Transcending Proof

[Fundagelico]

I haven't posted here in a while, but for anyone interested, the Secular Web just published a paper of mine, a rebuttal to Richard Carrier's argument that the nonexistence of God can be easily proven:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/don_ ... proof.html

I realize that many atheists and skeptics do not believe theism to be falsifiable. For those who do believe theism to be falsifiable, I'll try to stick around and answer any serious or substantive counterarguments.

Questions for debate:

1. Do you believe that theism (particularly Christian theism) is falsifiable?

2. If yes, how would you propose to falsify it?

3. If no, why do you believe it to be false?

[Divine Insight]

I realize that many atheists and skeptics do not believe theism to be falsifiable. For those who do believe theism to be falsifiable, I'll try to stick around and answer any serious or substantive counterarguments.

I am a strong atheist when it comes to Christianity. There is no doubt in my mind that the God character that is literally described in the Bible verbatim cannot possibly exist for the very simple reason that it is an extreme contradiction to the very character it is said to possess.

In your paper you conclude: "To the degree that the repudiation of Christian theism depends on rational objections to omnipotence, then, we are left with no objection to the truth of Christian theism at all."

I would agree. And I don't object to the potential of omnipotence. So this is not why I reject the Christian dogma.

I have no problem with the mystical God concept of Eastern Philosophies like Taoism and Buddhism at their core (rejecting any superficial dogma that might have socially grown from these underlying philosophies).

So with respect to the Eastern Mystical view of God (in its most abstract philosophical form) I cannot disprove it. In fact, I can actually offer arguments that support it. However, I remain agnostic with respect to the question of the mystical concept of God because although I can offer arguments to support it they most certainly aren't conclusive.

However, the Biblical God is easily disproved by the Bible itself. And this includes all of the Abrahamic religions, the Qur'an included. In fact, I hold that Christianity with the crucifixion of Jesus as the cornerstone of the faith, is the most utterly absurd of them all. Although Islam with their illiterate prophet re-writing the Bible to supposedly become the infallible Qur'an is equally as silly.

So as far as I'm concerned the Abrahamic religions have already been proven to be false beyond any reasonable doubt. I see no reason to even debate this because anyone who is debating this is obviously blind to all the self-contradictions associated with the Biblical God character. And this blindness no doubt stems from an undying faith to believe in the religion at all cost. Including the cost of refusing to look at it with serious rational criticism.

[Fundagelico]

So as far as I'm concerned the Abrahamic religions have already been proven to be false beyond any reasonable doubt. I see no reason to even debate this because anyone who is debating this is obviously blind to all the self-contradictions associated with the Biblical God character. And this blindness no doubt stems from an undying faith to believe in the religion at all cost. Including the cost of refusing to look at it with serious rational criticism.

I can't tell what to make of this. On one hand you tell me that there is no reason to debate. On the other you assert that I am blind to the self-contradictions of the Bible God character due to an irrational determination to believe at all costs.

How about we agree to this: You refuse to debate the existence of the Bible God character, and I will refuse in turn to debate whether my faith derives from blind irrationality.

I think we're done here!

[arian]

I haven't posted here in a while, but for anyone interested, the Secular Web just published a paper of mine, a rebuttal to Richard Carrier's argument that the nonexistence of God can be easily proven:

http://infidels.org/library/modern/don_ ... proof.html

I realize that many atheists and skeptics do not believe theism to be falsifiable. For those who do believe theism to be falsifiable, I'll try to stick around and answer any serious or substantive counterarguments.

Questions for debate:

1. Do you believe that theism (particularly Christian theism) is falsifiable?

2. If yes, how would you propose to falsify it?

3. If no, why do you believe it to be false?

Greetings Fundagelico.

1. Do you believe that theism (particularly Christian theism) is falsifiable?

Yes, of course. Christianity believe that their God is "one from" even if it's the greatest one, it is still 'from' the gods they learn through theology.

Theology is the systematic and rational study of concepts of God and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university, seminary or school of divinity. - Wikipedia

2. If yes, how would you propose to falsify it?

First, theology is the study of 'concepts' of God. God as a 'concept' means if they can put together a 'concept', they could create a God-concept.

The Trinity doctrine is one of those God-concepts, where 'one', understood as a plural deity (demon) is God in three or more persons. Here is an example of a 'deity (demon)' who is obviously one (singular), yet many, even as many as a thousand (plural form);

Mark 5:6 When he (the demon that was possessing the man) saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him. 7 And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.�
8 For He (Jesus) said to him, “Come out of the man, unclean spirit!� 9 Then He asked him, “What is your name?�
And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.� 10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.

Notice the singular reference to this demon Legion (in bold), yet he is 'many' (underlined).

The Christian God is a plural divine (demon) being, while our Creator, the one revealed in the Bible is One, not plural or three or more in one, .. and He IS Spirit, not 'a' spirit. God is Holy and Spirit, thus the Holy Spirit.

God is; "He, the Infinite, Eternal Creative Mind/Spirit 'I Am Who I Am'," and this is evident by observing ourselves, our own spirit/minds which is both infinite, eternal and creative.

the third one; 3. If no, why do you believe it to be false?

did you mean; ".. why do you believe it to be true?" and not 'false'?

[JoeyKnothead]

From the OP:

For those who do believe theism to be falsifiable, I'll try to stick around and answer any serious or substantive counterarguments.

Being the paranoid sort, I'm always on guard when the one doing the answering is the one deciding which questions he finds worthy of an answer.

Don't like the question? Dismiss it as "not serious", or "not substantive", where subjectivity is the only determinant.

[SnpM]

Christianity is 100% falsifiable. In fact, it has already been falsified many, many times. Everyone nowadays knows that the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth. Obviously, we shouldn't burn someone for being Jewish or a bit of a social outcast. Assassinations - those are wrong, right? In morality, Christianity has been horribly, horribly falsified.

God though - he can't be falsified. Maybe praying to him doesn't do anything because he's not conscious like you and me, but there will always be a God. There has to be. Humanity without God - Nietzsche's humanity - will make use all end up like Nietzsche. What a terrible world he must have lived in, one we can choose not to live in.

[Divine Insight]

I think we're done here!

We were done before we started.

1. Do you believe that theism (particularly Christian theism) is falsifiable?

It already has been falsified countless times over.

2. If yes, how would you propose to falsify it?

I don't need to since this has already been done.

It has been falsified by its own claims.

1. It has made claims about reality that simply aren't true.
2. It contradicts the character traits of its very own fictitious God character.
3. *It makes clearly false accusations and claims about human individuals.

*Note: Number three may not be readily apparent to people who are less than decent humans. But for the rest of us number three stands out as clear proof of the fallacy of the Bible.

3. If no, why do you believe it to be false?

Inapplicable. The Christian Bible has already been sufficiently falsified beyond any reasonable doubt.

[Jashwell]

My answer to the first question depends on what standards 'falsifiable' is held to.

For all intents and purposes, yes, if we want to maintain that any claim is falsifiable if not false, it would be inconsistent to believe Christianity isn't.
It is stupendously easy to make a "logically consistent", ridiculously untrue claim.

It is reasonable to believe that "Christianity is false" by application of Occam's razor, namely with regards to: indeterministic free will (and the additional belief that such free will is not randomness), ill-defined supernaturalism (a contextual "logically consistent" rejection of any real world claims you wish), substance dualism and the soul (including identifying only humans as aware), support of the cosmological argument ( A Theory & literal dependence; an additional dimension to save itself), numerous beliefs that require "you don't know this isn't an ideal world" as a response, moral inconsistency, Biblical inconsistencies and claims of metaphor, etc.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 6:

...
Humanity without God - Nietzsche's humanity - will make use all end up like Nietzsche. What a terrible world he must have lived in, one we can choose not to live in.

Evidence here being how a world full of theism is Osama Bin Laden's world.

Really, if you must worship a god in order to display some semblance of humanity, I pray to your god that you never stop.

[SnpM]

@Jashwell
I'm a video game programmer and developing games has infinitely changed my perspectives on the world. Actually, other Christians in my field sometimes humorously describe God as the great programmer in the sky and that is a very valid description, I think.
From my experience, I have derived this specific perspective: everything in the world is deterministic. In lockstep real time strategy games, if you have the exact same input at the same times, you will turn up with exactly the same games. there are, however, a specific set of circumstances you need to design your lockstep game with, the first being determinism.
The world is so immensely random because we do not know. When working with floating-point math, much of the time computers turn up with different results. The same computer isn't even guaranteed the exact same result of a calculation. Though I don't specialize in this study, I have faced its dire effects.

When a physics calculation turns up with different positions on different clients over a multiplayer lockstep game, the differences add up and eventually result in a game completely out of sync. That's our endeavor right there: control. We can control them like by using double-precision math which has accuracy of up to some 32 digits, more than enough for a lockstep game. Extending the analogy. we have been doing the same thing in our technological and scientific developments.

Albert Einstein once said "God does not play dice." Well, on the contrary, I believe that God does play with dice. Key factors including the initial force, initial position, rotation, torque, temperature, humidity, and fingerprint structure all determine the dice roll and recent experiments have been able to consistently roll the same side with a special robot.

The world is deterministic, meaning that everything you do, hear, think, eat, poop, were all decided by the initial state of the universe. It's useless to act based on this fact because there's nothing we can do. we'll never be able to record everything in a single state of the universe, much less 2 single states of the universe, so we'll never be able to interpolate or extrapolate with 100% accuracy between states. Double-precision math may be accurate up to the 32nd digit but we'll never know for sure what the 33rd digit is. God may play dice, but he plays with the dice.