WLC: "You can't prove the negative"
February 16, 2022 at 7:18 am
(This post was last modified: February 16, 2022 at 7:20 am by Fake Messiah.)
There is some video that youtube algorithm has been recommending to me LINK and that is how William Lane Craig is supposedly "owning" some atheist student who told him how god can't be disproved because "you can't prove the negative". To which WLC says it's not true and that you can prove the negative.
And then WLC gives examples, like:
"We can prove there are no living T-Rexes"
Not really. One (scientists) can give great odds that there are no living T-Rexes but no one can prove 100% that some T-Rex is not hiding somewhere, the probability is extremely small, but it still exists. And indeed, there are some people who believe that dinosaurs still exist, or at least that they could exist.
"We can prove there are no Muslims in the US Senate"
And how can he prove that someone is not a secret Muslim in the senate? Not to mention that many Christians believe that Obama is (secretly) a Muslim because you can't prove with 100% certainty that Obama is not a secret Muslim.
"You can show that if something is self-contradicting that it can't exist"
In that case, God doesn't exist because as an omnipotent being he would have to be able to create a rock that he can't lift. But I guess you could always say "have you looked everywhere?" Even if something doesn't make sense it doesn't mean that it is 100% sure it doesn't exist.
And as a "self-contradicting" thing/ example he goes with:
"There are no married bachelors"
Well, I guess I could say "have you looked everywhere?" but this is wrong because it doesn't mean that if someone is married that he is not a bachelor. Take polygamists men - some guy has two wives, but is still looking for the third one and fourth wife - so he is in a way a bachelor. Or men who are in gay marriage - an institution that Craig certainly doesn't acknowledge, so to him a gay man married to some other man is a bachelor.
So what do you think, is WLC right? Can one prove the negative, as he says, or does it go so far that one can only give good probabilities that something doesn't exist?
And then WLC gives examples, like:
"We can prove there are no living T-Rexes"
Not really. One (scientists) can give great odds that there are no living T-Rexes but no one can prove 100% that some T-Rex is not hiding somewhere, the probability is extremely small, but it still exists. And indeed, there are some people who believe that dinosaurs still exist, or at least that they could exist.
"We can prove there are no Muslims in the US Senate"
And how can he prove that someone is not a secret Muslim in the senate? Not to mention that many Christians believe that Obama is (secretly) a Muslim because you can't prove with 100% certainty that Obama is not a secret Muslim.
"You can show that if something is self-contradicting that it can't exist"
In that case, God doesn't exist because as an omnipotent being he would have to be able to create a rock that he can't lift. But I guess you could always say "have you looked everywhere?" Even if something doesn't make sense it doesn't mean that it is 100% sure it doesn't exist.
And as a "self-contradicting" thing/ example he goes with:
"There are no married bachelors"
Well, I guess I could say "have you looked everywhere?" but this is wrong because it doesn't mean that if someone is married that he is not a bachelor. Take polygamists men - some guy has two wives, but is still looking for the third one and fourth wife - so he is in a way a bachelor. Or men who are in gay marriage - an institution that Craig certainly doesn't acknowledge, so to him a gay man married to some other man is a bachelor.
So what do you think, is WLC right? Can one prove the negative, as he says, or does it go so far that one can only give good probabilities that something doesn't exist?
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
