If I'm wrong then teach me why, don't just keep repeating "logical fallacy" like it's soem kind of mantra.

And finally, I'd like to introduce a new argument for commentary:
Fine-tuned Universe
I'll start with a wikipedia article, so you can get a basic overview:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-tuned_Universe

I am aware wikipedia isn't super reputable, use the articles to familiarize yourselves with the issue, but I'm hoping better citations will come out during the course of the discussion.

My summary of the argument runs something like this:
Our universe contains a certain number of physical constants (the precise number is unknown) each of which has an exact numerical value, and the numerical values of these constants do not change. If we were to make even tiny adjustments to these values we end up with a universe that would not allow for life in any form we would find remotely recognizable as "alive". Please note that many of these predicted changes are things like "matter would not form". The thought is that if the universe is rather uniquely balanced to allow for life, then this could point towards a creator.

and a now link to the wikipedia article on one of the more credible (in my opinion) responses:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principle
Basically, the anthropic prinicple states that we can only observe a universe that could contain us, so there is an observer bias. This response is valid, but it still seems unusual that most possible universes would result in something like "the entire universe collapses into a singularity", why would the constant's just happen to balance one another? what's more, it only really works to explain fine-tuning if we assume there are other universes.

There is also some debate over how far the fine-tuning goes, largely due to the fact that 1) we don't know what all the universal constants are yet and 2) we haven't solved all of physics yet, so we can't predict with confidence what a universe with different laws/constants would look like. Notably however, this debate did not exist until after theism was implicated. (Going by publication dates of the articles cited on wikipedia, I'll try to look into this more)

There have been many hypothesis put forward to explain this phenomenon without invoking God, here's a sampling:
   -There are many/infinite universes, and we're only aware of the one we can live in due to the anthropic principle (see the second link)
   -Wheeler's Participatory Anthropic Principle, an interpretation of quantum mechanics in which only a universe containing observers (life) can exist. I believe Essence has referenced this a couple of times.
   -Some part of the yet undiscovered "Theory of Everything" dictates that the laws of the universe must allow for life
   -"Life" would exist anyway, and we just can't imagine what form it would take in a different universe.

There are others, but I'll try to let someone else give a more thorough account of them to avoid biasing the treatment of the argument. I'll just leave off with this: none of these explanations (to my knowledge) is any more testable (or probable) than invoking God, so why are they considered more rational to atheists?

On a more general question to whoever wants to answer it:
Science shows us that there are mathematical constants & equations that govern the universe. Where do you think these equations & constants come from?

@Belthus:
I think Daxx is referring to "strong" athiesm as the belief that God has been conclusively proven NOT to exist, whereas "weak" atheism is the belief that there is not sufficient evidence to suspect the existence of God/god/gods.

I should probably let Daxx answer for himself though.

[Belthus]

@Belthus:
I think Daxx is referring to "strong" athiesm as the belief that God has been conclusively proven NOT to exist, whereas "weak" atheism is the belief that there is not sufficient evidence to suspect the existence of God/god/gods.

I understand the distinction. It is very common in the Internet atheist subculture. But I disagree with it as a description of different states of mind. I see the two as different conversational approaches, motivated by the same disbelief.

BTW, another strong atheist approach is to say that the concepts of god are self-contradictory. In other words, it's a critique of the internal consistency of a set of descriptions. If someone claims that a being exists with properties X, Y, and Z, and you can show that X, Y, and Z are incompatible with each other, that's strong atheism. If you say there is a being named Fred who is all-powerful and the very essence of goodness, I could point to the existence of evil as a refutation (theodicy). So even if Fred shows up, he may exist but not have the properties that qualify him as a god.

[Daxx]

Long post. I'd spoiler it as well, but I don't like breaking up what are a number of interrelated points.

Burden of Proof
The "argument from ignorance" as addressed by Russel's teapot and other such arguments only works in situations where there is a complete lack of data.

What atheism is doing, or at least some atheists (as I should bear in mind no two people are likely to think exactly the same thing) is conclude that all religions are false since there isn't any data available, then go on to discard any data presented, since it must be false since religion is false because there isn't any data. It just doesn't work

That may be true in some cases (where people are not following the scientific method properly) but it certainly isn't a claim that can be made of all atheism.

The position that I take is that there is no evidence which satisfies criteria for proof for the existence of God, and no argument yet presented proves that a god or gods exist, without admitting to a more likely theory. Let's look at a quick example:

The sun crosses the sky each day. You might think this is pretty solid evidence that the sun revolves around the Earth. After all, the Earth is manifestedly not moving, and the Sun clearly is. Unfortunately this piece of evidence also suggests a second possible hypothesis: that the Sun stays still and the frame of reference of the Earth is moving.

People occasionally experience what are termed "supernatural experiences". They are abducted by aliens, witches or demons; they have gods talk to them; see visions; feel euphoric in large worship services. This could admit to the existence of the supernatural. Alternatively, it could admit also to the well-supported theory that occasionally the brain malfunctions and causes hallucinations or emotional upsets. Someone having the experience of being abducted by aliens in the middle of the night does not necessarily point to this as having been the case, especially when there is a more likely cause.

The problem you're making is an error of assumption of motive. You're claiming that the scientific perspective seeks to ignore the supernatural and seek for other solutions because it has previously decided that gods don't exist. But the fact of the matter is that science has no such prior bias - it says to search for the most likely solution based off the body of evidence we have, because more often than not it is the correct one. The concept of the supernatural is almost always more fantastical than other things which we can conceptualise and test for, whilst the supernatural requires that we make assumptions about the world that we cannot test. See Occam's razor for further reading on this concept.

The problem with the atheistic position on this is that you're seeking to overturn belief in any sort of deity, something on which literally every society in recorded history has maintained in the overwhelming majority of the population. There are literally more testimonies on "supernatural" events than there are people currently living.

Argumentum ad populum. You cannot logically argue that a position is correct on the grounds that many people believe it to be so.

I also dispute your claim that there are more testimonies on supernatural events than there are people currently living, but since you have no way of supporting that claim I won't begrudge you if you meant it as a matter of hyperbole (despite the use of the word "literally").

But let's accept those flawed premises for one second. Many people believe in many different gods. I doubt there is one religion that has a majority score on the number of "religious experiences" had by mankind. Since there are many different and usually contradictory religions, how does this prove that any specific religion is correct in its explanation for the supernatural? Of course, this means nothing, since the occurrence of supernatural experiences has other explanations that make more sense given what we know about how nature works - and we know quite well enough that the brain is prone to hallucination and error.

There are also countless logical arguments in favor of a God existing, and yes, even scientific studies that lend support.
God has not been proven absolutely true, but neither is the debate steming from an absolute lack of knowledge.

Could you give me examples? I've never seen an argument that supports the existence of a god or gods that actually holds up under scrutiny.

Consider Russel's Teapot. There's no reason why anyone would even think to look for a teapot floating through space, but what if a group nof astronauts reported seeing one? What if over the course of several years several different groups from different cultures reported seeing a teapot floating through space? It's at least enough to make people want to investigate. Applying the scientific method (observe, hypothesis, test) to  religion simply gives us an observation and a hypothesis that no-one knows how to test yet.

If it can't be tested, it is largely meaningless as a scientific concept in the current scientific context. In addition, and more importantly, it is highly likely that it is not possible to test the hypothesis of God's existence, because the supernatural is generally untestable. Special pleading is virtually always invoked when testing is done, and the God of the Gaps is no god at all.

In any debate both sides must make their case. Even when "burden of proof" is established, the unburdened side must still establish some basis for their case. Atheists have not done even that little bit.

Absolutely not. Atheists do not need to prove anything, because they do not make the positive claims about the world that theists do. Dawkins would be wrong to employ the logic that he does not need to listen to arguments before deciding whether they are false or not. It is not logically sound to demand an opposing argument from someone disputing a positive claim, when all that is needed to falsify that claim is to disprove all its arguments.

As to Daxx's statement about "the God of the gaps", I find this odd, because many of the recent gaps were filled in by exactly what I expected to see, based on a theistic perspective. I'll go into a bit more detail at the end of the post.

The God of the Gaps argument refers to the tendency for rational or scientific explanations to be found for previously unknown phenomena. As these explanations are found, the space that "God" once occupied in order to explain the unexplained shrinks. For example, we now know how the world and the creatures on it came into being without needing to invoke God. As another example which I have been using a lot in these posts, we also now know how to explain "witch abductions" or "alien abductions", as well as succubi and incubi without resorting to supernatural explanations.

The rhetorical point made is that throughout history the space left for God to occupy in our understanding of the world has shrunk as our understanding has grown. If God only exists in the gaps, it seems reasonable to speculate that it is possible that once all the gaps are uncovered there will be no more space for God. This is a rhetorical point, but it illustrates that it is reasonable to pay close attention to any gaps we uncover to see whether they restrict the domain of the supernatural or they prove its existence.

Oddly enough, Hume's Maxim sort of makes one of my points for me. You're automatically assuming any testamony that reports something that doesn't fit with your worldview must be false, simply on the grounds that it's hard to reconcile with your worldview.

Ah, you misunderstand. It doesn't mean it must be false, only that the standard of proof needed to establish it is true is proportional to the claims it makes about the world. For example, if your friend told you he had bought a new shirt, you probably wouldn't need to see the shirt in order to accept his claim as being probably true. If, however, he had claimed to have bought a space station, you might be more skeptical.

Historical Contradictions
Could you please clarify what you mean by "special pleading"? I'm afraid I'm not clear on what you're trying to say there.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html

This is very, very important when discussing religion. This fallacy is made by religious people all the time, cf. the Invisible Gardener.

Evolution versus creationism isn't really part of what I was discussing with this argument; I was trying to get at was discrepancies between the Biblical account of an event and a different account from the same period.

I'm happy to discuss evolution with you, but that really doesn't fit with this argument. I think for the most part we'd just end up agreeing anyway.

Maybe a different thread then. I'm mostly pointing it out as an example of something that we know the biblical account to be incorrect about.

The main point I was trying to make is that for any historical event different sources will differ in details, yet without a time machine there is no way to go back and check which one is true. In events that can be verified, Biblical accounts have been shown to be as accurate as we can reasonably establish.

This isn't true of all of them, and specifically there are a number that we know to be untrue. I can dig up examples of these if you like, but this post is already long enough as it stands. Regardless, whether or not the bible vaguely follows the historical timeline we can establish means nothing on the question of the existence of God. It simply means that the bible is a collection of bronze-iron age stories passed down through a certain cultural group, of which we have a number of examples across the world.

Invisible Pink Unicorn
I've replied to this briefly on the other thread, but let me do a more thorough job here.

You have several times refered to this as a logical fallacy, but you have yet to provide any support to the argument. You say that, in spite of the fact that "argument ad populum" refers to an appeal to public opinion that it should apply to things people see/experience. Okay, let's take a closer look at that.

In a given population, let suppose half of the population witnesses a phenomena. Of those that observe it, half of them misinterperet it as something else. There is one "correct" interpretation, but there are many, many incorrect ones. Therefore all of the 25% who correctly interperet the event will agree, whereas there will be several different opinions in the 25% who misinterpereted it. Therefore in matters of an eyewitness account a consensus opinion will hold, even if we assume witness accounts to be extremely innaccurate.

In order for there to be a risk of "false possitives" we would have to assume human perceptions have almost no bearing on reality whatsoever, whereupon I'm probably "typing" this post into an angry jellyfish, and the whole point is moot anyway.

Okay, so maybe there's a biasing factor? What about groupthink, or cultural bias? They've been referenced a couple times now. Except both of those could only bias things towards a religious interpretation of events if we assume that there is already an overwhelming majority holding those views. Therefore, such things could potentially influence the spread of eyewitness accounts, but not their origin. On a side note, such things could explain different cultures etc. having different interpretations of a phenomena, hence Christians vs Muslims vs Hindus vs Jews etc etc . . .

As a final note on this, please try to take a step back for a minute and think about what you're saying. You're asking me to discard my religious beliefs, any court system that uses testamonies, at least half of all news sources (probably more) and what my own senses tell me based on nothing more than your say so.

I'm not trying to say that there can't be any legitimate reason for your views, but if there is you haven't provided it. If I'm wrong then teach me why, don't just keep repeating "logical fallacy" like it's soem kind of mantra.

I covered this in a different post, but I'll go over it again.

Firstly, let's examine your argument.
1. A majority of people have had religious experiences.
2. These religious experiences represent reliable evidence of the existence of God.
3. Because a lot of people have had religious experiences, this means that God exists.

The bulk of my disagreement lies with the second and the third, but let's tackle the first just to be thorough. I vehemently doubt that the amount of people who have had religious experiences is a majority of the population. Why is this? Well, assuming that having such an experience makes you religious, it is interesting that we find that the majority of the population (in the western world, data may be different in various theocracies and third-world nations) is not highly religious, even though a majority of people may report themselves to be part of a religion. Most surveys done on the religiosity of populations finds that the amount who are highly religious is relatively low compared to those who consider themselves to be members of a religion - census data on religion is notorious for nowhere near matching church attendance figures, for example. A reasonable conclusion we can draw from this is that many people who put their religion as "Christian" in a predominantly Christian country, when returning census data, are only doing so because of cultural normitivism rather than actual firm belief. If you disagree with this conclusion, please find some data that support your claim that the majority of people have had religious experiences because you haven't presented any so far.

More importantly, let's get to the second part. As I have already repeatedly commented (and you have not disputed, I assume you accept the point I made) the brain is notorious for hallucinating and making up events which are at odds with reality even when unprovoked. Even what you are currently seeing through your eyes is largely a construction of your brain - the eye is not particuarly well designed to capture images and returns an incomplete image which is filled in by the brain (cf. the brain's "blind spot" where the optic nerve meets the retina).
Since we have actual explanations for the reasons behind these experiences rather than saying "god did it", these experiences do not constitute proof for the existence of the supernatural. The experiences might agree in form, but this doesn't admit to any underlying reason other than a physical similarity between peoples' brains and the way they malfunction (funny that, it's almost like peoples' brains are built the same or something).

Thirdly, this is where the argumentum ad populum comes into play.
Majority opinion about experiences simply is not different to that about beliefs, as an experience is simply a belief about an observed phenomenon. You're making a category error in differentiating the two. For example, people could look up into the sky and observe the sun moving around the earth. But this observation was flawed and admitted to several underlying explanations. The consensus opinion was that the sun revolved around the earth, but consensus opinion was incorrect. There are many, many other examples of this - if you're still not sure, please take a minute to read a bit about the argumentum ad populum fallacy, as there is loads of stuff about it online.

So, to conclude, even if a majority of people had had religious experiences (and as I mention above I dispute this) this would still not constitute definitive proof that a God exists, because we a) have a better explanation for their experiences and b) we know that even a majority opinion can be wrong. Every part of that argument is wrong, and it simply doesn't support the conclusion you're trying to make.

And yes, whilst court systems do rely on majority opinion, that opinion is generally asked to be "without reasonable doubt". If the evidence against an accused man is not solid enough, the case is chucked out or he is found innocent. The practicality or otherwise of solipsism is a different matter entirely to reasonable skepticism.

And finally, I'd like to introduce a new argument for commentary:
Fine-tuned Universe

[...]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropic_principleI'll just leave off with this: none of these explanations (to my knowledge) is any more testable (or probable) than invoking God, so why are they considered more rational to atheists?

The anthropic principle is an excellent foil to this and most other teleological arguments, so let's address your concerns about it.

Firstly, "why would the constants just happen to balance each other?". Well, this is actually answered by the principle itself. If they weren't, then we wouldn't observe it happening. Secondly, "it only really works... if we assume other universes". Actually, it doesn't. Multiple universes is a convenient way to explain the idea, but the anthropic principle doesn't require this particular explanation because there is literally no way we could be answering these questions within this context, outside our current context. There could quite easily only be one universe which got "lucky", or a cyclical set of universes with different constants, or the constants could be an emergent property of the universe's existence. Basically the principle is sound no matter what you assume about the context or lack thereof within which the universe conceptually exists. Since the principle explains an error in logic rather than an explanation itself, and is independent of the context, it is not required to be testable. Other explanations might need to be tested (and some may not be testable) of course, but that doesn't mean that the teleological argument is an acceptable proof for the existence of God.

I understand the distinction. It is very common in the Internet atheist subculture. But I disagree with it as a description of different states of mind. I see the two as different conversational approaches, motivated by the same disbelief.

I see it as a difference in logical position. In one you are making a positive claim, and in the other you are not. I am a weak atheist, because I do not make the claim that God definitely does not exist.

[Belthus]

I see it as a difference in logical position. In one you are making a positive claim, and in the other you are not. I am a weak atheist, because I do not make the claim that God definitely does not exist.

Can you give me examples of people who make the claim that God definitely does not exist? Even if there are such people, would they not admit to making errors from time to time? If they can make errors about the truth of other things, they must recognize their epistemological limits.

One line I heard, which makes sense to me is: you can be a strong atheist with respect to particular propositions by pointing out their contradictions and inadequacies. However, to the general question of whether any god exists, one can only be a weak atheist, resting on the absence of evidence and challenging others to put up or shut up. Thus, these two descriptions describe the same person in different situations, not two different kinds of atheists.

[Daxx]

I see it as a difference in logical position. In one you are making a positive claim, and in the other you are not. I am a weak atheist, because I do not make the claim that God definitely does not exist.

Can you give me examples of people who make the claim that God definitely does not exist? Even if there are such people, would they not admit to making errors from time to time? If they can make errors about the truth of other things, they must recognize their epistemological limits.

I never said that the strong atheist position was logically consistent or useful. But it's a common strawman position that religious people present.

[ratcharmer]

Invisible unicorn

There are literally more testimonies on "supernatural" events than there are people currently living.

This was poorly phrased as many of the testamonies of the dead are no longer available, sorry about that. You seem to have gotten the overall message anyway.

I believe you asked for support for how widespread religious experience is (can't find the quote anymore)?
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1386320
I didn't include the link originally because the exact numbers are not important to the argument.

On Hume's maxim:
I'm aware of what you meant, but reports of religious/supernatural phenomena are only "big" claims if you're starting from the assumption that whatever belief it supports is false to a religious person, who has lived their whole life experiencing God, has studied God in depth and seen exactly what God can do in people's lives,ssaying it's all their imagination is a huge claim.

"Big" claims are usually defined by how far someone wants to upset what is already known and accepted, and by that measure, I'm sorry to say, the athiest clearly loses out.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html

This is very, very important when discussing religion. This fallacy is made by religious people all the time, cf. the Invisible Gardener.

I'm aware of what the term itself means, I don't understand what you mean by using it as an argument against a non-literal interpretation.

Firstly, let's examine your argument.
1. A majority of people have had religious experiences.
2. These religious experiences represent reliable evidence of the existence of God.
3. Because a lot of people have had religious experiences, this means that God exists.

Umm . . . apparently I need to work on being clearer, because this is definitely not the argument I was making . . .

My version of the argument goes a bit more like this:
1) Russel's teapot and similar arguments invariably invoke something that no one has ever reported seeing and would never think to look for.
2) People have reported directly experiencing God. It's quite commonplace.
3) Therefore Russel is using a flawed analogy.

What I'm trying to point out is that Russel's teapot established the need for an initial reason to look for something, not an absolute burden of proof.

Consider this:
Suppose I'm traveling to a war torn country. While there I see a what looks like a teapot in the middle of the street. Before I can investigate further sirens sound and I am forced to evacuate the area. When I make it back (I'm very interested in teapots it seems . . . ) the area has been bombed and the teapot is gone.

I cannot prove or disprove that teapot existed any more than I can prove Russel's teapot orbiting Mars. Am I then going to decide I must have halucinated a teapot and it didn't actually exist? Of course not! No reasonable person would.

Suppose it was someone else who saw the teapot in the street. Now things are a little fuzzier, but there is still no reason to assume that they are wrong based solely on the fact they cannot scientifically prove something.

This argument is not a "proof" God exists, it's a rebutal to Russel's Teapot.

A further note on scientific proof, as it regaurds religion:
You cannot scientifically proove that you ate dinner last Friday, I cannot scientifically prove that my wife loves me, or that I love my wife. Nor can criminal charges be proven scientifically. This does not mean that you're annorexic, my wife and I don't love each other and that all convicted felons are innocent.

Not being able to prove something scientifically means only that another method must be used to establish whether or not something is true. Science makes no claims about the veracity of such things.

Fine-tuned Universe
Let's take an example:
The force of gravity is widely accepted to be controlled by one of the universal constants, and it's easy to visualize, so I'll use gravity for my example.

If gravity was stronger than it currently is, all matter in the universe would be pulled together, and collapse into a singularity. If you increase gravity further beyond that, you still get the same result--all the universe, compressed into a singularity.
If gravity was weaker, then all matter in the universe would disperse out into infinity. Again, making it weaker beyond that makes no difference on the end result.

So what we have is a finite range in which life is feasable, over an infinite possible range of values. Any finite number divided by infinity equals zero. Our universe is quite literally impossible unless either a) there is some sort of underlying guidance or b) one presumes infinite universes.
Niether one of these is a testable assumption. The anthropic principle makes no difference, it's still impossible.

side note that doesn't really fit with either
Atheism invariably invokes "possitive claims" when trying to establish burden of proof, yet almost invariably there follows immediately afterward a series of possitve claims which are boldly made and left completely unsupported.

Here's a sampling of such claims taken from this very forum:
-Religious experiences are due to delusions, yet atheists are somehow immune (or at least highly resistant) to this phenomena
-Scientists can make cells from protein.
-(insert war here) was caused by religion.

Not only are these invariably unsupported, but when invesitgated they're almost invariably unsupportable. I've looked for weeks and cannot find a single scientific paper that supports the first, the second is just nonsense apparently based off of a misinterpretation of the Miller experiement (which Dr. Miller himself said was not good evidence for the "primordia soup" http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/461/primordial-recipe-spark-and-stir).
I can't go through every war here, but to name a couple:
-The conflict in the middle east: Isreal is one of the least religious nations in the world. Given that, blaming this on religion doesn't make sense.
-First Crusade: started when Europe united against an invading empire, which was in turn trying to expand their territory.

I'm not trying to rant here, I'm just trying to point out that really, you're holding religious persons to a much higher standard of "proof" then you're holding yourselves.

[Daxx]

Invisible unicorn
I believe you asked for support for how widespread religious experience is (can't find the quote anymore)?
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1386320

I'm relatively certain that paper doesn't support the idea that "religious experiences" are incredibly common, but whatever - clearly that is not the thrust of your point. As an aside, for the benefit of people who can't access JSTOR through university connections (I'm guessing this is everyone in the thread aside from the two of us), you might want to try to pull specific quotes rather than linking to the abstract of a paper.

On Hume's maxim:
I'm aware of what you meant, but reports of religious/supernatural phenomena are only "big" claims if you're starting from the assumption that whatever belief it supports is false to a religious person, who has lived their whole life experiencing God, has studied God in depth and seen exactly what God can do in people's lives,ssaying it's all their imagination is a huge claim.

"Big" claims are usually defined by how far someone wants to upset what is already known and accepted, and by that measure, I'm sorry to say, the athiest clearly loses out.

Here is where you are wrong. Scientific skepticism suggests that we need to treat all things as if they are false until they are shown to be true (and even then, to keep challenging and questioning). This is the same whether it is God, or the unicorn, or the special theory of relativity, or the Australian Civil War, or Bigfoot, or evolution by natural selection, or aliens. You cannot start with the position that "well, god exists, therefore we don't need to challenge whether he exists or not". It's just not logically sound.

You're falling into the fallacy of chronological snobbery, which states that because an idea is already popular it must be the starting point. This is not the case - if I walked into a classroom and told everyone that 2+2=5, you would not expect that idea to carry any more weight than the second person who told everyone that 2+2=4. Chronological snobbery is a genetic fallacy and is logically inconsistent. How big a claim is in this context, is absolutely not about how much it challenges an already existing hypothesis - it is about how little it fits with other established theories about how the world works.

For starters, if you look at things objectively, you have literally no evidence which solely supports the idea of the existence of God - none whatsoever. The only claim of evidence that even passes logical muster is personal experience, which as I am attempting to explain is not good evidence, because it's far more likely to be a symptom of mental illness or simply the malfunctioning of the brain - which are things we do know to exist and to be relatively commonplace.

What is a much more difficult theory to substantiate? The existence of a supernatural being who is supposedly omnipotent but who never shows up in experimental testing, who created the world in a way that we know to be scientifically implausible, who appears not to interact with the world in any measurable way, and whose supposed existence is only supported by bronze-age tribal texts which are not all that less farfetched than others of the same kind which have fallen out of favour? Or that occasionally peoples' brains don't work properly?

Have you ever seen a miracle? An actual miracle, which can't be explained by scientific means? Honestly? There are millions of dollars of prize money waiting for you if you have. If you haven't - well, ever thought that maybe you were wrong? I understand that the christian community gates their thought incredibly carefully, and provides so much self-reinforcing groupthink that it is very difficult to see past it. But honestly taking the time to look for things in your life that aren't subject to confirmation bias is the first step.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/special-pleading.html

This is very, very important when discussing religion. This fallacy is made by religious people all the time, cf. the Invisible Gardener.

I'm aware of what the term itself means, I don't understand what you mean by using it as an argument against a non-literal interpretation.

If one, or two, or more stories in the bible are manifestedly not true, doesn't this call into question the literalism and authority of the bible? If you justify the untruth as "poetic license", what authority do other accounts - for example, of Jesus's miracles - have? If the reports of Jesus's miracles are not true, then what do you have to base your faith on?

My version of the argument goes a bit more like this:
1) Russel's teapot and similar arguments invariably invoke something that no one has ever reported seeing and would never think to look for.
2) People have reported directly experiencing God. It's quite commonplace.
3) Therefore Russel is using a flawed analogy.

What I'm trying to point out is that Russel's teapot established the need for an initial reason to look for something, not an absolute burden of proof.

Actually Russell's teapot is an illustration of the idea that all positive claims need to be based on proof. The burden therefore lies on the person making the claim, not the person who is calling that claim into question.

Consider this:
Suppose I'm traveling to a war torn country. While there I see a what looks like a teapot in the middle of the street. Before I can investigate further sirens sound and I am forced to evacuate the area. When I make it back (I'm very interested in teapots it seems . . . ) the area has been bombed and the teapot is gone.

I cannot prove or disprove that teapot existed any more than I can prove Russel's teapot orbiting Mars. Am I then going to decide I must have halucinated a teapot and it didn't actually exist? Of course not! No reasonable person would.

Suppose it was someone else who saw the teapot in the street. Now things are a little fuzzier, but there is still no reason to assume that they are wrong based solely on the fact they cannot scientifically prove something.

This argument is not a "proof" God exists, it's a rebutal to Russel's Teapot.

But you wouldn't expect anyone else to believe that the teapot exists. You may continue to believe such a thing, but the fact is that if someone doubted your claim you would have no way to back it up. When you make a substantive claim like "God exists", you should be prepared to justify that position when a person who has not had your experiences (or, in this case, a person who has had those experiences but rejects them in favour of a more scientific position) challenges it.

A further note on scientific proof, as it regaurds religion:
You cannot scientifically proove that you ate dinner last Friday, I cannot scientifically prove that my wife loves me, or that I love my wife. Nor can criminal charges be proven scientifically. This does not mean that you're annorexic, my wife and I don't love each other and that all convicted felons are innocent.

Not being able to prove something scientifically means only that another method must be used to establish whether or not something is true. Science makes no claims about the veracity of such things.

Special pleading. The existence of a god should be subject to scrutiny. If it isn't allowed to be, then it is a belief that carries the same weight as the idea that at the atomic level interactions between matter are conducted by fairies. If you claim that you do not need to prove that your god exists, then the rest of the world is no more obliged to take you seriously than they are the fairy-advocate.

Fine-tuned Universe
Let's take an example:
The force of gravity is widely accepted to be controlled by one of the universal constants, and it's easy to visualize, so I'll use gravity for my example.

If gravity was stronger than it currently is, all matter in the universe would be pulled together, and collapse into a singularity. If you increase gravity further beyond that, you still get the same result--all the universe, compressed into a singularity.
If gravity was weaker, then all matter in the universe would disperse out into infinity. Again, making it weaker beyond that makes no difference on the end result.

So what we have is a finite range in which life is feasable, over an infinite possible range of values. Any finite number divided by infinity equals zero. Our universe is quite literally impossible unless either a) there is some sort of underlying guidance or b) one presumes infinite universes.
Niether one of these is a testable assumption. The anthropic principle makes no difference, it's still impossible.

Your mathematics are flawed. The universe's existence is clearly not literally impossible, because it exists. That much is testable. The mistake you are making is the logical fallacy of argument from incredulity - for example, it is like arguing that you cannot possibly have just won the lottery with your winning ticket because the odds against it are so high. You're also trying to divide by an infinite number, and you're claiming that the result you get when you do so is zero. In addition, you are making the statistical mistake of assuming that getting a particular result is any more special than getting a random result - it is like arguing that because the odds against winning the lottery are so huge, no-one can win the lottery. In fact, you are yet again falling over the anthropic principle - if we were not in the universe to comment on how seemingly improbable it is, we wouldn't be able to make the comment. Put another way, the only comments that could logically be made about the universe's conditions are those that comment on the universe's conditions being able to support said comments.

side note that doesn't really fit with either
Atheism invariably invokes "possitive claims" when trying to establish burden of proof, yet almost invariably there follows immediately afterward a series of possitve claims which are boldly made and left completely unsupported.

Here's a sampling of such claims taken from this very forum:
-Religious experiences are due to delusions, yet atheists are somehow immune (or at least highly resistant) to this phenomena

In fact, I have pointed out plenty of non-religious examples of delusions. I wouldn't hypothesise that atheists are specifically immune to delusions any more than anyone else, but rationalists may be more able to see them for what they are. I forgive you if you've missed the examples I gave, though, as they are hidden in walls of text.

-Scientists can make cells from protein.
-(insert war here) was caused by religion.

Not only are these invariably unsupported, but when invesitgated they're almost invariably unsupportable. I've looked for weeks and cannot find a single scientific paper that supports the first, the second is just nonsense apparently based off of a misinterpretation of the Miller experiement (which Dr. Miller himself said was not good evidence for the "primordia soup" http://www.astrobio.net/exclusive/461/primordial-recipe-spark-and-stir).
I can't go through every war here, but to name a couple:
-The conflict in the middle east: Isreal is one of the least religious nations in the world. Given that, blaming this on religion doesn't make sense.
-First Crusade: started when Europe united against an invading empire, which was in turn trying to expand their territory.

I'm not trying to rant here, I'm just trying to point out that really, you're holding religious persons to a much higher standard of "proof" then you're holding yourselves.

If I have made these unsupported statements myself, then I am happy to be challenged on them. Science is about being happy to be proved wrong, because then you have learned something you didn't know before and you have improved your understanding. As an aside, I should point out that constructing strawmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man) and accusations of hypocrisy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) are both logical fallacies.

[ratcharmer]

invisible unicorn

I'm relatively certain that paper doesn't support the idea that "religious experiences" are incredibly common, but whatever - clearly that is not the thrust of your point. As an aside, for the benefit of people who can't access JSTOR through university connections (I'm guessing this is everyone in the thread aside from the two of us), you might want to try to pull specific quotes rather than linking to the abstract of a paper.

Try the very first line of the abstract, which anyone clicking the link can read.

Studies in the United States show that "ecstatic," "paranormal," or "religious experience" is much more widespread than contemporary descriptions of reality would lead us to suppose.

Seems pretty clear cut to me.

If one, or two, or more stories in the bible are manifestedly not true, doesn't this call into question the literalism and authority of the bible? If you justify the untruth as "poetic license", what authority do other accounts - for example, of Jesus's miracles - have? If the reports of Jesus's miracles are not true, then what do you have to base your faith on?

Okay, this is not the way non-literal interpretations work. I'll make a new topic on it when I get a chance, as it's too much to go into here.

From your own link on accusations of hypocrisy:

Legitimate use
Not all uses of tu quoque arguments involve logical fallacy. One convenient and not fallacious way [to use tu quoque] is by pointing out the similarities between the activity of the criticizer and the activity about which he is being questioned. To label one [something] and not the other is ... itself a fallacy [of equivocation]. [...]

By the source you provided, I used the argument correctly.

On Straw man arguments:
A straw man argument is when one claims "X" is what their opponent says then refute "X" to make themself look good. If one can point to when their opponent actually made the claim, then it is not a straw man.
here's the source threads:
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,6543.60.html
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,12675.36.html
http://elementscommunity.org/forum/index.php/topic,10126.0.html

Absolutely not. Atheists do not need to prove anything, because they do not make the positive claims about the world that theists do.

Atheism must be able to show that it is possible to have a logically consistent view of the world without invoking either God, god(s) or any untestable claims. Any possitive claims made while doing so must have at least some support. Otherwise an athiest possition is no more logical than a theist one.

If I have made these unsupported statements myself, then I am happy to be challenged on them.

here's a list

I wouldn't hypothesise that atheists are specifically immune to delusions any more than anyone else, but rationalists may be more able to see them for what they are.

There is no reason why someone who happens to agree with you would necessarily be more likely to correctly interperet events. It's just as likely that a "rationalist" us dismissing a real phenomena or incorrectly percieving something. Amnesia following highly emotional events is quite well documented. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VS3-454797J-7T&_user=3366836&_coverDate=04/30/1997&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_origin=search&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1499942073&_rerunOrigin=scholar.google&_acct=C000058403&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=3366836&md5=6dfe2cb17ed9dcd87d6d8678d09cc6b7&searchtype=a
Quoth the abstract "Results from recent studies of retrograde amnesia following damage to the hippocampal complex of human and non-human subjects have shown that retrograde amnesia is extensive and can encompass much of a subject's lifetime; the degree of loss may depend upon the type of memory assessed."

Your mathematics are flawed.

This should have been easy to support, simply point out the math error and your on your way. The limit of n/x as x -> (inifinity) is equal to zero. I used a shorthand notation, in saying n/(infinity) = 0 but the point holds.

For starters, if you look at things objectively, you have literally no evidence which solely supports the idea of the existence of God - none whatsoever

Frequently cited, and invariably followed by something to the effect of "well, that doesn't count because . . ."

This isn't true of all of them, and specifically there are a number that we know to be untrue. I can dig up examples of these if you like, but this post is already long enough as it stands. Regardless, whether or not the bible vaguely follows the historical timeline we can establish means nothing on the question of the existence of God. It simply means that the bible is a collection of bronze-iron age stories passed down through a certain cultural group, of which we have a number of examples across the world.

Sure, bring on examples.

Alternatively, it could admit also to the well-supported theory that occasionally the brain malfunctions and causes hallucinations or emotional upsets. Someone having the experience of being abducted by aliens in the middle of the night does not necessarily point to this as having been the case, especially when there is a more likely cause.

A re-phrase of the first, still unsupported.

Actually, it does, and that just won't fly, sorry. People's experiences are just as vulnerable to perception as everything else.

Your only ever response on why argument ad populum might apply to eyewitness testamonies. Even though your own source on the subject never mentions anything about eyewitness testamonies, nor do any other sources that I can find.



And here's a few that aren't from you, but they're from other people arguing alongside you.
(feel free to say so if you disagree with any of these, I'm not trying to force you into any possition, just trying to show that this is sort of a wide-spread phenomena.)

That's not 100% correct. Followers of religion already believe in the supernatural, so for them seeing weird stuff is more natural so to say. If I saw a "miracle", I would be very skeptical even though it felt real to me, and would try to find explanations from science. Religious people however would most likely instantly embrace the miracle as a work of God because it strengthens what they believed in the first place. They want it to be true, so they believe it.

During human history, people have done some horrible things in the name of religion, horrible things that they would have never done if there hadn't been a "higher power" telling them to do so. Current example is suicide bombers. You would never get these people to do these terrible acts if there weren't the promise of martyr's afterlife with a bunch of virgins.

I think that's a very weak argument because you make it sound like atheists refuse to see the facts, when there are currently zero actual evidence for the existence of some higher power. If something like what you describe there would happen, I think every single atheist in the world would change their opinion, because it's the lack of evidence that made them atheists in the first place, and Archangels would be very solid evidence.

The point you are trying to make works when we talk about religious people. No matter how much evidence you present to them, it will never be enough because religion is based on faith alone. If you took away a religion from a believer, you would basically take away his/her soul and the reason for his/her existence.

They all claim to have experienced some unlogical occurance which they have no proof for, they expect others to believe them and those that do, make the shaman feel important.

Since mankind is nothing more then an ape evolution, and often survived by mimicing other apes behaviour, some of those who didn't believe the "flying green octopus" man, start to join his followers due to the "hey so many ppl believe him, maybe it is true". In other words, herd behaviour + ignorance create followers.

Those followers tell others about the amazing flying green octupus guy ("fgog" from now on), and ask them to join them, some do some dont, so that fgog has an ever growing flok of irrathional and illogical, often delusional believers  surrounding him, most of which end up tell that fgogs ramblings to their offspring and say its the truth, the brainwashed offspring tells that to others, making the flok grow even more.

Fgog, now a "mighty" person gets older and eventually dies of old age, the fgog followers proceed to mourne for that persons death, and continue to distribute his words as the "truth", generations of brainwashed offspring later, no one is around that knew fgog, but they all believe in the written down, often altered, stories about him, resulting in thousands of fgog followers who know/believe that those stories are true, and that anyone who state the oposite is blasphemous.

ergo: fgog=shaman=founder of a religion
Religion= mass brainwashed acception of rathional void, discrimination "those who believe are better then non believers, only those who believe have certain rights", control over believers, who are "forced" to undergo some rituals and are looked down upon if they dont.

If you want to know the context of any of these let me know and I'll point you to the relevant thread.

Fine-tuned universe
Odds of 0% are not the same as odds of one in a million, or one in a billion or even one in 6.02*10^26.

Odds of 0% means it will never happen. Yes, I used a shorthand notation in "dividing by infinity" but the point remains that it is impossible to have a viable life-bearing universe by random chance. Therefore, unless you're assuming infinite universes (whereupon it becomes the limit of n/n as n -> (infinity) = 1) the anthropic principle cannot explain a balanced universe.

The universe exists, so it is clearly possible, but it is also clear that it is not possible by the mechanism you propose.

And now an aside I really didn't want to have to make (honestly, I mean that. I really wish I could avoid asking this.):
I really have to aks at this point, are you really reading this and considering things? Or are you just skimming and then listing whatever logical falacy is closest?

I ask because you keep asking about things I've already explained multiple times, you keep providing links to descripptions of logical fallacies that clearly state I have used the argument appropriately, and your replies have not been accurate to what I actually said.

The  big clincher though, was when you claimed that the source I provided didn't support my point when the very first sentence of the article clearly stated my point in black and white terms.

If you don't want to/can't put the time in to check sources etc. that's fine. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm busy too. But don't claim to have investigated something and found it false if you haven't read it.

Again, I wish there was a more delicate way I could have phrased this. I'm not usually this blunt.


----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*edit*

On my way home today I realized that some of my usage of the terms "atheist" or "atheism" etc. might be a little misleading.

I know I often come across rather harsh on atheism in general, but I honestly think that it is perfectly possible to have an entirely logically defensible atheistic position. I simply do not think that hiding behind Russel's teapot is one of those positions.

I tend to use the term "atheist" to refer to specific branches of thought within atheism which I am currently arguing against. I often use the term "atheist" because to my knowledge there are no more specific terms for the differing branches of thought within atheism.

[Belthus]

FYI, Bertrand Russell's last name is spelled with two l's, so it would be "Russell's Teapot."

[airframe]

If gravity was weaker, then all matter in the universe would disperse out into infinity. Again, making it weaker beyond that makes no difference on the end result.

So what we have is a finite range in which life is feasable, over an infinite possible range of values.

Clearly there is no infinite range of possible values, since universe would disperse is gravity was too weak and collapse if it was too strong.
 And is there any quarantee that universe will not collapse or disperse as it is?

I'm kind of interested what is it that you would consider to be logical atheistic position?

[theloconate]

If gravity was weaker, then all matter in the universe would disperse out into infinity. Again, making it weaker beyond that makes no difference on the end result.

So what we have is a finite range in which life is feasable, over an infinite possible range of values.

Clearly there is no infinite range of possible values, since universe would disperse is gravity was too weak and collapse if it was too strong.
 And is there any quarantee that universe will not collapse or disperse as it is?

I'm kind of interested what is it that you would consider to be logical atheistic position?

Not to mention the fact that its only life as we know it that wouldn't exist, it is quite possible to have different life forms in different environments.

[theloconate]

Also atheism is the lack of belief in a god, not the belief that there is no god. There are strong atheists also refered to as gnostic atheists and anti-theists who do make the claim that they know that god does not exist; however, unless your position is that of an anti-theist then, as an atheist, you have no need to prove anything. (Btw agnostic atheist is someone who simply lacks belief in a god.)