Theistic Arguments: Claims and proof

[Voltair]

First of all for anyone reading this post I am not trying to be insulting but I am hoping that perhaps someone will read this and MAYBE not create another pointless "Let's play make the atheist explain everything about reality" game. Also I think that if what I am trying to say here is digested properly discussions on this forum might turn a lot more productive.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

When you are making a claim for something such as saying "This is an explanation for such and such" or when you say "You cannot account for A without B" you are making a simple statement. These statements in of themselves do not prove anything and are on their own completely useless. Now these statements can be proven valid if you provide ample evidence for their claims etc.

For example:

"The reason Bob likes Jane is because Bob is a male and Jane is a female". The proof for this lies in biology, hormones, etc and we can prove that Bob is in fact attracted to Jane because he is a male and she is a female.

"Jane is pregnant and her pregnancy cannot be accounted for without her receiving sperm or somehow having a fertilized egg placed inside of her etc". This can once again be proven through biology etc and we can demonstrate that Jane in fact did need to receive sperm or have sperm in some way in her pregnancy.

Here is an example of what does NOT work:

"Bob wakes up and shoots Jane in the face with a shotgun offering no explanation". Now lets say that someone, we will call them Exhibit A, says "Bob shot Jane in the face because he was driven to do so by gremlins from the planet Zebulon!"

Now for whatever reason let's also assume there is a second party, we will call them Exhibit B, involved who says "You haven't provided any evidence for that even being a possibility". Let's also assume that Exhibit B does not assume to know or claim to know the reason why Bob shot Jane either.

Exhibit A counters by saying "Well how do you account for Bob shooting Jane then?" Exhibit A then continues to probe and ask various questions that go in many different directions asking Exhibit B to explain every facet of the scenario concerning Bob and Jane. Let's say that Exhibit B finally answers and says, "I do not know the reason why Bob shot Jane."

Exhibit A then proclaims, "AHA! So since you don't know why that means that my explanation is the valid one."

Now what is the problem with this entire scenario? The problem is that Exhibit A has provided NO evidence for his claims and when Exhibit B questioned him instead of providing evidence he simply asked Exhibit B to explain every detail. Exhibit A's explanation COULD be true if it could be proven but since Exhibit A has provided no evidence there is no reason to give it any reasonable explanatory power.

This same scenario can be applied to arguments for the existence of God. Even if you could prove that no one knew the answer to a lot of questions about our universe you still would not make God more likely. Asking a person with an opposing view to explain everything will prove that the person with the opposing view does not know everything and that's all that it will prove.

However you STILL have NOT PROVEN the existence of God until you PROVIDE EVIDENCE. I have a feeling that this post will probably be largely ignored or that people will gloss over it and miss the point but PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE!.....

1) Provide evidence for what YOU ARE CLAIMING TO BE TRUE
2) If you cannot provide evidence for what you are claiming to be true BE HONEST ABOUT IT
3) Do not turn all of the discussions about God vs. Atheism into a pointless bullet storm of questions about every single facet of reality which doesn't address the likelihood of God's existence AT ALL

[The Grand Nudger]

"Everything we know is complete bullshit, now tell me why you're right".

[Voltair]

That brought a smile to my face and gave me teh chuckles

[genkaus]

Your post just tells me that you haven't understood god's will at all and are simply angry at him. You don't need evidence to prove god. You need faith. You need to look away from your naturalistic, scientific, sinful methods and see through you heart. You must have faith and then you'll know god exists without needing any evidence to prove it. The analogy you have presented here is completely different. Those aliens did not create Bob. They did not love Bob or Alice. But God created you and loves you. You should stop being angry at him and accept his existence on faith just like he wants you to.

..... Or so a theist would say.

[Faith No More]

When all your evidence boils down to one book written a couple of thousand years ago by people with little to no working knowledge of the universe, it becomes quite apparent that you would want to avoid all positive claims.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Given some of the innane debates I have read here, I understand the perspective. People joining for the express purpose of prosthyletizing also annoy me, particularly when it spoils a good conversation.

It is important to remember that all knowlege rests on a bed of uncertainty. As explainations become more and more detailed they also tend to become more tentative. Consider the regression involved in your example: "Bob shot Jane." Explainations start with human motivations, go on to anatomy, then to biology, then to chemisty and finally rest on physics. That's pretty long chain of reasons. Even the most educated person cannot be an expert in all the disciplines involved to fully explain "Bob shot Jane." Even then, each discipline continues to wrestle with problems within their field. Doubt and disbelief can be cast on nearly everything known.

That should give pause to those who demand that every claim be unassailable from every concievable angle. Such demands often include vulger insults and attacks on the sanity of anyone that dares to suggest the involvement of a diety or some transcendent principle with reality. A little humility is in order for both parties to the conversation.

This does not justify "god-in-the gaps" justifications. I have no idea why debates about evolution/creation in particular are so viceral. In one thread I mentioned a study concerning a completely natural mechanism with teleological implications. Presumably because I'm a Christian the very real scientific evidence I presented was dismissed by one of our more vocal atheist members. That is until a more level-headed atheist pointed out that later studies seemed to support the idea I mentioned. While I believe the claims of Dempski's "Design Inference" go way too far, he still raises and interesting question: how do we recognize things that are designed versus those that occur naturally? On what basis do we conclude that something is a pot shard and not a naturally shaped piece of clay? Asking the question does not make one irrational. Refusing to even consider it and mocking the questioner is irrational and unwarrented.

We should respect the idea that each person has to decide for themselves what degree of evidence is needed to move forward with whatever they use for their working hypothesis. I recall one post that said something like, "provide any evidence outside the NT that Jesus even existed." That's not even reasonable. It's like saying, "provide evidence outside the Platonic dialogs that Socrates existed." Just because I am willing to accept the Gospel accounts as acceptible evidence that a Jewish carpenter named Jesus once walked the earth does not make me any less rational than anyone else on this forum.

[The Grand Nudger]

The more vocal atheists who criticized you in that thread are still waiting for you to elaborate upon your statement. It wasn't that you are christian, but that you had misunderstood both the stated scope of the paper and their findings. GG on the psuedo martyr card though.

[Phil]

Just because I am willing to accept the Gospel accounts as acceptible evidence that a Jewish carpenter named Jesus once walked the earth does not make me any less rational than anyone else on this forum.

On that one point it sure does. It also males you a bad speller.

[Neo-Scholastic]

November 2010: "Epigenetics, science fiction, and scientific fact" by Jim Kohl of Pheromones.com

In his book “Darwin’s Radio” (1999, Del Rey) and his sequel “Darwin’s Children” (2003, Del Rey), science fiction author and novelist Greg Bear successfully predicted that human endogenous retroviruses are involved in human speciation...This example of science fiction becoming fact contributes to a scientific understanding of epigenetics and human pheromones via a forward-thinking author’s grasp of molecular biology and his willingness to take the next logical step for his readers...Those who are familiar with current works from molecular biology can now more fully recognize that Greg Bear was at least a decade ahead of his time. For example, see this article on human endogenous retroviruses [the link I referenced] and primate speciation...are beginning to see this more clearly after our species sequenced the human genome and as we learn more about epigenetic facts predicted by Bear’s science fiction.

[The Grand Nudger]

The issue, (and I don't know why this isn't heading back to that thread) is that you used this as a follow up to the "The current theory is lacking in a means to achieve speciation". It is not, this is simply yet another means to that end. Deja-vu moment, pretty sure I've already made this post before, but here you were in another thread tossing out the "woe is me" bs.