Atheism, Evidence and the God-of-the-Gaps

[Whateverist]

What type of evidence or proof would you accept?

Couldn't begin to tell you. Give me an adequate definition and perhaps we can come up with something. So long as god is thought of as supernatural it is, so far as I can tell, in an empty set. But god only knows.

[paulpablo]

If atheists say that atheism does not claim "There is no God," only that some people lack a belief in God, then atheism can't be true at all. A belief can only be true (in a non-trivial sense) when it makes a claim about the world and not just about someone's state of mind.

I think there's some confusion here, maybe from atheists you have spoke to or maybe just confusion in your own mind.
I'd never say Christianity is false and atheism is true.  I WOULD say the statements in the quran aren't miraculous and don't prove a god, and that the statements in the bible are ancient myths which most likely aren't true.  I might also say it's true that I lack a belief in god.
So in a way I agree with, the statement that atheism is true doesn't really make sense.  But most atheists don't say atheism is true, it's like saying communism is true, capitalism is true, table is true, lamp is true.  What most atheists do say is that the statements in the bible and quran and other religious books are false or just unproven to be true.

[abaris]

I think what Horn is pointing out is that if atheism is not falsifiable, then it is unscientific.

The point is that if the atheist GotG objection is true, then it proves too much.

You're joking, right?

I may be wrong, but please point me to a quote, any quote, where the lack of belief in a god has been called a science. It seems to constantly escape you, that lack of belief is the only defining feature between atheists. Emphasis on lack. It isn't replaced by another belief, which may be hard to understand for a believer.

And atheism is falsifiable. God only has to make a personal appearance like he supposedly did in the olden days and boom, falsified.

[Exian]

Saying that we have no evidence of God does not make atheism unfalsifiable. For starters, I don't consider atheism a claim, as stated in my earlier post. It's a response to a claim. For some, the response is strong, and for others, the response is subject to change. In either case, atheism remains a response.

Secondly, even though we have no evidence of god, all we would need to falsify atheism is clear evidence of god's existence, which we don't have presently. There's that old remark made by whom-ever-the-hell saying that all we would need to disprove evolution is to find a rabbit fossil in the Precambrian. That we haven't found that rabbit doesn't mean evolution is unfalsifiable.

As for SotG vs GotG, for me, that boils down to track record. And the two are only comparable in that they always seem to be in direct opposition. In fact, we wouldn't have the concept of GotG if it wasn't for science turning over rocks and finding nature rather than god, forcing him to find other hiding places. To respond to "science will figure that out some day" with "That's science of the gaps!" may be fair, but that doesn't change that, given the track record, science will probably figure it out someday. Conversely, there's nothing that can be said that will cram god back into the explanation of lightning.

[Silver]

Seems to me that Randy is spouting the usual bunch of hooey.

[Cyberman]

That's not what Horn said. He suggests that we can start with what we know to be true - for example, of the material universe - and argue from that point that a Creator must exist.

Thus leading the evidence to your precut conclusion. Let me illustrate this.

Answers in Genesis - iirc - once came out with an interesting 'discovery'. If you started with a breeding population of just eight human Flood survivors, then assume a doubling of the population every century (as I recall), after some four thousand years you will end up with around six and a half 'billion' people. Which was the then-current world population at the time of publication. Thus proving the bible true etc etc etc.

What they forgot to mention was that they started with what they knew to be true - a world population of six and a half 'billion' - and worked out what the reproduction rate would have to be to arrive at just eight people over four thousand years.

[Exian]

Baahaha Hadn't heard that one yet, Stimbo. Damn, that's rich. Their "discovery" was what the reproduction rate would have to be to get from 8 people to 6 billion in the given time, not what the reproduction rate actually was.

[Aoi Magi]

What type of evidence or proof would you accept? Because of your presuppositions, you can’t examine any evidence or proof that I might show you without bias.

Your presupposition is this: there is no God. Therefore, no matter what I might present, you will and must interpret it in a manner consistent with that presupposition.

• If I showed you a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you’d say it was done with special effects.
• If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying that they saw it, you'd say it was mass-hysteria.
• If I showed you Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the new Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly or simply misinterpreted.

So, I don’t think I can show you any evidence of God’s existence that you will accept because your presuppositions will not allow you to consider that evidence objectively

Randy, it's your claim that god exists, so it is up to you to come up with adequate proof for your particular claim. We are not making the claim and thus cannot tell you what proof you need to have.

One of the prime problems with your claim is that "god" is a very poorly defined and a broad term. Some people even consider aliens to be gods. some consider the sun to be a god, some worship crocodiles, and so on.... Each will require their own different proofs to back up their claim. In your case, before trying to prove it, try to properly define your god and it's attributes.

Next regarding the actual proof, you need to understand how scientific proofs work. You keep saying that even if you present your proof we will come up with alternate explanations, but you should know that is how science works. Once a claim and it's associated proof/hypothesis is presented, people will try to disprove it and come up with alternative ideas, and the one hypothesis to survive all such attempts will get accepted temporarily till someone disproves it or finds a better explanation. This is what means to be a falsifiable claim. If your god claim is true, then the proof that you present will be run through the same gauntlet and it would survive. If you are not confident that your proof can pass the scrutiny, then maybe it is not a real proof? How can you be certain that the alternate explanations presented is not the correct one?

[comet]

Show me a god and there's no argument. Until then you're full of shit. Is that easy enough for you to understand?

What type of evidence or proof would you accept? Because of your presuppositions, you can’t examine any evidence or proof that I might show you without bias.

Your presupposition is this: there is no God. Therefore, no matter what I might present, you will and must interpret it in a manner consistent with that presupposition.

• If I showed you a video tape of God coming down from heaven, you’d say it was done with special effects.
• If I had a thousand eye-witnesses saying that they saw it, you'd say it was mass-hysteria.
• If I showed you Old Testament prophecies fulfilled in the new Testament, you'd say they were forged, dated incorrectly or simply misinterpreted.

So, I don’t think I can show you any evidence of God’s existence that you will accept because your presuppositions will not allow you to consider that evidence objectively.

This actually says more about you than it does about the evidence itself because many people have examined the evidence for God’s existence, and they have become convinced that He really does exist.

So, until you can show me the type of evidence that you would be willing to accept as convincing proof of God’s existence, I doubt I can provide what you need.

And here we come to the point of THIS thread...if there is no evidence that can falsify atheism, then it is not based on science; it is a faith position.

a lot of times it is not the evidence; It is how we use it. I personally don't have a problem with what people believe many times. The data clearly shows "something" is more valid over "no-nothing". I have do have a problem with how literal religious people push their personal emotional needs on my stone cold logic as more "true". Sure, I could use a little more of the "warm and fuzzy", but don't cover me in the slime.

[Randy Carson]

If God did this, then surely we would know he existed, right? Well, why wouldn’t this kind of evidence also be subject to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection? Just because we don’t know how a giant man can appear in the sky doesn’t mean there is no natural explanation for him. Maybe aliens or time-travelers are at work, deceiving us?

Even “low-key” evidence is vulnerable to the “God-of-the-gaps” objection. Some atheists say that if Christian preachers could heal amputated limbs, that would convince them God existed. But once again, aren’t we just taking a gap in our knowledge (“I don’t know how these limbs are being healed”) and filling it with, “Therefore, God did it?”

This argument contains a sneaky fallacy, or, perhaps, mis-definition.

First, let's talk about proof.  "100% proof" isn't going to be attainable for any statement other than the Cartesian "I exist."  I could be a brain in a jar.  But, hell, to become a theist, I (speaking for myself here) would not need 100% proof of god - that is, to be shown that it is certain there is a god.  I would not need to be shown that god is more likely to exist than not.  I would need to be shown that there is a not-infinitesimally small chance that there is a god.  Let's say, 1%.

Next, let's take this premise:  For any "event" X, either:

1. X is explainable with our current scientific knowledge (that is, explainable by purely natural processes that we are aware of).
2. X is not currently explainable with our current scientific knowledge, but is actually a natural, repeatable thing that obeys the laws of the universe (that is, X comports with a scientific, materialistic worldview, but we aren't currently aware of it).
3. X is not currently explainable with our current scientific knowledge, and that's because it's actually a miracle (that is, no consistent, complete scientific framework could account for X).

Events in category 1 aren't evidence for god.
Events that aren't in category 1 are either in category 2 or 3, but by definition we don't know which until scientific knowledge catches up.

TRJF-

Thanks for taking the time to post at such a late hour. I really appreciate that.

I'm interjecting at this point because I simply have to ask: Are you assuming that science can or will eventually catch up? And if so, how would it be possible for science to do so in the case of a genuine miracle which (presumably - you tell me if that is the case) science is not equipped to explain?

The God-of-the-Gaps argument is not that "every possible event that can occur will be a category 1 or category 2 event."  The God-of-the-Gaps argument is that "non-category 1 events are not sufficient (or even remotely effective) evidence for god unless it can be shown that it is more likely (or, even, there is a 1% possibility) that it is a category 3 event rather than a category 2 event."  That is to say: when something occurs that we can't explain right now, one can't reasonably point to it as evidence of god unless it seems to fall so far out of step with what we already know that it is logically more likely to be supernatural than natural.

Fair enough. Your definition requires far more precision than I feel is typically displayed when posters throw the GotG objection at me or other theists in this forum on a daily basis. But, to be fair, I will take this into consideration when I evaluate whether their accusations are legitimate or not - based upon this definition - in the future.

That aside, I suspect that most Christians would naturally argue that the unexplainable events in the life of Jesus do fall into category 3.

And here's the thing: if one wants to prove god, the scientific method should be one's best friend.  If something occurs that we can't currently explain, you should be trying to get a bajillion scientists together to figure out how it works.  If they can, well, our knowledge was just incomplete, and it was never evidence to begin with.  If they can't explain it after repeated tests and theories and decades of study, then it starts to become more and more likely that the event is a category 3 event - a true miracle.

Well, the gospels say that Jesus walked on water. It was repeated...Peter walked on water, too. Have scientists spent much time on trying to figure out how Jesus pulled that off? Maybe...but I'm not familiar with the research if they have. So, instead of admitting a possible category 3 event, atheists fall back on Plan B which is to attack the credibility of the report of the event itself. Where does this leave us?

I can't speak for everyone here, but seeing an amputee - who I know to have really lost their arm, and such - walk up to the alter, grasp the host, utter a short prayer, and regrow their arm in front of my eyes would be enough to knock me down to true agnostic.  Then we'd have to find another true believer, take them to that church, and see if they could do something similar (to rule out the possibility of the first person "cheating" with some kind of regeneration serum).  Then a third would have to do it in a different church (to make sure it wasn't some regenerative property of that church - although, if it was, testing could determine if it was something we could explain or not).  And if scientists couldn't come up with a framework for how it happened, couldn't duplicate it... then the odds that the event was a Category 3 event would be sufficient to constitute proof of god.

TRJF, perhaps if you saw this with your own eyes, you might move from strong atheist to weak agnostic...which IS progress. However, I have had numerous posts from folks here who have claimed that the miracles of this type (spontaneous healing of cancer and other diseases) which have occurred at places like Lourdes, etc. are actually somewhat common. They cite reports of similar events in India and places of this sort as evidence that cancer disappears all the time like that. Well, maybe it does. The point I want to make, however, is that even if you saw the regeneration of a limb before your very eyes, you might be inclined to look for a natural explanation (understandably so - the Catholic Church does, also, btw) because your presupposition prevent the possibility - even 1% - that the healing might have a supernatural or "magic" explanation.

If you disagree with that, then I commend you for being more open-minded than many others here. I mean that with all sincerity.