Can you prove a negative, part 2
May 30, 2025 at 6:32 am
(This post was last modified: May 30, 2025 at 6:33 am by Fake Messiah.)
Paleophyte Wrote:Yes, you can prove a negative. Formally and properly prove. All you have to do is disprove the opposite and let the Law of the Excluded Middle do the rest. It's called Reduction to Absurdity:
The square root of a prime number can never be rational
You can prove a negative to a rational person, but can you prove a negative to Craig when he is using his "logic"? Although he states that you can prove the negative, he does not believe his own words. As a hypocrite, he is only making these claims here to win an argument against a person he loathes (in this case, an atheist).
For example, archaeology, history, and geology have proven that most events described in the Bible have never happened; yet, Craig and his ilk still do not behave as if the negative has been proven. Instead, they believe that, for example, the Garden of Eden and Noah's flood really happened. In the case of Craig, he makes excuses, claiming that it's "mytho-history" or that it happened but in a different way that is spiritually true, which then ends up being "materially true". Thus, he believes that a historical Adam and a historical talking snake really existed. Let alone the convoluted logic he uses to "prove" that god (of the Bible) has not been disproven.
So, if there were two rational persons in the room and one says, "Scissors are in the drawer," and the other person opens the drawer and sees that it's empty, he would say that the scissors are not there and thus prove the negative, and the other person would agree that he made a false claim. But, in the case of Craig and his ilk, who want there to be scissors no matter what, they would still claim that scissors are there and make up excuses like: "The scissors are too small to be seen," or "The scissors are invisible."
And in the case of invisible scissors, you could check with your hand if they are there, and when they are not, Craig would further claim that "There are small insects that are holding the scissors and moving them away from your hand so that you can never catch them;" or that "The scissors are there but in many-worlds theory;" or that "The scissors are there but metaphorically or spiritually, and you have to have faith and a soul clean of all sins to find them. But no matter how much faith you have, it's never enough."
And indeed, while these are all highly improbable claims, they are not 100% impossible, so you can never really prove a negative to someone who is not rational, or as Craig would say: "In the cult of rationality."
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"